Scottish tourism was invented at Kenmore. Queen Victoria came to the Highland Perthshire village in 1842 on her first visit to Scotland. Ten thousand people followed her and stayed in whatever accommodation was available in and around the village, thus the B&B was invented. Queen Victoria was so inspired by the romantic beauty of the place that later she bought her own estate at Balmoral. Her Journal of our Life in the Highlands served to popularise Kenmore and visitors followed from all over the world. Another early tourist was Robert Burns who in 1787 wrote a poem on the inn’s wall. The inn was established in 1557 making it the oldest hotel in Scotland.

The village remains idyllic, with its friendly Georgian square, elegant church and grand castle gate. The post office cum shop is still called the ‘Telegraph Office’. The hotel has black painted stubby tree trunks for columns along its porch. Nowhere could be more rustic and quaint, nowhere more quintessentially highland. Easily accessed in an under two hour drive from all of Scotland’s main cities, Kenmore remains at the heart of the heartland of Scotland. With happy memories of walks along the banks of the Tay, boating on the loch or golfing on the James Braid course at Taymouth Castle, Kenmore lies close to the hearts of anyone who has holidayed there in the past.

Over a century since Queen Victoria’s visit Kenmore’s tourism economy continued to prosper with a balanced sort of sustainable tourism for all.  Students and the younger folk came camping, whilst the less adventurous stayed in bed and breakfasts. The better heeled would rent one of the damp cottages on the castle estate. The ‘terribly smart’ hotel would arrange ‘huntin, shootin ‘n fishin’ for affluent southerners. 

Timeshare

But now Kenmore is to be all deluxe mod con filled houses, some even come with hot tubs in the gardens. It is called ‘fractional ownership’, what we used to call timeshares until that term became tainted with shabby selling practices.

To make way for holiday houses the campsite was closed and redeveloped. The campers are now forced to camp on the loch shore without sanitary facilities so they leave their waste not to mention rubbish on the beaches. Is this going upmarket? The bed and breakfasts, once the bread and butter money for struggling pensioners are gone. Damp cottages, necessary income for hard up local farmers, rejected in favour of mod con filled suburban chalets with and Jacuzzis. The hotel, once so select, now caters for coach parties.

Over four hundred of these ‘holiday units’ have been built or have planning consent within a three mile radius of the village. A further one hundred are being applied for.  Kenmore’s accessibility to Scotland’s cities makes it the perfect target for development aimed at weekenders. Breadalbane lies unprotected between Scotland’s two great national parks, Lomond to the west and Cairngorm to the East. It is easy to see how the planners have come to a decision to squeeze as much holiday development into this area. Sadly Kenmore falls victim to the policy of national parks. You save one bit of Scotland in order to trash another bit.

The council are keen for four star fractional ownership developments and have been convinced by the developers that this would have the maximum economic benefit. This is wrong. The backpacker, cyclist, happy camper - even the caravaner - spends more than the four star fractional owner. The low cost tourist lives day-to-day, spending money in shops and pubs. The fractional owner fills up his car at Tesco and once up spends as little as possible.

Jobs

The main argument for tourism is jobs: jobs for the locals. But in Kenmore there are few locals as there is little affordable housing. Some of the people who work in these resorts are East Europeans who are prepared to accept low grade accommodation, like trailers or even huts, that would not be acceptable to local families.

Not one affordable house has been built in the area for over ten years. Now the East Europeans are leaving and there is a dire labour shortage . ‘Staff Wanted’ cards fill the post office windows. There are lots of jobs on offer, but no one to fill them. There are lots of young people would like to stay in the area but have no where to live, anything that comes on the market is beyond their financial reach and goes to weekenders or holidaymakers.

This swing from happy camper to fractional owner, from the democratic hustle and bustle of a tourism for everybody, to morgue like mini Brooksides around the loch, benefits who?  Not the shops, not the local businesses and not local employment. The winners are the developers, the builders and the council. 

Four of the five Kenmore developments are owned by companies whose shareholders do not live in the community. Building contracts go to big contractors from outside the area. And they mainly employ East Europeans too. The council get to collect lots of council tax. They do not have to supply education, social or other services on non-residential properties.

In the race to build, the developers forget that they are killing the goose that laid their golden egg. The reason why anyone ever went to Kenmore was to get away from it all. Increased traffic, light pollution and power boat activity on the loch deter the very people from coming who would normally come. Then there are issues of wild and bird life. The latest site proposed happens to be a centre of red squirrel activity – where will they go?

No one asked the people who live in the community if they wanted timeshare tourism. Tourism, once Kenmore’s mainstay, is now its nemesis. There are now only eighteen resident households in the village and many of them elderly folk, as they die off their cottages will go on the market to be bought by holidaymakers.

Croft-na-Caber

Of the five fractional ownership developments the most outrageous proposal is for the Croft-na-Caber site adjacent to the world famous Crannog Centre. Squeezed into a seven acre site are to be sixty six holiday units built in a chilling post modern style, all jaggedy steel and soon to be shabby cladding. An ancient manse, which, mysteriously, was never listed, is to be demolished as will an 18th century ferryman’s cottage. There would be a marina for 30-40 ft yachts – the sort of boat you would attempt an Atlantic crossing in, slightly oversized for the 14 mile run to Killin.

If any of these proposals seem preposterous wait for this – a three story high 85 meter long restaurant and spa complex will project about 50 meters into the Loch. It would completely block that wonderful view down Loch. You would have thought architectural meglomania went out of fashion long ago – remember Prince Charles’ remarks about ‘monstrous carbuncles on the landscape’.

Of the five timeshare schemes around Kemore, only one was completed and that was back in the 90s. The Taymouth Castle scheme ran into the sand without a single unit being built. One at Fearnan got as far as the show house and then stopped. Another, with an ambitious plan for nearly 100 units, stalled with about 14 sold. Kenmore is now a ghost village of bankrupt or abandoned building sites – mounds of earth and rubble, a landscape desecrated by opportunism.

The Costa Brava, idyllic and unspoilt up till the sixties fell into the hands of developers who bought out and marginalised the locals. We smugly thought that we had got it right here in Scotland and now we have it – the Costa Loch Tay.

© Paul Strachan, 2009