VICTOR wrote (Lots of walkers) which of course brings me to the fact that though each person may use the towpath time and time again, he or she can only by counted as one visitor. They cannot be a separate visitor each time they walk the path, writes Bill Ridgeway.
An important part of collecting and publishing statistics is definitions. There is a small, subtle but important difference between person (people) and visitor (visitors). If I visit a place I am one person irrespective of the number of visits. However, if I visit a place a number of times and buy a ticket each time I am counted as a visitor. This is true even if I do not need to buy a ticket.
Could not justify
I don't think even this definition of 'visitor' could justify Cart's visitor statistics. However, even though Cart gives the impression its visitor statistics are definitive they are, in reality, nothing more than guesswork (and not even educated guesswork) by the panel.
Has Cart revealed who was on the panel, their qualifications for such guesswork and the basis of their guesswork? Statistical results for which there is no underlying knowledge of the basis of how they are derived are more-or-less worthless.