There is a case for using car park charges as an income stream to invest in visitor infrastructure and also to encourage people to visit by public transport, but that is not what is happening in the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park. Instead, our public authorities have embarked on an unprincipled free-for-all extortion racket which will have plenty of adverse consequences, not least for the National Park’s reputation.
On the west side of Loch Lomond, the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) has made no attempt to challenge Argyll and Bute’s charges at the Cobbler car park or defend the rights of walkers (see here). Nor has it challenged the record number of parking fines Argyll and Bute Council imposed last summer (see below), just when people needed to get out in the National Park as never before.
Now the LLTNPA is considering two planning applications to install Automated Number Plate Recognition cameras on the car parks that it (or rather we, the people of Scotland) own at Tarbet and Inveruglas. These applications provide no explanation of the rationale for the cameras, how they fit with the wider visitor management context (clue, there is no plan), how much the LLTNPA intends to charge or any consideration of the consequences. These are all reasons to be very concerned.
The Planning Applications
It is four and a half years since the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority issued a tender for the installation of Automatic Number Plate Recognition systems for the car parks it owns at Milarrochy Bay, Inveruglas and Tarbet (see here). There is no planning application for Milarrochy, on the east shore of Loch Lomond, and the proposals there would appear to have been dropped – for the time being at least.
Although it owns the land, rather than be seen to be making a planning application to itself – which raises obvious conflicts of interest – the LLTNPA has got “Parking Eye”, a company based in Chorley, to make the application. The applications, were submitted on 12th January and validated on 10th February. Both are scanty, providing little justification for the proposed developments and the one for Inveruglas (see here) is not fit for purpose:
While the Design Statement states wrongly that the land is owned by Argyll and Bute Council, in the Land Ownership certificate which forms part of the Planning Application form Parking Eye state they have served notice on Scottish and Southern Energy as owners.
SSE own the power station opposite but no part of the application extends onto SSE land.
The rationale for both Planning Applications is contained in a single sentence:
“The proposal seeks to provide management of the existing car park to reduce car park abuse and ensure that spaces are available for genuine site users”
What is meant by reducing “abuse” is the Automated Number Plate Recognition system will prevent anyone who is not authorised from being able to stop off in the car parks, even for a couple of minutes, without being charged. The idea of car parks as a public service, necessary to assist people to enjoy the countryside, has completely disappeared. Instead, only those prepared to pay are portrayed as “genuine site users”.
Some of the potential adverse consequences have been pointed out by local people who have objected to the application at Tarbet (where currently there are no car park charges):
- The car park is used by parents dropping children off at Arrochar Primary School as its the safest place to stop off
- The car park is used by people to launch boats at the public slipway who now risk paying twice for being able to enjoy the loch
The LLTNPA has previously discussed a system which would allow local people to be exempt from car parking charges, which might deal with the issues of the school run. Other consequences, however, are less easy to address without a proper visitor management plan that covers the whole area:
- There are toilets at both Tarbet and Inveruglas, an essential facility for people travelling north, whether tourists or not, and car parking charges will inevitably deter people from using them. That will either drive visitors elsewhere or encourage more to go in the outdoors, potentially creating pollution.
- The car park at Tarbet is currently a popular overnight stopping off point for campervans and free, unlike the car park at Inveruglas, where the LLTNPA has mis-used the camping byelaws to create a campervan permit area (see here). Without additional facilities to justify the charges – for example toilets left open overnight, charging points – campervans are likely to resent the charges and move elsewhere to the detriment of local residents. For example, there have been complaints from neighbours disturbed by campervans stopping off overnight at the Slanje restaurant car park in Tarbet.
- There will also be serious consequences for the general tourist who currently want to stops off at a number of places just to have a look around and enjoy the scenery. Are they to be charged each time they do so? If so, what will that do to the reputation of the National Park as a tourist destination?
