Aire's in the UK ?

Motorhomes are designed to be self sufficient for many days.  They do not need the convienient services that a touring caravan requires. In Italy most Autoroute service areas had clearly marked "Camper Dump Points" from the highway.  Long distance coaches also used these facilities. I have also encountered them in Spain and France.  I do not know of one in any UK Motorway service area.

Norway also has dump points dotted around the country, they are even marked on tourist maps. Many are available in garages.

Has anyone stayed on the newly created overnight parking at the Lytham St Annes? Any feedback welcomed. I see two more councils are to create facilities. 

Tendring Borough Council in Essex and Malvern Hills District Council in Worcestershire now have plans to allow motorhomes to stay overnight in designated car parks.

Tendring DC are planning an experimental scheme at one car park, if it is a success they hope to extend it to others in their area. 

Malvern Hills DC have now approved motorhome stopovers in the Hanley Road Car Park in Upton upon Severn, the facility will be introduced as soon as the Parking Orders have been amended. They also plan to install a water tap, toilet waste disposal facility, and picnic benches.

peedee

Motorhomes are designed to be self sufficient for many days.  They do not need the convienient services that a touring caravan requires. In Italy most Autoroute service areas had clearly marked "Camper Dump Points" from the highway.  Long distance coaches also used these facilities. I have also encountered them in Spain and France.  I do not know of one in any UK Motorway service area.

Norway also has dump points dotted around the country, they are even marked on tourist maps. Many are available in garages.

Has anyone stayed on the newly created overnight parking at the Lytham St Annes? Any feedback welcomed. I see two more councils are to create facilities. 

Tendring Borough Council in Essex and Malvern Hills District Council in Worcestershire now have plans to allow motorhomes to stay overnight in designated car parks.

Tendring DC are planning an experimental scheme at one car park, if it is a success they hope to extend it to others in their area. 

Malvern Hills DC have now approved motorhome stopovers in the Hanley Road Car Park in Upton upon Severn, the facility will be introduced as soon as the Parking Orders have been amended. They also plan to install a water tap, toilet waste disposal facility, and picnic benches.

peedee

Write your comments here...wonderful news, about time,

( but will the travellers/gypsies  take them over?) is this maybe why councils have been so reluctant in the past 

I haven't read through all of this thread has anyone mentioned The Nightstop Network in connection with Practical Motorhome? It's a county by county guide for stopovers in Pub and Hotel car parks http://tinyurl.com/333lmud. (Or look in the magazine which updates these sites each month.)

France is a massive country, land is very cheap and villages everywhere are suffering from rural flight as young people go of to university and never return. The French don't have aires out of altruism but to help their villages survive and the baker stay open.

France is also much more of a holiday destination for many other nationalities, Germans, Dutch, Italians and British.

I notice that someone has trotted out the old chestnut about how British aires would encourage Europeans to come to the U.K.

This is utter nonsense I'm afraid. Motorhomers who use aires are a tiny minority as most still prefer sites. I'm currently in Quiberon on a superb municipal site and there are only two aires nearby but many more sites, each containing more motorhomers than both aires added together.

Dutch and Germans go to France and Spain for one main reason, the weather. Why go north to the UK when you can go south to France or Spain?

I used an aire a few days ago outside of a village in northern Brittany. We had to go inland as we went to two aires on the coast and they were jam-packed full! Very frustrating!

The inland village aire was a large piece of land and had three 'vans on it but it actually made me think what a plot of land that size would have been worth outside York or Bristol. In France it is peanuts. My friend bought a farm in Lot et Garonne for the price of a British semi and it came with 17 acres!

To provide aires in Britain is a non-starter. Land is too expensive, we don't have villages desperate for a bit of extra business and we certainly will never have hordes of Continentals rushing on to our shores just because we have a few aires.

On the other hand we have the fantastic CL network, which they don't have in other countries.

Vive les CLs!You are so right about land in GB (and other priorities for local councils.)

FandGW

you are wrong on so many points! Yes some people go on holiday for the weather but others prefer to experience new places and are not concerned with the weather. Why would the Germans go to france if the weather was the only factor as their weather is usually equivilant! In my experience motorhomes do not choose sites in preference to aires when both are available.

If it was purely an issue of land value you would not find Aires and stellplatz in heavily populated/ popular tourist areas and especially in cities which many are.

There are lots of towns and villages that would benefit from extra visitors  and that have existing facilities that are underused which would make exellent aires. For example in Scarborough there is always some parking on Marine Drive even in the height of summer and then we also have the two park and rides which are generally underused. These have toilet facilities so could be easily adapted for motorhomers to empty facilities, they have CCTV for security - allowing motorhomers to use these overnight would encourage more people to come here and because they were already parking there they would almost inevitably use the park and ride bus to access the other areas of the town.

It is time the club sat up and took notice and realised that there are more and more motorhomers in its ranks and it needs to start both providing facilities and working with local authorities to provide the facilities that motorhomes need.

These are hard times for local councils, provision for motorhomers would be way down on their priority lists.Yes it would be great to have facilities everywhere but in many places where these have been provided they've been withdrawn because motorhomers outstay their welcome. I suspect there are different factions of motorhomers with different ideas about how they use their vehicles not everyone hankers after overnight stops everywhere as they don't travel the great distances that some do. Anyway I feel lucky, it's fun having a motorhome!

The point is that many councils have facilities that could easily be used WITHOUT spending any money. In many towns there are underused park and ride parking which would be perfectly adequate. In scarborough there is even a municple elsan point which could be made more of.

Bringing in more visitors would increase revenue for little or no outlay and thus ease the "hard times"

More and more of the well know establishments are been cut with requests for more and more volunteers, the Police and the NHS, I'm sure it will only be a few years before the St Johns Ambulance and Red Cross take over, but the Olympics were good.  Rule Brittania

One of our local park and rides was invaded recently by the travelling community. The park and ride has only just been re-opened, there are always security problems to consider, maybe some parts of the country are less vulnerable to mis-use?