When Aileen McLeod, the Minister for the Environment, approved the camping byelaws she made a couple of conditions, that the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park produce annual reports and undertake a three year review. The Park had previously undertaken a review of the east Loch Lomond byelaws, which was deeply flawed, but which they used as the basis for their proposal to extend the camping byelaws. I therefore decided to ask the Scottish Government some questions about the review of the east Loch Lomond byelaws and proposed review of the new camping byelaws. On Friday I received Scottish Govt EIR Response 29 April which makes for interesting reading.
The first thing it tells us is that the Scottish Government carried out NO evaluation of the LLTNPA’s Review of the east Loch Lomond byelaws. This was a deeply flawed document and a number of people highlighted this to the Government, e.g the Mountaineering Council of Scotland debunked the Park’s use of police statistics. I provided a critique in my Report on Your Park consultation process and critique of proposals 150618 (see pages 19-25). I think we can take from the fact that the only document the Scottish Government holds on the review of the east Loch Lomond byelaws, apart from a covering letter from Gordon Watson and this thank you letter from Paul Wheelhouse, the previous Minister, to the Park Convener, Linda McKay is that they given NO consideration to these criticisms. The review document was supplied, the box was ticked and that was that – one wonders whether anyone in the Scottish Government even bothered to read the criticisms of that Review?
What the alternative analyses show is that the improvements on east Loch Lomond could be accounted for by other actions, such as the creation of the clearway on the road to Rowardennan, the alcohol ban, site specific measures (eg blocking off parking spots) and targetted policing rather than the camping byelaws. Indeed arguably the main impact of the camping byelaws was to victimise innocent backpackers walking the West Highland Way. Yet, none of this seems to have mattered – or perhaps crossed the desk – of the Minister charged with taking the decision. Another reason why removal of access rights should require approval from the Scottish Parliament.
What the EIR response also shows is that the Scottish Government has set no criteria about how it thinks it will be able to judge the success or otherwise of the proposed camping byelaws in three years time. It seems wrong that the Scottish Government should remove our access rights without apparently having any idea of what would justify continuing a ban and what would justify revoking it. The lack of any criteria suggests that the Government have assumed the camping byelaws should be a permanent measure and the review is simply a sop to critics, just like the east Loch Lomond byelaw review. This suggests that the only thing that is likely to matter in deciding whether or not the Scottish Government continues with the camping byelaws is whether they prove enforceable or not – evidence is unlikely to come into it.
The second question the Scottish Government did provide an answer to was why they had reduced the period of the byelaws from that recommended by LLTNPA by one month, October:
