CASH-strapped Bannau Brycheiniog National Park Authority (NPA) plans to introduce car park machines at beauty spots around the national park in a bid to raise more money from tourism.

Last month, the NPA’s head of commercial operations, Wayne Lewis, lodged four planning applications with Bannau Brycheiniog planners to install car park machines and associated signage on the edge of four car parks.

The sites are the car park at the bottom of the Llyn-y-Fan road, Llanddeusant; the car park at Carreg Cennen Castle, Trapp, Llandeilo; and the Fox Hunters and Keeper’s Pond car parks, both off the B4246 near Blaenavon.

Documents with the applications state that these machines are intended to “collect donations and car parking fees.”

A spokeswoman for Bannau Brycheiniog National Park Authority said: “The authority has submitted planning applications to install donation-based parking machines in several car parks it owns, with any funds raised reinvested directly into caring for these sites and maintaining them for the future.”

However, there are concerns that visitors could clog nearby roads in an attempt to avoid paying for parking.

On the Keeper’s Pond car park proposal, NPA planning officer Luke Woosnam said: “We’ve had some concerns relating to these ticket machines from third parties.

“The concerns are that people will just park their vehicles on highway verges instead of paying.”

He asked Monmouthshire County Council’s highways authority to comment on this specific point.

Monmouthshire highways officer Benjamin Lewis replied: “People can already do that at present, so it’s not really a fundamental change for us.”

Consultation on all four proposals is set to end on Friday, May 8.

Back in March, at a meeting of the NPA, members agreed a budget for 2026/27 which will see it use just under £700,000 from its reserves this year.

This year, Bannau Brycheiniog requires £5.227 million to run its services but will only receive £4.528 million through the Welsh Government grant and local authority levy.

Find out about planning applications that affect you by visiting the Public Notice Portal.

Finance chiefs have warned that if the NPA continues to rely on reserves it could exhaust them and effectively become insolvent by 2029.