This BBC article about the vicar of Holy Island (Lindisfarne) being on a mission to turn the tide raises a few interesting issues.
Firstly, the annual visitor figures are up to an astounding 800,000 per year, with most presumably arriving by car at present, and causing issues as the island is so small, as the article says, you cannot really drive around on it.
One proposed solution to this is a park and ride facility being built on the mainland, but surely this would also work hand-in-hand with the long suggested reopening of Beal Station (Railfuture), which could allow both arrivals by car and by rail to feed into bus services to and from Lindisfarne?
The reopening of the station, alongside the building of a park and ride could be potentially combined with replacing Beal level crossing following an incident on 21st August 2024 (ITV News), where the tailback of traffic became stuck on the causeway.
With visitor numbers as high as this, reopening Beal station could have a potentially strong case, and would feed into the wider case for better local rail services on the northern section of East Coast Mainline between Newcastle and Berwick to serve these increasingly busy tourism areas (as the recent blog post about Chathill mentioned).
The Northumberland Coast Loop 