Tag: land reform

September 20, 2023 Nick Kempe 7 comments

Scotland National Parks and the Scottish Government If you want to understand why Scotland’s National Parks have achieved so little in the 20 years since they were created, you need look no further than successive Scottish Governments, both the Ministers responsible and the civil servants that have supported them. Instead of encouraging and empowering our…

February 2, 2023 Dave Morris 10 comments

The Cairngorms and Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Parks are part of the UK family of national parks. The experience gained in any one of these national parks may therefore be of relevance to other parks within the family and more generally as regards the enjoyment, management and protection of land and water in the…

March 8, 2022 Nick Kempe 1 comment

On 25th February Forestry and Land Scotland and Forestry England issued a joint news release (see here) announcing that they had acquired the Camping and Caravanning Club (CCC)’s majority stake in Camping in the Forest (CITF) which manages three campsites in prime locations in Scotland’s National Parks: at Glenmore in the Cairngorms; Cashel on Loch…

April 30, 2021 Dave Morris 3 comments

This post examines the need to elect politicians to the next Scottish Parliament who are committed to land reform legislation. It notes the loss of experienced land reformers and the need to replace them with others who have equal enthusiasm for land reform. It provides examples of recent difficulties including serious misunderstandings within VisitScotland of…

February 15, 2021 Nick Kempe 4 comments

This post takes a critical look at the implications that the Scottish Land Commission’s “Legislative proposals to address the impact of Scotland’s concentration of land ownership”, published on 4th February (see here), has for our National Parks in the light of the  purchase of the Kinrara estate on Speyside the week before.   The sale…

September 23, 2020 Nick Kempe 6 comments

“Trespass” is a particularly loaded word.  It comes from the Old French “trespasser” meaning “pass beyond or across, cross, traverse; infringe, violate”.  In English it came to mean “transgress in some active manner, commit an aggressive offense, to sin” – as in “forgive us our trespasses” used in the Lord’s Prayer – but is also…

September 16, 2019 Nick Kempe 4 comments

The Cairngorms National Park Authority’s consultation on its new Economic Action Plan, 2019-22, will close on Friday (see here).    While there are some good things in the plan, this post argues its exhortation for people to work together won’t work under our current system and it fails to address the one economic matter over which the…

May 28, 2019 Nick Kempe 1 comment

Fourteen months ago I first blogged about the The Drumlean Case (1) – an incredibly important decision for access rights in Scotland.  I still believe that, I think its really helped reinvigorate and inspire the access teams in our National Parks and those that have so far survived the cuts in our Local Authorities (I will…

April 18, 2019 Nick Kempe 3 comments

After announcing a “major application”  update last week (see here),  the revisions to the Flamingo Land planning application appeared yesterday evening.   There are about 40 new documents on the planning portal (see here), all dated 5th April rather than the 17th April when they were made public by the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National…