Get a grip on wild campers and caravanners

Sir, – This weekend saw another influx of campervans and “wild campers” to the beaches of the East Neuk.

In times past, caravanners and campers would travel to camping and caravan sites that were registered with local councils and for a small fee pitch-up and be able to use the amenities at the site. Not so today.

The small free car park at Ruby Bay in Elie has been jam-packed.

There are no toilet or washing facilities provided, so not difficult to imagine where calls of nature are being met in the long grass and bracken that are part of the beaches’ flora.

We hear much about matters of health and safety from government.

How healthy and safe does government imagine it to be for families visiting the beach areas to have to navigate through the detritus left behind by campers and caravanners?

From the size and brands of the means of transport being used, it is abundantly clear that occupants of vehicles travelling to the beaches are not exactly living on the breadline.

So why is government and Fife Council not doing something about what is becoming a social scourge?

At the very least they could be installing warning notices of prohibition and penalties for illegal and anti-social activity and initiating spot-checks by Coastal Trust rangers.

It was locally announced some time ago by Fife Council, that charges would be levied on campervans using local car parks, but nothing has been done.

My hope is that instead of obsessing over Westminster put-downs and the incessant focus on constitution, just for once Holyrood might concentrate on the more basic and long-overdue need to educate and encourage our citizens to have more respect for requirements of social behaviour and the rules that are necessary to be followed to ensure it.

Derek Farmer. Knightsward Farm, Anstruther.