Contributors to Parkswatch have, over the last 15 months, regularly highlighted the failures of the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority to provide basic facilities for visitors. We are not the only people who have been saying this of course but in an extremely welcome development, Luss Estates, who I understand have been trying to influence the LLTNPA behind the scenes, have gone public. Their press release, about what went wrong at Luss over the weekend, is very powerful.
A link was also provided to a number of further photos (see here) which every politician in Scotland should take a look at and then start asking questions.
The problems, which were entirely predictable given the spell of fine weather we have been having, did not just affect Luss but were evident in other hotspots in the National Park. This point was well made in another welcome press statement from the Friends of Loch Lomond and Trossachs:
“Call to Get Back to Basics
The Friends of Loch Lomond and The Trossachs Chairman, James Fraser has made an urgent call for local public sector agencies to get back to basics to tackle litter, toilet and traffic management issues in a more effective way at popular lochside visitor hotspots such as Luss and Balmaha.
He said: ” Over the past weekend both locations were overrun with visitors and were unable to cope and it was evident public bodies such local authorities and the National Park Authority are not geared up to deal with the basics such as emptying overflowing litter bins and resolving traffic management problems at busy times. The current arrangements are wholly inadequate and urgently need to be addressed to ensure there is no repeat of the shambles which took place last weekend.”
He added:” I understand new arrangements are supposed to be in place for different parts of the area with Councils taking on more responsibilities for traffic management and parking from the police but it is evident from the chaos with road blockages and indiscriminate parking at the weekend the Councils are ill prepared and have not staffed up at busy weekends to deal with the problems.”
A flood of complaints were lodged by visitors and local residents over the weekend and many were ashamed by the dreadful state of the areas which fell well short of what is expected in a National Park.”
What is great is the public are now also complaining, as you can see from this post on Walkhighland about litter at Inveruglas. Its also well worth a read and it would be hard to beat the patronising attitudes in the LLTNPA response to the complaint:
“It is unfortunate that more education needs to be done with the users of the park in terms of how they deal with their waste when in such beautiful locations.”
This shows just why the LLTNPA is failing, everything is someone else’s problem.
Visitors to the National Park are being ripped off by our public authorities and getting nothing in return
Meanwhile, as Magnus points out the LLTNPA charged him £4 to park his car while he was out hillwalking, fees to pay bureaucrats to patronise the public.
And its going to get worse – the LLTNPA is at present trying to lease the carpark at Balmaha from Stirling Council where it plans to install another Automated Number Plate Charging system (three were originally planned, one at Inveruglas) so it can charge visitors – again without them getting anything in return.
Photo Credit Fiona Taylor
Argyll and Bute Council are doing the same in Luss. If you want to go for a hill walk in the Luss Hills, a healthy activity which the National Park should be encouraging, and and use the car park you are likely to end up paying £7 for the privilege. No-one in the LLTNPA seems to care – they would prefer people to park on the kerb so that they can then patronise visitors for not showing enough consideration for “beautiful locations”.
The connection between the LLTNPA’s failures to provide infrastructure for visitors and the camping byelaws
Illegal tent snapped from passenger seat of car west Loch Lomond Saturday 6th May
Contrast the photo above with the photos in the Luss Press Release. Yes, the photos above was from the car and its not possible to tell if the campers were adhering to the Scottish Outdoor Access Code, but ask yourself what is the problem the LLTNPA should be tackling?
Should they be devoting a huge proportion of their human and financial resources to trying to chase campers away from the loch shores, whether or not they are camping according to SOAC, or should they be tackling the problems highlighted by Luss Estates and Friends of Loch Lomond and Trossachs?
What neither Luss Estates or FOLLAT have been prepared to say publicly as yet – and both supported the camping byelaws, albeit far from unconditionally – is that the camping byelaws account for many of the failures of the LLTNPA, including a failure to co-ordinate work with Local Authorities on everything from litter collection to car park charging. While the evidence shows the byelaws are unravelling anyway – see yesterday’s post (see here) – as long as they continue to direct their resources towards managing what they are not fit to manage, the National Park will continue to disgrace Scotland.
