Young Irvine businessman aims to make most of harbour expansion

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An ambitious Irvine businessman is setting his sights on running golf and whisky tours on the back of major new developments at Irvine harbour after being given the green light by licensing chiefs.

Andrew Tremble, son of former Carters Society Captain Andy, secured a private hire licence at a recent meeting of the North Ayrshire Licensing Committee.

Now the 24-year-old hopes to help establish Irvine as a major tourist destination through the hotels he owns.

He is expanding on the back of North Ayrshire Council’s Great Harbour project - the programme of development of Irvine Harbourside area between the town centre and the beach.

It includes the implementation of the ‘Maritime Mile’ investment allocated through the Ayrshire Growth Deal.

Proposals include:

• The expansion of the Scottish Maritime Museum to include exhibition and events space
• The development of a site to offer retail and restaurant/take away food commercial opportunities within an events and arts hub
• The development of a significant play facility

This will see a huge change in the number of visitors attracted to the area.

The Ayrshire Growth Deal investment will encourage further commercial investment opportunities in the residential and commercial leisure sectors on Council land allocated for development within the adopted Local Development Plan (LDP).

Andrew believes the American market is strong, especially after many from across the pond flocked to accommodation across Ayrshire for the Open Championship at Royal Troon.

He said: “We run three guesthouses - the Marina View, St Andrews guest house and the Harbourside Hotel. We did a lot of courtesy travel to and from Royal Troon for The Open for our guests at the Irvine.

“Going forward we need to make money so the eventual aim is to run trips which you pay for but we will have comfortable transportation and good rates.

”We have some fantastic courses here like St Andrews and Turnberry as well as Royal Troon so we could organise trips to those. I see a lot of potential in the town and with the Great Harbour project it is only going to be better.

“We hope to run golf tours and whisky tours to the likes of Arran, Glasgow and the likes of Loch Lomond. We saw a spike in American and European tourism this summer with the Open being on, we aim to increase that every year and bring more tourism here.

"Accommodation prices throughout Ayrshire soared during Open Championship week and that is why we saw a lot of people staying at our accommodation as it was cheaper.

"We ran guests to the golf every day, starting at 6am and finishing as late as 10pm.

"From June to September, we had 15,000-16,000 guests so for next year we want to see how many of those are golfers and how many might want to do whisky tours to Arran or Loch Lomond.

“We want to use this as a base to take golfers or other tourists around. The council are making a major investment in the harbour so I feel it is up to businesses to support them all we can.”

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