The potential for the LLTNPA to address these issues in a rational way (for example a £3 day pass that allowed visitors access to all the car parks run by Public Authorities in the National Park) has been greatly reduced by the decision to outsource responsibility for collecting the charges. The issue is well put by one of the objectors:
“All too often organisations that own, or are responsible for the land on which the car park is located, take no responsibility for the conduct of the Parking management company that the contract, or any parking fines or disputes.Given that this car park is central to the local community in Arrochar and Tarbet, and the responsibility LLTNPA has for local communities, a condition of this planning application should be that LLTNPA remains accountable for the actions of the Parking Management provider and takes an active role in resolving issues with local residents”.
It is difficult to see how a company whose income is likely to be entirely dependent on the collection of charges could in future have any incentive to modify its contract with the LLTNPA to take account of the wider public interest.
Added to this the local communities in Tarbet and Arrochar at present face severe economic and social challenges (e.g through the closure of Shearings and the Tarbet Hotel) but despite this the LLTNPA has decided to uutsource collection of charges to a company based in Chorley. This completely disregards its statutory duty to support local communities in the National Park.
Why is the car park charging system being installed now?
Last year I had half wondered whether, after four years, the LLTNPA had finally seen sense and dropped its idea of trying to use car park charges as a revenue stream. But that was before Argyll and Bute Council showed how much could be raised through the “management” of car parking:
The Committee Report (see here) reveals just how much money Argyll and Bute is extracting from visitors to the Loch Lomond area. While income from car parks in Quarter 2 at £74,169 was only 50% of target, this was more than compensated by a 380% increase in parking penalty notices. At £60 a time, the 2301 parking notices in quarter 2 would have raised £138,060. Almost all of this was raised at Luss and Arrochar: that was on top of the £64,143 raised from car park charges in these locations. Effectively, Argyll and Bute appears to have raised just £200k in one quarter from two visitor hotspots in the National Park.
While the levels weren’t quite as high, at the LLTNPA Board in December it was reported that 1378 parking fines had been issued in the Stirlingshire part of the National Park last year (see here).
Taken together, it would be not unreasonable to assume that in the course of the year, 2020-21, the two Councils may between them have issued a staggering 5,000 parking fines within the National Park raising in the order of £300,000. All these fines would appear to have been issued to people who simply wanted to go for a walk in the countryside, in places where car parking infrastructure is inadequate and public transport often non-existent. Neither Council appears to have re-invested any of the money they have extracted from visitors in remedying infrastructure deficits. It could have been used to leverage even more money from the Rural Tourism Infrastructure Fund (a £300k contribution would trigger release of more than twice that sum from the fund).
The impact of all these charges and fines on the reputation of the National Park should not be underestimated. If there are an average of 2.5 people per car that means there are 12,500 people who have been penalised through fines alone. Over a 5 year period – and its reasonable to expect even higher numbers next summer – over 60,000 will have been fined, a dreadful advert for Scotland’s first National Park. Anyone who has tried to avoid the extortionate charges at the Arrochar car park and then been fined for parking elsewhere is likely to have been left with a very sour taste in their mouth.
What needs to happen?
All of this points to the need for a coherent transport plan for the National Park as a whole aimed at supporting, not penalising visitor. The long awaited Outdoor Recreation Plan (see here) could potentially provide a framework for this. However, as I have argued before, we also need more detailed area visitor management plans within the National Park, such as those that were developed for east Loch Lomond and the Trossachs before being abandoned when Gordon Watson was appointed Chief Executive.
A plan for West Loch Lomond would look at how to support the “Visitor Experience” – a fine is the last thing anyone wants to experience – at Duck Bay, Luss, Firkin Point, Tarbet, Inveruglas, Arrochar, Ardgarten etc, including how to meet demand for parking and developing public transport alternatives. Instead, what we have is our Public Authorities doing their own thing and without any regard for the public interest.
The LLTNPA should have seized the opportunity offered by Luss Estates putting the car park at the head of Loch Long for sale (see here) to support a community buy-out for a fair price (Luss Estate are asking an immoral £150k for a site plagued with issues, from the rubbish along the shore to invasive plants). Instead, they appear more interested in feathering their own nest.
The reason the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park was created was to avoid this sort of free of all and ensure better co-ordination between public authorities, landowners and other stakeholders. Instead of delivering what it was set up to do, the LLTNPA has proved incapable of getting people to work together. Now it is actively adding to the problems by pushing ahead with initiatives like these planning applications without consideration of the wider public interest or how it could support the local community.
