UKH

A new regime of voluntary car park charges will be introduced at Cairngorm Mountain's Coire Cas car park later this month. There is a possibility that after a two-year trial period the charges will be made compulsory.

Read more at http://www.ukhillwalking.com/news/item.php?id=63493

In reply to UKH News: Presumably if we are to move to a compulsary car parking fee at Cairngorm Mountain, we will have the same service as other facilities with compulsary parking. The security of our cars will be provided & the monitoring of cars left by late returners will occur????

In reply to UKH News:

By taking a reasonable £2 from each car on a busy weekend i'll be expecting imported snow from alaska so i can ski through july.

In reply to UKH News: Just how many ways are we expected to line the pockets of those who run CM? They've already got all sorts of grants and the money from the skiiers and tourists using the funicular and tows (which were supposed to make money, not need subsidised). Now we're facing a 'voluntary parking charge' with no detail on how much it will need to take in to prevent them making it a compulsory one, nor, as Hebe Carus points out, any clear indication of how the money will be spent. (As for their 'costs money to clear the snow' argument: for goodness sake - if they don't clear the snow they don't get folk up to use the funicular - they don't clear snow out of the goodness of their hearts.)

In reply to UKH News: £2 for now, £10 in a few years.

In reply to UKH News: free for locals im assuming

In reply to felixyoung:

You're not happy to pay towards the upkeep of the national park during a time of savage cuts, inadequate reosurces etc?

In reply to Bulls Crack: These proposed charges will be levied by a private company already raking a load of much needed cash off the taxpayer. It's not simply a case of putting cash into the National Park, but into private enterprise.

In reply to UKH News: maybe they could use some of the money to open up the toilets earlier in the morning.............

In reply to felixyoung:
lol!

In reply to UKH News:
We are all already charged for the use of this facility. Cairngorm mountain is funded by the taxpayer, you and me,we also pay road tax to access the area, I do not know how much of a public subsidy [taxpayer money] they receive each year. Car parking charges were introduced many years ago, most people refused to pay this additional cost, the company was challenged and lost.
I think that we the public are still paying for the choo choo, which in my opinion has reduced the rest of area to the equivalent of skiing in a scrapyard, an overly expensive one at that.
A reduction in management salaries would be a start in helping to alleviate costs to us all. Times are difficult for many of us without publicly funded organisations trying to screw us further.

In reply to weegeo: It will not be a "reasonable" £2 for very long. Big rises always come along.

Sorry, as pointed out, I helped finance their train set. No more from me I am afraid.

In reply to UKH News: "It seems that CM are no longer willing to be the sole providers for its upkeep."

Ha
Ha
Ha

More like "It seems the CM saw an opportunity to screw a bit more money from the massive number of tourists who come there every year to ski, rent bikes, use the mountain train, camp, yadda yadda yadda."

I love the part about the money being used to help preserve the heritage of the area, they better be careful they don't chock on the sarcasm. Irrespective of whether the carpark is good or bad, the north side of Cairngorm mountain is a blasted wasteland of twisted and barely functioning machinery. Don't get me wrong, I think it's great that tourists come to Scotland and drop their tourist dollars here and I think it's even better that there are a few honeypots which concentrate tourism and allow the remainder of the wilderness to remain fairly empty. But I'm a straight speaking man (mostly) and I would accord CM a lot more respect if they just came out and said "yeah, so someone at our last meeting suggested parking charges as a way to top up the christmas bonus, someone else said it didn't work last time and then we were all like 'lets give it another shot, what we got to possibly lose?'".

In reply to henwardian: I mostly with you on this one, the irony of the CM company failing to make money despite having a large funicular to attract the punters....

It's all in the detail in the peak there are a large number of effectively voluntary meters. In the lakes its effectively the same as the National Trust don't want to piss you of that much. To issue real fines they I think need a byelaw. If UK H or C want a real story they should try and find a scottish lawyer to explain how voluntary this will become in 2 years time.... ditto MCofS

I could ask my mates but not sure it's there specific area of expertise.

Got no problems with this one. If folk want to use a big ugly car park on a mountain then sure they should pay.

In reply to UKH News: There is another answer to the difficulties at the carpark. Perhaps if investment was put into the shuttle bus to make it more regular, and reliable that would be great. It's not funny just missing the bus and having to wait for ages, freezing cold until the next bus comes along. Increasing the number of buses an hour and gauranteeing reliability would encourage hillgoers to leave their cars in Aviemore and so reduce the pressure on the mountain. That's enough from me

In reply to Simple Simon say's:

For £2? Why would you expect anything at all apart from a space to leave your car? Why should we expect to use for free a facility funded by skiers and the general public? If you don't want to pay the money then don't use the facility. The fact that it has been free in the past does not mean it must remain so - unfortunately these economic times in which we live will result in many more 'free' services now being charged to the user.

For me there is no rationale for thinking a car park in the countryside any different from one in a town. They both cost money to build and maintain, and it is fair to seek the user pays towards this cost. It is not an issue of access rights - the charge is not on you but on your vehicle. Mountaineers and hillwalkers may believe themselves to be of an independent and environmentally conscious cast, but in practice are very reliant on cars these days yet expect others to pick up the tab. It's only 2 quid!

Nick