I note from the Newbury Weekly News that the Town Council are still considering the option of providing an on-line TIC. Sounds like a complete and utter waste of tax-payer's money.

Especially when their big brother is doing its best to deter visitors to Newbury..........hiking car parking charges and proposing tearing Newbury to pieces. Bringing roads to a near standstill. NTC hiking precept charges which leaves less money from the plebs budgets to spend in town. Just where they get their ideas from is amazing isn't it?

Since I last contributed to this thread I have met two couples who were bemoaning the loss of the VIC.

One pair had come into to town to buy coach tickets - easy enough online I suspect, but where do the technophobes get them now? Anyone know of a travel agent doing this?

The other couple were looking for bus timetables - anyone know where these are available now? Apart from online or on bus stops!

It's possible to do pretty much anything online - book airline tickets, find a prostitute, look at naked men/ladies and order a takeaway, and find out about local B&B's for example - but I respectfully submit that Mr Kirby and the other web fans here miss the point completely. Although all these things are possible, many of us like to talk to another human being to get advice. Human beings have all sorts of advantages over search engines. They know what they're talking about, they can look you in the eye, they smile. You know, they're human which Google, demonstrably, is not.

I'm surprised that no one has suggested that, rather than throw all our prospective visitors to the mercies of Google and its like, as Mr Kirby suggests, we try to find volunteers to run a visitor centre. After all, getting volunteers to do everything else (run libraries, collect litter, man the police force, recommend sex workers, defend the country etc) is very much in vogue and all these activities can be seriously screwed up by Google. I'm pretty certain that many posters here, perhaps including Mr Kirby, would be very happy to spend their spare time telling strangers about the wonders of Newbury and helping them to satisfy their needs rather than paying for someone else to do so.

So, why was trying to find volunteers to run the visitor centre not, so far as I know, been considered? I think we should be told.

If there has to be a choice between my tax supporting either a ceremonial shop selling stamps, photo copying, and snow-globes, or supporting adult mental health services, respite releif for cares of handicapped children, and a public library service, then my choice is for the latter.

As for volunteer town guides, sure, why not, but it's not particularly something I've ever used in any other town, but if it fills a niche why not, I'm all for people being involved in their community.

That's odd, because I've been in town any number of times since you last posted your support for that ceremonial shop and I've not once been accosted by random strangers bemoaning its loss, so I'm wondering that if these dissatisfied visitors are gravitating preferentially towards you that there may potentially be some form of selection bias or that your interest in the ceremonial shop may not be altogether neutral.

Actually, you are asking for the coach and bus companies to be rather more responsible. Both enquiries would have been answered by a competent public transport operator, not a Council clerk.

....and then there is the much vaunted BID organisation. Tourist Information is what it says; tourist information. What other reason is there to attract tourists, than to increase customers for local traders.