Tag: secrecy

February 24, 2024 Nick Kempe 3 comments

On 24th November Pitcher Partners, a company based in Western Australia, were appointed administrators for Scotgold Resources and its subsidiaries which operate in Scotland, SGZ Cononish, which operates the Cononish goldmine and its exploratory company SGZ Grampian.  Two weeks ago a reader pointed me to information about two meetings Pitcher Partners held with creditors of…

November 30, 2023 Nick Kempe 3 comments

Ostensibly the law governing public authorities in Scotland requires them to operate in an open and transparent manner.  The Freedom of Information Act required public authorities to produce publication schemes, setting out what information they publish as a a matter of course (the idea being to reduce the need for formal requests for information), while…

November 30, 2022 Nick Kempe 5 comments

NatureScot’s consultation on National Parks closes today. In my view the most important section of the online survey (see here) is about the powers and functions of National Parks (questions 13-16).  Get this right and there would be no need to resort to “green” finance as the means to address the undoubted problems in our…

November 10, 2022 Nick Kempe 4 comments

As I mentioned in my recent post on greenwashing (see here), James Stuart, the soon to depart convener of the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority, was in July appointed by UK Government Ministers to the Lakes District National Park Authority.   On the LDNPA website (see here) Board Members are portrayed as “the voice…

October 6, 2020 Nick Kempe 6 comments

On Thursday the Scottish Parliament’s Public Audit and Post-Legislative Scrutiny Committee – a mouthful of a name! – questioned Audit Scotland about their report  (see here) on “Highland and Islands Enterprise: management of Cairn Gorm Mountain and funicular railway” which they published in June.  The session, which lasted just over an hour, can be viewed…

January 6, 2020 Nick Kempe 3 comments

In December the LINK hill tracks group revealed that the owner of the Glen Clova estate, Mr Hugh Niven, has appealed to the Scottish Government against the enforcement notice which the Cairngorms National Park Authority issued against the new hill road by the Clova hotel (see here) and (here): “It is deeply frustrating that a…

October 28, 2019 Graham Garfoot 4 comments

Background On the 27 January 2019 I applied to Highlands and Islands Enterprise for the two “ADAC Structures” Inspection reports which resulted in the Funicular Railway being closed. The redacted reports were finally released on Friday 11th October after a request to the Scottish Information Commissioner. This post will look at the Funicular Railway Inspection…

July 15, 2019 Graham Garfoot 12 comments

Following my two posts on the proposed Mountain Coaster (see here) and (here) , I will take a look at the financial and environmental aspects of the proposed new uplift at Cairngorm as outlined in the SE Group report of November 2018 (see here).   I will use the same kind of format as the Mountain Coaster…

May 15, 2019 Nick Kempe 2 comments

Last week I mentioned the growing media interest in the Flamingo Land proposals at Balloch and it was great to see this powerful piece from Kevin McKenna at the weekend.   Mr McKenna got one thing wrong, however – or perhaps a mistake was made in the editing?   Scottish Enterprise did not acquire the Riverside…

March 21, 2019 Graham Garfoot 3 comments

Following my post on 28/2/2019 about the ADAC Structure and COWI reports on the funicular (see here), this post shows how Highlands and Islands Enterprise are deliberately trying to cover up and hide information about what has gone wrong with the Funicular on Cairngorm. I sent an FOI request on 03/10/2018 for two other reports…

March 12, 2019 Nick Kempe No comments exist

The papers for the next Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority Board meeting on Monday 18th March were published last week (see here).   There are some good things in them, particularly the papers on “Wild Park” and a new Forest Strategy  (see here), which I will consider further in due course.  There are also…

October 7, 2018 Nick Kempe 1 comment

In January I blogged about the estate management plans the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority has been developing with some landowners (see here) and which I had requested be made public last October.  As a result of my appeal to the Information Commissioner, in July the LLTNPA “voluntarily” published some information on Integrated…

September 20, 2018 Peter and Mary Jack 2 comments

Venue – Balmaha Visitor Centre Images from Wikipedia On arrival seating was arranged in an Open Area of the Visitor Centre. Then the seating was removed except for three chairs for members of the public attending the meeting – there were four of us!  Apparently it was to be a “Standing Meeting” where only members…

September 7, 2018 Nick Kempe 2 comments

Following coverage of Highland and Islands Enterprise and Natural Retreats failures to act on health and safety recommendations from independent consultants about the ski life infrastructure (see here),  HIE refused to provide a copy of the latest report (they had provided two previous reports), citing commerical confidentiality and intellectual property rights.   Malcom Garfoot appealed and…

August 13, 2018 Alan Brattey 3 comments

Natural Retreats, the operator of the CairnGorm Mountain business, introduced compulsory parking charges at the end of June 2018. These parking charges replaced a voluntary scheme, that had been in operation since 2012, because insufficient funds were being donated, according to Natural Retreats. The amounts donated during each year since 2013 were: £10,426, £11,174, £11,427,…