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Re: Forest of Bowland Tour

Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2021 10:52 pm
by Madwitch
Big thank you to Deborah from the Leadership Team for your work with Beacon Fell and other country parks in Lancashire and a possible Forest of Bowland Tour. There were a couple of suggestions regarding the taking of payment. Loch Lomond and the Trossachs use an online booking/payment system as they limit the number of people who can park in their area. This might work for Beacon Fell. Alternatively, there is a company called MiPermit who do a similar thing, but in a simplified way. Might be worth passing these details on to Tim and Paul. Thanks again.

Re: Forest of Bowland Tour

Posted: Sun Sep 05, 2021 4:47 pm
by Grey Wanderer
Hi Deborah
I am at Slaidburn Car Park tonight. It is encouraging that the council car park accepts motorhomes, and. has no adverse signs. I see that the same applies to some of their other CPs including Dunsop Bridge.

Overnight is free. I see that the council already uses MiPermit for payments so if they provided Aires it would be easy to continue with MiPermit at such locations.

What is lacking in the Forest of Bowland is a publicly accessible motorhome service point. Having scouted around the excellent public toilets here I can see it would be relatively easy and inexpensive to install a CDP and water point. There is a manhole in a little compound immediately behind the toilet building to connect a CDP, accessible from the car park, and it would be easy to plumb in the water service through the wall of the ladies toilet. They have already installed a hiking boot washing point so it is evident they are already minded to support tourism.

I haven’t been to the Dunsop Bridge CP but it may be worth considering as this is closer to the currently well frequented ‘wilding’ spots along the Trough of Bowland Road.

Perhaps you could roll this question into your discussions with Council and Tourism contacts.

I think it would be good to let them know we can advise on wording for signs as there is nothing to make it clear ‘camping behaviour’ outside vans is not permitted and as we know not all motorhomers ( including new and hirers) are fully aware of this, also we can offer our sign for directions to the nearest service point (when and where such exist).

They may consider requesting a modest overnight charge to cover installation and signage costs, easy to collect through MiPermit.

Re: Forest of Bowland Tour

Posted: Wed Sep 15, 2021 7:06 pm
by Mrsmc219
Sadly whilst there’s no adverse signage the council bye laws actually state that overnight parking is prohibited.
We are lucky that the council does not have the money for enforcement at the moment as when I spoke to their car parks officer he was very anti our proposal and not happy that these sites were being used as complaints had been received.

Re: Forest of Bowland Tour

Posted: Tue Nov 23, 2021 2:46 pm
by Grey Wanderer
When I was there I went round and cleared all the litter left by people in cars (who pay less to park) not just in the car park but round the bottom end of the village too. If you speak to this chap again you might mention that is something many of us do as members of ‘Motorhomes and Campervans Against Litter’.

Re: Forest of Bowland Tour

Posted: Tue Nov 23, 2021 2:49 pm
by Grey Wanderer
Perhaps the Parking Manager needs a conversation with the tourism people as I understood they were trying to encourage visitors.