I am in favour of National Parks because of the power of the concept. People understand that National Parks should be different, that they are areas where the natural environment should come first but also areas which people should be supported to enjoy. Sadly, the LLTNPA, Scotland’s first National Park, has consistently failed to deliver those ideals. That doesn’t mean National Parks are bad, but it does mean that its time for an independent review that looks at the many failings of the LLTNPA and how these should be put right.
If you want to comment on the applications you can do so here for Inveruglas and here for Tarbet. If you do so, you could include the following points:
- that it is very wrong for the LLTNPA to be proceeding with these applications without a wider plan for the area (this is technically not a valid reason for objecting to the application but is a point that needs to be made);
- that the LLTNPA should explains the proposed charging regime and produce a full assessment of the implications BEFORE the applications are considered further;
- that because of their significant implications and the conflict of interest, with the LLTNPA effectively deciding its own planning applications, both should be decided by the full Planning Committee rather than by officers.
NB the statutory consultation period ends on 11th March but the LLTNPA usually accepts objections up to the point the Planning Report has been finalised.
As you say, completely the wrong way to look at this. No surprise that Argyll & Bute Council is controlled by a strong Lib Dem/Conservative alliance – and LLTNPA run by a chief exec with strong Tory alignment. Here in the Borders (where SNP and Labour dominate) council car parks are mostly free – and delibertly so. They tried to introduce charging with strong local backlash – primarily because of the impact it was anticipated to have on visitors to the area. So they stopped. There are still some weekend trials but they’re also planned to stop.
It’s not rocket science. If you want to encourage use of the countryside (see LLTNPA charter) then charging a hefty amount for parking is a key way to NOT do this.
Of course this is short sighted. Opportunistic concepts inflicted by elected local councilors on advice of appointed officials and employing third parties at vast expense. Authorities that inflict such ‘penalties’ on the general public, and yet fail to address the real reasons a visitor, may be attracted to any locality during recreation, fail their duty. Everyone can see Local authorities do have huge annual revenues in proportion almost exactly to potential visitor spend already: every business that operates from premises registered within the National parks delivers regional revenue through rates. The Scottish Assessors department ( when and if it ever gets around to actually working again after over lengthy Covid-19 furlough ? ) does provide each authority with the mechanism to recoup rateable valuation duty via rates. Of course a revaluation process across Scotland is very overdue, everyone could see that.
Local authorities may set this “poundage” each year. So if the district assessor process could be made to work properly , the RV for every property might be revisited, false assumptions about every premises challenged and annual bands reset. Regions also accrue grant funding drawn from the ‘road fund’ duty disbursed through the transport department, with which to pay for annual highway, and public park maintenance and improvements. The General public already fund all of this for every location.
Where the regional spend policy breaks down will be the vast and rising inept overspend regularly reported eg: Council officers expenses, severance payments, legal disputes within all functions, failures to collect council taxes and of course the endless – and far too often misdirected consultations which spew out “mountains” of paper reports and documents, at great cost, a deluge which few ever actually have time to study fully.
As usual, the Scots voter could spot this failure. Must they always suffer the delusions of distracted, temporary authority figures, the very ones the electorate is said – somehow – to favour?
I seem to recall that parking eye were ditched by the Lake District National Park Authority in 2012 after bad publicity. The deal appeared to be that the Park Authority got the car park revenue but parking eye got the money from swift payment of fines. At the time it was said in a local paper that the company made the best part of half a million pounds from this, though I’m not sure over what period. Needless to say there were a lot of fines. If its the same deal in LLTNP you can no doubt expect aggressive enforcement.
Thanks for the lead Andy, this is incredible (see here)
Thanks Nick. Some of this even made it onto Martin Lewis Money Expert web page
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4680865/hawkshead-parking-eye-charge
You would hope that LLTNPA would ask about what sort of experience parking eye have with working with NPs and on rural car parks or that the NPAs with similar issues might even talk to each other.
