Cairn Gorm, alone amongst the five main outdoor snowsports areas in Scotland doesn’t have any chairlifts. Following on from Graham Garfoot’s post on Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) and the mismanagement of snow sports at Cairn Gorm (see here), the SE Group report , commissioned at a cost of circa £120k, identified the fact that chairlifts are essential to future success. Their report also identified snowmaking as a vital component of the snowsports infrastructure. It’s an indisputable fact that CairnGorm doesn’t have any chairlifts and parkswatch recently publicised (see here) the appalling minimal use of the snowmaking fan guns during the recent 2 week-long cold spell.
We are pleased to see that CMSL has responded to that criticism and brought in generators:
The more fundamental problems remain. The relative collapse in the Cairngorm Mountain business’ share of the Scottish snowsports market has been well publicised. Its pre-eminent position within Scottish snowsports led to an average market share of 40.6% in the decade to 2013. During the following 4 years to 2017 that share fell to 34.6%. That reduction was dramatic enough but in 2018 a very significant collapse to just 23.6% occurred. A drift away from Cairn Gorm had been occurring since 2013 but the collapse in 2018 can be directly attributed to the demolition of the Coire Na Ciste and West Wall chairlifts.
That proved to be the last straw for thousands of snowsports enthusiasts who had harbored hopes that the two chairlifts would be refurbished and brought back into use.
HIE’s obsession with the funicular culminated with the decision to repair it at a jaw dropping projected cost of £16.6m. Strategic Folly! The final cost is now expected to be around £25m with a further £5m being committed to other projects in Coire Cas. When all of this work is completed, the snowsports area will still have no chairlift access to the top pistes and Coire Na Ciste will still be without any uplift from the Ciste car park.
This Strategic Folly was brought directly into the full glare of publicity when the ill fated funicular failed and was taken out of service in the Autumn of 2017. The hill business is now into its fifth season without any non-surface uplift. The Ciste and West Wall chairlifts would have enabled the business to continue trading as these two chairlifts would have made it possible to get snowsports customers up to the snow.
This season the Ciste Gully as well as the Ptarmigan and Ciste T-Bar pistes have been in usable condition for some time now as evidenced by reports and pictures posted on social media. Regrettably, there is no non surface access up the hill and CMSL has had to trade on the Daylodge beginners area with a capacity of just 150 rather than the several hundred that could have parked in the Ciste car park and been uplifted from there.
The beginners area and snow factory came at a cost of circa £1.5m which would have been more than sufficient to refurbish both chairlifts. A report from Swiss company Rowema, in 2010, provided a quotation of circa £285k (see here) at the exchange rate prevailing at that time for the refurbishment of the Ciste chairlift. It would have therefore been possible to bring it back into use then at a cost of much less than £0.5m. It was emphasised then that the West Wall chairlift could have been brought back into use for approximately the same sum.
The numbers that could then have enjoyed snowsports on Cairn Gorm over the last three weeks and through the New Year holiday would have been considerably more than the small beginners area is able to accommodate and made the business more viable financially.
It does not take much imagination to ‘see’ that many more people would have paid the £38 day ticket price to be able to enjoy lift served sport from the top of the Ptarmigan tow down to the boardwalk as well as in the Ptarmigan and Ciste T-Bar pistes. That would represent far better value than what is presently the case for a 200m piste served by two Magic Carpets.
By comparison, on 31st December, Glencoe are asking for £30 for the 650m Plateau Poma as well as the 400m Coire Pollach Poma.
Chairlifts can be replaced and in this case that is what’s required. It’s what snowsports enthusiasts want to happen on Cairn Gorm before they will return in the numbers that would go a long way to restoring financial viability to the business. Community ownership can bring that about and it would be widely supported.
What should happen now:
The Strategic Folly at Cairn Gorm will continue as long as HIE is in charge. They have no real interest in supporting real snow sports, only “visitor attractions” whatever the sense and whatever the expense. The magic carpets are just one example.
Aviemore and Glenmore Community Trust should apply to bring the area into Community Ownership so that the strategic direction of the business can be altered to what customer desire rather than what HIE, as owners of the business, wants to provide.
A great summary of a decade or more of strategic stupidity by HIE and latterly its subsidiary CMSL. The wider question that needs to be asked is that given HIE’s clear lack of business competence, what evidence is there that the other areas of HIE’s work are producing value for money to the Scottish taxpayer…..and the first thing to ignore is HIE’S own propaganda.
Within the next 12 months ownership of Coire na Ciste and all the rest of the HIE land to the east must be transferred from HIE to a Community Trust. Only then can the rejuvenation of Cairn Gorm begin. The Ciste offers huge potential for both piste and ski
touring, mountain bike trail development, cafe and interpretation facilities. This requires just one chairlift to connect with the top of the day lodge poma on Windy Ridge to give access to the higher slopes in both the Ciste and the Cas. This is the only way that private sector finance can be attracted to the mountain until HIE are completely removed.
