Skiers won’t be the only people amazed at Natural Retreats’ announcement that they were – after consultation with public agencies but NOT the public – going to introduce car parking charges at Cairngorm last week.    While the basic £2 charge adds insult to the injury done to skiers at Cairngorm by Natural Retreats’ last winter – the queues, the blocked ski road etc resulted in Cairngorm’s smallest ever share of the ski market (see here) – campervanners will be gobsmacked by the £8 charge they face.

The explanation for this £8 charge can probably be found lower down in Glenmore where the Forestry Commission has an £8 charge for minibuses at its carparks.  Natural Retreats seems to have used the FCS as a benchmark for charging but, instead of treating campervans as cars, decided to change them the same as minibuses!  An attempt to fleece one of the more affluent segments of the tourism market.

This post takes a look at what’s driving the charges and where the money raised is likely to end up.

The alleged justification for the car parking charges

According to Natural Retreats’ News Release the justification for compulsory car parking charges is that there is a large deficit in the costs of maintaining the car parks at present,  the voluntary donations scheme has not worked and the money will be re-invested in improving the car parks and associated facilities at some point in the future.  All these claims are highly questionable.

First, its not clear that Natural Retreats has invested anything in the car parks to date, apart from emergency repairs, and the consequence of this lack of investment is of course that they are in a poor state – which may help explain why only 1 in 20 pay the voluntary charge.   Why pay to park on pot holes and on what are terrible eyesores?   However, rather than bringing the car parks – and it appears both the Coire Cas and Coire na Ciste car parks are included in these charges – up to a decent standard first, Natural Retreats is going to charge driivers and then, perhaps, do something to improve the area.  Its important to recall that when HIE announced the appointment of Natural Retreats to Cairngorm they were to bring what was alleged to be much needed private sector investment.   This is another example of Natural Retreats taking the money first – whether they will actually then invest anything remains to be seen.

HIE’s lease with Cairngorm Mountain Ltd, the company they sold to the Natural Retreats group of companies, requires Cairngorm Mountain to keep all the “Premises” in a “good and substantial condition” and “premises” is defined to include both car parks:

So, why has HIE not enforced the terms of its lease and forced Natural Retreats to keep the car parks in a fit and proper state in the four years that they have had the contract to run Cairngorm?

Second, the lease includes what is known as “Service Levels”, and this has a section on car parking which includes HIE’s expectations in terms of revenue to be raised through car parking charges – £15,000 a year:

 

Now, according to Natural Retreats’ News Release there are 220,000 visitors to the Cairngorm car park each year.    If this is right, visitor numbers appear to have halved in the two years since the Cairngorms National Park Authority produced its Glenmore and Cairngorm Strategy – cause in itself for HIE to terminate their lease with Natural Retreats:

 

Assuming Natural Retreats’ figures are right and there are now only 200,000 visitors  to the car park and assuming on average there are three to a vehicle that would make c.65,000 vehicles.  If 1 in 20 pay the voluntary charge that makes 3250 a year pay the £2 charge bringing in  £6,500 in income.  If however the CNPA figures are correct it would be double that and Natural Retreats would have been receiving £13,000 a year or almost the £15,000 that HIE set them to collect.  The first question HIE need to answer is how much of that money has been spent on the carparks since Natural Retreats took over?  The second is  how Natural Retreats is going to spend the money it will collect from these new charges?  By my reckoning that should be at least £150k in extra income in return for vague promises of future investment.

The problem here is twofold.  First is that HIE is refusing to divulge where all the money at Cairngorm is going – their Chief Executive has told me the relationship between Cairngorm Mountain and Natural Retreats is commercially confidential and confirmed that they have never looked at what Natural Retreats (now in the form of the UK Great Travel Company)  is charging for its services at Cairngorm.  The suspicion therefore is that this is yet more money that will be sucked out of Cairngorm and the local economy.  The second is that there is still NO masterplan at Cairngorm, as promised by HIE and Natural Retreats to the CNPA as part of the Glenmore and Cairngorm Strategy.  Until there is complete transparency on what is happening at Cairngorm and a plan for the whole mountain which has been properly consulted on these charges should be opposed.

What needs to happen

The carparks at Cairngorm have  not been fit for purpose for years.   They are far too large, the landscaping is non-existing – there are opportunities to plant native trees to reduce the landscape impact – and the associated facilities poor.  HIE and Natural Retreats should have been addressing issues like this before chucking £1.5m at their ill considered dry ski slope but neither has done so which is why I believe both ownership and management of Cairngorm needs to be transferred to the local community.

There is a place for car parking charges but facilities need to come first.  £8 might be fine for a campervan staying overnight if there were electric hook ups, 24 hour toilets and a chemical disposal point.  In green terms, car parking charges could be also used to help get better public transport locally avoiding the need for cars.   There is no firm commitment or plans however to make things happen.  Investment should precede charges.