Give me the Lake District to the LLTNP any time The Lake District is run far superior
There is more than just tourism to consider. If I was working in the area I would usually buy my lunch from the shop in Luss, but when LLTPA made the car park there pay and display with a hefty minimum charge which more or less doubled the cost of my lunch I made other arrangements. I don’t suppose my contribution was missed in a good summer, but I wasn’t about to find out the charging start and end dates for any given year so just stopped going in the winter as well.
For all users it is precisely when the decision is marginal due to weather or season that parking charges will have the maximum deterrent effect which is the time when local businesses most need the trade.
The fact that you have to pay to park and use the public toilets is just wrong and will have obvious unpleasant consequences.
There is no doubt as a visitor that areas which give the impression they are only interested in your money do not feel welcoming and I avoid them. Just another reason to go anywhere in Scotland outside the LLTPA area.
i paid to park in the car park at Luss ,, entered my reg number put the ticket on the car and went for a meal in the local restaurant,, it took a little longer than i expected to be for reasons outwith my control, but just received a parking notice. there was only my car in the parking lot and this fine probably explains why.. this will kill tourism in the Luss area . is that really what they want to achieve.. i live not too far from there and eat and visit and shop in the village regularly. I for one wont be back.
We took our granddaughter to the Faerie Trail at Luss and got a £60 fine for being overtime. Took 10 minutes to get ticket as 1st machine was out of order and 2nd one not obvious behind the Faerie Trail caravan.
Was advised 3 hours would be enough and duly paid. Various things such granddaughter being tired and hungry at end of Trail so spending money in Luss took us over the 3 hours from ENTERING and LEAVING the car park.
Spoiled a good day out. Granddaughter loved Trail but will not be parking there again and tempted to follow a lot of other people’s example of ignoring the no entry signs and parking in the village.
We had the exact same experience – as visitors to the area with 2 small children and only one working machine, it took my wife 20 mins to get a ticket – we had assumed it was pay and display – but no, when we got back home a PCN was waiting for us, with time stamped entry and exit – The appeal has been rejected (no surprises) – We feel disgusted, this is akin to racketeering! parkingeye shame on you.
Well said.
The Council should be applying common sense to encourage people to visit Arrochar.
I had a £60 fine for just entering the car park and to check my tyre pressure as my car’s loss of pressure alert came on. The only garage in Luss didn’t have any air facilities ( pretty dire really) and the only “safe” place to check was this car park.
To say I am disgusted is an understatement…will never be back to this area and feel sorry for the locals too.
The robbing bar stewards have also hit me with a £60 fine for being slightly over the 1 hour parking limit at the south car park. I, too, won’t be back.
Please do something. I live in Surrey and we’ve just returned from visiting Fort William and toured around Loch Lomond. We had a wonderful time, until we got a fine!
I have just received the £100 penalty notice from ParkingEye for staying 11 minutes over our time (we had paid for 2 hrs) in Luss, Main Road. G83 8NY.
A few points:
1) The car park is too expensive.
2) It asks you to pay online via mobile – but mobile phone signal (o2) in the area is very weak.
As far as I can tell there is just one ticket machine, which we used.
3) You have to determine the length of time you stay in advance. The Council, assuming they wish to encourage local trade, should make it pay on exit (so people can relax and just pay for what they use at the end).
With the current system, you have to rush back to the car park, to ensure we got out on time. We couldn’t really relax or walk around at leisure. We avoided buying lunch, as had no idea if we would make it back in time.
However, we missed the deadline by 11 minutes.
This has left a very bad taste in our mouths. There were spaces on side roads, but we deliberately didn’t go into the village, as we saw the signs urging visitors to use official car parks. We tried to do the right thing.
I urge the local council and landowner to consider ditching ParkingEye. They are complete crooks. They need to set up a much fairer way of managing parking in this area.
We also received a £100/£60 penalty notice. We bought a 2 hour ticket and overstayed for 19 minutes. As I remember, the parking charge was quite expensive to start with — had it been cheaper we would probably have stayed longer in the town. I understand the need to levy fines, but I feel an amount of around £20 would be more appropriate as a penalty fine, or perhaps the management company could be more generous and allow visitors 30 minutes’ leeway before handing out penalty notices.
We have just received a penalty notice from our visit to Luss last week.
