Two very interesting articles on Parkswatch by Alistair Bell (see here) and Drennan Watson (see here) go some way towards explaining some of what has gone on and is going on at Cairngorm Mountain Scotland Ltd (CMSL).
Alistair Bell says skiers are partly to blame because nobody really questioned what was happening until the Save the Ciste campaigners started to realise things were not as they should be, but that is the whole point of gaslighting.
Unfortunately the “wait and see” attitude still prevails today. In an email conversation with a committee member of one of the groups represented on the Funicular Response Group (FRG) last week I got this as a reply:-
Will this be too late again?
Alistair Bell’s letter warns us of this:
Now we come to the worst part of the trilogy.
Corporate bullying!
The OED defines bullying as “To hurt, intimidate or persecute a weaker or smaller person”. The word person is used in the wider sense to mean one person, a group of people or business/ businesses and its/ their employees.
For example, an international company wanted to build new premises on land in a local village, over which there is a public right of way, but an acquaintance of mine wrote an objection to the local paper and an action group was formed to get the proposals stopped. A while later I asked my friend how things were progressing and he told me he had been called into the office at work and told to drop his objections or there could be consequences for him (loss of his job) and his employer (loss of work). The international company, the council and the landowner were not very happy that the action group had caused enough problems to have the proposal for the new premises withdrawn!
Now let’s take a look at the following emails, which were obtained through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request, about the beginner’s area planning application (see here) at Cairn Gorm:
In these emails Grant Moir, Chief Executive if the Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA) , says he “was a bit annoyed after the last funicular group about planning getting the blame”. This was referring to the time being taken for the beginner’s area planning application to be considered.
Susan Smith, interim CEO of Cairngorm Mountain Scotland Ltd (CMSL) and on secondment from Highlands and Islands Enterprises (HIE) replied to this, and notice there is no apology and still an aggressive tone, by claiming:
“there is clearly something wrong or misunderstood when we start a dialogue in March (2019) and it takes until October (2019) to get to a point of decision on a simple project”.
The decision in fact was not made until the planning meeting on Friday 13/12/2019 but is this an attempt by S. Smith to circumvent the planning process by bullying?
With over 60 documents associated with the application for bull-dozing of the beginners area, is that really “a simple project”? It would appear not, and was it taking so long because of inadequate preparation?
The following screenshot is from the minutes of the Funicular Response Group of Thursday 29/08/2019 explaining the comment by Grant Moir (GM):-
The minute shows there were 18 people attending that meeting, 7 from HIE/CMSL while Grant Moir was the only attendee from the CNPA. Is it any wonder he was annoyed and maybe feeling intimidated or even threatened?
The whole point of Corporate Bullying is that as long as it is perceived as a possibility then it is an effective threat against anyone, business or employees or the public, who may be thinking about disagreeing publicly with that corporation’s operations.
When Natural Assets Investment Ltd/Natural Retreats were handed the hill business and started their own ski school there was concern amongst the local ski schools that they were going to be excluded from operating their businesses on Cairngorm. It didn’t happen, but the threat was perceived and partially carried out when Cairngorm Mountain Ltd employed 50 ski instructors and ancilliary staff. These very same ski schools have now supported the bulldozing planning application for the beginner’s area on the lower slopes. Have they themselves been bulldozed? After all its the same management structure that is in place only minus NAIL!
What needs to happen.
Drennan Watson concluded in his post that:
development from Cairn Gorm is a tragic misunderstanding. What it all shows is that if the diverse parties apparently opposed to one another had come together and pooled their knowledge and clout, this tragic mess could have been avoided.
If there is any hope for some sort of workable future for the sake of people on Speyside it would need these parties to come together and one clear condition – GET HIE OFF OF CAIRN GORM! Let it happen!
As long as HIE own CMSL there will be no “coming together “ because of corporate bullying. The Cairngorm estate should be returned to Forestry and Land Scotland in a useable condition with HIE picking up the bill for all repairs and maintenance to bring it back up to an acceptable standard.
