Options Appraisal

Four strategic paths forward — assessed objectively against the scale of the heritage challenge.

This options appraisal is a standard component of heritage funding applications (including NLHF Heritage 2033). It demonstrates that alternatives have been rigorously considered. The purpose of this document is to present the options clearly so that trustees can make an informed recommendation — which will then be put to the community to decide what they want their asset to be.

Option A: Stay the Course

Continue the current community lettings model, heritage stewardship, and periodic grant applications.

Builds on 20 years of dedicated community custodianship. CDT has kept the camp alive through volunteer effort, modest lettings income, and careful grant applications. That commitment is real and should be acknowledged.

However, current income cannot cover the £98k/year maintenance requirement identified in the Heritage Conservation Framework. The gap widens every year as buildings deteriorate further. Heritage condition continues to decline. Within 10–15 years, many buildings will be beyond economic repair.

Metric	Current Reality	What's Needed
Annual lettings revenue	Modest (low thousands)	£98,000/year maintenance
Capital repair budget	Grant-dependent, sporadic	£1.18M over 10 years
Staff capacity	Extremely limited	Full-time maintenance team
Structural gap	Revenue nowhere near conservation costs. The deficit grows annually.

Option B: Strengthen & Diversify

Do what we do now, but better. Improve marketing, broaden lettings, add seasonal events, pursue more maintenance grants, and invest in basic infrastructure.

A practical step forward that builds on existing strengths and addresses immediate operational gaps. This is not a bad plan — it is a responsible one. The CDT Strategic Plan 2025–28 and Tourism White Paper set out a clear, deliverable programme of work under this heading. It could meaningfully improve the camp's short-term financial position.

The Strategic Plan commits to “expansion of commercial leasing, tourism, and events including weddings” (Activity 2.1), local supplier partnerships for “the wedding and celebrations offer” (Activity 2.3), implementing the Conservation Management Framework (Activity 4.1), and a specialist training programme for renovators (Activity 4.6). The RTIF Design Fund application (submitted Nov 2025) is already securing professional design work for road access, visitor experience, and heritage conservation approaches. These are real deliverables with real momentum.

There are real, deliverable items in this category — several already under discussion with PKC and actively being funded. However, not all of them lead to the same destination. Some are compatible with any future direction; others commit the site to a specific market position.

Direction-neutral — compatible with any future option

Item	Value	Status
EV charging points	Future-proofs the site; expected by all visitor types	PKC supportive
Changing Places toilet	Accessibility infrastructure; strengthens any funding application	Secured
CARES energy / solar farm	Reduced operating costs, community benefit income	Feasibility by Apr 2026; solar farm target end 2027
Heritage museum enhancements	Structural repairs, interpretation upgrades, progress toward accredited status	Tourism White Paper: £20K allocated
Community tourism signage	Panoramic tourism map in St Kessog Square — raises visibility of Comrie's entire visitor offer	Tourism White Paper: £10K allocated
Road & footpath design	Improved access for pedestrians, cyclists, and vehicles given anticipated rise in visitor numbers	RTIF Design Fund: in progress
Walking/cycling route to camp	Accessible route from Comrie to Cultybraggan	Strategic Plan Activity 3.4: ongoing
Chapel refurbishment	Painting, electrics — builds the wedding track record that makes any future model credible	Tourism White Paper: part of £58K events package
Volunteer restoration programme	Local, national, and international volunteers engaged in hut restoration	SCP Year 1 outcome

Direction-setting — commits the site to a specific market identity

Item	Value	What the evidence shows
Motorhome waste disposal	Low-cost goodwill gesture (sealed tank, not a major facility) — solves a real PKC problem	PKC's Aberfeldy facility (£237K RTIF) is a waste point and visitor hub, not a revenue generator. Comrie is on the A85 but not a major touring route — not NC500 or A82 territory. The real value is the PKC relationship, not the infrastructure itself.
Motorhome overnight stops	Modest income from touring visitors	Revenue data from comparable sites is sobering: South Hams (Devon) — best UK example — generated £14K/year from 1,400 stays. Highland Council's scheme targeted £500K, was slashed to £20K, then missed even that by half. At £10–15/night with 5–10 pitches, realistic income is £5K–15K/year. Motorhome tourists spend £47–60/day in the local economy — but that goes to Comrie's shops and pubs, not to CDT.
On-site shop (convenience)	Visitor spend capture, community amenity	Format matters — a general convenience offer sets a different tone from a curated heritage retail space
Budget/mid-range holiday rentals	Volume-based revenue from self-catering lets	Establishes a volume-based, mid-range market position that is difficult to reposition later

