COUNCIL staff are counting on technology as they look to create a management plan for the future of a Petersfield beauty spot.

Petersfield Town Council (PTC) agreed to spend around £8,000 on people survey counting equipment for use around the Heath.

The counters, which will be placed at entry points and main paths around the site, will give PTC firm data on visitor numbers and usage.

The data will play an important part in the creation of a management plan.

It will enable the council and its grounds staff to have a clear indication of which paths are the busiest and may need strengthening to cope with extra footfall.

Councillor Jamie Matthews, who is playing a major part in the project, said: “What we don’t really know much about, in hard facts and figures, is how many people use the Heath.

“We don’t know if it’s visited by 10,000 or 15,000 or 100,000 people every year. We know the car park off Sussex Road gets very busy sometimes but what we’re trying to do is get an indication of how many visit the Heath.”

He added: “We’re not looking at tracking specific paths, just the numbers of people coming in and out because that will help the management plan.

“It will also help the council with setting important things like setting a maintenance budget.”

Some of the six counting devices which will be bought could remain at the Heath permanently while the others could be used by PTC to gauge footfall and usage at other sites it manages around the town.

“It will start with the Heath but the counters will be invaluable because we can use them at all of our sites,” said office and committees manager at PTC Steve Field.

“If you don’t know how many people are visiting then you don’t know what level of work is needed to maintain it, other than gauging it by eyeball.”

The council opted to buy equipment as hiring limited the length of time a survey could be conducted.

“There’s a lot of work being done by Jamie on this and the management plan,” said Councillor Jamie Deane during a PTC meeting in which the expenditure was discussed.

“It’s fairly important we get some evidence-based information to move forward.”

Hampshire County Council has used similar counting devices to gauge usage on the Buriton to Queen Elizabeth Country Park cycle way.