HIGHWAY TO HELL?
How NC500 route – hailed as Scotland’s most exhilarating drive – has been such a ‘disaster’ for locals they’re petitioning AGAINST it
IT starts around 4.30am, with the rattle of the cattle grid signalling the stream of visitors are arriving for the day.
For many of the residents in the far north-west of Sutherland, it is an alarm bell that fills them with dread.
In previous years the tourists on the North Coast 500 route coming into Durness were a welcome sight, bringing a much-needed boost to the economy.
However, according to those living in the tiny village, this year has seen a shift in attitudes towards the now infamous 516-mile round trip that takes in Scotland’s most northerly coastline.
Wet wipes lie in nearly every lay-by. Discarded tents don’t even raise an eyebrow any more. Campervans and motorhomes line any spare patch of verge on the twisting narrow roads.
Former builder John Morrison, 86, has lived in Durness for 60 years with his wife Joyce. In recent days he said some visitors had pitched tents in his garden before leaving bags of waste behind.
‘In all the years I’ve lived here I’ve never seen so many cars coming through the village like this. Campervans and cars and what have you,’ he added.
‘My son put up the [No camping] sign on the gate. I don’t like it at all. I want to give a warm welcome to anyone who comes down here, as we have always done. But we had some campers down here and they left a mess. They didn’t even ask to come and camp here and left litter all over the place. One family camped right beside the house.’
During another incident, Mr Morrison described two campers lighting a fire with wood they had taken from a footbridge to the beach his son had built.
Standing in front of his parents’ house, Ian Morrison, 52, said the noise from the cattle grid on the main road ‘starts at half-past four in the morning and doesn’t stop until after 11pm at night’.
He said: ‘The thump-thump, thumpthump. All day. It’s just crazy. The attitude of people has changed. It’s a different kind of camper this year. Since this Covid-19 restriction has lifted, it’s gone bananas. The infrastructure is just not here to take it. These roads were built for horse and cart and haven’t changed much.’
He added: ‘They are in so much of a hurry, because when they hire that campervan the clock starts ticking and they’ve got to do 500 miles in that van as soon as they can. ‘You get the fingers from them, abuse, and they come up to the windows shouting at you.’ The NC500 road trip route was developed five years ago as a way of bringing more tourists into a part of the country often been ignored by visitors.
The route, which begins and ends at Inverness Castle, is a 516-mile loop around the north coast. Since its launch, it has attracted almost 30,000 additional visitors each year to the area and created around 180 full-time equivalent jobs.
Now estimated to be worth more than £22million a year to the local economy, it featured on Jeremy Clarkson’s Amazon series The Grand Tour and has been hailed by CNN as one of the world’s greatest drives.
But James Keith, owner of Durness’s only campsite, Sango Sands, said the area hasn’t reaped the benefits. ‘The NC500 has been a disaster for us. We were busy enough over the years, people have always come to Durness,’ he said. ‘If you have no investment in tourism up here it must be a nightmare.’
Lib Dem MP Jamie Stone, who represents Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, wants a campervan congestion charge, with the money reinvested into improving the area’s roads.
He said: ‘The Scottish Government need to know the full force of our concerns about the NC500 roads and the impact irresponsible tourists are having on us all.’
‘Thump-thump. All day. It’s just crazy’