Ray Sefton asserts, in a comment on my post on the reason for the disaster at Cairn Gorm (see here), that opposition by environmental groups caused highly damaging conditions to be inserted in the Visitor Management Plan for Cairn Gorm post the construction of the funicular railway. In particular, he asserts the imposition of a closed system at the top station preventing passengers having free access onto the mountain caused its economic failure.
What was being sold to summer visitors was a “mountain experience” of world class, which it wasn’t. HIE forecast of annual summer visitor numbers was 165,000 but in the few years leading up to 2014, as an example, the reality averaged 92,903 – a shortfall of 72,097 (43.69 %). To provide an economic return to a company that was losing close on up to £2 million a year, would require an increase in visitor number of that order and probably more. When opening the closed system was discussed with the chairlift company at meetings I attended, the manager Bob Kinnaird stated that they did not receive much demand for open access. The impression was given that Ray Sefton’s campaign for it was, at best, rather a distraction and at worst a bit of an embarrassment. The idea that providing and open system would enhance the mountain experience to the extent that visitor number would rise to the point of ensuring the operation’s financial viability is a fantasy!
A key argument against opening the system is never discussed but I encountered it one June when heading south through the Lairig Ghru. Seated by the side of the path were three rather unhappy looking young guys.
“Are you alright” I asked?
“No!”
“What’s up?”
They had just discovered the rotting corpse of a young guy up in the Garbh Coire of Braeriach. That Easter, he had gone up from the top station area onto the summit of Cairn Gorm with his girlfriend on a quick visit. The mist came down, as it often does up there. They set out to return but got separated in the mist. She got it right. He didn’t and wandered far to a slow death.
Anyone training people to move safely in an environment like the high Cairngorms has to move them along that educational gradient from awareness to insight to competence. Most, probably the great majority of those using the chairlift to access the high Cairngorms were hillwalkers etc well along that gradient. Not so the kind of highly urbanised clientele the funicular was focused on attracting. Anyone who has trained folk of that ilk in moving in an outdoor environment, as I have, is often taken aback at their sheer lack of any sense of direction or capacity for directed movement. As the sad situation on Braeriach that June day demonstrated, providing open easy access directly onto such an environment for tens of thousands of people would have been an act of near criminal irresponsibility.
[Ed. Parkswatch understands one of the questions that Highlands and Island Enterprise has explicitly asked Jura Consulting, whom they have appointed to develop a new masterplan at Cairn Gorm, to consult on is whether the funicular closed system should be opened in summer.]
I am in favor of the VMP from environmental perspective. Thousands of people trampling over the plateau in summer (dropping litter and trampling over the fragile eco-system) would not be a positive. However there is no doubt that the VMP did play a major role in the funciular being an economic failure. Basically the trainset can never attract repeat summer custom – bikers, hikers or sightseers . Glenmore gondola would be economically more viable – winter skills groups, walkers, ski-tourers would all happily pay for return trip on a gondola (but wouldn’t pay for parking). A gondola on lower section of winter would be much better for promoting outdoor recreation year round and improve the environment by removing large car-park from Coire Cas (2000ft altitude). Would also resolve the historical problems of snow-clearance from the access road. If summer can be sorted out then the skiing will be much better placed to survive variable winters that seem to be becoming more common.
The Scottish Government has publically stated that it does not intend to reduce environmental standards after we have left the EU. The closed system was agreed to ensure EU environmental standards were met. Why, then, is the Scottish government interested in reviewing its validity?
Surely the economists would suggest that only one justification factor exists. Surely cost per uplift is critical. Once cost is higher than can be sustained by “footfall” then the thing will fail. Only a cheap way of getting up the mountain will be justifiable. eg: Importing ‘white elephants’ as notional tourism attractions, which starve out of season and need ever greater humanitarian support will never work! It’s beyond time to deny consultee idealism and debunk official pride. Go back to basic principles. Only ‘cost of sales’ provide any justification for a future uplift business. Those who ignore basic business principles will always fail.
The sub-arctic plateau environment is a) unique in UK, and b) set to shrink with climate change. Greatly increasing traffic across would be an appalling act of vandalism.
