Loch Lomond hotelier goes potty over lack of loos

Jul 10 2009 by Tina Kemp, Lennox Herald (main ed)

A LOCH Lomond businessman has blasted a lack of toilets at the area’s busiest picnic spots as “a national disgrace”.

Hundreds of people crowded to the public park next to the Duck Bay Hotel on Sunday to enjoy the good weather.

And owner Alan Cawley and his staff faced a torrent of abuse from disgruntled picnickers when they were refused use of the hotel’s facilities.

This week Alan demanded action, saying: “This is one of the busiest and most popular picnic areas and there is no toilet facility.

“Tourism is the only industry that’s growing in Scotland and that’s what we want to encourage. People being told the nearest toilet is in Balloch is simply not workable.

“How can we be promoting a national park and not providing facilities for a basic human need? It’s a national disgrace.

“People are doing the toilet in the bushes and in the loch. What kind of message are we sending out to visitors?”

Alan said the problem has escalated since the toilets were closed in the 1990s because of anti-social behaviour. But he said he had never experienced such hostility as on Sunday which he described as “the day from hell”.

Alan explained: “The pumping station had stopped pumping and we were trying to limit use of the toilets, even to our own customers.

“We took the kind of abuse no-one should have to take, and members of staff ended up stewarding the toilets. It was a fiasco.

“I can understand how frustrated people must get, but all and sundry want to use these toilets, sometimes at the expense of my paying customers. I pay for water, electricity, all the cleaning products, toilet rolls – and that’s not counting wear and tear. I have to maintain these toilets for the use of my own customers.”

He continued: “There are three public toilets within two miles in Helensburgh, yet we don’t have one at one of the national park’s busiest spots. The national park paid £800,000 for that eyesore at Stoneymollan Roundabout and have no money for toilets. It’s time they got their priorities right.”

Alan plans to issue leaflets to non-customers refused access to the hotel toilets urging them to lobby the authorities, including Jackie Baillie MSP, for action.

Ms Baillie said: “The national park should look again at this. It would help local businesses and make the experience of tourists much easier.”

A spokeswoman for the national park said: “Public toilet provision in Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park is the responsibility of the local authorities, as was the case at Duck Bay, and is still the case in many locations across the park.

“Ideally the national park authority would like to see an improvement in the availability of public toilets, however in times when the resources required to do this are limited, we would encourage a co-operative approach to deal with the issue.

“We continue to support the work of the local authorities and local businesses in providing opportunities to work together to ensure we provide an enjoyable experience of the park from taking in the views and walking along the loch-shores, to having a cuppa and of course going to the loo.”

But Alan responded: “I’ve been more than co-operative. I’d like to throw open an invitation to someone from the national park to come out of their comfortable building, come to Duck Bay, stand with me and I’ll show them the problem.”