Forestry parking charges leave communities fuming

Plans aim to include more of Argyll’s woodland car parks in ‘pay by phone’

A plan that would see car parking charges introduced by Scotland’s national forestry body has been “handled badly” according to one Mid Argyll councillor.

A report to a meeting of community chiefs documented plans to introduce a pay by phone system at several Forestry and Land Scotlandowned car parks in the Argyll area.

Councillor Jan Brown says she was contacted by two community councils and constituents in the region who were opposed to the plan.

And the suggestion by a community council secretary of an “honesty box” for financial contributions was deemed to be unworkable by a Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) official. The discussion took place at a meeting of Argyll and Bute Council’s Mid Argyll, Kintyre and the Islands (MAKI) community planning group, on Wednesday February 1.

A report in advance of the meeting said: “FLS is a public body and we are unusually a largely self-funding one.

“FLS has been working towards a financially sustainable position for a number of years as core Scottish Government funding comes under increasing pressure.

“We must ensure that we continue to deliver our objectives across social, environmental and economic work streams in the event that funding is reduced or removed.

“Car parking charges are an important tool to help fund our work.

“FLS takes its responsibility to offer visitor experiences to the public very seriously and we target considerable resources towards the maintenance and improvement programmes.

“The monies raised through car parking charges will be utilised to this end.”

Councillor Brown said: “I have been approached by a large number of community councils and constituents who are totally against the charges.

“One of the biggest problems they have is that there has been no representation to community councils.

“None have been consulted or engaged with, even though they have been under consideration for many months.

“The North Knapdale Community Council was informed in December.

“They have been in contact with FLS and not had a great

deal of communication or answers to questions they have asked.

“Ardrishaig Community Council has been in the same position.

“The car parks in these areas are wrecks and how you can expect people to pay for these is beyond belief.

“Some of them are just muddy tracks.

“FLS will not be pursuing anyone who does not pay – so why bother [introducing the charges]? They have researched other FLS car parks and it is worth FLS engaging with the community councils.

“I do not imagine, once this is installed in one area, it will not be installed in the rest of Argyll and Bute.

“I have to appeal to stop the progress of this so there can be an open and frank discussion with all community councils.

“The discussion has been handled badly so far, but it is good that FLS is now keen to engage, so let’s hope we can convene a meeting to bring together as many community councils in the region as we can.”

John Sutherland, of FLS, responded: “The community councils which have car parking sites within them have been contacted.

“I think we did that in November, so each has been engaged with and information has been released to people from the community councils. It has taken us a while to get the information requested together, but it has now been released.”

Richard Stein, secretary of North Knapdale Community Council, then said: “This seems to be rolling out what might be an appropriate approach in larger car parks.

“In small, rural car parks there is not even a telephone signal.

“I do not feel we have had a proper response to our complaint, and we are very concerned at the idea this might proceed without having engaged properly with the community.

“If they want voluntary contributions, I would suggest a box for contributions in the car park.”

Mr Sutherland said: “The honesty box scheme was under consideration, but the security aspect would start to be too much, with money sitting in an unmanned area.

“This facility we are looking at is a less laborious option for us.”