Road to the isles is clogged with campervans

WHEN are tourists not tourists? When they are "binfillers" on the Western Isles. The unflattering name has been coined to describe the influx of campervans, lured by the supposed BBQ summer, weak pound, "relaxed" attitude to wild camping and, of course, cheap ferry fares.

Since last October, the Scottish Government's Road Equivalent Tariff (RET) has been operating in the Outer Hebrides, along with Coll and Tiree, in a 30-month pilot scheme, bringing fare reductions of about 40 per cent. That means the Ullapool-Stornoway return for a car, driver and passenger now costs about 102, compared with 170 this time last year.

Are these cheap fares attracting the "wrong" sort of visitor? Stories abound of "campervan people" buying nothing on the islands but filling Hebridean bins with mainland-purchased rubbish. Chemical toilets are being emptied into machair-surrounded ditches and drains… and campervans have block-booked weekend ferry places for the rest of the summer, as a result of concessions that allow them to travel for the same price as a car.

Beware what you wish for. The Outer Hebrides are reeling from the impact of what they always wanted – cheap fares – because islanders, CalMac, the council and the Scottish Government have been quite unprepared for what's followed.

People. People looking for things to do on rainy days, campsites, shops that sell what they want, entertainment, places to dispose of waste and rubbish safely. In other words, people looking for everything they might expect from a holiday destination – and by and large not finding it on islands deliciously undeveloped for mass tourism.

A particular bottleneck is the Hebridean weekend – the time almost everyone (islanders included) wants to travel. Booking months ahead is a largely mainland, holidaymaking, broadband-savvy and southern bit of behaviour. A Lewisman was once asked for the word maana in Gaelic: "Ach we've nothing with that degree of urgency."

That may be mere anecdote, but islanders still leave arrangements till the last minute, dependent on emergencies, crops, animals, weather, family events, or a mounting sense of urgency to make decisions.

Even inter-island ferries (exempt from RET) are occasionally and unpredictably full. So the fingers of blame turn towards the most visible (and audible) space-huggers – the campervan owners.

Now to get one thing straight, these are not campervans or VWs as children of the Sixties would know them. These are mini-mobile homes, wannabe Winebago-ettes – the Sundowners, Eldorados and other cheery brand names you come to memorise, sitting behind them for most of the long journey north. Sleek, large, character-free, plastic-looking vehicles with tinted windows and high driving positions. All of which combine to give their occupants an effortlessly superior air, and a width that means a spare lane must often sit beside them on the tightly packed ferries.

"There's a lesson from this. Don't die in the summer if you can possibly help it," muttered a local van driver in the standby queue at Uig on Skye, hearing I was trying to get over to a Uist funeral. Another islander was trying to get his family home for the second day running.

And if they didn't get on today? "Och, we'll stay on Skye tonight and try again on Sunday." With two kids in tow that could cost more than RET fares could ever save – unless they have cousins on Skye.

On the fish-soaked Faroes, the only two-hour sea crossing that hasn't been converted into a tunnel costs about 25 return for a car, driver and passenger. And debate currently centres on whether to make all inter-island travel free, recouping the costs from a petrol tax.

These observations must sound very ungrateful when Orkney, Shetland, Arran, Islay, Mull, Iona, Colonsay, Jura, Bute and Gigha have no fare concessions at all. Indeed, the SNP government has run the gauntlet politically to apply RET to these SNP-controlled areas.

They argue economics and demographics have driven the choice – Western Isles unemployment is twice the rate of Orkney's, four times that of Shetland and five times that of Arran. Since 1989, the population of Shetland's been stable, Orkney's fallen slightly, Arran's increased by 30 per cent, but the Western Isles has fallen by 19 per cent.

But when the Scottish cabinet heads west to hold a summer cabinet meeting in Stornoway this week, they will hear grumbles as well as thanks.

RET is a roaring success and has proved people will travel to the remotest parts of Scotland if the price is right. But that's just half the picture.

Without places to stay, things to see, campsites and disposal points, people won't come back. And with stand-by queues, uncertainty and days hanging about waiting for ferry spaces, the RET ports will become places of chaos and tension best avoided and trips west will have to be planned like military expeditions.

Grumbling can easily be dismissed, but ignoring the consequences of RET could mean it fails to bring economic prosperity. It's worth remembering that a summer of queues and ferry chaos so exasperated locals that they accepted the notorious Skye Bridge.

There are solutions. Some want CalMac to charge motor homes by width as well as length. Some want extra sailings on the summer weekends, or two ferries – a speedy launch for passengers, cars and visitors and another for heavy goods vehicles. If no flexibility is possible, it may yet be cheaper to build a tunnel between Skye and Scalpay.

Otherwise more Hebridean journeys will end like my one. We crossed to North Uist as passengers on Saturday and will now cycle back to Lochmaddy and hopefully collect a car deposited by Sunday's ferry. If it isn't there… well, holidays are what you make of them.