On Sunday 13th I noticed a crashed or abandoned car just south of Inverarnan close to the location of another abandoned blue car which had featured in two of the earliest posts on parkswatch in 2016 (see here). These explored how the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority’s approach to abandoned cars fitted with their justification of the camping byelaws. FOI 2015-045 Response – abandoned car has now been published (look under November 2015) on the Freedom of Information section of the LLTNPA website, a significant improvement in transparency. This showed that the LLTNPA at the time did NOT ask Rangers to record and report issues such as abandoned cars (or indeed estate rubbish) when out on patrol. Quite a contrast to their approach to campers.
In the week between noticing the new abandoned car – which other people have told me had already been there several days – someone removed the back wheels, making it harder to remove.
My original challenge to the LLTNPA was whether they could explain why wrecked and abandoned cars are any more acceptable than wrecked and abandoned tents? This has never been answered.
While back in 2015-16 the LLTNPA washed their hands of all responsibility for removing the vehicle, in June 2016 they adopted new powers under Section 33 of the Environmental Protection Act to issue Fixed Penalty Notices for flytipping. All the LLTNPA would appear to need to do now, therefore, is establish with the police if the car was stolen, in which case the police have a responsibility to recover it, but if not contact the owner and require them to remove it. Time will tell.
Meantime, the contrast between the impact of campers and crashed cars remains striking.
These people – a man and his son – were enjoying fishing on the old Inverarnan canal but were, whether they were aware of it or not, committing a criminal offence, because camped inside the Loch Lomond West Camping Management Zone. The area north of Loch Lomond up to the Falls of Falloch was originally not part of this camping management zone but added after the Your Park consultation because of fears that people would not use the popular Beinglas Farm campsite unless forced to do so. This was complete nonsense. There is a place for campsites but there should also be a right for a child to fish with their parent, or for backpackers to stop, outwith formal camping provision. What harm are these people doing?
That they – and other campers – were there at the weekend shows just how hard the byelaws are to enforce. While one might have hoped that a Ranger had shown commonsense and just ignored these campers, I suspect the only reason they had not been cleared off because the LLTNPA lacks the resources to conduct sufficient patrols and the likelihood is these innocent people will have been issued a warning the next day. So, another question for the LLTNPA to answer for Scottish Ministers later this year – how many young people under 16 or under 18 have been issued official warnings in this the International Year of Young People?
Meantime, north of Inverarnan, on the Glen Falloch estate, there was a reminder that there are much bigger problems with abandoned detritus than even the odd blue car:
The Allt Fionn hydro scheme received an award for being an exemplar of good planning in action. The LLTNPA imposed conditions on all the Falloch schemes that it could take action to ensure schemes were of a sufficient standard for up to five years after the scheme was completed. That period is now over for the Allt Fionn and it therefore appears the LLTNPA has no legal powers to require the estate to remove these pipes (I will write and ask) which appear to have been left permanently in a large “lay down” area. Its hard to believe that no-one from the LLTNPA has ever noticed that these pipes are still there so why hasn’t someone addressed this? Millions of pounds of money going to an estate in a National Park through hydro subsidy and they cannot even clear up timeously.
Why cannot the LLTNPA deploy its Rangers to address issues such as these which mar the landscape in the National Park instead of pursuing innocent campers?
On a slightly more positive note (perhaps…), there are signs in Queen Elizabeth Forest that the LLTNPA are putting a little bit of effort into improving matters – although clearly scrapping the permit scheme would be a big improvement. I note that (in a few – very few) places they’ve been making little rectangular areas for camping in some of the camping permit areas – they look like level/gravelled areas bordered with logs. There are also more motorhome stopping areas – but these remain very variable in quality (the worst thing you can do for a campervan/motorhome is give them a significant slope – we role out of our beds 🙂
Whilst this will improve the experience a little for those with tents, its clearly a reaction to the enforced herding of campers to a few small spots, with resulting increased wear and tear… so not at all addressing the underlying problem. Its such a shame that (public) money is spent this way – when the efforts of the employees/volunteers could be so much more productive with a little more open thinking from the LLTNPA directors.
Thanks Andrew, I was out looking at Forest Drive – where there have been some improvements – a couple of weeks ago. As you say though the permit areas there remain of very variable quality and I hope to post on this soon.