I had hoped to spend six weeks this summer traversing half the Alpine chain but family circumstances conspired and I am now off to do something shorter, broadly following the route of the GR5 from.Lake Geneva to the med. I am taking a break from blogging for a month. It is a good time to…
Month: August 2023
A month ago the Scottish Government advertised the position on the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) Board vacated by the former Convener, James Stuart, at the end of January. No hurry there! The deadline for applications was Monday and the advert has since been removed from the public appointments website but the…
Scottish Forestry has revealed in correspondence that it has awarded £2,559,303.91 (£200k more than I had thought) to Abrdn for tree planting at Far Ralia. It also sent a copy of the approved plan (above) which appears the same as that issued for consultation. Scottish Forestry has therefore approved the plans submitted on behalf of…
On 28th July the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) lodged a response to the Flamingo Land Planning Application (see here) which could scupper a large part of the proposed development: “The outputs of the FRA [Flood Risk Assessment] (illustrated in Appendix G) [see map above] indicate the majority of Zone B – Riverside and part…
Last week the Court of Appeal overturned a decision of the High Court in January that there was no right to wild camp on Dartmoor, the only place in England where such a right existed. The High Court judge had decided that wild camping was not a form of outdoor recreation and was therefore not…
After my last post on ABRDN’s disastrous planting proposals for Far Ralia (see here) I was phoned by Renwick Drysdale of AKRE trees (see here) asking to meet so he could explain to me what they are trying to do. Unfortunately, I am out of Scotland for most of the six weeks but agreed to…
Photo courtesy of PW reader showing reinforcement of an “I” beam below the Shieling. My first post in this series (see here) showed how the original design for the funicular was for a steel structure but it was then changed to concrete. When questioned by the Public Audit Committee about this in 2009 Highland and…
My first post in this series (see here) looked at the reasons Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) gave to the Public Accounts Committee about why they decided to build the funicular out of concrete rather than steel. These came down to cost but no evidence was provided to substantiate this This post takes a detailed…
I was in the Real Food Cafe at Tyndrum a few weeks ago but missed this sign ,about the lack of suitable toilets “changing places” for people with disabilities. It is absolutely fantastic to see local businesses in the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park campaigning for better infrastructure, not just for tourists but for…