Campbeltown Loch

Quandary said:
I support the Goose, it is easy for us 'wealthy' yachties to despise the deprived folk in these communities when we should be striving to support them, I have never been aware of any no go areas or pubs in Campbelltown and I have been stopping there since the option was too tie up outside a fishing boat, always made welcome, totally unlike Ullapool. And despite its problems which as well as isolation include the loss of its boatbuilding and much of its fishing, the ferry to Ireland, the housing of much of the population in tenements completely unsuited to a rural location, Campbeltown has managed to maintain three distilleries making really excellent whisky, has an outstanding educational whisky shop, a cinema and some really excellent pubs, my favourite is the Ardshiel.
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I don't despise them, but how do you support a community that has no viable industry, and is not in a location where the service industry is feasible? I gather the original population was "helicoptered" in to service the coalmines; there simply isn't any local industry that can replace the coalmines. All the things you mention, while excellent in themselves, are not big employers. It can't be a dormitory town because of the poor transport links that aren't going to get any better because of the geography. All I can see is that younger people will leave to start careers elsewhere, and the town will slowly downsize to the village that is realistically all that the location can support.

If a few yachts have an impact on the local economy, that indicates that the economy really is in a bad way! I've visited there a couiple of times, and while the pontoons were full with some rafting, that's still not very many yachts.
 
Quandary said:
I support the Goose, it is easy for us 'wealthy' yachties to despise the deprived folk in these communities when we should be striving to support them ...
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Just in case you were rebuking me, I absolutely do not despise the people of Campbeltown, or the people of any other deprived area. In fact I think the people of Campbeltown get a particularly raw deal because unlike other similar depressed towns - Dalmellington, say, or Darvel - it's impossible to commute to work elsewhere at moving to where work is means a much bigger dislocation from family and friends. A recent survey in my neck of the woods showed that more than 50% of all young people here plan to leave the area; I expect the numbers are higher and the difficulty doing so greater in Campbeltown.

I shall be forever indebted to the Campbeltown lifeboat crews who came to our aid during The Unpleasantness off the Bastard[1], when my crew's beloved sailing dinghy swamped, sank and inverted on tow. We had a very friendly welcome at Campbeltown, a berth prepared for us at the pontoons and a damn fine curry to round off the day.

Haven't been to a show at the Picture House yet, but it looks fun.


[1] Don't blame me, moderators:

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Plenty of towns have lost their reason for being there, it's just the way things are, nothing lasts for ever and all that. I have no feelings either way towards Campbeltown, Aberdeen on the other hand, and Fifers ............
 
AntarcticPilot said:
I don't despise them, but how do you support a community that has no viable industry, and is not in a location where the service industry is feasible?
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Spot on.

Unlike many post-coal places, transport difficulties will always stifle growth in Campbeltown. It's not as if attempts haven;t been made: Campbeltown - Ballycastle lasted two years, I think, as HGVs going from Glasgow to NI proved curiously resistant to taking 140 miles of the A82/3 rather than 85 miles, mostly dualled, on the A75 to Stranraer. Kintyre Express tried running from Troon and gave up within a year. The Calmac service (the sound you hear is an arm being twisted by Holyrood) is a mere skeleton now, although that may improve when the new Arran ferries come into service.

Family history: My old man was purser on the Ayr - Campbeltown steamer for a year in the 50s.
 
JumbleDuck said:
Spot on.

Unlike many post-coal places, transport difficulties will always stifle growth in Campbeltown. It's not as if attempts haven;t been made: Campbeltown - Ballycastle lasted two years, I think, as HGVs going from Glasgow to NI proved curiously resistant to taking 140 miles of the A82/3 rather than 85 miles, mostly dualled, on the A75 to Stranraer. Kintyre Express tried running from Troon and gave up within a year. The Calmac service (the sound you hear is an arm being twisted by Holyrood) is a mere skeleton now, although that may improve when the new Arran ferries come into service.

Family history: My old man was purser on the Ayr - Campbeltown steamer for a year in the 50s.
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The new Arran ferries? There's one sitting at Port Glasgow that looks like they are building it out of scrap parts. The bridge deck is still a wooden mock up with painted black windows. It won't be arriving soon.
 
Spyro said:
The new Arran ferries? There's one sitting at Port Glasgow that looks like they are building it out of scrap parts. The bridge deck is still a wooden mock up with painted black windows. It won't be arriving soon.
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I think it will have been painted 3 times by the time it goes into service...
 
The ferry to Ballycastle should have been maintained it makes more sense than the occasional service to Ardrossan; though I would be quick to blame the DUP as much as the Lab/Lib Coalition. A Glaswegian can get to Tobermory more quickly than to Campbeltown, including a subsidised sea trip. Its problem is simply isolation, this has been overcome elsewhere by improving transport while the wee toon is at the extemity of the pathetic A82. It has all the qualities for a tourist stopover, fishing harbour, fine setting, castles, history, distilleries, restored cinema, pubs with great malts, it is just killed by being at the end of a miserable road with no option to go farther. I suspect if the ferry had connected to a DUP stronghold like Larne or Carrickfergus, Paisley would have kept it going and the Scots might have paid their share. To some extent Argyll gets what it deserves, electing Conservatives for years, then a really poor Liberal and now Mike Russell. A bit of representation would really help our economy but all we get is more wind farms.
Rant over. No need to move it down to the cesspit
 
Quandary said:
The ferry to Ballycastle should have been maintained it makes more sense than the occasional service to Ardrossan; though I would be quick to blame the DUP as much as the Lab/Lib Coalition. A Glaswegian can get to Tobermory more quickly than to Campbeltown, including a subsidised sea trip. Its problem is simply isolation, this has been overcome elsewhere by improving transport while the wee toon is at the extemity of the pathetic A82. It has all the qualities for a tourist stopover, fishing harbour, fine setting, castles, history, distilleries, restored cinema, pubs with great malts, it is just killed by being at the end of a miserable road with no option to go farther. I suspect if the ferry had connected to a DUP stronghold like Larne or Carrickfergus, Paisley would have kept it going and the Scots might have paid their share. To some extent Argyll gets what it deserves, electing Conservatives for years, then a really poor Liberal and now Mike Russell. A bit of representation would really help our economy but all we get is more wind farms.
Rant over. No need to move it down to the cesspit
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Campbeltown or the thread?

