Engagement with council officers

On 23rd March the convenor and secretary met with Council Officers to discuss our concerns that Mull Car Club (MCC) had disregarded our representations on behalf of our community with regard to the Argyll Rally 2026 routes in our area. Council officers engaged with our concerns and indicated they would have further discussions with MCC.

We had first raised our concerns in correspondence with the Council in October 2025, when the MCC had submitted route proposals to UK Motorsport. That letter highlighted that KCC had made series of efforts to engage MCC and raised our concern that MCC were not taking into account the views of our communities.

MCC proposed 6 stages in the KCC area with 34 hours of road closures and repeated closures of the same roads, without alternative access. The 2026 routes are almost identical to the 2025 routes, disregarding the detailed objections KCC submitted to those routes before the 2025 rally.

KCC had a range of feedback after the 2025 rally, from our AGM, emails and Facebook posts, discussions with our residents and information from the Dunoon CC survey. Residents reported unacceptable disruption, businesses reported financial losses and disruption. We also know that tourist activity was disrupted. Some businesses reported gains where spectators could access the route.

KCC agreed criteria to reflect the range of positive and negative views in our community and to enable us to positively engage with 2026 route planning. Previous rallies have been unacceptably disruptive to our communities. Our proposals would somewhat reduce that disruption but are a significant compromise which we offered on behalf of the communities we represent.

KCC proposed that the 2026 route should meet 5 criteria:-

• Minimise the impact on businesses and avoid the closure of any business.
• Enable spectator access particularly where this benefits local businesses.
• Avoid any road closure of more than half a day.
• Avoid impacting on access for tourists.
• Not include racing after 22.00 hours

Having had no response to these points we had followed up with more detailed proposals for changes to the route.

• The Bealach Maim stage would run only on Friday evening, reducing the substantial disruption which the repeated closure of this road causes in our community.
• The Oystercatcher stage would run only on Friday evening, would finish by 22.00 hours and would start at a point on the B8000 north of the fish farm. This would reduce disruption to the Oystercatcher, Largiemore Holiday Estate, Otter Ferry Seafish and West Coast Wellness businesses, which have all been adversely affected by the previous road closures. This change would also respond to the substantial local opposition to the previous multiple routes and very late-night disturbance.
• The Kilfinan stage would run on Saturday with a revised start south of the Kilfinan Hotel to a point North of the Millhouse crossroad. This substantially reduces disruption to the hotel and holiday let businesses caused by the proposed route and substantially reduces disruption to our residents.
• The Millhouse stage would start at a point south of the access to Kilbride Bay and the adjacent café. This substantially reduces disruption to businesses, residents and tourists.

In January we agreed to ask the Council for a meeting to discuss the decision making process on the rally proposed routes. MCC had stated to the Council that they have concluded that the majority of the KCC concerns raised do not warrant amendments to the proposed routes, as they consider the potential impacts are not significant and can be appropriately mitigated through other operational measures.

The rally organisers have now leafleted households across the area setting out their detailed routes and road closures with no reference to the fact they require Argyll and Bute Council approval to proceed, having completely disregarded KCC’s representations.

The MCC require a motor sport order from the Council. The Road Traffic Act requires (3) The roads authority may make the motor sport order if satisfied that— (a)adequate arrangements have been made to allow the views of the local community to be taken into account, (b)adequate arrangements have been made to involve local residents, the police and other emergency services in the planning and implementation of the event, (4) A motor sport order must— (c)specify alternative routes for vehicular and pedestrian traffic likely to be affected by the event.

Engagement with MCC

The Community Council has tried to engage with MCC in a constructive way throughout 2025. We have participated in all of the liaison meetings and the August 2025 community council review meeting. The full KCC met MCC in September 2025. We submitted detailed concerns and proposals to reduce disruption for our residents, businesses and visitors, at the appropriate points in the consultation. At no point has MCC engaged in a meaningful way with us. None of the changes we have suggested have been accepted.

• In April 2025 KCC submitted detailed objections to the 2025 routes.
• Immediately after the 2025 rally, in June 2025, KCC requested a meeting with MCC no response was received.
• In august 2025 KCC participated in the collective community councils meeting with MCC. This meeting was represented by MCC as “an opportunity to look back on the 2025 rally and give Community Council representatives a chance to raise any issues, concerns or suggestions for future events.” MCC had indicated that they would share some “early thoughts” on their plans for the 2026 Argyll Rally at the meeting. At the end of the meeting detailed route and road closure plans were tabled and community councils were told these were going out for public consultation. There was clearly no intention that community councils could influence 2026 route proposals before detailed plans were developed and issued. The routes for our area where unchanged from the 2025 routes which KCC had objected to.
• In mid-September 2025 KCC submitted a detailed response to the MCC consultation with proposed criteria for route planning which reflected feedback from our community. KCC arranged a meeting with MCC to discuss our response. Community Councillors had anticipated that MCC would come to the meeting with proposals to revise the KCC stages to address the issues we raised. MCC opened the meeting with the statement that they had already submitted their route proposals to UK Motorsport and that those proposals were unchanged from the ones to which KCC had made a detailed response.
• We followed up that meeting with further detail on route changes.
• MCC submitted unchanged route proposals to the Council in December 2025.
• At the February community council liaison meeting the MCC representatives confirmed that none of the KCC proposals had been accepted. MCC were very clear that they were proceeding on the basis that their routes will be approved by the Council.