Item 11 - WD Visitor Levy
West Dunbartonshire Council · 12 November 2025
Back to Infrastructure, Regeneration & Economic Development Committee — 12 November 2025 and its agenda
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WEST DUNBARTONSHIRE COUNCIL Report by Chief Officer: Regulatory & Regeneration Infrastructure Regeneration and Economic Development Committee: 12 November 2025 Subject: West Dunbartonshire Visitor Levy 1. Purpose 1.1 The purpose of this report is to provide an update on the outcomes of the visitor levy consultation and to obtain Committee approval to implement a visitor levy in West Dunbartonshire. 2. Recommendations 2.1 The Committee is invited to: (i) Note the outcomes of the stage 1 and stage 2 consultations relating to a visitor levy scheme for West Dunbartonshire; (ii) Agree to implement the final West Dunbartonshire visitor levy scheme, as set out in Appendix 1; (iii) Agree to establish the West Dunbartonshire Visitor Levy Forum and to begin the process to identify a Chair for the forum, with the appointment subject to the approval of the Council; (iv) Agree to meet the additional set-up, tourism strategy and staff costs through the implementation period and offset these costs against future revenues raised through a visitor levy scheme; and , (v) Agree that this scheme may be amended from time to time by the Chief Officer: Regulatory and Regeneration in consultation with the Chief Executive and Chief Officer: Resources where it is deemed necessary to comply with any change in legislation, binding guidance or other provision of law and otherwise may be amended by Committee. 3. Background 3.1 The Scottish Parliament passed the Visitor Levy (Scotland) Bill on 28 May 2024 (becoming the Visitor Levy (Scotland) Act 2024 (“the Act”). The visitor levy is a local tax, by which the Scottish Parliament has passed powers to local councils across Scotland to decide whether to impose a levy on visitors to their area. ITEM 11
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3.2 In terms of the Act a visitor levy can be applied to overnight stays in various types of accommodation including hotels, hostels, bed and breakfasts, guest houses, self-catering units, caravan parks and campsites. 3.3 Funds collected from the levy can be used to develop, support, and sustain facilities and services which are substantially used by visitors for leisure and business purposes. The costs of operating the scheme can also be deducted from the income. The rationale and benefits of a visitor levy include: It helps diversify the income streams of the Council reducing reliance on traditional funding sources and in particular costs of supporting tourism that would otherwise place a financial burden on local taxpayers. It helps address the wear and tear on local infrastructure. It alleviates pressure on local communities by funding projects that improve the quality of life for residents. It enhances the overall visitor experience by improving facilities and services. 3.4 A Visitor Levy Forum (the “Forum”) must be established within six months of a formal decision being taken to introduce a visitor levy scheme. The Forum is intended to advise the Council on matters related to a levy in its area. Members of the forum would include key stakeholders such as local authority officers, local accommodation providers and tourism organisation representatives. 3.5 Statutory guidance has been developed by the Visitor Levy Expert Group (issued on 4th October 2024) which provides local authorities with binding guidance on the development and implementation of a visitor levy. The guidance document continues to be reviewed as local authorities bring forward proposals for visitor levy schemes to reflect the complexities of certain accommodation sectors. 3.6 A national digital platform is being developed through the Improvement Service to support collection of the levy which will be accessible to any local authorities looking to implement a visitor levy. 3.7 The IRED Committee provided approval in November 2024, to commence consultation to investigate the potential of implementing a visitor levy in West Dunbartonshire. This report details the findings from the stage 1 (informal) and stage 2 (formal) consultations and outlines a potential final visitor levy scheme for West Dunbartonshire. 4. Main Issues 4.1 A visitor levy represents a significant opportunity to generate an additional recurring income stream to sustain and support the facilities and services substantially used by visitors for leisure and business purposes within the local area.
