Tag: hill tracks

December 4, 2023 Nick Kempe 6 comments

In a recent post on the proposed telecommunications mast at the western end of Loch Mullardoch (see here), I criticised the organisations which have rightly formed a coalition agains  the Shared Rural Network programme for not campaigning hard enough to protect  Scotland’s finest wild land from descretation. Those organisations – I am a member of…

November 9, 2023 Nick Kempe 7 comments

Who benefits from the telecommunication masts?   The spate of new telecommunications masts which, as George Allan from the North East Mountain Trust explained on Monday (see here), threaten some of Scotland’s finest landscapes are intended to eliminate “total not spots”.  They form part of the Shared Rural Network programme and are being  funded by…

July 10, 2023 Nick Kempe 14 comments

Following my most recent post on the Ralia hill road (see here), I was sent further photos which  support my argument that the road upgrade work should have required full planning permission.  The Construction Method Statement accompanying the Prior Notification, which was produced by Taiga Upland in conjunction with Kilrie Trees and  approved by Highland…

May 30, 2023 Nick Kempe 2 comments

On 9th May Highland Council issued a decision on the proposals submitted on behalf of ABDN to upgrade the track to Far Ralia and construct an alternative to the Wade Bridge (see here). The way the proposals have been dealt with and the decision itself raise serious questions about how the planning system in the…

December 15, 2022 Nick Kempe 1 comment

The title of the Scottish Government’s consultation, “Wildlife Management in Scotland” (see here), which closed yesterday, was very revealing.  Despite the nature emergency and the Scottish Government’s commitment to protect 30% of the land by 2030 (see here), there were no questions about how natural processes could be restored or we might reverse the catastrophic…

November 5, 2022 Nick Kempe 13 comments

Yesterday the Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA) notified those who had commented on the proposal by the Pitmain and Glen Banchor estates to build 4.83km of “forestry roads” above Newtonmore (see here) that the planning application had been withdrawn.  Good news! Yet the reason why the application “has been withdrawn from the Cairngorms National Park…

July 16, 2022 Nick Kempe No comments exist

A couple of days after going to look at the botched Beauly Denny construction road restoration (see here) while walking north of Carrbridge, I came across a more recent example of SSE’s work to upgrade Scotland’s network of powerlines.  Another landscape horror. In 2018, while visiting the Auchtertipper native woodland creation scheme on the Reforesting…