Findhorn West Beach car park payment barrier - revisions

Added at 17:35 on 19 February 2024

TFVCC Findhorn Beach West car park payment barrier update: 

The Findhorn Village Conservation Company would like to acknowledge and thank all those who have raised their concerns and offered constructive suggestions about the introduction of a payment for parking in the Findhorn Beach West car park.

As a result of this feedback, TFVCC has decided to make the following revisions to the plans for the car park payment barrier system:

• During 2024 we will pilot a fee for parking of £1 per car per day

• Annual Passes will be available to purchase at the cost of £30 per year. These will be available for purchase from our website, or, if cash is preferred, by arrangement at the Findhorn Village Centre.

We will provide an update here with information about how, when and where to purchase an Annual Pass as soon as we have a system in place.

Parking at Findhorn Beach East car park will remain free of charge, as normal.

Please read on below if you would like to better understand the context around this decision.

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Last week, speculation and commentary on the Forres Local Facebook page about works underway in the West car park brought forward the public announcement about the new payment barrier earlier than planned, and before some outstanding decisions and elements of communication and consultation had been fully finalised. We understand and take responsibility for the surprise or upset caused by this, and we have therefore reviewed our plans as outlined above. Plans for the payment barrier have long been in development, and we are doing our best with the limited capacity of our 100% volunteer-managed organisation, but we recognise that our communication about these plans could have been better.

In a small, densely populated coastal village which is a popular destination for visitors, where room for development is finite, and in an era when cars and motorhomes are getting bigger – parking is always going to present a contentious issue. 

For many years the Findhorn Beach West car park has been at capacity during the peak season, and has suffered the wear and tear associated from increased use. The repair and maintenance requirements to upkeep these facilities is undertaken at the expense of The Findhorn Village Conservation Company (TFVCC) both in terms of financial expenditure, as well as volunteer time.

TFVCC has always sought to work in close collaboration with and support of our local businesses, and provide open channels of communication. Many of the improvements in the village that TFVCC have undertaken to date, such as improving access and attracting new audiences, have reaped many positive benefits for local business. In return, TFVCC has also received generous support from local businesses; be that in the form of a loan of a digger, provision of storage space, hosting fundraiser events, or monetary donations.

To date, uptake of the optional donation boxes installed in the car park and at the toilet blocks has been disappointing, and the income generated through this trust-based approach has not been enough to cover the costs of ongoing maintenance.

Whilst many of the improvements undertaken by TFVCC, such as the toilet block refurbishment and beach steps repairs and no-step ramps, have been supported and enabled by grant funding, these grants only provide money for the capital works themselves, and do not provide a source of income for ongoing maintenance once completed. One example of where this situation has been felt is on the Dunes Track and car park, whereby initial improvements were enabled by grant support, but the most recent surface maintenance had to be directly funded by TFVCC to the tune of £20,000. Other examples include the toilet blocks which require £6500 per year to run and maintain, and waste collection from the bins which costs another £1150 annually. 

The Findhorn Village Conservation Company is a community-led and volunteer-managed organisation. All work to enable these improvements to be realised, as well as their ongoing management, is provided voluntarily by members free of charge, in order to allow as much income to be reinvested into these community assets as possible. This volunteer time incurred amounts to 1000s of hours per year, shared between a handful of village residents. 

Alongside ongoing maintenance and repairs, to date income generated from the Motorhome Stopover has largely been used to repay outstanding loans. Looking to the future TFVCC now hopes to be able to begin to use some of the income to build up unrestricted funds to be able to make the organisation’s volunteer commitment more sustainable and offer much needed permanent local employment opportunities in the form of Development Officer and Administrator roles. TFVCC also prioritises working with local contractors to ensure that wherever possible any income is reinvested within Findhorn village.