I think that a major reason for HIE’s focus on the funicular must be that it also provides uplift for summer visitors. Laying aside that the significance of this for the local tourist industry is overstated, without the funicular, a major problem then lies in employment on Cairn Gorm. If economic activity on Cairn Gorm is confined to a very limited ski season, you end up having to employ mainly seasonal labour – and where do you get seasonal labour with the skills and experience needed to run the whole setup? The legal implications alone for the safety of users using seasonal labour could be a real problem. As I think I pointed out once before, Nevisport lose money on their summer activity but sustain it so they don’t have to rely on seasonal labour. Without summer uplift on Cairn Gorm, you also end up with seasonally redundant visitor centre, catering facilities etc as you go up the hill. This points to the recommendations focus on uplift in Coire Cas that could serve summer and winter users – as made by others before on Parkwatch.
It goes back to my original main objection to the construction of the funicular – not so much on environmental grounds, provided they did not let people out at the top to range beyond, but that is was simply unsustainable tourism development – which it has proved to be.
The financial success of Nevis Range is closely linked to the number plate recognition system which they introduced for all vehicles arriving in their car park. A similar arrangement could be made at Cairn Gorm, with the charging point located at the Hay Field in Glenmore. All revenue would be allocated to project expenditure in the Cas and Ciste, so long as HIE were NOT responsible for deciding how that money was allocated.
A chairlift from the Ciste Car park to the top of the Day Lodge Poma, would be a major summer attraction, providing views at least as good as higher up and free of cloud cover most of the year, unlike viewpoints further up the mountain. And there is already an excellent footpath near the top of this poma for those who want to go higher. From this location a wide variety of new trails could be developed for walking and mountain biking back down into the Cas, Ciste and on down to Glenmore village. None of these ideas appears to have been considered by the raft of expensive consultants paid by HIE over the last 30 years.
So for the price of HIE’s vandalism of the Ciste and West Wall chairs (which AFFAIR cost us tax payers just short of £300K) they could have reinstated one of the chairs and for twice the cost of their vandalism we could have had both chairs running!
It must be 35yrs or more when i started working for the Cairngorm chairlift company, after a few years working the Bottom Chairlift on the cas side, i got put round to work the chairlift in the ciste and West wall poma during the Wnter, Everyone who worked up the mountain wanted to work round the Ciste, better known by all the staff as sleepy hollow,
The Ciste was never that busy during the Winter even with tons of snow, i remember at the end of the day getting picked up and taken round to the Cas car park to get the company bus home, amazed at how busy the Cas side had been, jammed with the car park full and yet we had been quiet all day, even when we had to use the Ciste car park skiers would jump on the shuttle bus to get round to the Cas, save the Ciste… it was honestly never that busy all the Winters i worked round there, and that was when Cairngorm was at it’s busiest.
You may be right in what you’ve said, but, you seem to have missed the whole point of the post.
HIE removed the Ciste chairlifts KNOWING that the funicular was in trouble when according to the ADAC Structures reports back to 2014 faults were beginning to appear. “In broad terms the writer was concerned with the general condition of the funicular railway given its relative young age”. [Ref. ADAC Structures report November 2015]. If the Ciste infrastructure had still been in place it could have been brought back into use, even as a stop gap, in 2018 allowing lift served skiing to the top of the mountain, down both Coire na Ciste and Coire Cas, and sustaining the hill business for the last 4 seasons and now into a fifth. The problem is that HIE are only interested in promoting the funicular, as to remove it would be admitting that it was the wrong uplift for the snowsports business when it was built, and making sure no development ever again takes place in Coire na Ciste! Something that could show how much of failure their tenureship of CML? CM(S)L really is. It has also to be remembered that the DoT has to approve the repairs, which as far as anyone knows has not happened yet!
The proposals made by the STC campaign for the reinstatement/replacement of the Chairlifts in Coire Na Ciste involved a great deal more than just returning the Coire to the way it was back in the 70’s and 80’s. For example, CairnGorm Mountain Scotland Ltd have a no sledging policy in Coire Cas due to safety concerns. Sledging could be very easily and safely incorporated within the lower part of Coire na Ciste on the West side. You may be interested to know that Glencoe offer sledging where customers have to purchase an access chairlift ticket [15 quid for adults] and the sledging is then included in that price. Yesterday, 31 December 2022, there were hundreds of people who purchased an access chairlift ticket in addition to the several hundred who purchased snowsports Day Tickets. There are many other aspects that could be developed, such as Mountain Bike Trails, which would attract customers and ensure financial viability
The no sledging policy in the Ski area conflicts with Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 because the Ski area has the right of responsible access under the Act.
Yes, access rights apply to all the land in the Cas and the Ciste, under the 2003 Act, and that includes sledging. But the land managers can request that those rights are not fully exercised over the whole area. Such a constraint would appear justified in the vicinity of the car park area in the Cas because of the danger of sliding into the burn and under the snow. That was the scene of a tragic sledging accident some years ago. No such constraints apply to the lower end of the Ciste, to the west of the existing building, so there appears to be no reason why this should not be promoted as a sledging area, as at the Glencoe resort.