The way forward for Kintyre?

[ionnsaigh]

Stop paying your council tax.

[westport321]

That would get their attention!

[elainemck]

Westport 321 - I love it! This is where we can all start putting these ideas down. Get Kintyre motivated again and fight for survival! I would hope most employers have now seen sense and now open on a Wednesday afternoon? Crazy! Investing in customer service training would do a lot of people some good.

Does anyone know if what our Government are doing to attract new businesses to the area ?

Any outcome of ferry meeting on Friday?

The Royal Hotel being rennovated and reopened would help Campbeltown greatly. An internet cafe would be good, or a cafe offering free wifi?

[A Horse called Juan Face]

All I know is, I wanted to come home about a month ago, but after giving it some thought, it makes more sense to stay out here and work, then I can claim tax back when I do go home. The more I work, the more I get. I can't think of any job I could do in the town, except work in the Supermarkets, and who knows if they'd be hiring? I wouldn't get my old job back unless someone else left. There are likely to be a few residents in the town that will have a sense of apathy about the whole situation, and that really doesn't help matters either.

[EMDEE]

All I know is, I wanted to come home about a month ago, but after giving it some thought, it makes more sense to stay out here and work, then I can claim tax back when I do go home. The more I work, the more I get. I can't think of any job I could do in the town, except work in the Supermarkets, and who knows if they'd be hiring? I wouldn't get my old job back unless someone else left. There are likely to be a few residents in the town that will have a sense of apathy about the whole situation, and that really doesn't help matters either.

There are undoubtedly many others who would return to Kintyre if some coherent and sustainable economic development were to take place. There will always be an element of apathy and acceptance of the status quo in any community because it can very easily appear to be too much of a mountain to climb.

It really falls upon those who are motivated to take things forward and apply pressure in the appropriate quarters. It is only within the last few years that there has been a medium such as the Kintyre Forum where the feelings and aspirations of those living in Kintyre and also those who can be regarded as Kintyre exiles can be brought together and in some way be assessed and discussed.

There is obviously much strong and heartfelt feeling on these issues, and no shortage of constructive ideas and aspirations, as we have seen on this, and other threads.

Let's not allow these strong feelings and ideas to be wasted!!!

[westport321]

this forum is wonderful to get thoughts out to a lot of people. I still think we need to think of kintyre as an area maybe even its own island( as it will be again when sea levels rise) what parts of kintyre are better suited for specific tasks?
Take a look at the marketing that the island of Arran does, granted they have a nice connection to the ayrshire coast but a few years ago, it too was a backwater area.
Much as I liked the ballycastle/campbeltown ferry, maybe we need to look at a brodick/ campbeltown ferry what would the transit time be? 2 hours? You can move goods and people to the central coast fairly efficiently its just a matter of scheduling.
As for the Lochranza/ Claonig connection, how many haulers use that route? It seems to me the few times I have been on it, that its mostly set up for tourists and when they start that trip they have no idea that the road from Dunoon is scary then they end up on a goat track across Kintyre to kennacraig or down the east road to CN.
Transportation is the key to the areas future.
Do you suppose that argyll could be pressured to invole himself in this??

[£3.73]

westport321,

I'd love to agree with you on this, and ideally, I do ..

However, Kintyre's roads are a disgrace and would cost a small fortune to put right.

More importantly, rising fuel costs are a serious, serious issue.

Airlines and package tour operators are going out of business on a daily basis.
Hauliers are struggling with the cost of diesel.
I'm not sure how any proposed ferry would be powered, I jokingly suggested getting a big Pedalo a while back, but it's going to require much more subsidising than it would have even a year ago. I'm also not sure Joe Public is going to be splashing any disposable income he might have with the same abandon as a year ago, so the tourist trade will undoubtably suffer as a consequence. I know this isn't a ferry thread, so I won't bang on, but Kintyre isn't actually an island (much as it feels like it) and new ferry routes are ultimately non essential.

These are big considerations, and these are hard times, not just locally, but Nationally & Globally.

Whatever strategy is arrived at, it certainly requires a lot of thought, & the flexibility to move with this ongoing uncertainty.

I like your idea of Kintyre as an island, and ultimately that may form a basis of any winning strategy. Local infrastructure & self-sufficiency may be the way to go, with upgraded electronic links to the outside rather than upgraded physical ones. At least until we've riden out this economic depression, which may take a considerable amount of years.

