Car park and pumping station would benefit Oban

Many years ago, if my memory is correct, a letter published in The Oban Times suggested a yacht marina for Oban Bay which, by all accounts, is now a success.

It could be even more so if extended with certain safety features and lanes created in the bay for the increase in boat traffic.

But the future town parking and flooding can both be partially alleviated by the building of a new two or three-storey car park and connected water pumping station at the car park now virtually empty at Lochavullin. It should be built with a basement lower catchment tank area, which would fill at times of flooding and prolonged rainfall, thence being pumped automatically out by this allied pump house, perhaps situated beside Lochavullin bus stop on council land.

Flood water could then be pumped down a 400mm pipe the length of the Black Lynn and one kilometre out to sea, a system used at Penrhyn Bay in Wales.

This could be funded by government grant money for flood defences and partially from the income from the marina and the ready cash the council receives from car parking fees, which would pay for the construction of all this in less than a decade.

Our council has to make some tough, forward-thinking choices about whether they wish to build, invest and create employment and secure adequate parking space for Oban’s hopefully booming future tourism industry. Or will they just sit back and wait for the great floods due in 2025 and 2040. Stephen Jones, Burnside Place, Oban.