After my post on the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority war on campers, which referred to the Park’s failure to open the new campsite at Loch Achray as promised (see here), local rumours are that the campsite has not opened because the water from the borehole is not drinkable. I have asked the LLTNPA to confirm whether or not this is the case but so far not had any response. If true, there are parallels with what has gone wrong at Loch Chon. I am very grateful for Ross MacBeath for sending me these photos of a recent visit there.
Eighteen months after the LLTNPA announced that the water supply at Loch Chon was fully functional, there is still no proper water supply to the campsite. The cost of importing water for the toilets and drinking must be considerable.
The reason for this failure at Loch Chon is not hard to detect. Originally the water intake consisted of a pipe in the small burn. How anyone thought this was adequate I am not sure. Now a tiny dam has been created and the pipe cemented in place but the water supply is still totally inadequate for a campsite of this size and in the dry period earlier this summer the burn dried up completely.
The consequences are imported drinking water, buckets for toilets and signs everywhere. I am not sure how a campsite of this size – 36 places – can be allowed to function like this. Imagine what would have happened if any private campsite in the National Park had operated without water for 18 months? Among the other major issues this raises is how the proposed water supply was ever approved by the LLTNPA as planning authority and how the LLTNPA managed to spend over £100k in consultancy fees etc at Loch Chon before any work was started without this issue being picked up. Then there is the cover up of what has been going wrong ever since.
What needs to happen
Its really is time that the Audit Committee of the LLTNPA subjected what has gone wrong at Loch Chon and Loch Achray to proper scrutiny and made public what lessons are to be learned.