The Dartmouth Visitor Centre is located in a corner of the Mayors Avenue car park.

It also boasts the oldest preserved working steam engine in the world designed by Dartmothian Thomas Newcomen.

Laura Campbell is one of the Directors and explains why they open around the year:

“We are a tourism and business hub so we have businesses that come in to find us to enquire about the type of support they may need, including professional services such as Health & Safety & Finance and marketing initiatives.

Laura continued: “We’ve got a great range of experience between us.

“We have around 20 part-time volunteers and we transferred them all over.

“Danni and I tend to cover the building operationally with Julie who’s our treasurer.”

Laura says there is a great synergy between the centre and local businesses.

“For example, we would have an accommodation company coming in and wanting fliers so we’ve got people in town to do the graphic design and the artwork for them and we have local printers to work with. We have corporate accounts with various organisations which make it cost effective and so we can get those money saving elements through to the businesses.

“We can draw on our Chamber members as well, including health and safety consultants, a neuro-diversity consultant, HR & Financial etc.”

“They know they can find a group of us here who are also involved in the Chamber of Commerce so we want to make this a real community asset.”

The Visitor Centre welcomed 27,000 people through the doors between July and September and is becoming a hub for a whole portfolio of services.

Laura says they are still busy in this shoulder season: “We are gathering ourselves for Dartmouth in December which kicks off on November 29 with Candlelit then we’ve got a whole month of festive activities planned”

As for the rest of the winter there’s still plenty going on: “Plenty of people come in especially to see the Newcomen engine and we can then direct them to the Museum to carry on the story.

“There are still a lot of walkers around so we engage with them on routes and recommendations along with the Centre carrying a range of maps”

“Our volunteers are an absolute mine of useful information and they will talk visitors through any requirements they may have along with the specifics of dogs and family requirements”

The building itself is owned by Dartmouth Town Council and the Dartmouth Tourism and Business Hub are the tenants.

It is a brand new CIC (Community of Interest Company) which was set up by Laura Campbell, Danni Pinnington and Jo Hinde in May 2024.

They have a board of seven directors which includs Paul Downing, MD at Dart Marina Hotels, Ian Davies, GM at the Dartmouth Hotel & Golf club, Paul Britton, Harbourmaster and Julie Derbyshire who owns Dudley’s in town.

Dartmouth Visitor is currently open Monday to Saturday 10am to 3pm but on Wednesdays there may be shorter opening hours.