Being serious, I agree with your analysis. I think that Scotland's tourist potential is stymied by the terrible transport infrastructure. Both the A82 and A83 need major upgrades in sections as well as a lack of carparks at important beauty spots.
 
Spyro said:
The new Arran ferries? There's one sitting at Port Glasgow that looks like they are building it out of scrap parts. The bridge deck is still a wooden mock up with painted black windows. It won't be arriving soon.
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Sounds like the one. Ferguson's and CMAL are fighting over it.

Quandary said:
The ferry to Ballycastle should have been maintained it makes more sense than the occasional service to Ardrossan
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Kintyre Express still offer a RIB ferry service, aimed mainly at golfers, I think, but I find it difficult to imagine who would use a full-size ferry. Irish tourists? People making a circuit with Belfast/Larne to Cairnryan?

A Glaswegian can get to Tobermory more quickly than to Campbeltown, including a subsidised sea trip.
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According to Google maps, George Square to Tobemory is four hours dead if you allow 15 minutes to catch the ferry and George Square to Campbeltown is three and a quarter hours - though that seems a bit optimistic, bearing in mind that the bus takes four and a quarter.

My other half has joined us in Gigha a couple of times, but hates the long bus journey. If the ferry service wasn't (currently) so terrible, Ardrossan - Campbeltown - Tayinloan might be better. As it stands, from down here in the south, Ardrossan - Brodick - Lochranza - Claonaig is almost as fast to south Kintyre as going through Glasgow, and I have in past done it Wemyss Bay - Rothesay - Rhubodach - Colintraive - Portavadie - Tarbert, which takes an hour longer than driving all the way but is much more fun.

Its problem is simply isolation, this has been overcome elsewhere by improving transport while the wee toon is at the extemity of the pathetic A82.
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There was a nineteenth century proposal for a railway down Kintyre. Time to revive it?
 
BlowingOldBoots said:
Being serious, I agree with your analysis. I think that Scotland's tourist potential is stymied by the terrible transport infrastructure. Both the A82 and A83 need major upgrades in sections as well as a lack of carparks at important beauty spots.
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I think they need more car parks at important beauty spots, he said, snidely.
 
Back to where to anchor for a kip. I've tried that bay south east of Davaar (the east side of the Dorlinn), was OK, but for me a bit of a diversion en-route from Clyde to west round the MoK. I prefer Sanda, provided wind not from north, and stopped there 3 times last summer for overnight or less. An interesting point for there is thet the tidal flow close in to sanda and Sheep island is almost always west to east, even when the main flow is east to west through the sound. That can be useful at times.. Enter Sanda anchorage on a 155 degree bearing off the boathouse round the beach to left of the house. Last summer there were buoys in there, but in very shallow water, so a bit deceptive, could be mistaken for moorings for deeper draught boats.
 
JumbleDuck said:
Spot on.

Unlike many post-coal places, transport difficulties will always stifle growth in Campbeltown. It's not as if attempts haven;t been made: Campbeltown - Ballycastle lasted two years, I think, as HGVs going from Glasgow to NI proved curiously resistant to taking 140 miles of the A82/3 rather than 85 miles, mostly dualled, on the A75 to Stranraer. Kintyre Express tried running from Troon and gave up within a year. The Calmac service (the sound you hear is an arm being twisted by Holyrood) is a mere skeleton now, although that may improve when the new Arran ferries come into service.

Family history: My old man was purser on the Ayr - Campbeltown steamer for a year in the 50s.
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Just to clarify something, I actually live in an English equivalent of Campbelltown, in some ways! It certainly has a similar deprivation index. It's a small rural town on the border between Cambridgeshire and Norfolk. It was founded as a port on the river Ouse, acted as a market town for local agriculture and for a long time was home to a major shirtmaker. All these are gone; shirt-making most recently (but still 30-40 years ago!). There's no longer any commercial traffic on the River Ouse, farming employs a fraction of the numbers it did before WW2 and shirts are made in China or India much cheaper than any UK based business can manage! It's one advantage is that it is on the main line from Kings Lynn to Kings Cross, and there is a regular train service, so there's an increasing number of people who live here and commute elsewhere (e.g. Cambridge). But that leaves severe problems with young people, who can't find work locally and who don't see the point of education if there isn't a job they can get, especially if they are part of families already blighted by the lack of local opportunity.

I don't have answers. The local churches are doing their best, and I am part of the team involved. But all we can do is try and convince people to look ahead and not backwards.
 
AntarcticPilot said:
Crikey - that must involve some pretty serious civil engineering!
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Compared to the extensive network of now abandoned tracks that bisected Donegal from North to South and East to West it would have been easy, but over there they had a homegrown supply of navvies. Scotland was pacified too early so it was not necessary to construct an infrastructure to keep it in subjugation, or perhaps there is another reason for the massive difference in transport links between Argyll and Donegal. In N. Ireland there is a public road to every farm and they would laugh at the idea of a single track rroad with passing places.
 
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