Aire - What is it worth?

Would you use an Aire at Lockerbie

  • Yes - Happy to pay

    Votes: 51 85.0%

  • Yes - NOT happy to pay

    Votes: 6 10.0%

  • No - I would NOT use it

    Votes: 3 5.0%
  • Total voters
    60
torwood

torwood

Full Member
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I have recently become involved with a community group looking to build a swimming pool at Lockerbie in south of Scotland. I am looking at options for income generation and am suggesting a purpose built service point and use of car park overnight. It would be possible, for a charge, to allow access to showers / toilets. Please vote in the pole.
  1. Would you use the facilities?
  2. What you would consider a reasonable cost for use of such a facility for overnight stops?
Thanks
Robert
 
Happy to use it and happy to pay, how much depends on facilities.
Earlier today a guy who has just bought a pub on the outskirts of York was spamming one of the other mh forums, it has since been deleted, but he wanted £10 without electricity, TOO much.
We regularly stay on a cl, with ehu included for £8.50 and they let me fly the paramotor out of an adjoining field.
 
£5/night for parking toilets, water, and waste disposal.

Hot Shower £1 on a coin slot

EHU on a coin meter if needed. No point offering EHU on an all in price. Some don't want it, and others take you for a ride leaving 2KW heating on all the time.
 
Firefox said:
£5/night for parking toilets, water, and waste disposal.

Hot Shower £1 on a coin slot

EHU on a coin meter if needed. No point offering EHU on an all in price. Some don't want it, and others take you for a ride leaving 2KW heating on all the time.
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Sounds about right to me.
 
I would be happy to pay a modest amount but may I suggest that you offer the parking for free and only charge for the services provided (say £2 - £3 for water/waste disposal; £1 for shower). That way you may get people also paying to use the swimming pool and presumably your main aim is to encourage use of that. This is a technique used on the continent for getting custom into a facility and if someone wants to simply park without using any facilities it has not cost you anything but it has publicised your facility (word of mouth is the best form of advertising). I wish you luck.

PS you might want to consider imposing a 24/48 hour maximum stay on the parking.
 
Last edited:
hi. parking free only pay if you use facilities . free to tip waste ,pound for water. if you want shower use the swimminmg pool pay what ever . if you want leccy tough .
seems i,m the only one that doesnt like paying .
 
Cost would depend on many things such as location, facilities offered. If it was just parking then a couple of pound up to a fiver, if there were water then this could be by a meter & you pay similar to the bornes on the French aires. Hot showers could also be on a pay meter, emptying waste & toilet should be free as having to pay for them no matter how small the amount there would always be people who would just empty anywhere rather than pay. Electricity should also be on a pay meter as there would always be some who would abuse it.Payment could be by tokens from the tourist info. or place close by to save them being robbed.
 
Locherbie would be a good location close to the main route north and south. Park for (say) 24 hrs for free pay £1 for showers, the going rate for the use of the swimming pool and say £2-3 for water, waste disposal and elsan emptying.
 
Tco said:
Locherbie would be a good location close to the main route north and south. Park for (say) 24 hrs for free pay £1 for showers, the going rate for the use of the swimming pool and say £2-3 for water, waste disposal and elsan emptying.
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This is how I feel about the costs

Keep up the good work, the more the merrier!!
 
What is it worth?

sounds great idea and good place to set up a site, i think same £5 ish, for toilets, water, parking and empting facilities, and £1 for showers, extra for lecci if required,
John
 
moggy

torwood said:
I have recently become involved with a community group looking to build a swimming pool at Lockerbie in south of Scotland. I am looking at options for income generation and am suggesting a purpose built service point and use of car park overnight. It would be possible, for a charge, to allow access to showers / toilets. Please vote in the pole.
  1. Would you use the facilities?
  2. What you would consider a reasonable cost for use of such a facility for overnight stops?
Thanks
Robert
Click to expand...

happy to use and pay
 
When we come up to scotland from redditch, we usually make our first night stopover at gretna so lockerbie would be ideal.

I don't have a problem paying a modest amount for ehu, water, waste disposal, and the consensus from previous posts seems to be to base charges on what the french charge on their aires which from what I have read seem fair. Personally I have not used any french aires yet but from what i have read posted on here it seems like we could do with a similar network like it in the uk.

With the amount of motorhomers holidaying in scotland an aire type stopover in lockerbie would be well used and would definitely pay its way.
 
There's a useful article by Vicarious Books with advice for anyone thinking of setting up a 'aire' type facility: How to construct and where to locate a motorhome Aire service point

Can't say I'm familiar with the area so don't know whether there is anything to attract visitors. Other than that it could be a useful rest stop just off the A74M but would need to be well signed.

Regarding charges, as far as I'm concerned it depends very much on the facilities provided, I wouldn't object to paying up to £5/night for a nice secure parking facility, I wouldn't be happy to pay that for just the corner of a car park.

Forget about electric, it would cost a lot to put in and you are not allowed to charge more than cost price so it would need to be metered or included in the parking fee.

You'd need to sound out the local authority about planning consent and a site licence, unless you limited it to 5 motorhomes at a time and went for an Exemption Certificate.

AndyC
 
AndyC said:
You'd need to sound out the local authority about planning consent and a site licence, unless you limited it to 5 motorhomes at a time and went for an Exemption Certificate.

AndyC
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Hi Torwood.

The Scotish Government can supply you with a list of exempted organisations that can issue a paragraph 5 exemption. Some require that only members use the site, others do not. Contact me if you need more info.

John
 
John thanks, all options are open at present as we are a few years away from fundraising and building a pool but I want to hopefully include something at the planning stages rather than as an afterthought but I need to persuade the rest of the trust that it is worth doing, encouraging visitors to use the pool is a definite aim.
 
Kontiki said:
...emptying waste & toilet should be free as having to pay for them no matter how small the amount there would always be people who would just empty anywhere rather than pay.
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Thanks Kontiki I would be keen to see waste disposal as free as I want to encourage responsible waste disposal.
 
There seem to be a lot of posts saying 'free to park but charge for water, EHU, showers etc.' and I think that's probably the best way to go. Waste disposal really does need to be free as Kontiki said.
 
DO NOT make it free parking, there are Numpties in Motorhomes who will stay for a week if it is free and spoil it for others, so a fiver a night seems reasonable to me, services, water £1 for 100 ltrs, toilet empty £1, don't make the services free or the Numpties will just pull in and fill up with water and dump their toilet waste and rubbish and then drive off, I have seen this SO many times on Aires and even seen people wash their vans with a hose if free water. Just my opinion.:D:D
 
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