[westport321]

I do feel your pain 3.73 and fully understand where you are coming from, the US has had a big hand in creating this financial mess that is now punishing people that had nothing to do with it, but funding aside, what can be done re planning for the future, I really like the idea of telecommuting VS fixed work places, I was saddened to see the call centre close,it should have worked and worked well, other than the grant money running out was there any other reason for the closing?

[elainemck]

£3.73 yes you are right, it would cost a small fortune to get our roads fixed. Nevertheless, surely something needs to be done? General repairs would at least be nice A pedalo to Braehead - now that's an idea!! Or build a massive bridge! If we had better roads with more sections being dual carriageways, it would create better links with other towns and cities, making our infrastructure more appealing to businesses around the world.

I know many folk who have left the town would love to come back to stay, maybe raise a family but there just isn't the jobs. My husband included

[£3.73]

I really like the idea of telecommuting VS fixed work places, I was saddened to see the call centre close,it should have worked and worked well, other than the grant money running out was there any other reason for the closing?

The Call Centre here was another early victim of the current Global economic meltdown.

The contract we had with Scottish Power worked out well for both parties. Our agents were happier servicing customers than selling to customers. It provided a fixed income & allowed us to run other campaigns & side projects.
However, Scottish Power were preparing themselves for takeover by Spanish company Iberdrola, and started to take things like Customer Service back in-house, primarily to slash their outsourcing budget.

From there, we moved back into the selling arena, primarily with Creditfix, the inhouse debt consolidation business. We tried returning to customer service and negotiated a deal with 118 118 that required UPPING the staff levels. However, they were unable to honour the agreed contract and these extra staff were let go.

Meanwhile, despite getting other sidelines up and running ie. mortgage advising etc, the core debt consolidation campaign found itself over extended in the sub-Prime lending market & other areas ... and the rest is, literally,history.

(the Campbeltown site was always a bit different from other sites within the Contact 4 group, which were highly dependent on the core business (Creditix). We had been actively working to attract other clients of our own back to fill the seats. Obviously, in hindsight, a decicion was taken at HQ that the entire group was going to fold, so ultimately this wasn't an option & for the last few months the site was micro-managed from outwith, which was a horrible time, until the innevitable closure. We did however, manage to keep fighting long enough to see many of the agents made it through until xmas, which is a hollow victory, but a victory all the same).

So there's your answer, debt consolidation, housing market & takeovers and unfortunately global economic woe in those very areas. The call centre building is a huge thing, that requires a certain amount of staff to justify the rent & running costs. Laterly, that just wasn't feasible.

Was grant money the main issue ? Bear in mind, the entire company folded (Creditfix) ... that's a lot of other sites.

What the call centre was able to do however was employ on a large scale without having to worry about transportation links.

Even the existing electronic infrastucture provided adequate ability to work in partnership with other large companies and patch directly into their systems & that other sites in the group ie. Glasgow & Ireland could be easily remotely-controlled and on occassion "babysat" from Campbeltown.

[EMDEE]

The road system is indeed one of the major problems of the area. The last major rerouting was the straightening out of the bends between Westport and Bellochantuy over 20 years ago, and prior to that if memory serves, was the bypassing of Drumore Cottages, Glenbarr, Tayinloan, Clachan, Whitehouse etc. which must be about 40 years ago.

Just to give a comparison on this, the southern half of the section of the A 82 between Tarbet and Crainlarich is an absolute disgrace and is the scene of regular accidents, many fatal. This road is the main artery from Central Scotland to the Western Highlands, and when two buses or lorries meet they have to stop and edge past each other! The "temporary" traffic lights several miles north of Tarbet were placed there when part of the road subsided into Loch Lomond, and recently celebrated their 40th birthday! In spite of public pressure, and a currently ongoing campaign, nothing is being done about this road. If it is not possible to get anything done there, what chance is there of anything being done in Kintyre?

[bill]

After 10years it has finally been officialy announced that the M O D is selling off it's base at Machrihanish.

http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/other/d ... p#comments

How will this affect the way forward for Kintyre?

Will it have any effect on the exsisting commercial flights ?

Will Richard Branson buy it for his proposed space flights ?

In this economic meltdown we find ourselves in will there be a buyer at all ?