Overnight parking charges are coming at five more beauty spots in Fife

Motorhome tourists visiting Leven Promenade, Kinghorn's Pettycur Bay, St Andrews' East Sands, Burntisland and Tayport can all expect to see parking charges introduced for overnight visits by the end of 2025. They are aimed at managing the number of motorhome tourists staying overnight in various beauty locations across the Kingdom – and reducing visitors' impact on the local environment.

Controlled overnight parking has already been introduced at 10 of Fife’s beauty hotspots in the last couple of years. Craigmead, East Lomond, Birnie Loch, Wormit Bay, Glenvale, Limekilns, Kingsbarns, Elie Ruby Bay, Pittenweem and Aberdour Silver Sands car parks all have overnight parking charges for motorhome users.

Now, Fife Coast and Countryside Trust wants to see these charges rolled out to five new locations.

“We’ve been in operation now at around 10 sites for nearly two years and it's been pretty successful,” Jeremy Harris, chief executive Fife Coast & Countryside Trust (FCCT) said. “We’ve certainly seen more effective management of car parking spaces - we were previously having 30-35 motorhomes show up at a single site. They’re not really suitable for anything like that. The scheme has reduced it to much more manageable levels.”

Mr Harris told Fife Council’s environment, transportation and climate change scrutiny committee on Tuesday that the parking charges are a “necessary solution to a problem that started three or four years ago.”

Prior to the introduction of the overnight parking scheme, a committee report claimed that the increase in motorhome usage had introduced “significant environmental challenges and increased associated user risk.”

“The [overnight parking schemes] were created to manage the large numbers of motorhomes we observed,” Mr Harris said. “It was becoming a real problem as anyone would recognise.”

Councillors were told that the existing controlled parking schemes were working successfully to manage both the number of motorhome tourists and their impact on the local environment and community.

“[Now] we have an objective of providing even more overnight motorhome spaces based on the same model between now and 2025,” Mr Harris explained.

“Our priority is to engage and educate motorhome users of the way to access the Fife coast and countryside effectively. This is not a money making scheme for us. For us, it’s about ensuring that Fife’s countryside and coastal locations are as good as they can be. That’s what we care about.”

A committee report said the five new controlled parking sites would bring the total of overnight parking bays in Fife to 88. However, the Trust hopes to achieve a total of 150 year-round bays by 2025. The charges will be set at £10 a night for the new sites - just the same as they are for the 10 existing controlled parking areas.

“The parking charge notification scheme provides the opportunity for us to engage with people with robustness,” Mr Harris explained. “There’s a potential for issuing a fee note if they are outwith the bay or if they’re parking inappropriately or if they’re causing a problem. Whereas if it's an entirely unregulated car park, providing the vehicle is legal to be on the road, they are entitled to say ‘I hear you but I’m not moving.’”

He continued: “When we have a parking charge notification scheme in place we have more opportunities to encourage people to do the right thing.”

Fife Coast and Countryside Trust plans to engage with each community before the parking charge scheme is rolled out.