Yesterday saw the start of the new camping byelaw “season” in the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park. The LLTNPA has kept very quiet about this, there is no news release, but they were taking bookings for 1st March (see here) so they are operating the byelaws again.  As I pointed out in December (see here), unless the LLTNPA Board has had a secret meeting to approve the 3 Year Review (as set out above) and sent this in to Ministers, they are NOW formally in breach of the Administrative Condition .  That is a serious failing by the Board. One might have hoped that civil servants at the Scottish Government would have intervened to stop it happening.

The LLTNPA are also at present breaching the assurance (first para in extract above) that they provided to Ministers before the byelaws came into effect.  This was  that they would provide an initial 300 camping places and increase this in subsequent years.  In their 2019 Annual Update to Ministers on  the byelaws, approved by their Board in December, the LLTNPA claimed that:

The season ended with 327 available low cost camping places.

That to my mind was extremely dubious.  Its hard to disprove, however, because where and when the LLTNPA provides places shifts on a daily basis.  They have relied on this “operational discretion” to get away with a lot in the last three years.  However, partly because its the beginning of the season and partly because of the stormy weather (it appears only 1 permit area was booked last night) its been relatively easy to work out ALL the places available this week on the Park’s booking portal.  These are as follows:

•  135 places in camping permit areas ( see here for my copy of Camping places 1st March 2020)
•  52 places in campsites maximum (26 at Loch Chon, 9 at Loch Lubnaig and up to 17 places at Loch Achray – although the Park’s website says a limited number will be available early season).

• 5 Campervan places at Inveruglas

Now, even if you accept campervans should be included – I don’t as they are no longer controllable by the byelaws – that is ONLY 192 places maximum,  at least 108 places short of the promised 300.  That is an abysmal failure.  In a world where sound government and principle mattered, it would be  reason enough for Scottish Ministers to repeal the camping byelaws immediately.

 

Both the LLTNPA and Forest and Land Scotland have failed to do as promised

The reason for this failure is partly due to Forest and Land Scotland, who are not opening Forest Drive to campers and campervanners until 15th March, despite re-opening the road on 1st March:

That is in theory another 52 camping places (and a further 18 motorhome places)  though some of these are so awful they would never be chosen by any self-respecting camper.  The LLTNPA and FLS simply created a large number of permit areas here so they could claim to Ministers they had provided 300 places.  Now, FLS don’t even bother to open them and the LLTNPA is powerless to intervene.

There is also the FLS campsite at Sallochy although in my view this should not count towards the 300 places because it pre-existed the camping byelaws:

Its not all, however, the fault of FLS.  The permit places that the LLTNPA provided at Firkin Point are not available either because of works taking place there.    Its not clear when this will be finished and when these places will become available again – although again half of them, like FLS’ at Forest Drive, are unusable most of the time.

Add all these non-available places to the 192 which are available and you just about scrape over the 300 promised to Scottish Ministers in year 1 of the byelaws.

 

What needs to happen?

The non-provision of these 108 plus places  matters.  The LLTNPA took away people’s legal right to camp under access rights and made it a criminal offence to do so.  To compensate for that the Park was supposed to provide sufficient supervised places, the “permit” areas.  They never did so but there is now effectively a complete ban even in areas where the LLTNPA decided should be allowed to camp still.  This is because its the camping without a permit in the camping management zone which is the offence:  if they don’t issue permits you cannot camp legally.

Scottish Ministers should never have trusted the LLTNPA on the camping byelaws.  Right from the start the whole process was corrupt: the Park manipulated the evidence; misrepresented the levels of support expressed by local communities; held 13 Board Meeting in secret; and then staff and Scottish Government officials changed the wording of the byelaws after they had been approved, accidentally making it impossible to enforce them against caravans and campervans (the main concern of local communities was encampments over the summer by caravans).

The breach of assurances from the LLTNPA – at least 108 “place”s short – and the Administrative condition relating to the camping byelaw review  is now so blatant, however, that if Ministers fail to take action they will bring the processes for agreeing byelaws across Scotland into disrepute.  Unfortunately, the way the byelaws have been managed,  through lies and the undermining due process,  appears little different to the way Donald Trump rules America or Boris Johnson the UK.  Its about time the Scottish government showed they really do care about good governance. .