What needs to happen
James Stuart, in his speech to become convener, hinted that the LLTNPA need to change focus. He did not go far enough but his challenge now is to reverse the parrot like statements from the Park and the Scottish Government officials that the byelaws are here to stay, admit the LLTNPA has made a serious error which is preventing resources being spent where they are needed, and start engaging with organisations like Luss Estates, FOLLAT and the recreational organisations, as well as local communities, to develop a new approach.
The new National Park plan is the obvious place to start. The LLTNPA needs to “get back to basics” as FOLLAT puts it and stop pretending that they are some sort of business whose main purpose is to raise income for itself rather than cater for the needs of visitors. Parkswatch will feature a number of posts on the new draft Partnership Plan in the next few weeks and would encourage all those who have complained to the LLTNPA, to respond to it in due course.
4 Comments on “The failure of the Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority”
It’s hard to take any pleasure in the fact “we told you so” when the scenes playing out before us at the weekend have such a damaging consequence for both Scottish Tourism and the image of Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park in particular. Years of work and £ millions spent building a reputation all at risk from poor management and resource wasting Byelaws. It is the Dirty Park, the Locked Gate Park; the Lack of Parking Park, It’s the do your Business in the Woods Park and the No Camping by the Loch Side Park but Most of all, it’s THE MEDIOCRE PARK! The Glossy Brochures and flashy websites are all a sham advertising many visitor experiences which have no infrastructure to support them. It is clear from the images above this mess is as abhorrent to park users as they are to the local communities who have to suffer it on their door step. The Park Authority are intent on meeting targets for creating jobs within the Park Boundary at any cost. Why don’t they start by employing a cleansing operative to stop this mess accruing in the first place. So simple why did they not think of that. Then they can provide toilets after 5pm and before 9 am.
We don’t need tacky visitor attractions the beauty of the park itself is the attraction, we need basic infrastructure and I suspect a new park board with the vision to deliver it.
Spot on. I wouldn’t waste my time seeking recreative opportunities in the LLTNP in its current appalling state. Driving along the litter-strewn A82 on the way through is chilling enough.
Pity the LLNPA couldn’t train up and employ locals from Balloch etc to do park rangers jobs etc instead of selling it off to big businesses and depriving decent people from camping, they could bring so much employment to this area if they really used Thier heads instead of getting everything wrong it’s a total shambles! Young people here could have a,life long career! Instead we have flamingo land bidding to come here taking away our green space and offering our young people dead end jobs
It’s hard to take any pleasure in the fact “we told you so” when the scenes playing out before us at the weekend have such a damaging consequence for both Scottish Tourism and the image of Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park in particular. Years of work and £ millions spent building a reputation all at risk from poor management and resource wasting Byelaws. It is the Dirty Park, the Locked Gate Park; the Lack of Parking Park, It’s the do your Business in the Woods Park and the No Camping by the Loch Side Park but Most of all, it’s THE MEDIOCRE PARK! The Glossy Brochures and flashy websites are all a sham advertising many visitor experiences which have no infrastructure to support them. It is clear from the images above this mess is as abhorrent to park users as they are to the local communities who have to suffer it on their door step. The Park Authority are intent on meeting targets for creating jobs within the Park Boundary at any cost. Why don’t they start by employing a cleansing operative to stop this mess accruing in the first place. So simple why did they not think of that. Then they can provide toilets after 5pm and before 9 am.
We don’t need tacky visitor attractions the beauty of the park itself is the attraction, we need basic infrastructure and I suspect a new park board with the vision to deliver it.
Spot on. I wouldn’t waste my time seeking recreative opportunities in the LLTNP in its current appalling state. Driving along the litter-strewn A82 on the way through is chilling enough.
It is unfortunate that the park authority need more education on what happens on sunny days
Pity the LLNPA couldn’t train up and employ locals from Balloch etc to do park rangers jobs etc instead of selling it off to big businesses and depriving decent people from camping, they could bring so much employment to this area if they really used Thier heads instead of getting everything wrong it’s a total shambles! Young people here could have a,life long career! Instead we have flamingo land bidding to come here taking away our green space and offering our young people dead end jobs