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4.2 Present estimates put the value of a visitor levy at approximately £1.7M per annum based on a levy of 5% on the cost of all eligible accommodation within the West Dunbartonshire area. 4.3 A survey was created as part of the stage 1 consultation process to raise local awareness and invite initial feedback and comment from stakeholders, visitors, organisations and members of the public. This stage of consultation, though voluntary, and informal was recognised a good first step in an extended consultation and, subject to approval by the Council, implementation process, which would see the scheme being fully implemented by July 2027. The consultation was promoted through a press release, Council’s social media channels and was made available publicly on the Council’s website. The survey was also shared with external organisations such as Loch Lomond & Trossachs National Park, Visit Scotland, Association of Scotland’s Self-caterers, Love Loch Lomond, Dunbartonshire Chamber and the Federation of Small Businesses. 4.4 The stage 1 consultation survey was carried out over a 6-week period, from 20 January to 28 February 2025. In total, there were 563 responses to the survey. The majority of the people that completed the survey were residents of West Dunbartonshire (86.5%). Only 6.7% of respondents identified as visitors to the area along with 15.3% of respondents stating that they had friends or relatives that live within the West Dunbartonshire area. Business owners only equated to 6.9% of respondents. 4.5 Overall, respondents to the stage 1 survey were not supportive of introducing a visitor levy within West Dunbartonshire. In total, 73% of respondents strongly disagreed/disagreed with the implementation of a visitor levy. 22% of respondents showed general support for introduction of a levy with 5% neither agreeing nor disagreeing. The main comments provided by respondents to explain why they disagreed with the implementation of a visitor levy, included not feeling that the local area had enough of a tourism offering to warrant charging a levy and also that they felt a visitor levy would put visitors off from staying in the local area. 4.6 The stage 1 survey asked respondents what they would like to see the levy income spent on, keeping the area clean and tidy came out top with 56% voting for that option closely followed by transport services and infrastructure with 41%. Council parks and greenspace were also highly rated with 38% and Culture, Heritage & Events were also viewed as important with 25% of the result. (respondents could tick more than one box). Other responses included suggestions such as using the income to improve leisure centres, improve the congestion on A82, fixing woodland paths and creating tourism attractions. 4.7 Following the stage 1 survey, a draft visitor levy scheme was developed and feedback on the draft scheme was sought through stage 2 of the consultation. The draft scheme proposals have been available through the Council website and have been shared with relevant stakeholders.
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4.8 The stage 2 formal consultation ran from 28 July to 21 October 2025. The consultation consisted of a press release, social media posts, an on-line survey, hotel engagement session, National Park engagement session, industry focus group, stakeholder meetings and public drop-in sessions. A report on the findings from the stage 1 and stage 2 formal consultation can be found in Appendix 2. 4.9 In total, there were 214 people that responded to the stage 2 survey. The majority of the people that completed the survey were residents of West Dunbartonshire (79.4%). Business owners equated to 13% of respondents and only 7.5% of respondents identified as visitors to the area. 4.10 The stage 2 survey asked if people’s opinions regarding their general support for introducing a visitor levy had changed from the Stage 1 survey having considered the content of the draft proposals. A total of 207 people answered this question, 60.7% of people strongly disagreed/disagreed with the introduction of a visitor levy with 30.8% of people strongly agreeing/agreeing and 5.1% neither agreed nor disagreed. 4.11 The respondents to the stage 2 survey were asked to rate the proposed investment streams in order of importance. The respondents rated Operations and Infrastructure as the most important investment stream, followed by Culture, Heritage and Events, Environmental Protection & Conversation, Tourism Marketing & Management, Climate Change Adaption and Tourism Business & Skills support. 4.12 Respondents were asked if they thought any investment streams were missing from the proposals. In total, responses were received from 81 people and included comments relating to keeping the area clean and tidy, cutting the grass, improving roads and accessibility, public toilets, providing support to businesses to allow them to enhance the tourism experience, improving the skills of staff in hospitality and improving local parks used by visitors and tourists. 4.13 The survey also asked who you thought should be represented on the visitor levy forum if it were established. Community representatives, local businesses, accommodation providers, tourism organisations and council representatives were all frequently mentioned. Other comments included organisations such as the National Park, Visit Scotland, Federation of Small Businesses, Dunbartonshire Chamber of Commerce and West Dunbartonshire Council For Voluntary Services (CVS). 4.14 The findings report attached in Appendix 2 provides further detail on the results from the stage 2 on-line survey. The stage 2 consultation has resulted in some changes being made to the final visitor levy scheme. A copy of the proposed final West Dunbartonshire visitor levy scheme is attached in Appendix 1. The changes include the addition of a payback to accommodation providers of 1.5% of the collected levy funds. This is intended to cover some
