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chatteris
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Great Yarmouth

Post by chatteris »

can anyone follow up on this looks like an opportunity to put our aims https://www.greatyarmouthmercury.co.uk/ ... P5abGE1dlo
CShel
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Re: Great Yarmouth

Post by CShel »

Yesterday, I emailed my local MP…. brandon.lewis.mp@parliament.uk

Motorhome Tourism is desperately seeking dedicated parking areas in GY

Sir Brandon Lewis, MP for Great Yarmouth - (ex-Minister)

Dear Sir Brandon

I’ve written to you before about this, during Lockdown in 2020, when it became apparent that the sales boom in motorhomes and campervans was overwhelming camping and caravan sites, and the situation now, is worse. As many campsites close up for 6 months, we have nowhere safe off-road to stopover and park up in GY, as these tourists continue to tour around the regions, ‘tasting the local cuisine and culture’ as we go.

I am with CAMpRA, the motorhome owners group that has over 36,000 members (out of over 400,000 DVLA registered motorcaravanners - not including thousands more ’vans with windows’), who are campaigning for a sensible and responsible infrastructure to support Motorhome Tourism in the UK.

That means, 1) the provision of motorhome-size spaces for stopovers in public car parks and private locations such as visitor attractions, pubs, garden centres, sports clubs, village halls, farm shops and cafes… and 2) Service Points - places where motorhomes can empty and replenish their onboard storage tanks which is necessary every 4-5 days. Redundant Toilet Blocks and Car-Wash businesses are ideal; not only do they have the necessary plumbing, that simply needs adapting for emptying toilet waste cassettes, but they can wash the vans too, as many are away from home for months on end. One in each town is all that’s required.

image1.jpeg (Aeriel photo of Hawick Motorhome Aire)

The problem is that campsites are the only places that service points are available. And they were set up for caravanners and tent campers for use in summertime only. Since Covid times, when families sought to stay safe away from others, these sites have become very busy mid-summer, and now demand Advance Booking, Minimum Stays of 2-3 nights, Check-in Times during office hours, which is anathema to the nomadic ways of the touring motorhomer, who often decide where to go after visiting hot spots, at teatime. It isn’t working for motorhomers and campervanners.

In winter, from now onwards, the poor soggy ground conditions of campsites in remote, dark places are most unappealing. What’s required is parking/stopover spaces within walking distance of shops, pubs and cafes where they can spend their good money in the local community and help those hard-hit businesses suffering from the high cost of living increases such as pubs, restaurants, takeaways and cafes.

5-van Motorhome Sites are now being set up by CAMpRA nationwide, and local authorities are being advised on the requirements - but Great Yarmouth, Cromer, Norwich and Lowestoft (surrounding my home area in Burgh Castle) are not doing anything to help attract and welcome these valuable tourists.

These towns could set aside parking for dozens of touring vans, with 24-48 hour limits on stays, with bays sized 3x8.5m, with service points on site or nearby. The overnight charge of £5 or £10 with services, could generate extra income to pay for maintenance + leave the motorhomer enough money to spend in the local economy (The average spend before Covid, was £47/van, CAMpRA Survey).

Furthermore, an efficient parking/services infrastructure will attract most of the 2 million European motorhomers who are touring EU countries. Brexit has reduced the amount of time British motorhomers can spend abroad (90 days in 180 days), so they are now stuck in UK battling with councils who are putting up height barriers and stopping motorhomers from accessing adequate parking areas = More demand than ever before for stopping spaces.

Members of CAMpRA are writing to their MPs, council tourist officers, BID teams to suggest suitable places, and private landowners are being mailed about ideal opportunities they have to develop a new income stream using their empty-at-night parks.

MPs need to get together to update the antiquated 1960 Caravan Act that is the only legislation that councils refer to when dealing with motorcaravans wishing to overnight in their car parks, and facilitate the improvements needed for Motorhome Tourism.

See CAMpRA.org.uk and this page on Planning and TROs…

I hope you understand our plight and can allow some time to discuss this issue with me when you have a half hour in surgery, soon?

