For three decades now a variety of groups and initiatives have been trying to get the right sort of marina for the waterfront town of Oban.
The well managed Tobermory Harbour marina development provides all of the evidence anyone could possibly need for how successful this provision for the important leisure sailing market can be, in sustainability and in developing a worthwhile visitor market.
Yet successive administrations at Argyll and Bute Council have proved more effective at resisting an initiative that, for whatever reasons, they clearly do not want to see than they have been in making anything else happen.
This has been nothing more than a spoiling game at great cost to Oban. It has not been about promoting any alternative becasue nothing at all has happened.
But let’s forget the whys.
After inexplicable knockbacks contrived through means which do not bear even a cursory examination, Oban Bay Marine has had to submit a new planning application for its proposed Oban transit marina.
A transit marina is exactly the right concept – it’s not a long stay facility, nor is it a major overwintering facility. It’s a short stay park for seasonal visiting yachts cruising Argyll and the Isles – and it offers them walk-ashore berths in the heart of the town.
These are yachts that arrive, refuel, rewater, restock, shop, eat, drink, visit, explore – and move on.
A town capable of giving them this sort of facility and the proactive welcome Oban can muster, will benefit in compound terms by word of mouth recommendations.
Oban, with the annual signature sailing events run by Oban Sailing Club (the Round Mull and the West Highland Yachting Week with the feeder races pulling in yachts from Ireland, Ayrshire and further away) is on the sailing map already – but more peripherally than it deserves to be.
The driver of growth
The provision of the sort of shoreside marina facility Oban Bay Marine propose is a win for all concerned. The town will look better, brighter, more active… and ‘walk ashore’ berths will bring substantial business to the town. They make sail cruising easy.
Waterfront cafes and restaurants will find window tables at an even greater premium. Watching boats is like watching planes – the way they have to be managed, the way they move, their capacity to be here now and gone – anywhere – in a minute, is close to mythical. They carry with them the sense of connectedness with worlds most of us cannot imagine. Even going out in a boat to the approaches to Oban Bay and looking back towards a town you think you know takes you to a new place.
Sailors are atrracted by good up-to-the-mark sailing kit and have an eye for neat shore-going gear. Only in extreme racing yachts, where an extra ounce slows performance, is there no room for some presents to take home.
When they’re at a waterfront marina, sailors will eat and drink ashore from choice. When they’re on passage, they have no choice – and however great the simplest food tastes on the water, variety is the spice of life.
A transit marina is the ideal addition to Oban’s visitor offer. It open up the town as the central base it should be for access to the quite stunning sailing grounds of Argyll and the Isles.
And a transit marina is unselfish. The host town benefits but so do the other marinas it links to as a stepping stone in a much needed chain.
This project is not just good for Oban – it is good for Argyll.
The changes to the Oban Bay Marine proposal make it a piled marina rather than one with anchored pontoons – a huge improvement. They also see the pedestrian access moved from the North Pier to the Esplanade.
Details are HERE on the Oban Bay Marine website.
You can help – and your help will be appreciated
It would help this worthwhile initiative a great deal if all of those who respond positively to its potential and who support it would register their comments HERE on the Council website - before the end of Tuesday 24th April. You will see the ‘Make a Public Comment’ button at the top right of the screen.
Because this is a project that matters to Argyll and the Isles as well as to Oban – because having such a facility in the embrace of this town will bring leisure sailors to Oban via other marinas and via the Crinan Canal – comments arte appropriate from anyone with an interest in this transit marina actually happening. That includes the sailing fraternity who would use it. Imagine the convenience during West Highland Yachting Week alone.
Whatever you think - and of course this includes objections – please go to the Council website and say it.
And for supporters, please remember that people are always driven to object but rarely to support – which produces inaccurate impressions. If you want to see this project and the benefits it will bring succeed, please tell the council what you feel and why. What’s wrong with now.
Take great care what you wish for, as too many representations may well spell a public enquiry and resultant delays.
Perehaps the true reason for inviting public involvement after all these years.
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I for one don’t understand this comment.
I am not aware of any case where a preponderance of letters of support for a planning application has resulted in an untoward delay – though with this planning department nothing would surprise me.
I suspect however that this is nonsense. Anyone who thinks that Oban should reap some of the benefits from the yachting industry on its doorstep should take this opportunity to make a favourable comment on the proposal.
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Webcraft.
NO, not nonscense. Comparatively few negative responses WILL trigger a public enquiry and even positive ones can up the level of scrutiny.
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A strong application, as this is bound to be, need have no fear of scrutiny.
It may well be that a public enquiry is the best way for this proposal to get a fair hearing and a just outcome – and for the public to discover at last just what the blocking objections in the council amount to.
As for delays – Oban has been waiting for 30 years…
If there is widespread support for this initiative, the decision takers need to know that and need to know the range of perspectives publicly brought to bear upon it.
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Webcraft : I know of at least one incidence.
over 20 letters of support and only one in mild disapproval and it got shunted up the system.
That was a while ago. BUT !
Agree about supporting this proposal.
It cannot happen too soon to help our local economy across the spectrum. And to inspire new and further development in the same vein.
We need top quality high income trade.
We need to take Oban up several levels.
Looking after and making the most of our natural resources is our future.
The Sailing fraternity is just one who would love to bring us lots of income and jobs, in return for better access to our town and the wonderful waters and scenery around our shores.
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You’re absolutely right.
For Argyll really to work, we need all five big towns (and arguably Lochgilphead) to be hubs of business, shopping, leisure, visual charm and good eating at all price points, in their own right.
They are and have to be recognised as the engines of growth, including tourism.
The rural and coastal charms of Argyll are a major magnet but to holiday here, self catering or touring (the norm) folk need to know that there are towns within reach that can support, enchant and divert – to add variety to a holiday experience and to be a rewarding and welcoming sanctuary in bad weather.
This is one advantage of the decentralised Argyll – IF these towns were as good as they need to be, you’d never be that far from one of them.
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There have been a lot of comments made over the weekend – 100 public comments in fact. The names are lsited, but no-one has got round to putting the actual documents up – though strangely they have found time to post one from SNH.
I wonder if these letters of support – as I suspect they mostly are – will ever appear on the site.
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Looks like the Council site has collapsed. Now there’s a surprise!
As someone who lives in sight of the Bay and has travelled around it, approached it by road, rail, from the sea and from the air I heartily endorse the need for such an imaginative development.As the name indicates the town is there because of its unique situation.
I made my submission last week but I trust that any sustained delay in re-opening the website will result in an extension in the consultative period.
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Call me cynical, but I would not be surprised if all the comments were lost.
There are a lot of mysteries surrounding this application.
~ Why was it necessary to scrap all comments on the previous (virtually identical) application?
~ Why were previous commenters informed by letter rather than e-mail?
~ Why did it (in my case anyway) take two weeks from the time the letter was dated to it being delivered, so that it arrievd towards the end of the 28 day consultation period with only a few days left?
~ Is it coincidence that the server collapsed on a Monday morning when staff arrived to find an influx of positive comments on the application?
~ Why at midday Tuesday – the last day for consultation – is it still impossible to comment?
~ There were 117 public comments on this application last time I looked. Will they all be there when/if the site is restored?
~ In view of the server downtime will additional time for consultation be granted?
Given the Council’s previous history of chicanery and manipulation involving any proposals for a marina in Oban, I think this whole matter needs careful looking at.
Newsroom, are you up for it?
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