6pm Cowboy
Free Member
Maybe not original but obviously not being done.
Question – What is Britain sadly missing ?
Answer – Aires.
Question – Is it worth trying to get them ?
Answer – Probably not. The cost of laying on sewage disposal etc would put any council off.
But that doesn’t mean we should do nothing. There are alternatives.
Just down the road from my house in a small Oxfordshire village is a small car park ( maybe 30 cars ). It sits on the banks of the river Thames with good fishing and pleasant walks along the towpath in both directions. 200 yards away is a nice pub that does good meals A market town is only 1 hours stroll along the river. It would make an ideal stopover for touring motorhomes ( and caravans – ducking ) but there is a hieght barrier and anti sleeping notice on the car park.
Scenes like this must be repeated all over the country. Useful / scenic / conveinient / economy boosting places that frequently sit empty overnight just because of some ‘pointless’ rule.
Equally there must be thousands of inner/outer city car parks, park and rides, detached lay byes, etc, etc, all over the country that could be allowed / converted to suitable tourist stopovers at ZERO cost to councils or whoever.
They would have none of the facilities of a proper campsite. They would not be considered wild camping by most people…. But they would, I suspect, be welcommed by many.
I have retirement creeping up on me and I need something to think about, something to do, and maybe a small cost covering income otherwise, motorhome or no, I am going to vegitate into a grumpy and even more insular old man.
So I am going to start a campaign to get some of these underutilised spaces turned into ‘authourised stopovers’ and produce a book / cd / poi for general use. It will take a while, and build up slowly but I thinnk it is a good long term project.
Fire away folks.
Question – What is Britain sadly missing ?
Answer – Aires.
Question – Is it worth trying to get them ?
Answer – Probably not. The cost of laying on sewage disposal etc would put any council off.
But that doesn’t mean we should do nothing. There are alternatives.
Just down the road from my house in a small Oxfordshire village is a small car park ( maybe 30 cars ). It sits on the banks of the river Thames with good fishing and pleasant walks along the towpath in both directions. 200 yards away is a nice pub that does good meals A market town is only 1 hours stroll along the river. It would make an ideal stopover for touring motorhomes ( and caravans – ducking ) but there is a hieght barrier and anti sleeping notice on the car park.
Scenes like this must be repeated all over the country. Useful / scenic / conveinient / economy boosting places that frequently sit empty overnight just because of some ‘pointless’ rule.
Equally there must be thousands of inner/outer city car parks, park and rides, detached lay byes, etc, etc, all over the country that could be allowed / converted to suitable tourist stopovers at ZERO cost to councils or whoever.
They would have none of the facilities of a proper campsite. They would not be considered wild camping by most people…. But they would, I suspect, be welcommed by many.
I have retirement creeping up on me and I need something to think about, something to do, and maybe a small cost covering income otherwise, motorhome or no, I am going to vegitate into a grumpy and even more insular old man.
So I am going to start a campaign to get some of these underutilised spaces turned into ‘authourised stopovers’ and produce a book / cd / poi for general use. It will take a while, and build up slowly but I thinnk it is a good long term project.
Fire away folks.