Best regards

Charles Shelbourne
Xxxx xxxxxxx, Great Yarmouth, NR31 9PU
0xxxx xxx7141

CAMpRA UK
Steve
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Re: Great Yarmouth

Post by Steve »

Charles, this can focus their minds
Fleetwood Central Car Park - Revenue review 2.xlsx
(16.23 KiB) Downloaded 146 times
Steve - CAMpRA Leadership Team
CShel
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Re: Great Yarmouth

Post by CShel »

I wrote to a new contact who is the Cabinet Member for Economic Development and Growth at GTBC

8/12/23
Daniel!

I thought you’d like to hear about the opportunity for local businesses that Motorhome Tourism presents?
Here you are telling us to go and shop - “It’s Small Business Saturday today”
So, I’m looking for you to acknowledge my email to you. You or your team haven’t replied in 7 days.

image

If you can help us speak to the Parking and Tourism Councillors who can open up the town to thousands of motorhomers who tour Great Britain, and entice them to visit Norfolk and our wonderful seaside town with all its attractions for a day or two, it will certainly pay off.

We need a motorhome parking area near the centre, and a Service Area (waste water, WC waste disposal and fresh water) which could simply be provided by a single fuel station, car wash businesses or a public toilet block. This would be very low cost to the council and income would cover it, whilst boosting the number of visitors to the centre.

Please read my letter/email below, if you did not read it yet….
2/12/23

Dear Cllr Daniel Candon

I am a local resident, living in Burgh Castle, retired and a ‘motorhomer’.

I am one of over 400,000 motorcaravan owners in the UK, and also a member of CAMpRA UK. CAMpRA has been assisting many councils in the UK to understand the concept of providing short-term overnight parking for motorcaravans. Unlike campsites these are short stay parking areas commonly known in Europe as Aires, and unlike campsites, no external equipment/camping behaviour is allowed (chairs, tables, awnings, BBQs etc), and there’s also no need for advance booking, arrival in office hours or minimum stays, involving staff!

They were conceived to entice motorhomers to visit towns and villages to spend their good money in the local communities, and that’s how we could be supporting your hospitality and tourism businesses in Great Yarmouth.

Current travel restrictions, due to Brexit, have provided our councils with an opportunity, not only to cost effectively manage this rapidly expanding tourism sector, but to help our struggling hospitality and tourism businesses and town centres to benefit from this growing market, estimated to be worth over £1 billion per year to local UK economies.

The good news is that the ‘First Schedule of the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960’ (caravan site legislation) states that a local authority is exempt from requiring a site licence to allow overnight stays by motorcaravans. A simple amendment to existing Traffic Regulation Orders to allow ‘parking and sleeping overnight’ is often all that is required.

So why should our council provide simple overnight parking ?

• It’s a cost effective way to manage the influx of touring motorcaravans
• Authorised motorcaravan parking areas allows you to control where motorcaravans park
• An area on the outskirts of town will reduce the presence of large vehicles and carbon emissions in our town
• 82% of UK motorcaravans are used all year round, extending our tourist season for our local businesses
• A recent report from Fleetwood Council shows that a £5 fee for motorcaravans parking overnight has generated nearly £26,000 for one car park in 2022
• The estimated revenue spent by those visitors in local businesses was over £268,000

The question is not, “Can we afford to provide parking for motorcaravans and allow overnight stays”, but “Can we afford to lose out on this huge revenue stream that other councils are now starting to recognise”?

CAMpRA - The Campaign for Real Aires in the UK - recently gave a 45 minute presentation to the annual conference of The Society of Local Council Clerks to explain the concept that has operated in Europe for decades. In Europe there are over 2 million motorhomers who would love to visit Britain but don’t because of the lack of supportive infrastructure. Get this right and we could easily have huge amounts of foreign money spent here!

All that we ask is that you engage with CAMpRA so that we can provide the information and answer your questions, so that local residents like me, as well as other visitors to our region, are made welcome in our towns as we tour different regions ‘tasting the local cuisine and culture’ as we go, supporting our struggling local businesses in the process.

I would welcome the opportunity to meet with you to discuss this. Please give me a call soon!

Yours sincerely,
Charlie Shelbourne
CAMpRA

His response…

Dear Mr Shelbourne,

Once again, thank you for your email and for sharing with me the points you make.

While your comments are very interesting, at present Great Yarmouth Borough Council does not have a parking area that it would seek to turn over to this activity. All of our car parks are performing well and are often full in the peak months.

