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Excited American tourists can’t get anough of the picture-postcard seaside town of Oban.
Hundreds of them flock to its quaint streets on the western coast of Scotland every year in search of ancestors, a connection with their roots or even award-winning seafood.
But while locals love welcoming visitors from far and wide every year, its homegrown holidaymakers that are proving a problem.
Oban sees its population of 8,500 skyrocket to over 25,000 in the peak season with data from Trainline suggesting its one of the most-popular destinations in the UK for Brit day-trippers.
In an effort to cash in, out of towners have been snapping up local properties and turning them into holiday homes with 224 registered second homes in the area and over 1,000 AirBnBs.
A report from Argyll and Bute council in December said Oban ‘has a significant short-term let sector’ which had received 3,370 applications and continue to receive ‘in the region of 10-20 new applications each month’.
But the housing market is now so flooded with second home owners looking to make a holiday buck that locals say they can’t even book a dentist appointment.
John Cuthbertson, 54, manager of local grocery shop Food from Argylle, said: ‘The whole town is Air BnB now. I know people who have got at least one, if not two, AirBnB sort of things.
‘That’s why nobody can get accommodation up here. The dentist surgeries have been trying to get dentists to come here but there’s no accommodation for them, there’s no flats to rent.’
While Wendy King, owner of the George Street Chip Shop, told MailOnline: ‘It’s ridiculous.
‘It’s hard getting professionals to come here because there’s no accommodation.
‘There’s three practises but they’re not taking new NHS patients or private patients because they can’t get any dentists to staff them.’
Chief Executive of Bid4Oban, the town’s business improvement district, Andrew Spence, 59, said ‘there are accommodation problems for everyone’ due to the amount of second homes, including ‘teachers, doctors, nurses and dentists’.
His daughter works in the one dentist office which does offer NHS services and said ‘they seem to be busy all the time’.
One woman has been travelling 170 miles from her hometown of Dumfries to Oban to visit a holistic dentist who has become ‘well-known’ in the area and has a ‘brilliant reputation’.
Wendy Kitson, 63, drove four hours to visit the holistic dentist to have her mercury fillings taken out after the dentists in Dumfries went private.
She said: ‘As far as I know, in Oban there’s no NHS dentist appointments available.
‘Someone said there is a surgery accepting NHS patients but they’ll probably have to go on a waiting list.’
In 2023, Argyll and Bute council became the first in Scotland to declare a housing emergency as a shortage of available homes
became a rapidly growing issue
.
In response to the crisis, Oban Community Council called on Argyll and Bute Council to ban short term lets in the town.
The group believes landlords turning long-term lets into more profitable short-term lets is a large part of the issue.
As a solution, they suggested putting restrictions in place which would see second home holiday let owners forced to rent them out for longer periods of time to help ease the shortage.
At the time, figures showed 42 per cent of property sales had been made to people living outside of the Argyll and Bute area.
The total number of households on a waiting list for housing in Oban, Lorn and the Isles was 649 in November 2024, whilst 2811 properties were registered as second homes.
The number of households on the social housing waiting list was 3,209 in 2023/24.
In 2023, 92 per cent of residents responding to the Housing Emergency survey said housing shortage was having an impact on their community.
And 75 per cent of employers who responded to the workforce housing survey said a shortage of housing was a barrier to recruiting or retaining staff.
Argyll and Bute council put together a Housing Emergency Action Plan which they are jointly producing with partner agencies to ‘target action where it is needed the most’.
Elsewhere, locals complained about traffic building up during periods with a high influx of tourists and a lack of public toilets to accommodate visitors, especially elderly people.
Owner of MacGillivrays Seafood Grill, Gordon MacGillivray, 55, said the council have put ‘a lot of money’ into the area, providing ‘new pavements and roads’ amongst other things.
However, he added: ‘The main thing which would make a lot of people in this town happy is toilet facilities. We need more public toilets. Tourists always complain about the lack of public toilets and car parks.
‘We need a big multi-storey car park because parking and traffic is a terrible issue.’
The former fisherman, who once supplied lobsters to rich patrons on cruise ships, said the traffic builds up as people drive around looking for a space to park when the car park on the north pier is full.
‘When that gets packed, the whole town stops,’ he added.
Despite these gripes, Mr MacGillivray is a big fan of tourists and ‘loves’ seeing them flood in to his ‘beautiful town’ from March and April when the Easter school holidays begin.
His bustling tartan stand is situated on right by the shore, drawing in hungry visitors with the inviting aroma of the seafood caught fresh every morning, such as scallops, prawns and mussels, being grilled by his chef.
Speaking about what attracts holidaymakers to Oban, Mr MacGillivray said: ‘The sunsets we get here are second to none. The scenery is absolutely gorgeous.
‘It’s a beautiful town with beautiful restaurants. The main reason is that it’s a gateway to the Isles, so we get a lot of day-trippers.’
Another feature of the seaside town which may attract those looking for a more peaceful getaway is a lack of nightlife.
17-year-old Kenzi Healy, who works in George Street Chip Shop and has lived in Oban all her life, said: ‘There’s pubs, but not many nightclubs. We do have The View music venue and restaurant which sometimes has a DJ. But it’s pretty chilled here in the evenings.’
Ron and Vera Harrison, 84 and 80, live in Cheshire and had returned to Oban after their last visit around 15 years ago for its ‘beauty’ and traditional appeal.
Mrs Harrison said: ‘We’ve travelled the world, and here’s all this on our doorstep.
‘It’s been so many years and I still recognised it since we were last here because it hasn’t changed. It’s still as beautiful as ever. They haven’t modernised, it’s lovely.’
A spokesperson for Argyll and Bute Council told MailOnline: ‘We have been working tirelessly with our partners and key stakeholders to address the housing emergency in Argyll and Bute and identify ways to address the housing shortage.
‘To date, 375 affordable homes have been built in Dunbeg, just outside Oban, by LINK Housing Association.
Planning applications have also been submitted for an additional 430 new homes there. In addition, hundreds of new homes, many affordable, have been built on sites in Oban, Connel, North Connel, Taynuilt, Dalmally, Benderloch and Kimelford.
‘We recognise the need for key worker accommodation and have launched an Empty Homes Project in collaboration with the Argyll and Bute Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP).
‘This initiative aims to identify the specific housing needs and types required. To support this effort, we have appointed a dedicated empty homes officer to work with the HSCP to create a comprehensive database of employees, ensuring that housing requirements are met effectively.
‘We have also secured Strategic Housing Funding to refurbish one property in Oban, two on Isle of Coll, and one on the Isle of Tiree for key worker accommodation.
‘These locations are experiencing high demand for housing, which has affected recruitment for the HSCP.
‘Additionally, we are exploring the potential of various commercial properties for conversion into worker accommodation and are actively engaging with long-term empty property owners in high-demand areas to promote the project.
‘We are continuing to identify new opportunities for new homes to be built in the Lorn area.’
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