When on a skiing trip to Finse in Norway, my dad and I went for a ski trek up out of the village onto the top of the glacier. A nice walk until it started to blow a blizzard and a virtual whiteout. Fortunately the way to and from the village was marked with a line of poles maybe twenty yards apart which most likely saved our lives. I stood at one pole while dad walked until he could see me and the next pole at which point I walked to his position and then we continued to that pole. Suddenly, there was a house right beside us, we had walked down the ski slope and into the village without knowing it, the wind blowing so strongly up that it was impossible to tell up from down. Those poles as I say probably saved our lives as the blizzard did not abate until the following day. What is there on Cairngorm to show the way back to the Ptarmigan, Shieling or even the Daylodge if you get caught out in a mist which can roll in within minutes and when you get disorientated what then. The VMP may not be liked and may be part of the economical problem but far better that than someone losing a life. Apart from that, something that has been pointed out many times before, the funicular numbers just didn’t add up, get rid of it
I am very concerned that the publicity in the last week, orchestrated by HIE and Fergus Ewing, on their stated need for a review of the VPN is a devious distraction timed to coincide with the start of public consultation on the Cairn Gorm masterplan. We are likely to hear from them that reform the VPN, and repair the funicular and suddenly all will be financially sound!
As you point out, Drennan, it is very unlikely that permitting funicular passengers full access to the Cairngorm plateau would have plugged the massive number gap needed to make the funicular pay for itself.
My view is that if the extra passengers to the funicular had been attracted by the absence of a closed system, the assumption has to be that most of the ‘missing’ 72,000 people would have wandered out either up to the Cairn Gorm summit or further out onto the plateau. The environmental damage, especially on the Cairn Gorm summit area would have been severe, and just as, or even more worrying, would have been the safety risk (including potential deaths) to persons with little understanding or experience of mountain conditions. I would be interested to hear the views of our hard pressed Cairngorm Mountain Rescue on this issue.
Most hillwalkers, in my experience, enjoy the effort needed to get to the mountain summit – starting from Ptarmigan to ‘bag a Munro’ is just not playing the game. However, starting from either the Ciste or Cas carparks, enables short winter climbs (in shortened days), or enables longer hill walks in summer e.g. over the mountain to Loch Avon and on to Beinn Mheadhoin and back, easily possible in the day. Thus it is very likely that most venturing out from Ptarmingan on a summer’s day would fall into the grouping of being unaware and ill-prepared.
Let us look at a couple of points mentioned in the blog. The reason there would appear to be not much demand for access is because most of the public believe what they are being told by conservationists. Many do not realise they can’t get out of the top of the funicular until they buy a ticket. I ask many people, including Cairngorm staff, where the protected area runs and very few can tell me. Also, many people are not the slightest bit interested. They just want a good experience and most go away disappointed. Thus, the falling numbers.
Let’s move onto safety. I have spent 37 years, between 1956 and 1994, in the RAF Mountain Rescue Service in Scotland, including 10 years as team leader at RAF Kinloss and RAF Leuchars. There will always be a small unfortunate minority that will be involved in accidents on the hill. There were very few accidents to people accessing the hill from the chairlift, considering the number of people using it, in comparison to those leaving from the carpark.
Readers will notice that the Ptarmigan is open for egress, in the winter, potentially the most dangerous time of the year. Selling ski spectator tickets to many “highly urbanized clientele” who venture out on the ice, wind and snow and close the barrier in summer.
I believe the incident that Drennan refers to is an incident that happened in 1976. The couple did not get separated on the hill. The girl was left in the carpark whilst the guy was only intending to go to the summit of Cairn Gorm and return, but then became lost. Due to weather problems I seem to remember he walked to the summit, because the chairlift was shut. Thus, leaving his girlfriend in the carpark.
In my opinion the VMP does not comply with “The Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003” (the Act) or Scottish Outdoor Access Code (SOAC). The Act makes people responsible for their own safety. I believe there are about 500 coaches using the carpark, each year, and many passengers using the funicular. They only have two hours on site so not much chance of going over Cairn Gorm into a protected area.
None of the other ski areas stop visitors leaving the top of their lifts for safety reasons. Neither are 180,000 walkers using the Ben Nevis tourist path, annually, restricted in any way.