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of the direct costs which will occur as a result of collecting the levy, such as credit card charges and amendments to accounting systems. 4.15 There were also comments raised around charitable accommodation providers who may only charge a small fee in order to cover operational costs. For clarification, where accommodation services are provided free of charge to the visitors, there is no ‘chargeable transaction’ and, as such, these stays do not incur a visitor levy. In the case of charitable organisations, the scheme has been updated to include a discretionary exemption for charitable accommodation providers where they meet both of the following criteria: Property must be occupied by a charity or a trustee of a charity; and Overnight stays at the property must be wholly or mainly for charitable purpose. This is aligned with the cases where charities may receive mandatory relief from Non-Domestic Rates and can be cross-checked with that register. 4.16 The visitor levy guidance document states that local authorities should align the use of funds with their agreed tourism strategies to assist them to make funding decisions that will add value to their local visitor economy, and benefit communities and residents. It is therefore proposed that a new local tourism strategy be developed, with the associated costs offset against future revenues raised through the Visitor Levy scheme. 4.17 It is recognised that the feedback received from stage 1 and stage 2 consultations has not been generally supportive of the implementation of a visitor levy. However, this is typical in the case of new taxation and regulatory proposals and within the comments and submissions which were made, there were no issues raised which in isolation or cumulatively changes the assumption that the introduction of such a levy would be beneficial to the citizens of West Dunbartonshire and would not be detrimental to either the accommodation providers or the visitors to West Dunbartonshire. The proposed levy will provide substantial opportunities for the Council to apply this additional income, estimated to be approximately £1.7 million per annum or approximately £8.5 million income over a five-year period to sustain and support the facilities and services substantially used by visitors for leisure and business purposes within the local area. 4.18 The Findings report at Appendix 2, provides further detail on the extensive consultation process and addresses a number of the concerns, observations and inaccuracies that may have arisen during consultation process. 5. People Implications 5.1 If approval is provided to implement a visitor levy, additional staff resources would be required to manage and administer the scheme. This would include
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recruitment of a Tourism Officer and most likely additional staff resources for both the administration of refunds and enforcement of the levy. 6. Financial and Procurement Implications 6.1 The implementation of a visitor levy provides a significant opportunity to generate an additional recurring annual income stream, estimated by Glasgow City Region Intelligence Hub to be approximately £1.7 million which could be utilised to develop, sustain and support the facilities and services substantially used by visitors for leisure and business purposes within the local area. 6.2 The costs of operating the scheme would be deducted from the visitor levy income. Annual operating costs are estimated to be approximately £200,000 and include staff costs linked to project management and administration, enforcement officers, finance and legal resource and digital online platform costs. 6.3 If approved, the up-front set-up and decision-making costs would need to be financed within existing local authority budgets; however, any implementation costs including development of a tourism strategy, national digital platform development costs and staff costs are offset against future revenues raised through the visitor levy scheme. 6.4 The Improvement Service has advised that each council wishing to participate will be required to pay a £100,000 upfront onboarding fee to use the national digital platform (visitorlevy.scot). The on-going annual platform costs will be shared proportionately among all live Local Authorities, based on council size and the number of eligible properties for the visitor levy scheme in each council area and therefore that cost has still to be confirmed. While other systems may be available, it is suggested that, subject to procurement compliance, the use of the national digital platform would be the preferred route. 7. Risk Analysis 7.1 Stakeholder engagement is critical and will continue through the 18-month implementation period to help mitigate any potential future risks such as deterring tourists, impact on local businesses and administrative burden. 7.2 A local guidance document will be developed and issued ahead of the Levy’s implementation beginning 1 October 2026 for bookings paid (in part or full) on and after 1 July 2027 to support accommodation providers to understand their obligations.
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8. Environmental Sustainability 8.1 An environmental sustainability assessment screening has been completed and indicated that no strategic environmental assessment is required. 9. Equalities Impact Assessment (EIA) 9.1 An equalities impact assessment (EIA 1328) has been completed. As the Council’s Equalities Impact Assessment tool does not include business or visitor impacts, Officers have been guided by the Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment undertaken by the Scottish Government and have extended the Equalities Impact Assessment to include the Council’s impact assessment for businesses, visitors and the Council. A copy of this extended Integrated Impact Assessment is available at appendix 3. 10. Consultation 10.1 A survey was created as part of the stage 1 consultation process to raise local awareness and invite initial feedback and comment from stakeholders, visitors, organisations and members of the public. The stage 1 consultation survey was carried out over a 6-week period, from 20 January to 28 February 2025. In total, there were 563 responses to the survey. 10.2 The stage 2 formal consultation ran from 28 July to 21 October 2025. The consultation consisted of an on-line survey, hotel engagement session, National Park engagement session, industry focus group, stakeholder meetings and public drop-in sessions. 10.3 The results of the stage 1 and stage 2 formal consultation are available in the Visitor Levy Findings report in Appendix 2. 11. Strategic Assessment 11.1 The proposals contained within this report support the strategic priorities of the Council’s Economic Development Strategy (2022-27). • Stimulating economic investment and growing the business base; • Establishing an inclusive economy by improving the skills of our people and supporting them into work; • Creating a prosperous place where people choose to live, work, visit and invest; • Addressing climate change and supporting a green recovery; • Building stronger partnerships and new approaches to delivery. Alan Douglas Chief Officer (Regulatory & Regeneration) Date: 3/11/25
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Person to Contact: Alan Douglas, Chief Officer: Regulatory & Regeneration, Council Offices, Church Street, Dumbarton, G82 1QL. T: 07795603708 Email: alan.douglas@west-dunbarton.gov.uk Appendices: Appendix 1 - Final West Dunbartonshire Visitor Levy Scheme Appendix 2 – Visitor Levy Findings Report Appendix 3 – Integrated Impact Assessment Background Papers: IRED Committee Report – Visitor Levy November 2024 Wards Affected: All Wards