We parked the car park with cctv and you pay when you leave. We specifically asked at the mobile drinks and snacks kiosk what to do before walking into the village.
On our return my wife keyed in our registration number and paid cash (she thinks it was about £1.60) for 1 hour and 32 minutes.
We spent an hour and a half in the village and spent almost £100 so do they think for one second we would withhold approx £1.60 for parking.
We paid 100%.
I have appealed against it, we will see what happens. If I have to pay I will never go back.
Local businesses should be reading the riot act about this greed affecting their livelihoods.
Same thing happened to us. (11th July) I have also appealed and just recieved a rejection. It specifically says to pay when you leave on the sign, yet when you go to the machine to pay, when you put in money it goes to the future time like a pay and display.
I put in for two hours because I thought that was how long, but apparently it was just over. The time we spent trying to with out the parking cost us.
Has anyone had any success with appealing to POPLA or the ombudsman? I’ve also been looking for a photo of the car park sign, because I remember it was really unclear and seemed to say that you had to pay when you left.
The Lake District National Park terminated their contract with Parking Eye, who manage this car park on behalf of Luss Estates almost 9 years ago because of customer feedback https://www.thewestmorlandgazette.co.uk/news/10103794.lake-district-national-park-authority-ditches-parking-eye-at-car-parks/. Why the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority did not advise Luss Estates of the likely consequence to their reputation of using them is not clear. There is an old but good article on dealing with Parking Eye It says you should also contact the owner of the car park and I have heard from another reader that having contacted Luss Estates in similar circumstances they have now been promised a refund.
I too have been the victim of this company. I drove in to the car park to get details of the Faerie Trail. The person manning the silver airstream was busy so I found details on a noticeboard, decided it wasn’t for me and drove out. This Parking Charge Notice situation needs addressing as too many people seem to fall victim. So when does parking begin? How can you be charged for parking when you are still driving to find a space? Something doesn’t seem quite right when so many visitors are failing victim. As someone has already said, why not adopt a system where you pay on the way out and that way the visitor needn’t panic about overstaying. Of course, that way the company wouldn’t need to send out Parking Charge Notices, but then it wouldn’t bring in the required revenue to pay for the infrastructure! It would, however, drastically improve visitor impressions. Do the local officials ever read the reviews of the visitors, if not then they should as the reputation of the area is definitely not looking good for the tourist industry.
On entering the car park your vehicle registration is captured by ANPR, from the moment you enter you have 10 minutes grace to absorb the terms ( particularly the small print) and exit ( also recorded on ANPR) don’t overstay beyond 10 minutes you will be charged £60 if you pay up within 14 days. £100 pounds if you go through the two appeal processes and are unsuccessful. They don’t state anything clearly on the signage, to do it clearly would effectively put themselves out of business. Parking Eye exploit the public continuously without check. Won’t be going back to Luss or Scotland for that matter.
We got a £100/£60 fine in Luss Main Road car park but it was due to my husband’s stupidity of entering the registration number the wrong way round. He put in WOP instead of WPO. We appealed as we still had the ticket & it was dropped to £20. Fair enough, it WAS his own fault. We have since changed to a private plate now so hopefully it won’t happen again
Beware. We didn’t see any signs in November 2021 either on entry or on exit.
The car park at Arrochar South is widely touted on the web as being FREE.
Google earth street view (Oct 2021 images apparently) show no signage.
We would have bought a one hour ticket if we had seen the signs, so guess by the stories in this thread we should be thankful that we saved the ticket price by ”paying on exit ‘ to the parking aye. Shame on you Arrochar.
All that will happen with very high parking charges is less people come to the area, and spend less in the shops meaning shops closings and higher unemployment in the area.
Most of these car parks are very small and mean that there is no were for visitors to park.
It is a poor welcome to Scotland and means that I will never visit these places. As they are just too expensive to come and visit.
So I will not spend in that area. All it is, is highway robbery without wearing the mask, and gun in hand.
And now with that people health will get worse with lack of exercise. increasing hospital cost.
So you money grabbing just end up costing you more in other areas.
Victim of this facist system for having a family diner last friday from 8 to 11 PM . Our travel in Luss from france will be long remembering not for your landscapes but for what I call piratry.