Scottish Borders Tour

Regions In Scotland
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Grey Wanderer
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Scottish Borders Tour

Post by Grey Wanderer »

A draft copy of the report has been uploaded to the Southern Scotland Campaign Group Forum for comments and input.
Steve
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Re: Scottish Borders Tour

Post by Steve »

Anyone working on the report who would like to be included let us know and we can add you to the campaign group.
Steve - CAMpRA Leadership Team
Grey Wanderer
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Re: Scottish Borders Tour

Post by Grey Wanderer »

Final Version of the Scottish Borders Tour as will be going out to Councillors and main stakeholders.
Attachments
Scottish Borders Tour.pdf
Final version
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potty
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Re: Scottish Borders Tour

Post by potty »

Brilliant! Just one slight comment: Moffat isn’t in the SBC area, it’s Dumfries and Galloway as is Langholm. Might be worth sending it to D&G Council as well.
Grey Wanderer
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Re: Scottish Borders Tour

Post by Grey Wanderer »

Yes, had to go down to Moffat and Langholm to get round a circuit on reasonable roads, and to give 'feed in' points from main routes.
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Re: Scottish Borders Tour

Post by Grey Wanderer »

The Tour and Strategy Document has now gone out to 16 of the 33 SBC Councillors who represent the main areas and sit on the most relevant committees. Also to South of Scotland Destination Alliance. I will send a copy too to SOSE (South of Scotland Enterprise) who are known to have a lot of funding, once someone comes back to me with an email address. Submitted also in connection with the review of the Local Area Development Plan.
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Re: Scottish Borders Tour

Post by Grey Wanderer »

Copy of an email sent to the Moffat Centre for Travel and Tourism Business Development at Glasgow Caledonian University. these were the guys acclaimed, or cursed depending where you are standing, for dreaming up the NC500.


For the attention of John Lennon and Tom Campbell

Dear Sirs

I have had some exchanges of correspondence with Mark Rowley (Executive Member for Economic Regeneration & Finance,Chair Scottish Borders Community Planning Partnership Strategic Board, Member South of Scotland Regional Economic Partnership, Scottish Borders Councillor for Mid-BerwickshireScottish Borders Councillor for Mid-Berwickshire) on the above subject and he mentioned your work in the Borders. As a courtesy I thought it apt that I should send you a copy of CAMpRAs (Campaign for Real Aires) document on the above subject. I am very aware of your work on the NC500, immensely successful in attracting tourism but from some perspectives a victim of its own success. To give context and by way of introduction below is a copy of my original letter to Mark, in his role as SBC councillor.


<<I am retired Architect, 74. I grew up on the fringes of the Lake District, although now after a lifetime of designing hospitals in UK and abroad I have ended up retired in the Peak District National Park. So I am well aware of the challenges of managing tourism in National Parks and other rural areas. Through my grandmother, and my father being the ‘revenue man’ at Stornaway I have a long attachment to Scotland. I am a frequent traveller through the Borders, for ever seeking new routes as I head north to visit my son who is an Associate Professor at Heriot Watt.

I was very saddened at the behaviour of so many visitors in this summers ‘Staycation Madness’, more so as an owner of a motorcaravan I find myself and the majority of responsible motorcaravanners now tarred with the same brush as the unthinking minority mostly in tents, vans with mattresses and small camper vans with no sanitation. I am concerned that we are all now greeted with official hostility and would wish to clear the air by offering positive solutions.

In consequence I am now a member of the leadership group of CAMpRA (Campaign for Real Aires) a growing group now some 15,000 strong, actively campaigning for proper facilities such as have existed in the rest of Europe for many years, for the 357,000 motorhomes in the UK.

One great attraction that many European countries have developed are Themed and Scenic Touring Routes, very popular with motor caravanners, and which bring international visitors and substantial revenue to local businesses. Such routes often attract visitors to stay in places they would not have otherwise visited as destinations.

Following some exchanges with members of Scottish Borders Council it became apparent that, apart perhaps from the Borders Historic Route which whizzes through from Langholm to Edinburgh taking in only three towns, no comparable tourism equivalent is on offer to showcase the Borders rich variety of landscapes, its charming and interesting towns and villages, and its short but most attractive coastline.

In October I put together a proposal for a ‘Cumbrian Coastal Tour’. This report suggested how this might help attract visitors in self-contained motorhomes and campervans away from the over-tourism of the Central Lakes, and bring revenue to Coastal Areas, in line with Cumbria’s own strategy for tourism.

The responses I have received from Lake District National Park, Cumbria County council, Tourism Cumbria, and a number of Borough Councils have been favourable and appreciative. These are now engaged in planning for motor caravan tourism for 2021 and have shown a willingness to engage with us going forward.

Inspired by this I have put together a proposal for a Scottish Borders Tour, a copy of which I attach. It is seen as a coherent framework around which to establish a network of overnight stopping places and service facilities for motor caravans.

I would encourage you to look at the analysis of Tourism Strategy in the report. The total absence nationally, regionally or locally of any joined up strategy for motor caravan tourism lies at the root of many of our problems.

I have laboured long on this, I hope you will give it due consideration; and please read also the attached ‘Strategy for Sustainable Motor Caravan Tourism in the UK’ to which it relates, and which describes self-contained motor caravans, their use and requirements in more detail, and the economic benefits to local business of a managed motor caravan tourism strategy.

I would very much appreciate it if you could copy this letter and attachments to any of your colleagues or council officers who you think may also have an interest in this proposal.>>


I would very much wish to ask you in your future promotions to take into account the Motor Caravan Tourism Sector, and ensure that the Authorities with which you work have a strategy to put in place the necessary infrastructure to support the numbers of Motorhomes, tent campers and caravanners that are likely to be attracted. We in CAMpRA are always willing to engage and offer whatever help we can to ensure the needs of our sector are taken into account, especially when it comes to Tourist routes.

Our routes have two main purposes. As in the case of Cumbria, one is to draw visitors completely away from overcrowded areas. The other is where there are existing strong attractors or heavily used routes passing through hotspots where visitors will inevitably go, we want to encourage a managed solution that better balances infrastructure with load, and uses the route to spread out any overflow along the route to less busy places in between. I was tempted to include some more out of the way roads and places that Mark thought would help with dispersal. However we were initially discouraged owing to the potential problems of attracting large vehicles through narrow minor roads and tiny villages. Less of a problem on single track roads which have been upgraded for forestry vehicles. Our primary purpose is to further the provision of Aires; the Tours give a comprehensible framework for a network of facilities, and are in themselves a marketable tourism product.

I apologise that perhaps our Reports are not quite up to the polished academic standards of your own publications, but all our work is done on a voluntary basis. Mark thought I was perhaps a little confrontational in my prose in this latest Report, perhaps born of some growing frustration which having studied our website he came round to thinking was somewhat justified. It did at least produce a greater number of favourable responses from councillors than we had received previously from more gentle wording, so I guess it achieved something. I hope you are not unduly offended by the comments I have made about the NC500.

In passing I would like to suggest that the motor caravan tourism sector in the UK would perhaps be a worthwhile thesis project for one of your students. There was such a thesis prepared by an Irish student which made a useful contribution to some of the thinking that went into the Wild Atlantic Way and provision of Aires in Northern Ireland and Eire.

Regards...
Grey Wanderer
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Re: Scottish Borders Tour

Post by Grey Wanderer »

Never got a reply.
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