Caravan plan for Shetland isle

[trout]

BRITAIN'S most northerly caravan park, on the Shetland island of Unst, will open next year to help cater for a growing number of tourists. A £44,525 grant has helped fund the six-berth site in Uyeasound.

 

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1455652007

 

Some intriguing comments

[Frances144]

Yes. Very intriguing (that is one word for it!).

[Guest dabuoyfaedanort]

£44,000 fir a Caravan Site?

 

Whit are dey gy'aan ta spend aa dat on, aa you need fir a Caravan Site is a park we a bush dat you can ging aroond

[Evil Inky]

£44,000 fir a Caravan Site?

 

Whit are dey gy'aan ta spend aa dat on,

If the past is any guide:

 

£1,000 for a bit of tarmac

£3,000 for a toilet block

£40,000 stuffed into a briefcase, and handed over in the dead of night to a certain (**MOD EDIT - T&C's!! **)

 

[islandhopper]

£44,525 for a 6-berth caravan site ... I couldn't believe it ...

 

Therefor, I asked some of my former colleagues ...

 

For a hard stand caravan berth with seperately metered e-pitch and water tap and including access and 'just standard' to get building permission (lights, additional toiletts & showers, waste disposal point with seperated chemical and waste water disposal) it's just 8,75% more per berth than the planners do calculate over here ... and that might be due to the small number of berths (standard calculation figures here are based on a site of 20 berths what makes some fixed costs less important on a per berth ratio).

 

Surprise, surprise ...

[Ghostrider]

Charge folk any more than £10/day/berth and they'd be better off renting a self-catering house and leaving their caravan parked outside, 16 weeks season absolute max anyone with any wit will risk trying to live in a "holiday" type van round here. Late 2014 at the very earliest, assuming 16 weeks x 6 berth continous occupancy (which is absurdly optimistic), before break even.

 

Why??

[Tom]

I do always wonder how many tourists Unst can actually attract...

 

But was up at Saxa Vord this past week and the restaurant was fairly good - even if you have to wind around past the grimy old power plant to get to it (which is apparently a massive environmental problem).

[NewMagnie]

I can't remember the exact figure, but its thousands rather than hundreds. Pretty much every tourist that comes to Shetland wants to do the 'most northerly' thing and for birders and naturalists its a must-do.

 

As far as a caravan site in Uyeasound goes though, I'm not so sure. A camp site within striking distance of Hermaness would be useful but a caravan takes up a fair bit of ferry space (and consequent subsidy). Furthermore, caravans and campers that come up from South generally come fully provisioned. Hikers at least have to buy the odd spot of fodder.

 

Personally I'm not a fan of tourism as an industry and don't like public cash spent to support it. It requires huge amounts of subsidy even to figure in the economy, supports low paid, low skilled seasonal work and the bulk of any financial benefit goes to the transport carriers rather than the communities that entetain them.

 

A caravan park in Unst is good for internal tourism - statistically the largest sector and the most economically useful.

[bonna]

I agree with NewMagnie about tourism generally, but Unst is one of the very few bits of Shetland which actually can make a go of tourism.

 

I remember years ago going to Unst with a caravan, parking at da back o da Norwick beach, then having to leave when da RAF descended on the place to hold some kind of summer shennanigan. There weren't a lot of other places to park easily - we ended up at Heilerswater - a proper site anywhere would have been most welcome.....

[Rasmie]

A well constructed caravan site with tent sites as an offshoot could be a big attraction for our continental visitors. Having been in sites all over Europe I can see the attraction of having proper hard standing sites with power and water, as well as blocks with toilets, washing and cooking facilities. In Shetland some sort of fencing to act as wind-breaks. (I see few trees) I am sure that a larger site would bring in a lot of people from places such as Germany, Holland and Italy. People are actually coming North increasingly to escape the hot weather. Somewhere near our swimming pools would be ideal.

 

40 grand sound like money well spent to me. Hardly worth a mention when our councillors like to give away millions at a time

[Twerto]

40 grand is nothing in today terms, in the construction industry anyway..

[islandhopper]

... In Shetland some sort of fencing to act as wind-breaks. (I see few trees) I am sure that a larger site would bring in a lot of people from places such as Germany, Holland and Italy. People are actually coming North increasingly to escape the hot weather ...

 

Absolutely agreed ... although waiting until the trees and bushes are grown to produce some shelter might be a very long term investment ...

 

But there are other possiblities to offer some shelter. (Don't tell your Orcadian neighbours ) but one of my favourite 'outdoor' campsites over there is a hidden picknick place directly sitting on a beautifull beach. Imagine three compartments of a Bronce Age wheelhouse built in drystone walling into some kind of dunes. The two outer compartments are fitted with benches and tables, the middle compartment is empty. It looks like that it might serve for a fireplace, but there is none, its all fine sandy beach, ideal for my tent ... :-D and absolutely sheltered except a strong wind is coming from a northeasterly direction what doesn't happen that often in that area ...

 

2 or 3 semicircles each with three niches for tents would make a site sheltered from all directions ... and all you would see from a little distance would possibly look like a bigger planticrue ...

 

Well, for the caravans we would need some different kind of shelter ... but a few walls and gables looking like one or two 'partly ruined crofts' would absolutely be perfect. It would make a feature absolutely fitting to the countryside, nobody would see any camper. It would be an absolute "Aha effect", perfectly marketable. Two or three website articles and after two seasons it would be the "top secret tip" among continental campers ...

 

Folks comming over are interested in an unspoiled nature and heritage. Imagine what might happen when they do tell to the insidere circles "Have you ever camped on a ruined croft but perfectly fitted out to top standards?"

 

The interested "Scotland community" over here is small, the interested "Shetland community" is even smaller ... but different to other destinations: they are all repeaters ...