This is a genuine fork in the road. The direction-neutral items can and should proceed now — they serve the site under any future direction and many are already in motion. The direction-setting items deliver real short-term benefits but commit the site to a mid-range tourism identity that narrows future options. Both are legitimate choices. The question is which direction the community wants to take.

Even with all of the above in place, incremental revenue gains still fall short of the conservation costs identified in the framework. The Tourism White Paper's total budget of £130K is a meaningful investment, but the resulting revenue stream — even optimistically — does not close the £98k/year maintenance gap, let alone the £1.18M repair backlog. Grant dependency continues with no structural change to the funding model.

Option C: Tourism Conversion (Mid-Range)

Convert a portion of huts to budget or mid-range self-catering accommodation. Add event hosting capabilities. Develop a formal campsite and motorhome aire. Pursue RTIF and small heritage grants. Develop a sustainable tourism offer alongside continued community use.

A significant investment in the camp's future with real commercial intent. This option takes tourism seriously and represents a genuine step up from the status quo. The Tourism White Paper and SCP application lay out a concrete 3-year delivery plan: 5 weddings in Year 1, 10 in Year 2, 15 in Year 3, plus a motorhome aire and heritage lottery bid.

This is the full expression of Option B's direction-setting items: a formal campsite accommodating tents, motorhomes, and caravans (£52K), wedding venue upgrades including chapel refurbishment and events hut (£58K), museum enhancements (£20K), and community signage (£10K). PKC is enthusiastic about this direction — the council now sees CDT as a serious delivery partner rather than, as one officer put it, “bit players.” That shift in perception is genuine and valuable, regardless of which option is ultimately chosen.

The motorhome offer — what the data says

Motorhome tourism in Scotland is a growing market: 1.58 million camping/caravanning/motorhome trips in 2022, generating £355M in spend. UK motorhome registrations grew 20.2% in 2024. The RTIF Design Fund is already commissioning design work for a Cultybraggan aire. There are successful community-run examples: Cullen (Moray) runs 13 pitches at £10/night; Urgha (Harris) has 6 RTIF-funded pitches with hookups.

However, the revenue case needs honest scrutiny. The best-performing council aire in the UK (South Hams, Devon) generated £14K from 1,400 stays in its first year at £15/night. Highland Council's NC500 scheme — on the country's most famous touring route — was publicly called a “total flop,” missing even its drastically reduced £20K target. Moray Council's analysis suggested 31 years to recoup £11K at similar rates. The real economic value of motorhome tourism (£47–60/day per van) flows to the local economy — shops, pubs, fuel — not to the site operator.

The ceiling problem: Option C generates enough to operate — but not enough to conserve. At mid-range rates with a £130K total investment, you need high volume to cover £98k/year in maintenance alone. High volume and heritage conservation pull in opposite directions. The harder you push this model, the more it undermines the asset it depends on.

The commitment problem: Option C is not a stepping stone to something bigger — it is a destination in itself. Establishing the site as a campsite and budget self-catering destination creates a market identity, a visitor expectation, and an infrastructure footprint that are difficult to reverse. The SCP application targets “a popular and sustainable motorhome stopover park” as a formal outcome — once delivered and reported to the funder, that identity is locked in. Repositioning becomes significantly harder.

Where the Paths Diverge

The direction-neutral items — EV charging, Changing Places, CARES energy, solar farm, museum enhancements, signage, chapel refurbishment, road design, volunteer programme — can and should proceed now. They build PKC trust, demonstrate delivery capability, strengthen funding applications, and create visible progress. Several are already funded and in motion. They serve the site under any future direction.

