I love north Wales

I am Dutch but in the French region of Aveyron at the moment. I am so surprised by all the lovely renovated medieval villages. It is clear the French love their history. What is the matter with the British people not to conserve their heritage and to pull out cars?

If people can't park in front of my shop, they won't come... That is about the most heard fallacy / misconception in the world. I think has to do with a particularly pernicious mental bias: people experience loss much more directly than gain... So if you say: we are going to take the parkingspots away they immediately "feel" the expected loss of those few customers who would not come because of that, while they don't trust the promisse of MORE customers coming back in return... This is why sometimes decisions for the common good just have to be implemented...

I enjoyed that

The netherlands has no elected mayors, only appointed ones after an application process

I dated a young girl who attended Portsmouth Art College with me back in 1975 to 79. She sent me a large colored picture of Narden Festings during the easter holidays. She lived their with her Mother who was Dutch and worked at the Phillips corporation. Her name was Susan Bowmaister.

I live close to Naarden. It’s beautiful, but was conquered every time an enemy wanted to conquer it.

Thank you for this presentation - really informative particularly in highlighting the reasons for the mobility of our ancient ancestors. Having just heard about the Stonehenge altar stone coming from thenorthern area of Scotland potentially including Orkney, I really do think that these stones were a visible indication of place to those people, and unity of culture. Also gathering at times indicated by the sun. moon and stars.

Noticed the same thing in Warwick, it's so busy in a historic town center that should be carless. That kind of traffic would be kept well away in the Netherlands to promote a pedestrianised center.

I have living in Naarden go there!!! Its a nice place❤

Simple explenation we were under threat from all sides most of the time. You also see this with modern day israel. And thier remarkable iron dome and systems alike. If you arnt safe you must improvise and be on top of the game. Its that or fall down. England was on a island that only seen some invasions in the time it was pretty easy to do so. After that only the dutch once took it under wiliam the third but that was more a liberation cause england fell into catholic hands and we both were protestants. So dukes in whales and scotland worked together and asked us to come. They were not bad. They just had not the urgeing need to do so.

Never been to Naarden, but I did just come back from Holland and visited Delft. I have also been to Conwy twice. Conwy and Caernarfon were two of my favourite towns in Wales, but you are right in that it could be so much better. Delft was lovely, and we cycled for a day in Utrecht and it was so easy and quite liberating. I really hope we can learn some lessons from the Dutch, but it will take quite a large culture and political shift before that happens. We still love our cars too much in this country and don't realise there can be better ways to do things if we can be humble enough to look across the Channel.

I'm not sure if maidencastle and silchester should be in a documentary about hadrians wall but there's a lot of good content in this video I guess

I am from both countries featured in this video (UK/Netherlands), living in the Netherlands. It always surprised me how lacking infrastructure was in Britain and other examples such as in Conwy. Having been to the UK recently I often found myself comparing it to what exists in America rather than the Netherlands like in Naarden (which I have visited multiple times) and various other examples across the EU, most notably with infrastructure like shopping centres and bridges, but also sharing similarities at the same time. I always saw infrastructure there to be mostly similar to what we have here in NL, but I was very surprised to see that that is not the case at all. Very interesting to see. Lovely video! Hello from the other side of the North Sea!

the thing with Naarden is that yes its quiet during the day...but people use Naarden as a shortcut to get home...so at rush hour we have 500 more cars than normal...there are plans to make the main street car free...but some shop owners are against it...for it will loose customers...and there are also more cars than residents there ( around 1500 people live there)...and some streets are so small...that together with parked cars...the firetrucks or ambulances have no way to get through...

That was interesting and thought provoking. But can you do the geology one next?

Do you/did you have a stutter?

Excellent. Thank you. A range of topics discussed that affect access to our green spaces. I’ve felt I don’t belong in the Lake District - there is a lot of ‘Don’t’!

Monty.....you......... ...t😊😊😊😊

The narrator has a very nasally voice.

UK: How do we make our destinations more attractive.. Let's replace all the lovely greenery and quaint quiet towns with tarmac, can't go wrong with tarmac right?

I love Conway have had great memories going there as a kid.

