WE ALL NEED TO SIGN THIS PETITION

[size=36]Compel councils to provide Aires within their towns for the use of Motorhomes and Caravans - Get friends and family to sign please[/size]
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Thank you

No personal offence intended of course, but why is this one likely to succeed when all the many previous ones have been totally ignored?

Or more likely, clobbered by the power of the two major caravan clubs and all the independent sites, none of whom will be at all keen to see a network of aires taking away their revenue.

Would they be used very much anyway I wonder, apart from the freeloaders who want something for nothing (and we've all met a few of them on French aires - arriving late and scarpering early to avoid paying the man a couple of Euros!!). Most journeys in the UK can be made in a day. It's not like France where it can take a leisurely 3 or 4 days to traverse the country en route to a destination, when aires are very useful for an overnight stop.

It's an interesting debate, but it all hinges around the question, "What's in it for them?" Regrettably I think the answer is "Not enough!" With Health and Safety ruling the roost in the UK, it would cost a small fortune to establish and maintain an aire of an acceptable standard, and local councils are already suffering from years of cumulative cutbacks. Again it's not like France, where they frequently seem to ignore "Health and Safety" when it suits them! In the UK someone would have to be employed to collect the fees and clean the dump points etc., and local councils would need to be convinced that there was still a healthy profit in it for them - directly or indirectly. I can't see how there could be in many, if not most cases.

Dave

I agree with lots of these online petitions, but the fact is that they are trivially easy for people to sign up to and, unfortunately, trivially easy for our elected representatives to ignore.

As Gromit says, there is not enough political gain in it for them and there won't be the money to buy the land, surface it, install facilities and staff it so... irrespective of how many people sign, it won't happen!

This might be of interest. 711 Pub stops well scattered across the country.

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All they ask is that you have a meal or buy a few drinks, then they let you stay overnight for free. (Best to phone in advance and ask if it's necessary to book a table. They do get the occasional cheapskate who expects to stay overnight, use their facilities and spend nothing in the pub. Too many of those and the scheme will soon die the death!!)

I reckon that gives you a pub supper for £5 each - effectively. Pub grub for two is (say) £30. A campsite is no less than £20 these days. So that means two meals for a tenner, and no washing up!!

Downloadable as a .kml file for use with Maps.Me, or convertible to a .csv or .ov2 file for the satnav.

Perhaps we have a network of aires already in place?

Dave

Gromit wrote:This might be of interest. 711 Pub stops well scattered across the country.

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Thanks for the link, Gromit...Rather like Britstops, but without the fee? 

I think the problem we have in this country is the dislike of motorhomes and caravans, perhaps more so caravans, therefore each local authority will take this into account to satisfy the majority of it's tax payers.

If any of these petitions are to be successful, the emphasis must be weighted towards how much of a financial  benefit it will bring to each town or city.

Therefore, it's not owners of these vehicles alone, who will successfully win the fight, but financial experts who can make such a strong case on behalf of motorhome owners for the prejudice to change.

We all know what we spend in towns when using Aires and Stelplatz. We have even stayed on camp sites in France and Germany and given free tickets to travel on public transport. They get it, but not the Brits and I'm afraid they never will.

Regards Leighton.

Well I do agree with Bad Penny that the Brits will never get it, however I have signed as although the UK is small, surely one of the joys of motorhomes is being able to stop off at convenient places. I am a member of Britstops (which is an excellent scheme IMHO) as well as CC, but every local authority has at least one car park & even if a charge was made it would still be attractive against the cost of CLs which seem to have become less affordable (I have only stayed two nights on CC sites as we don't need or want the facilities). As others have said, the economic argument is the one that will win. 

Just my 2p worth!