Council must have 'vision' to cater for campervans in Mayo tourism

Mayo County Council needs to show a 'vision' and plan for the ever growing number of campervans visiting coastal areas or risk beaches losing their Blue Flag status.

Hundreds of people visited Achill Island over the weekend for the Battle for the Lake watersports and music festival with a number travelling in campervans.

While the majority stayed in local campsites, a number parked overnight along Keel beach and other locations which prompted Achill councillor Paul McNamara to question what bye-laws are in place to prevent this.

Speaking at the monthly meeting of Westport/Belmullet Municipal District, Cllr McNamara said campervans are not part of the tourism product and they have to be catered for.

“We are seeing a lot more campervans and I want to make it clear that we love them coming to the area. But we haven't done anything to facilitate them in Achill or Mulranny and the amount of them coming to the area. Since Covid it has definitely quadrupled, the number of campervans which have come and it is great to see all these campervans.

“It is a massive industry and they need to be catered for. At the moment we are not catering for them.

“We do need to know where we stand when it comes to bye-laws but we also need to have a vision and a plan to cater for the ever changing tourism industry that we see. We have an obligation to put a plan in place,” he said.

The Fianna Fáil councillor claimed that over the weekend between 30 and 40 campervans parked along Keel beach even though there was space in the local caravan park. He said that bye-laws had to be in place and enforced to prevent this or beaches would lose their Blue Flag status.

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“But we have to provide proper facilities for them and if we continue to ignore the situation we are getting ourselves into we will end up losing our Blue Flag beaches and there is no mistake about it.

We cannot have 20/30 campervans parked along a Blue Flag beach and then staying overnight.

“There are a lot of criteria that need to be met in order for us to achieve Blue Flag status and I feel we will fall down and lose our Blue Flag status if we don't address this.”

He was supported by Cllr Peter Flynn who acknowledged that addressing campervans was a huge challenge but also a huge opportunity and they had to cater for them.

“We need to grasp it and as a local authority we have not moved with the times because it is a massive industry,” he said.

A special meeting of the municipal district is scheduled to take place in the coming weeks to discuss illegal parking of campervans at Roman Island in Westport, and Cllr Flynn suggested that beach bye-laws are also discussed.

This was agreed by the remaining councillors who were informed that they will be circulated with the date of the meeting in due course.