Letters to the Editor ... Motorhomes 'wrong angle'

In the November 8 edition of the News I read with huge incredulity and not a little dismay at the outrage of the ’23 motor homes in one street!’ Whilst I wouldn’t ever wish that number of such vehicles to descend on any resident in any street in any small town, it’s hard not to feel that your writer - or perhaps more accurately the Cumbrae Community Council - is actually looking at this ‘problem’ from the wrong angle somewhat. It would have been a much better idea to ask ‘why?’ and ‘what can we do positively to address?’
A big problem for Cumbrae and more specifically Millport as a resort is that despite massive universal popularity the place is a disaster zone for touring caravan & motorhome visitors as it has zero facilities on offer to allow us to enjoy our stay there to the maximum. Reduced ferry fares have ironically exacerbated the Cumbrae ‘no go zone’ by now encouraging ever-increasing numbers of motorhomes to your little island. It gets worse….the truth is that rather than watching TV in our motorhomes, I hear tell that some of us may actually sneak out to partake of Cumbrae’s delights and - whisper it - ‘spend some money’. Shhhhh. One shudders at the thought…tourists flashing the cash in a holiday resort, whatever next?
It seems that well-heeled motorhome tourists are not very welcome in Cumbrae; as one of those involved in such pastimes I can tell you that this is completely obvious as we can plainly see there is an absence of facilities anywhere on the island - pitches with views, electric hookups or even free waste water disposal areas run by the council. Here’s the news community councillors - all of that and is available on most other forward-thinking Scottish islands you care to name. In truth Cumbrae is not a pleasant or wise place to venture to in a motorhome for a night or two or perhaps longer as put simply Cumbrae can’t handle us and from this article it appears doesn’t actually want to.
How sad….but hey let’s not fall out; my wife and I at least will continue to vote with our wheels and travel all over Scotland in our motorhome at weekends and happily blow our dough there - wherever ‘there’ is. We regularly throw caution to the wind and buck the ‘reduced-spend’ trend you give voice to but fail to show any substance. Unfortunately it feels there’s little to be had in us visiting Cumbrae merely to trouble business owners into counting more takings. For the benefit of your community council correspondent & anyone else who thinks tourists bringing their own accommodation have a ‘reduced spend’ I’d suggest they might want to recalibrate their thinking. I concur most motorhome owners do indeed bring food…but most likely only for breakfast. Once out for the day they’ll proceed to eat lunch, slurp ice cream, hire bikes, enjoy fish & chips and frequent the numerous excellent hostelries in the town…much the same as any other tourist really.
Should Cumbrae in an enlightened future be able to offer good quality overnight pitch accommodation & requisite facilities for motorhomes it would propel itself quickly into the 21st century of the ‘staycation’. Until then it’s sadly ruling motorhome owners out as visitors and passing up the chance to very easily take our money. I get it.
I do wonder if there is also such a negative opinion within the learned community council on the island of those who weekly visit their own static caravans. Do those caravanners somehow spend more money than a visiting motorhome couple or family? I doubt it, I just can’t see how there would be any difference. No matter…for now you’re plainly pushing motorhome owners away anyway so we’ll help you out by spending elsewhere.
One last thought – perhaps a ‘blue sky’ approach for the community council could be for them to consider how to accommodate 23 motorhomes in any one night by helping to drive the establishment of some motorhome facilities to help your wonderful little island to flourish further…now there’s a novel idea.