I live in Naarden! Surprised to see this film, indeed: traffic! Naarden main throughway included multiple 90 degree bends, no asphalt (cobblestones work like speed-bumps), of course speed bumps, a town's population who do not want too many vehicles and in mornings, they have traffic limitations! These are traffic lights outside of the walled city only allowing a few vehicles per minute through. More demand: just wait in queue. A man-made traffic jam, to allow for calm traffic in the town itself. Residents typically only travel outbound in the mornings, they have almost no issues. Builders: they arrive (very) early or wait. But those lights only work when traffic hits a certain rate. These days: most travel around! This becomes habitual. Speed is 30km/u. And everything is geared to bicycles. There is free (!) parking, but limited parking on market streets. Idea ofr Conwy: Take out the asphalt, limit through traffic with traffic lights (Naarden even uses a heavy beem that moves up from the pavement to block passage when the lights are red). Add traditional cobblestones fitting to the architecture, use bicycle freedom, allow for out door dining or pub area's. Add more green (small grass belts, lined-trees, other trees with wrought iron circular covers. Require busses to park on certain spots with same way out as in, no through traffic for busses. Minimize truck access to final destination traffic only. Finally, install draw bridges which can dump vehicles every once in the while .... uh - joking! It is a hassle to drive through Naarden, but ok to visit the market. Most shops are specialty shops. There are many cultural activities in the main Church - busses need to park outside of town (only drive in to drop off or collect people) however, many busses do not even drive into town at all (for some reason). I love (!!!) to walk through or around town, buy ice cream or sit down with my dog and get a coffee and apple pie on a Sunday afternoon. Love the small restaurants in different price ranges up to (former ... ok) single Michelin star, but starting with chips and mayonnaise. We lack the proper fish and chips!! You forgot that last point - Naarden has no fish and chips. There is fish, also chips, but come on .... raw herring? (love it, at the Saturday morning market). For me: look forward to visit Conwy. Naarden by the way: fully, totally, majority .......... conservative!!! Oh yes, lean to the right, love cars, but demand 'livability'! Demand that! And get to love it.

Your microphone is clipping.

There is plenty of land suitable fot car parking near the town close to Bodlondeb and if coaches and cars were directed there from the a55 together with a park and drive shuttle much of the congestion during the Summer months would be eased.

I was saying earlier that I grew up on Anglesey. Well that was very near a lovely town called Beaumaris. It has a castle, a pier, a green, wonderful views out over the Menai straits, some lovely architecture, you can go on fishing or sight seeing boat trips, it has a little beach, the potential for a sea water swimming pool, and can be a nice place for walkers to start from, and has various other fun things to do. It is a nice place for a day or two visit. However the place has traffic issues. One look on Google Maps will show you that the green (which was brown at the time) has been turned into a car park. There are a couple of other car parks in the town including by the leisure centre and another at the rear of the castle. The traffic issues are probably not as bad as Conwy, but I asked a former council official why pedestrians who come to the town, are forced to wait for a gap in the traffic rather than having the option to use a pedestrian crossing. I was told that the provision of a pedestrian crossing would slow the traffic. This was before the days of 20mph limits and yet no exemption was made for that rule (quite rightly, driving 30mph is not really responsible or safe). Then we have the fact that Beaumaris is trapped at the foot of some hills to the west, the sea to the south east, and some wonderful open countryside to the north that nobody wants to see spoiled. So they are kind of given no choice, it's either park on the green or expand the castle car park so it means the castle is now in a car park, or an expensive option would be an underground car park under the green. In each case it still means traffic has to go through the town centre before reaching parking. Another issue is that Beaumaris is more or less the only route for those communities that live further North such as Llangoed. And the cost of putting in a bypass would be both extreme and also mean disrupting the natural areas around the town. I'm sure that Beaumaris could do some things better, but a lot of their problems are caused by the geography of the location and like Conwy, the costs of changing past decisions are prohibitive.

Hang on. Naarden Vesting (fortress) does not have an elected mayor. Nor does any municipality in the Netherlands. And it likely is part of a larger municipal government as the drive to merge towns has been going on for decades. The difference is probably local politics and governance is really local, and not at the same time national.

Interesting video and kind of coincidentally relevant to me. I grew up on Anglesey and went to school in Colwyn bay. So frequently went through Conwy. I remember the bypass being built and hardly ever went to Conwy again. Eventually my wife and I emigrated to the Netherlands and we've noticed the focus on people rather than traffic. Here cycling into town is the logical option and getting into the car is really not usually the best option.

great video!

I visited Conwy on my way back from a bike tour. Spent an hour there. It was lovely but just like you said it was beset by traffic. The same can be said for all the major valleys through Snowdonia, Exmoor, Dartmoor, the Beacons, Peaks, Dales, Moors, and Lakes. My question is what it all is for? These are tiny towns on the edge of the sea. They can be served well by extant train stations if the services were invested in, and goods can get to Holyhead by the same method. I don't think there's that many people outside of Lorry drivers who need to get to Holyhead, and you could replace hundreds of lorries with one goods train to a central depot in Chester. You can then downgrade all these roads to B roads and start restoring the man-made and natural beauty of these locations. We don't need to supply that many visitors to national parks in order to keep the local economies functional, we need to create jobs outside of tourism so young people go and live there. I would love to live in Conwy or Llanberis or Bala or somewhere similar but there's nothing for me there apart from retail, bars and council work. Then again, you don't need to look far from Conwy to see what really terrible urban planning looks like, go over to Llandudno Junction for an entirely different vibe.

