Visit to Devon and South Hams

[Steve]

Afternoon Nicky, we are just on our way back from a meeting with Falmouth Van Working Group (Falmouth and Cornwall Council) where CAMpRA were invited as guest speakers to give our input on proposals to open a motorhome Aire (as was recently reported by BBC news SW).

On our journey we visited some of the car parks that now allow overnight stays from the successful 12 month trial in South Hams that is looking like becoming a permanent feature. I thought it would be useful to provide feedback from a visitors perspective comparing 2 sites in South Hams with 2 others in Devon/Cornwall.

Could you pass on my personal thanks to the council for running these trials.

Examples of where we stayed:
Plymouth P&R - 6 dedicated motorhome bays, free 24 hour parking including overnight. Comments: if 48 hours had been allowed we could have spent a day in Plymouth.
Totnes car park - £10 overnight for motorhomes which allows use of 2 bays. Daytime you payed for 2 car park bays if you did not fit in one. Comments: small overflow car park about 200m away, it would be better to use the small car park as a dedicated Aire with 8m spaces and prohibit motorhomes on the main car park leaving more space for cars (this is the European model). We spent the morning in Totnes had lunch and spent in the shops. 48 hours allowed but as no waste point we had to move on after one night. 17 motorcaravans stayed the night we were there that is £170 in one night in September just for allowing overnight parking.
Dartmouth P&R - £5 for day with bus into Dartmouth (motorhomes had to pay for 2 bays) - £10 overnight so cost was £20 for 24 hours. 48 hours permitted. comments: we would have stayed a 2nd night if the day time charges did not make it expensive. We visited the castle and had cream team in town plus spent in local shops. We topped up groceries from local store.
Exmouth- Maer Road - 14 dedicated motorhome bays (some large bays shared with coaches). Motorhome ticket £11 for 24 hours (max stay 3 nights). 5 mins from promenade and walk into town, land train until end of October £1.50. Comments Walked into town, ice cream on the way, coffee and cake in the town square, bought food for dinner from local store. Plan to stop on our way back as this was a perfect example of how to operate overnight parking. Exmouth allow overnight on 3 car parks (one on sea front limited to 5.4m), they need a waste point on the toilets on one of the car parks with a fee to top up water and empty waste.
These are 4 examples of places we visited personally on our recent trip, as you know there are many more examples of councils embracing this and everyone has been a success.

We just ask the councils to engage with CAMpRA so that we can offer the benefit of our experience to enable them to make informed decisions.