For conservationists. The funicular railway is built in an environmentally unprotected area and there should have been no planning problems. However, the imagination of the conservationists ran wild, at the planning stage, causing the crazy VMP and s75 agreement. To emphasise how ridiculous the restrictions are 3.4 million people have probably entered the protected area only 100 metres from the carpark since the funicular opened.
Ray, I am interested in what you say about many people not knowing they cannot get out of the funicular until after they have bought a ticket – that suggests that the closed system has had little impact on deterring first time visitors, though it might of course have deterred people from visiting again, and that has a pretty important bearing on whether the funicular could be made financially viable or not. The issue, I would suggest, is traveling up into the clag is a lousy visitor experience, whether you are allowed out at the top or not and the funicular is in the wrong place. In terms of the VMP, there are of course several elements to this and I am not sure when you say the VMP does not comply with the Land Reform Act whether you are still referring to the closed system? Access rights apply to land, not buildings so the fact that a building is adjacent to a land where access rights apply does NOT give any right to get out of that building (the example I have given before I think is that just because there is a field on the other side of the fire door in a supermarket does not mean you have a right to leave the supermarket by that door). Where you would be right is if the VMP had tried to draw a 100m line round the Ptarmigan and said people could exit the Ptarmigan but not go further than 100m. That would be contrary to access rights because once you are outside access rights do apply. In other words the VMP couldn’t have drawn a line between the ski area and the Special Area of conservation in terms of access and told funicular users not to step over it because that would have contravened access rights. Its also the case that if someone steps out of the Ptarmigan through the fire doors say, in terms of access rights they have every right to be outside, the issue is they have breached the legal agreement about use of the funicular. Nick
To reiterate (seemingly ad infinitum!!!)
“The impression was given that Ray Sefton’s campaign for it was, at best, rather a distraction and at worst a bit of an embarrassment. The idea that providing and open system would enhance the mountain experience to the extent that visitor number would rise to the point of ensuring the operation’s financial viability is a fantasy!”
I am guilty of being sidetracked and fruitlessly going down this absurd rabbit hole myself, obviously, but I sincerely hope others can ignore it and concentrate on the “Bigger Picture” as detailed so well throughout 95% of this site. Lol.
For instance. the Gaslighting article on 2\1\20 by Alistair Bell is a veritable tour de force and is very useful as a wake-up call to us all, regardless of any personal history or prejudice.
http://parkswatchscotland.co.uk/2020/01/02/corporate-gaslighting-why-we-did-nothing-as-skiing-died-at-cairn-gorm/
Seriously highly recommended reading!!
This seems to be a more balanced appraisal of the situation than many of the preceding comments
Nick- We will not know whether the funicular can make a profit unless the top is open.
We have conversed about the closed system before. I would not argue your point about the fire door in a supermarket. It is always closed, except in an emergency.
The land over which the funicular railway runs is land that has the right of motorised access or else the train would not run. No different from leaving a bus or car at the Coire Cas car park. The Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 came into force in 2005 . It can be clearly seen that the closed system, ticket conditions and various notices displayed at CML are in conflict with the act and Scottish Outdoor Access Code (SOAC). The public do not have a right of access. They pay. That does not mean that access rights do not apply when exiting the funicular. The claim that CML are not denying access rights because they allow access from the car park is flawed. The act does not indicate where access rights may be taken from.
The bottom line is CML allows egress from the Ptarmigan station in the ski season and brings in the closed system at other times. The closed system is therefore an intentional barrier to stop the public accessing land that has the statutory right of responsible access, and conflicts with the act. It has nothing to do with whether access rights apply to enter the railway.
Ray Sefton continues with campaign, indeed obsession, with the issue over right of access or lack thereof at the top station. The Cairngorms National Park Authority had lengthy discussion and indeed correspondence with him over this very issue. As a result, the Park Authority sought expert legal opinion on the matter and the opinion made clear access rights wre not being breached by the refusal of access from the top station. The situation has been that, when people bought a ticket from the chairlift company they effectively entered into a contract, part of which debarred them having access. Unless Ray Sefton can produce expert legal opinion to the contrary therefore, this discussion really is over.