Ostensibly the law governing public authorities in Scotland requires them to operate in an open and transparent manner. The Freedom of Information Act required public authorities to produce publication schemes, setting out what information they publish as a a matter of course (the idea being to reduce the need for formal requests for information), while…
Month: November 2023
Cairngorm Mountain (Scotland) Ltd (CMSL) is Highland and Islands Enterprise (HIE)’s subsidiary that is responsible for operating the facilities at Cairn Gorm, including the funicular. Earlier this month saw the publication (see here) of its accounts for the year to 31st March 2023. They start with this statement signed by Peter Mearns on behalf the…
In the majority of National Parks across the world land is publicly owned but not in Scotland nor the wider UK. That might not matter so much if Scotland’s National Parks had real powers to control how land is used and traded but their current powers are limited. Just as importantly, neither the Loch Lomond…
Regular readers may or may not be surprised to hear that having helped pay to cover Balquhidder in plastic in March 2022 (see here), the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority got itself onto the shortlist for the Nature of Scotland awards on 22nd November: They didn’t win. These corporate backslapping exercises currently serve…
On 9th November, two days after Scotgold announced (see here) it had been unable to find a new investor for the Cononish goldmine and it was likely to go into administration, the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) informed me their Planning Committee had noted without amendment the “annual report” on the mine….
Work by the Pitmain Estate to rebuild the River Gynack overflow, which had failed soon after it was initially constructed in 2017, appears to have been completed in August. The rationale behind the work and why it had not been re-opened by the time of the floods on Speyside in early October has not been…
I am not sure when I first saw the bright green plastic tree tubes on the left of the A82 heading north from Crianlarich but on Saturday I stopped to have a look. The site is much easier to access than previously as in 2020 the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority granted planning…
Yet another planning application for a telecommunication mast has appeared (see here), this time in the heart of Torridon on land owned by the National Trust for Scotland. This is a National Scenic Area, a Wild Land Area and the walk through from Glen Torridon to Loch Torridon one of the finest in Scotland. One…
After my last post I had conversations with a couple of people about my conclusions that the insitu stitch/ joints are the wrong way up, i.e. instead of the joint being wedge shaped, as in the picture above, it should be more of a pyramid, as in my drawing below. There were a…
A week ago Iain Cameron copied me into his tweet on a track on the Glenure Estate on the eastern side of Ben Sgulaird. He was right, it is monstrous. His tweet has now attracted over 65K views, an indication of the level of interest from people in what is happening to the landscape of…
I had said I would follow my post looking at the impact of BrewDog’s tree planting at Kinrara (see here) with one that looked at the impact of the new deer fences. However, having looked at further further information about BrewDog’s carbon emissions at Kinrara, it seems more important to cover that first. The carbon…
The UK Government, landowners and telecommunications masts – the landscape and environmental impacts
Who benefits from the telecommunication masts? The spate of new telecommunications masts which, as George Allan from the North East Mountain Trust explained on Monday (see here), threaten some of Scotland’s finest landscapes are intended to eliminate “total not spots”. They form part of the Shared Rural Network programme and are being funded by…
Having been blogging and trying to raise awareness about landslips for the last four years, it was great to get some wider coverage in the last week. First I was asked to speak about landslips with Craig Dalzell on Common Weal’s policy podcast (see here). I am convener of Common Weal’s Care Reform Group but…
Planning applications are coming in thick and fast for 25 metre communications masts in remote hill country in Scotland as part of the UK Government’s Digital Connectivity Programme – the Shared Rural Network. Some appear to have almost no public benefit and are proposed for Scotland’s finest landscapes. Anyone for near to the Falls…
At the start of October, almost a year after they bought the Glen Prosen Estate for £17,555,000, , Forest and Land Scotland (FLS) launched an initial consultation of what to do with the land and buildings under the banner of developing an Angus Glens Land Management Plan (see here). When I last wrote about Glen…
The accounts for Natural Assets Investment Ltd (NAIL) (see here), the zombie company which bought Cairngorm Mountain Ltd (CML) from Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE), were published at the end of September. NAIL placed CML into administration after the funicular became unsafe to operate in 2018 and was one of the parties HIE subsequently sued….
The recent report from Cairngorms Connect (see here), which explained the last 30 years experience of rewilding on the western slopes of the Cairngorms massif, was covered in the Strathspey and Badenoch Herald (“Fences are “no answer in Forests””) and attracted two letters in responses from Basil Dunlop and myself – see below. The information…