Picture the scene. Late November 2024. You’ve pulled into Royal Albert Drive just before dark. Sea on one side, cliffs on the other. Parked properly. No chairs out. No awning. Kettle on. You’re planning to sleep, wake up early, and be gone before most dog walkers have laced their boots.

Then the signs go up.

North Yorkshire Council, citing an “unprecedented level of complaints,” introduces an Experimental Traffic Regulation Order — an ETRO — banning motorhomes and campervans from parking between 11pm and 7am at three coastal locations: Royal Albert Drive in Scarborough, the A174 between Sandsend and Raithwaite, and Osgodby Hill and Filey Road at Cayton Bay.

On paper it looks decisive. Complaints about rubbish, fires, illegal parking, vans packed too close together for the fire service’s comfort. The sort of thing that forces a council’s hand.

So they act. And the vans don’t disappear. They move.

What Actually Happened

You can’t ban a few thousand people’s bedrooms and expect them to evaporate at 11pm. They still need somewhere to sleep. So instead of the seafront, many shifted into the surrounding residential streets — the places where people actually live full time.

Councillor Rich Maw described vans parking directly outside homes overnight, discharging grey water into verges, using public taps, hanging washing on hedges, and in some cases causing noise and intimidation. He confirmed that at least 2,000 incidents had been reported and logged by residents with police and highway officers.

Let’s be straight about that behaviour — it’s not acceptable. Emptying grey water into someone’s verge isn’t van life. It’s the reason bans happen. And the van life community does itself no favours when it pretends otherwise.

But here’s the uncomfortable part: the ETRO didn’t remove those vans. It redistributed them. The consultation response was reportedly overwhelming in its opposition to the scheme. Over 2,000 complaints were submitted specifically about the displacement effect — separate from the original complaints that triggered the ban in the first place.

It didn’t solve the tension. It changed the postcode.

The Blanket Problem

Motorhome owner Steve, who drives up from Preston with his son several times a year, put it plainly: “The wrong people are getting punished. It’s all the idiots coming in, racing up and down at night, lighting fires, having barbecues. The people in the motorhomes aren’t doing that.”

That’s the crux of it. A blanket ban doesn’t distinguish between someone quietly reading with the blinds down and someone treating the promenade like a festival site. It doesn’t differentiate between a well-maintained self-contained van and an outfit that’s left half a campsite’s worth of mess behind. It just says no to everything, which is administratively tidy and practically blunt.

Blunt tools cause collateral damage. North Yorkshire is living proof.

The Plan B That Wasn’t Ready

Before the ban came into force, over 1,128 people signed a petition suggesting Royal Albert Drive be converted into an Aire-style stopover — a managed, modestly priced overnight facility with proper oversight and capacity limits.

This isn’t a radical idea. France has been doing it for decades. Germany too. Most of Europe figured out years ago that van life wasn’t going away and decided to structure it rather than fight it. You pay a few quid, you get a marked bay, proper waste disposal, and the local council gets income rather than complaints. Everyone wins, roughly.

The council rejected the proposal at the time, citing concerns about competing with local campsites and doubts that paid parking would actually reduce the problems.

Yet now, as the ETRO approaches its review, controlled overnight parking with enforcement and proper signage is reportedly back on the table as the leading option. Which is, essentially, a version of what people suggested before any of this started. The infrastructure wasn’t there when the vans arrived. The lever that was easiest to pull got pulled first. That’s not incompetence — it’s just reactive, and reactive rarely lands cleanly.

Where Things Stand Right Now

The ETRO runs until May 2026 at the latest, with the council indicating it hopes to reach a decision by spring 2026. The Scarborough and Whitby Area Committee met in Whitby at the start of March to discuss options, and a review incorporating displacement impacts is now confirmed.

For van lifers planning the Yorkshire Coast this season, the practical reality is this: overnight parking remains prohibited at Royal Albert Drive, the Sandsend to Raithwaite stretch of the A174, and the Cayton Bay approaches. The surrounding residential streets are unrestricted in many areas but come with an obvious social contract — parking outside someone’s house at midnight might be legal, it doesn’t mean it feels right.

There are proper campsites nearby. Cayton Village Caravan Park is the obvious choice close to Scarborough. Check park4night and searchforsites before you arrive — there are smaller Aires and informal stopovers in the area if you do the research rather than arriving blind and hoping for the best.

What This Means Beyond Scarborough

Scarborough isn’t unique. Cornwall has felt it. Parts of the Lake District have felt it. Coastal Wales is feeling it now. Anywhere that went from a handful of vans to fifty on a Friday night, without the facilities to match, is having some version of this conversation.

The tension is real and it deserves honest acknowledgement. Residents don’t want chaos outside their front doors. Van lifers don’t want to be treated as a public order problem for quietly existing. Both things are true simultaneously, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.

The councils that get this right will be the ones that treat van life as a legitimate part of UK tourism — invest in structured bays, modest charges, proper enforcement — and stop pretending that pushing vans from a seafront to a cul-de-sac counts as a solution.

The vans don’t vanish. And the communities that plan for that reality, rather than just reacting to it, will be considerably less miserable for everyone involved.

<FAQs>

Is overnight campervan parking currently banned in Scarborough?

Yes. The Experimental Traffic Regulation Order prohibits motorhomes and campervans from parking overnight between 11pm and 7am at Royal Albert Drive on Scarborough’s North Bay, the A174 between Sandsend and Raithwaite, and Osgodby Hill and Filey Road at Cayton Bay. A final decision on whether to make it permanent, scrap it, or replace it is expected by spring 2026.

Why has Scarborough’s campervan parking ban caused so many complaints?

Because it displaced vans from the seafront into surrounding residential streets, creating exactly the kind of problems it was meant to prevent — noise, waste disposal issues, and friction between locals and visitors — just in a different location. Over 2,000 complaints were submitted specifically about this displacement effect.

What alternatives are being considered to the Scarborough campervan ban?

A managed overnight parking scheme along the lines of a European Aire — marked bays, set hours, modest fees, and proper waste facilities — is now being actively reviewed. It’s worth noting this was proposed by residents via petition before the ban was introduced in the first place.</FAQs>