Last year Parkswatch posted a number of articles opposing the planning application to smooth and re-grade ground by the Day Lodge at Cairn Gorm to create a new beginner’s ski area (see here– includes links to all posts). Ten months after the Cairngorms National Park Authority approved the planning application from Jim Cornfoot, a member of staff at Cairngorm Mountain Scotland Ltd, they are now underway. One hopes that legally it is Cairngorm Mountain Scotland Ltd or Highlands and Islands Enterprise, rather than Mr Cornfoot, who is responsible for ensuring the work abides by the planning conditions. These included a requirement that work should be “in strict accordance with the Construction Method Statement to ensure that work on site proceeds without damage to the environment”.
It is hard to reconcile what you can see in the screenshot above with that aim or with the detail of the Construction Method Statement:
Not much evidence in the screenshot of topsoil being stored separately, of a competent supervisor being continuously in the field – though maybe they are below the horizon or hidden behind one of the heaps of debris – or of individual boulders being picked out. But maybe they will be retrieved after the whole slope is turned over?
There certainly was evidence of turves being stored a week ago, even if it was hard to see how soils could be separated when the ground was as saturated as this. Indeed while boulders might have been picked out for use filling holes, you can see how stones have been mixed with peat:
Even if the turf from the area turned over in the webcam photo has been stored out of sight, would it really be possible at 16.45 to replace it all “immediately”, i.e before dark? And will the contractors be working the weekend? One hopes that the destruction evident in the photo is not taking place in the various peatland restoration projects taking place in other locations in the National Park.
Among the planning documents (see here) is one from HIE titled “Working with the Environment at Cairn Gorm”. This is worth reading in full for some of the early history of environmental management at Cairn Gorm. It contains two paragraphs which are particularly pertinent to this work:
So why did HIE even consider starting the work in October and why has the CNPA allowed them to do this? The argument, no doubt, is the work was urgently needed so that any artificially created snow could be spread further this winter (and not end up in hollows in the ground). In fact, with it being too late for the vegetation to recover, the opposite may happen. Exposed wet peat has particularly poor snow holding capacity and if the remaining vegetation is cut up by skis that will get even worse.
The webcam photo is reminiscent of the destruction that took place during the construction of the Shieling Rope Tow (see here). History repeating itself. There is no excuse for this, the office of CMSL’s Chief Executive, Susan Smith, is in the Day Lodge and she can see every single thing that happens. What is happening bodes ill for the repair of the funicular. The CNPA needs to start strict enforcement of the planning conditions now and show HIE that, as a Planning Authority, it is a force to be reckoned with.
This is a test of the resolve of the CNPA to step up to the mark and correctly act as a planning authority. The enforcement record of CNPA is at best patchy. Yes, there are various angles that CNPA can put on this blatant disregard of the Construction Method Statement produced by the applicant (CMSL) in support of their planning application. If, however, CNPA has any regard for its role as planning authority within a National Park and its main aim in conserving and enhancing the natural heritage of the area action needs to be promptly taken to enforce the method statement and protect this fragile environment as far as possible. If CNPA does not act swiftly and decisively, it will be wide open to criticism that it has been warned off taking action by the powers that be…..
The cure for lip-service planning officials/elected representatives is plain and simple. Bring back the birch. String them up from the lampposts and have them tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on the back of a donkey. I’d give them something to cry about if I was in charge. I have a case study of a development on the R Leven at Dalmonach/Bonhill. All they could do wrong they did wrong. In the 1st instance the Public Notice for the Application was published in the local press days before Xmas. A sure sign of dirty work at the crossroads. So it proved. Cut a long story short I attended the First/Interim Diet at the Sheriff Court. Infamous organised crime lords. Central Demolition, failed to appear and face the music on charges brought by SEPA/the excellent Donny Morrison that they burst an oil tank of 3000 litres capacity of diesel and let it spill into the R Leven for 6 days. They pled guilty on the 2nd diet and were fined £7500. And not a peep from LLTTNP despite the fact that the R Leven is covered by the Endrick Water SAC Management Plan and it’s the sole migration route for salmon in and out of Loch Lomond. Indeed, everyone except these clowns could see what was going on as a control plane spotted the massive plume of oil pouring out of the R Leven into the R Clyde, they informed the Airport Authorities, who contacted the Coast Guard who told SEPA. Donny Morrison provided me with chapter and verse, before he took to the hills and fled for New Zealand. No wonder! Needless to add, as it is par for the course, the river banks were wrecked, trees uprooted and the otters in the laid were booted out into the R Leven before they decided to eff off out of it. All of that happened after I persuaded WDC to designate that area as an Environmental Improvement Zone in the Local Development Plans, which they did, on paper. Why are we paying hard earned tax payers money to these people so they can lie morning, noon and night? Recently, there has been a massive, record escape of 50,000 farmed salmon; another land use planning issue. These “fish” are nothing but pollution of the natural wild environment and the natural habitats of all manner of species of native flora and fauna. Don Staniford will have the low down. I’ve known him for years. It’s on the public record I caught the wild salmon fishery owners/management in the Clyde Salmon Fishery District/especially LLAIA fiddling their official catch returns following the massive escape in 1998; a criminal offence. They reported farmed salmon as wild salmon. That was before I also submitted a Crime Report to the Procurator Fiscal viz. LLAIA’s poaching activities. Also on the public record. Really, this is the only language these crooks understand. Let them make their apologies…behind bars! We are never going to realise the kind of future we want so long as these twisters are at large.