"Conwy has loads of parking" *cuts to clip of loads of street parking in the Netherlands* This video came up as suggested, and it's more of the same tired nonsense. Comparing two largely incomparable places and saying "look, cars bad". Yeah, ok, excessive traffic is unhealthy, we know. There's a bypass and there's a mass transport link (something Naarden doesn't have). What is Britain bad at exactly? Conwy wasn't designed for cars or trains, but it's adapted to both. If you don't like the existence of parking or trains in a place like this, don't visit it. It's not like they've knocked buildings down to build a shopping supercentre

Townsplaining? Is that the bricks-and-mortar version of "Mansplaining"?

I'm from North Wales and it's the same story over and over again with towns and villages that have so much potential and are totally wasted. It breaks my heart. Caernarfon is even worse.

I love how towncentres thrived for centuries but now it's supposedly instant death if cars are restricted or banned

Please could you do the talk in Conwy about it?

The highway around Naarden is a heritage from WWII. And the center of Naarden Vesting is still for some a through road. Wich in turn makes a lot of noise with the cobblestones. Wich makes sitting on a terrace is not that enjoyable. I would rather go to Amersfoort, Elburg or Heusden wich are carefree for a major part of the city center. But still better then Conwy 😊

Conwy is not Dubrovnik, i think they should extend the car park outside the town, but banning motor vehicles from the town, will only lead to less people shopping and spending money in the town, to say otherwise is dishonest. If you think the trade off is worth it then ok thats fine, but to paint it as only positives is not true

The infrastructure from GB is very bad. Only Londen is the exception, and the situation in the Nord is bad, that has to be much better. It's better to invest in the Nord than in London at the moment.

An interesting comparison. I have enjoyed the relative quiet of a few Dutch towns (though I haven’t been to Naarden), and really envy their approach to accessibility/mobility. I also stayed in Conwy Youth Hostel a decade or so ago (arriving by that infrequent train service). I thought the town was charming, but I was very aware of the road traffic, and this video makes the contrast between the two approaches very clear.

Great video. I'm Dutch. I could be wrong. But when I visit Britain it feels as if it's a bit stuck in it's ways. There are still these huge sea -resort-towns build during the industrial revolution that are mostly empty. A town like Comwy, with a castle, walls ,etc could be almost as famous as Dubrovnik, if it spend some money on making it's centre car free ad some greenery ,outdoor spaces ,etc. it could be a great tourist destination.

The idea of a 'war on drivers / cars' is absurd, but unfortunately, the rightwing seems to have entrenched it in the national psyche. Now it seems that *any* proposal to lighten traffic, increase pedestrian areas, or to encourage cycling is viewed as some far loony left scheme to stifle our rights.

Answer: Because it's always been this way, oh , and it's Britain.

I believe the difference has a lot to do with the election system used. The Dutch use proportional representation at all levels, which allows for many more political viewpoints and much larger influence on politicians by the voters.

Good point. I live in the city of Groningen, which has been limiting cars in the historic city since 1975. It is one of the best places to live in and has one of the most vibrant shopping and entertainment in the mostly pedestrian centre of any city I know. I wish many more towns and cities would follow our example.

Why are you referring to the town and river by the obsolete English name "Conway" in the narration? The proper Welsh name Conwy has officially been used for both since 1972 and is also the name of the local authority. Similarly the merchant's house there is Aberconwy House, not "Aberconway".

Lack of ambition is the issue

The sky is beginning to bruise!

Im a Brit that lives near Naarden. I hate to say this but, comparing the old fashioned mindset and planning of the UK and the Dutch is like comparing sour apples and chocolate! Bikes are a great way to free up traffic, but There's no way you would get most Brits to even use a bike, never mind set up roads for cycling lanes.

Ireland was never a "colony". You talk about getting things right & yet make this major error. Perhaps you have accepted too much Irish republican propaganda at face value? Ireland was a separate Kingdom prior to 1801 and then fully part of the United Kingdom, a privilege never extended to such British places as the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man, let alone India, Canada, Australia, the American colonies etc etc.

As an American visiting the UK, I can say that Britain is still leagues ahead of the USA in terms of townsplanning.