For Argyll recently drew attention to the predicament faced by a go-ahead Argyll business – the Garden Centre and Cafe at Quarry View on Loch Fyne, near the beautiful Crarae Gardens.
Its owner Frank Penman had been instructed to remove the quite sensible signage flagging the availability of these services – which are invisible, below the road and behind Argyll’s – and Scotland’s - prevalent roadside scrub.
Mid Argyll Councillor, Argyll First’s Dougie Philand, took the matter in hand, made contact with Mr Penman and was instrumental in a meeting which has just taken place between himself, Mr Penman, a representative of the Council’s planning department and Scotland Transerv.
The result is that Mr Penman is to erect agreed signs – more , better and in more effective locations than those he orginally had. There will be four signs, including one at the entrance and one on the shore side.
This is a win for goodwill, common sense, an awareness of how much business matters to the Argyll economy – and to the skilled intervention of Councillor Philand, to whom Mr Penman is warmly grateful.
Common Sense prevails. Well done Dougie! and congrats to Mr Penman. Let’s hope his business goes from strength to strength.
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Well done Cllr Philand for sensible intervention.
On the other side of the coin, the 2 restaurants on Oban’s North pier, have extremely obtrusive and obstructive signs on the pavement, about 100 metres from their business, obscuring part of the Oban bay view, and the entrance to other businesses.
A standardised and subsequently balanced enforcemnent would seem a fair and reasonable conclusion. It could be administered by the council dog/litter wardens, who should be on the ‘beat’ in any case.
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Spot on She-Bat. One wonders why we need many of the other councillors, who don’t seem to have much in the way of common sense.
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Tony, Agreed that Dougie is a class act. There are others who work their socks off and apply a similar common sense in their own areas.
And then there are the others ….
2012 should sort it;-)
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I have to say a hugh thanks to Peter Bain, Area Team Leader for Planning, Kim MacKay enforcement officer, Ken Aitken Transport Scotland and of course Frank Penman. Without the input from all in sure there would still be difficulties. Thanks to all for assisting to resolve this situation.
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The signage issue is a common one, brought about largely by the national regulations affecting trunk roads such as the A83. Road signs are there to direct drivers to their destination, and not to provise information of help visitors to an area to make choices about where to go. And if, like Quarry View, Auchindrain – and even Inveraray as a town – you are actually ON the route of the trunk road – well then, drivers don’t need any signage to find you, do they?
Then we come to information – advertising – signs. Within I think 50m of a trunk road, any fixed sign requires planning consent, and this is often not easy to obtain because such signs are seen as potentially distracting drivers!
There is an argument that the legal restrictions on signage have a huge negative impact on places south of the “honeypot” of Inveraray. Would we all like signage at Tarbet encouraging drivers to come this way rather than turning right along the A82 to Crianlarich? Would we all like signs before and in Inveraray flagging up that there is lots to see and do if you carry on down into Mid Argyll and Kintyre? Would we all pay for them and erect them? Answer yes to all these questions, and then understand that non of these things appear to be legally permissible.
Neither the Council nor Transerv make the regulations and thus can’t be blamed, but it is a deeply frustrating situation and, at Auchindrain, probably our biggest single source of visitor grumbles: “couldn’t find you.. . nearly missed you”, and so on.
Oh well: we do our best despite it all!
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Somewhere like Auchindrain has every right to carefully designed and located signage on the A83, but to try and provide comprehensive signs for every ‘deserving case’ at somewhere like the A82/A83 junction at Tarbet is surely impossible – unless people think that the sort of signage frenzy you might find approaching Las Vegas would be appropriate here?
How many visitors drive aimlessly around with no idea of their destination until a particular sign catches their attention? Surely the justification for the signs approaching somewhere like Quarry View is easy to understand, whereas a plethora of signs at distant highway junctions is not justifiable, on either visual or road safety grounds.
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For Robert Wakeham; This seems a sane and workable guiding notion.
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It is interesting that ABC is one of the few councils with a predominantly tourist dominated economy that has such a blinkered view of the legalities.
In other similarly dependant localities there is considerably more signage allowed to support the local businesses.
But then ABC seem incapable of understanding their role in supporting the local economy.
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There does need to be some ‘council’ input to regularise the current system, whereby chancers can get away with sticking up big obstructive signs willy nilly, and other more respectful businesses hold back on the pavement furniture explosion. Someone needs to take the lead.
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