There are also a number of holiday parks across the Borough which welcome camper vans. As well as this, we would not seek to push visitors away from our hotels and other tourist accommodation, especially in what is currently a challenging economic climate. The town is well served with a variety of visitor accommodation offers.

Whilst I’m very grateful for you raising this issue with me, it is not something that GYBC will be exploring at this time.

Kind regards,

Daniel

Daniel Candon
Councillor - Bradwell North
Councillors
Cabinet Member for Economic Development and Growth
Great Yarmouth Borough Council

Email: cllr.daniel.candon@great-yarmouth.gov.uk
www.great-yarmouth.gov.uk
Telephone: 01493846134

I now call upon all CAMpRA members to email Daniel and tell him why we won’t visit GY with the current status quo, and how he could entice a new tourist category to spend their money in his local businesses which he is responsible for improving their welfare if he pays attention to our advice.
image0.jpeg
CShel
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Re: Great Yarmouth

Post by CShel »

My response….

Hi Daniel

Thank you so much for responding to me.

That was CAMpRA‘s way of alerting you to the changed modern day situation where motorhoming is the new way to travel and explore holiday regions for families as well as other retired folk, like me. It’s like all those who took coach and cruise holidays before Covid bought campervans or motorhomes to keep travelling safely and healthily. 400,000 UK owners plus those 2 million abroad keen to explore our country means there is a huge economic growth opportunity available to GY businesses.

However, I think you’ve missed the point here, as I wrote to you because part of your job role is to look out for the hospitality and tourism sector within the GY borough, and they need every bit of help you can find for them to keep going. You never once considered that Motorhome Tourism could benefit them?

Across the country the number of towns adding short stay motorhome places in their car parks is growing, attracting 24-48 hour stopovers, and this could easily be done in several parks in Great Yarmouth, by simply changing a TRO. There is space, close to the centre.

Your car parks might well be full at peak summertime, but 83% of Motorhome tourists keep them on the road all year round, and that’s when your pubs, cafes, shops, shows and other attractions could pick up extra business, to help them survive these tough times. You could fill them up more in the low seasons with campervan tourists.

Currently, from October to Easter there is no suitable ‘Holiday Parks’ with hard-standing pitches (soggy wet grass won’t do), and all of them - Vauxhall Parkdean, Breydon Water, Burgh Hall, and The Race Course, are closed (so there’s no access to the only Waste Service Points in the area), except Rose Farm which has a couple of hard-standing spaces, alone.

Some of the parks are club members only, meaning that non-members and foreign tourers would have additional membership costs to pay.. And campsites don’t like late arrivals, and don’t offer their services to non-residents. Short stay motorhome spaces are desperately needed where the tourists want to visit

There’s no way any of these people would ever stay in a hotel or guesthouse when they have every mod-con on board in their campervan or motorhome. There’s no competition with hotels, B&Bs, etc. They can spend 3-4 days off-grid before they need a Service Point to empty the onboard waste tanks.

And they are known to spend about £50 a day on average when they can get out for an evening meal.

Pubs in the countryside are well supported now by motorhomers in their car parks, with many hosting 5 vans an evening, which is a considerable contribution, as drink-drive laws don’t come into it. There are schemes such as ‘BritStops’ that copy the French ‘France Passion’ scheme where rural businesses such as sports clubs, garden centres, farmers, vineyards and visitor attractions invite us to stay free for 24 hours to entice us to buy their produce. It’s been successful for decades.

You should be looking at places to park us to ensure the businesses and attractions in your remit get the benefit of our presence. I know which are the most suitable places and would like to encourage you to get on board to help your business community. Together we can then take the plan forward.

Already CAMpRA is advising the BPA - British Parking Association - and local authorities on the many ways to build a supportive infrastructure for Motorhome Tourism to develop responsibly, and to attract all those foreigners to cross the Channel to boost our local economies.

Please give this a lot more thought!

Cheers
Charles

(Image of Hawick Motorhome Parking area)

Nearly £26,000 in revenue in this council car park in Fleetwood last year at £5/night, with an estimated spend in town of over £266.000

(image of Fleetwood CP Revenue )
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Re: Great Yarmouth

Post by Diyan77 »

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Re: Great Yarmouth

Post by instaupmod »

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niladri
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Re: Great Yarmouth

Post by niladri »

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