Tipperary campervan site boosts local businesses, as calls for more facilities grow
A designated campervan parking site in Tipperary is boosting local businesses, with calls for similar facilities to be rolled out across the county.
The Suir Island Aire site in Clonmel opened in the last couple of years, and has space for 18 campervans, fresh water for refilling tanks, a designated waste disposal point for greywater and chemical toilets, and regularly emptied waste bins.
An aire is a designated caravan stopover area, common across Europe.
At the February meeting of the Clonmel Borough District, Mairead Winters, the council’s tourism activator said that a county-wide campervan site feasibility study was being carried out, and that the site in Clonmel had been a great success.
"In relation to the caravan and camping feasibility study, we were successful in LEADER funding, and this process has started.
"Consultants have reached out to the municipal districts through district engineers and administrators in looking at an evaluation of the caravan and camping opportunities that may exist within Tipperary,” Ms Winters said.
"We’re not trying to displace private enterprise here, it’s to look at the opportunity where we can enhance it,” she added.
The feasibility study is expected to be completed by the end of the year, Ms Winters said, paving the way for more facilities like the aire in Clonmel.
"We do know from Clonmel that it is an economic generator, the people who stay are spending money in the town, and they’re eating out and they’re visiting places and buying, so that’s the ethos of it.
Mayor of Clonmel Cllr Pat English said that the campervan facility in the town was a great addition, and that it was bringing people to the town even during midweek.
"I passed there this morning and on a Wednesday, there was six campervans over there, so it’s really getting popular. Normally the weekends you’d have a good number, but in the middle of the week and there’s six campervans there, in atrocious weather really.
"It is something that could be rolled out around the county,” Cllr English added.
Fianna Fáil councillor Siobhán Ambrose said that one person who had stayed at the campervan site told her they spent a significant amount of money on their visit to Clonmel.
"Somebody who is involved with one of the associations contacted me to say they really enjoyed their stay. They went for meals, they socialised at night, they shopped by day, and they spent over €600 just on shopping alone.
"People are coming to the town midweek as well as at prime times,” Cllr Ambrose said.