I seem to remember Scarborough were considering an "aire " type of arrangement in Seamer ...miles away from any of the attractions and people thought the idea great
You can bet your last dollar that anywhere else in the town became out of bounds another important distinction between the French attitudes and our own authorities
Thank goodness it didn't happen , like turkeys voting for Christmas
People couldn't see as far as that still some folk want to be parked up with 101 other people I don't ...and on that basis I would appreciate people winding their neck in asking for something others haven't been consulted on and total disregard for the consequences,
Channa
You may be right about an aire at Seamer but I don't know about that one. The ones I do have a memory about were to set up permitted overnight parking in five car parks under the jurisdiction of Scarborough Borough Council. One of them in Whitby. I, and others, were involved in the proposals.
Parking plans motor on - Whitby Gazette
It fell through because that decision, by full council is, under our democratic system, only a recommendation to the cabinet holder responsible for such matters. The original cabinet holder was Councillor Andrew Backhouse who, contradictorily publicly expressed his pleasure at the decision (or recommendation) while at the same time, according to emails obtained under the FoI, was proposing bans on motorhome overnight parking.
Andrew Backhouse owned, at that time, a caravan park which was, according to his register of interests, owned either by him or by his wife (at the time she was also a councillor) or by his parents. It has since been sold – I guess at a better price because of the motorhome restrictions.
His place as cabinet holder was taken by Councillor Penny Marsden whose first action was to decide on the recommendation made by the full council for a trial one year permitted overnight parking. She
thought that the recommendation
probably went against planning considerations and she refused the trial..
This, with other things, led to the eventual resignation of one SBC councillor and the passing of a motion of no confidence in Scarborough Council by Whitby Town Council. Andrew and Penny were both implicated in the double dipping expenses scandal. Both were alleged to have claimed duplicate allowances from the two councils they sat on. They got paid twice for the same thing.
You've made it obvious that you're one of those opposing the setting up of aire type facilities and you have a very good reason – two very good reasons. The first is that if the council set up an aire then it might then reasonably think that we should use it and, 2 – that those of us wishing to set up aires have no mandate from quarter of a million motorhomers to attempt to do so.
That's right. All attempts to set up cooperative organisations for advancing the nterests of motorhomers have failed. So you have to go your way of not rocking any boats but I have to go my way of promoting aires too.
My personal feeling is that the only way to balance our freedoms is to go the continental way and try for the setting up of airs. In every place where an aire has been set up – Canterbury, Lytham, Blackpool, North Devon and more (including Fleetwood?) it has been successful in that there are no complaints reported from any of those places. Whether all motorhomers would use the aires I've mentioned – well, I don't know. But most of us use aires abroad and pay lip service to the principle here.
I support the serting up of a cooperative organisation and obtain a collective mandate but attempts have always failed. John Thompson's motorhome tourism organisation was the best attempt but it failed – lack of support. As ever.