A national conference needs to be held as soon as possible to unite all parties and start the healing process.
LET IT HAPPEN!
A great exposé of HIE behaviours, Graham. On the surface, this corporate bullying is not immediately noticeable – HIE often try to pretend that they are open to ideas and listening, whilst continuing on their track to yet another failure. Hopefully Audit Scotland will see through this facade and provide a report condemning their failure over many years now.
Meantime we have the public consultation events this coming week – it remains to be seen whether the masterplan consultants will do their work objectively, or just do the bidding of their client HIE.
I`m appalled by the acceptance of this gaslighting term. I cannot agree that this is what has happened. HIE is more than one or two folk. I just find it inappropriate to ascribe such nasty poisonous behaviour to a body of public servants. I think that what they have done and what they are doingi s totally wrong but it`s possible to understand leaders of policy digging in their heels.
This galighting stuff is nonsense. There have been various times when the skiing public have called out what was perceived as wrong behaviour on the part of Cairngorm management.
A retreat from hands on managers to marketing managers -when was that 80s? 90s? gave rise to the frequent calls of too many chiefs.. The noughties saw an imaginative drive to diversify-remember the camera obscura? but the underlying stagger of climate change has driven the failure.
And drives the current decisions by those with the responsibility.
But surely it must be remembered that whilst we dissent from what we reckon is an expensive destructive route to failure, where has there been critical voices from Highland Council,National Park representatives, Government voices,business leaders? Have these folk no opinion or is it that their positions circumscribe their actions?
For example-surely at least there should be more questioning of the”normal” way of getting the public view. PR people are commissioned by HIE at public expense to respond to concerns about the decisions of HIE. They,HIE, should themselves have to face the public`s questioning,
One would hope it would not get too heated..but…
When HIE inexplicably destroyed the Coire na Ciste and West Wall Chairlifts in August 2017, they had a spokesperson interviewed on BBC TV. The spokesperson claimed that HIE were in receipt of a report that condemned the chairlifts and that they had to be demolished ‘at pace’ for Health and Safety reasons. What they actually had was a report that condemned about 30% of the concrete tower foundations not the entirety of the Chairlifts. It’s fair to say that HIE were more than a little disingenuous in their public statement. What is of more relevance to this post is the fact that HIE actually received the report about the Chairlifts in October 2016 and then took 10 months to begin the demolition. Nobody can construe that as being ‘at pace’ for Health and Safety reason.
We now know that the CMSL interim CEO who was the HIE spokesperson interviewed by the BBC when she worked for HIE…….had the temerity to complain about the length of time that the CNPA Planning department were taking to determine a planning application made by CMSL. What she doesn’t say is that a main reason for the delay was the fact that the CNPA Planning department had to seek ‘clarification’ about aspects of the planning application , from CMLS, quite apart from SEPA’s involvement. It’s more than a bit rich for someone to make an unfounded complaint about tardiness by the CNPA, who acted perfectly properly, when HIE’s speed of response is ‘glacial’ even when speed is of the essence.
It is clear that some with serious delusions about potential footfall are still swaying this whole saga. The suspicion of a scramble to obscure past mistakes does not recede. Only when realistic up to date visitor figures for Cairngorm mountain are recognised and accepted can any future for some scale of limited uplift business be ascertained.
4 distinct purposes must be evaluated. ( A) people who travel up privately to the main car park in each month. (B) people who might use the catering facilities there. (C) numbers who might purchase tickets to travel higher on the mountain in any month along with the likely drop off point for ticket prices.and (D) the number of days that snow sports can be anticipated in any month.
These notional figures must be defined still further: slopes accessible from the car park(s) without payment under universal public access rights , and those maintained slopes higher up to which access can be restricted by ticket for uplift.
Too many wild unrealistic dreams have distorted the investment options for well over 5 decades now . Through the past 3 decades while connections with other European and North American snow-sport centres grew ever cheaper, the blatant error of employing discretionary public funds from a quango , sanctioned by transient salaried staff, to prop up this “white elephant” business for so long has been proved.