The direction-setting items — motorhome aire, formal campsite, budget holiday rentals — deliver real short-term benefits but commit the site to a mid-range identity. Once established, that identity is difficult to reverse — visitors expect it, infrastructure reflects it, and the brand is set. This is the decision point: not whether to act, but which direction to build toward.

Option D: The Luxury Camp (Recommended) ★

A different starting point. Forget the constraints for a moment. If we had £2M in the bank tomorrow and a blank page, what would we build? What would we recommend to our members? What is the best possible use of a nationally significant heritage asset — for the community, for the buildings, and for the long term?

The answer is an exclusive-use luxury wedding destination — focused on the Escort Camp compound (Huts 21–39). 17 accommodation units sleeping ~70 guests, with seasonal glamping for overflow. 10 destination weddings per year. £50k net to CDT per wedding. £500k/year projected revenue. Heritage conservation (£98k/year) = under 20% of gross revenue — comfortably funded. The heritage story drives the premium. The premium funds the conservation. A self-sustaining virtuous circle.

Crucially, ~70 guests matches the actual market. The Bridebook UK Wedding Report 2026 shows average UK weddings at ~80 guests and declining, with destination weddings typically at 50–80. This is not a compromise — it is product-market fit. Five huts are already converted from the HSC project, four more need only interior fit-out, and only 3 storage tenants (none with active leases) are affected. No community groups are displaced. Compounds C and D — home to workshops, youth programmes, and heritage spaces — are left entirely untouched.

The vision builds conservatively: 3 pilot weddings in Year 1 using existing infrastructure upgraded to luxury spec, ramping to 10 weddings per year by Year 4. Year 1 validates the concept with real couples and real partners at reduced rates (~£15k per event) before capital is committed to full build-out. All subsequent weddings are procured by professional partner agencies at least 12 months in advance.

This is the only option where the revenue model structurally exceeds the conservation requirement. Even at half capacity (5 weddings/year, £250k), the £98k conservation cost is covered. The £1.18M repair backlog can be addressed within the first 4 years of full operation. Wedding revenue funds conservation across the entire camp — including Compounds C and D, where the priority becomes sensitive heritage restoration as leases expire naturally over the 10-year Heritage Framework cycle. Critically, Option D delivers on all four of CDT's constitutional objectives — community, economy, environment, heritage — more fully than any other option. See Appendix J for the full alignment analysis. The claims behind these figures are evidenced in the sections that follow: The Luxury Camp details the model, The Evidence Base validates the assumptions, and the Funding Strategy shows how the capital is raised.

Scoring Matrix

Criterion	A: Stay the Course	B: Strengthen	C: Mid-Range	D: The Luxury Camp
Financial Sustainability	✗	~	✓	✓✓
Heritage Preservation	✗	✗	~	✓✓
Community Benefit	~	~	✓	✓✓
Deliverability	✓✓	✓	~	~
Funder Attractiveness	✗	~	~	✓✓

Key: ✗ = Does not meet threshold ~ = Partially meets ✓ = Meets ✓✓ = Exceeds

Option D is recommended not because the others lack merit, but because the scale of the heritage crisis demands a solution that generates its own funding permanently. The model is deliberately conservative: 10 weddings per year, £50k net each, building up over 5 years — using only the Escort Camp compound, where most huts are already under CDT control. No community groups are displaced. An extensive due diligence process — securing partner commitments and visiting comparable venues — validates the concept before any capital is committed. The proven Huts 29–39 template, identified commercial partners, heritage framework, and supportive planning policy landscape (NPF4 Policies 7, 29, 30) de-risk the execution significantly. It aligns fully with CDT's constitutional objectives and is supported by established charity law precedent. See The Luxury Camp for the full model, Appendix I for the planning pathway, and Appendix J for the core purposes alignment.

See Appendix B for the full financial model. See Appendix I for the planning pathway and deliverability assessment.

Next: The Luxury Camp sets out Option D in full detail — the Escort Camp hut-by-hut plan, revenue model, market data, and the heritage restoration vision for Compounds C & D.