England’s Ashes failure hits Yorkshire economy

YORKSHIRE is counting the cost of England’s heavy defeat to Australia in the fourth Test at Headingley Carnegie.

Tourism and marketing chiefs had predicted that the Yorkshire economy would get a £10m boost from a five-day Test but that has been scaled back to around £6m following the end of the match after just two-and-a-half days.

The first Test in Cardiff had been worth an estimated £10m but it lasted the full five days.

The early end to the fourth Test saw players and spectators checking out of hotel rooms two days early and there will be full refunds for the 18,000 people who had tickets for today’s play but 13,000 who had bought reduced £20 tickets for the final day’s play will not receive their money back.

“We won’t make as much as a region as we would have done from a full five days, but £6m could still be a conservative estimate,” Deborah Green, chief executive of Marketing Leeds, said. “And we count ourselves lucky that we’ve at least had three good days where the sun has shone.”

Gary Verity, chief executive of tourism organisation Welcome to Yorkshire, said: “It is disappointing that the full five days won’t be played out and of course it will affect the estimated total aimed at boosting Leeds’ economy.”