[This post was updated 21.00hrs 2nd December after a reader clarified FLS owns the bridge]
Following my post on the replacement bridges at Bracklinn Falls and the West Highland Way (see here) Alannah Maurer sent me some photos of a path and bridge over the Croe Water at Ardgartan which has been blocked off since 2019 and possibly earlier.
I couldn’t tell from either the Registers of Scotland or Andy Wightman’s website Who Owns Scotland who owns or is responsible for the bridge. While Forest and Land Scotland (FLS) clearly own the land on the north side of the Croe Water, it looked like the land on the south side of the bridge could be owned either by the Ardgartan Hotel or FLS. I have since been informed by a reader, however, that FLS, part of whose function is to facilitate outdoor recreation, owns the bridge. Unfortunately FLS have no legal obligiation to maintain the pedestrian bridges it owns.
A walk over the bridge is still being promoted on the Ardgartan Hotel website showing it was valued locally (see here):
The bridge is also in the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park, one of whose statutory purposes is to promote outdoor recreation and which was supposed, through the National Park Partnership Plan, to get other public authorities working alongside it to achieve its objectives. Had the LLTNPA been doing the job it was set up to do, it would have been taking action to ensure recreational infrastructure such as this was maintained:
Instead, any recreational infrastructure regarded as “non-essential” is just being allowed to crumble – like the pink cottage behind – and the LLTNPA has been allowing FLS, by far the largest single landowners in the National Park, to get away with reducing the number of paths and bridges it maintains (see here).
Its all about money of course. But despite the voluminous research showing that outdoor recreation and exercise is good for people’s physical and means health and reduces demands on the NHS, the LLTNPA has proved itself incapable of making the case to the Scottish Government for investing in recreational infrastructure.
Instead, the LLTNPA has done the opposite, abandoning its outdoor recreation plan (see here), doing the minimum possible to extend its core paths network (see here), frittering away the legacy from the Mountains for People footpath project and asking the Scottish Government to approve byelaws making it far more difficult for people to go camping or boating.
All the LLTNPA does for recreational infrastructure is beg for money for what is most pressing, like the West Highland Way. Crumbling bridges like that at Ardgartan, which might once have been maintained, have no chance. The LLTNPA has no strategy or plan to deal with the disappearing infrastructure apart from the unstated one of hoping no-one notices.
The LLTNPA has committed to reporting on the state of nature in the National Park every five years (see here). It is telling that they have not committed to do the same for outdoor recreation and produce a state of access infrastructure report in the National Park every five years. The two should be connected because the vast majority of people use outdoor recreational infrastructure to enjoy nature.
Meantime, I would welcome other photos or examples of crumbling recreational infrastructure in either of our National Parks – a public inventory is needed to show what is going on.
Typical of such organisations – can’t send a crew to fix the problem but can send them to fence it off and erect signs.
May have been fixed by now but a couple of years ago Aros Park at Tobermory was the same, Shiny new interpretation boards inviting the visitor to use trails, viewpoints and kids play equipment which was all fenced off as “dangerous”. The public toilet was closed for unspecified reasons.
They will spend loads on shiny new things but never allocate sufficient funds for ongoing maintenance and repair. Opening new stuff gets the column inches and pictures in the paper, fixing broken stuff doesn’t.
I would argue that the “rot” set in when the entity previously known and respected simply as the “Forestry Commision” became devolved in Scotland , rebranding itself as FLS in 2019.. Ever since that moment any notion that the forestry process would become self sustaning, with felled timber providing long term employment, as well as serving the public interest, has morphed far away from that ideal.
Today in Lochaber new installations of ticketting machines appear on remote carparking areas, (these hard standings created in previous times for eventual timber management purposes) The machines imply that enjoyment of the local area should be time limited. (One payment method is through an App for which locally no 4g signal is obtainable.) Footpaths have existed for decades along roadways established within the forests, now blocked off by fallen timber. genera neglect includes lack of maintenance of culverts and drainage channels .There was an old bridge near Strontian, local management closed off access to it on safety grounds some time ago and refuse to reinstate.
There is also widespread use of closure signs, even when no timber operations are being carried out at all.
It seems clear the new management fails to see that facilitating recreation has anything to do with forestry. Forestry in the eyes of the present Scottish government ministers has been permitted to become a purely commercial “big business”. Scotland appears to have ‘Granted’ lands to a fully-funded old style “laird” in these modern times.
Forestry commission (AND LAND) Trossach national park,two failed organisations which should be shut down,never seen the national park people doing anything constructive,a home for the sick and weary
It is frustrating to see all of these highly valued pieces of recreational infrastructure fall into a poor standard of condition. Unfortunately FLS find themselves in the extremely difficult and untenable position of being not only a business, but a trade body and a civil service; the three cannot exist without compromise. According to the FLS business strategy available online, recreational infrastructure is a completely loss making exercise which costs the organisation over ten million pounds annually. A few honey pot site exists such a Glentress in the Borders. With almost no money provided to FLS from the Scottish Government (with the exception of a few million quid, around 9m I believe for specific projects like rainforest and peatland) how can FLS build and maintain expensive recreation facilities when it is a direct loss making effort? Instead of rallying against the custodians of our nation forests, why don’t we lobby the SG for greater funding so they can build new facilities, maintain existing infrastructure and promote the health and well being for the many? Instead we assume we have some sort of devine right that they must provide this for free – unfortunately nothing is free in this modern day. I for one enjoy the facilities currently available to me in Argyll, and would much rather pay FLS £3 to park than a private gym membership.
The entire point of having a structure like FLS is that it is not an ordinary business, it has revenue streams and is expected to provide public recreational infrastructure as part of what it does. They are not supposed to split off the recreational aspect as a separate self funded entity. What on earth are they doing that costs over ten million annually? Are they allocating costs to “recreation” that are in fact incidental to their forestry operations? They provide a few basic gravel car parks, most of which are charged for, and a very few public toilets. The campsites they used to provide are now leased out for large sums and are pure revenue. They could offer “distributed camping” on the US park model which would generate revenue at virtually no cost but they don’t.
As we saw with the introduction of “Stay the Night” they are severely constrained in what they can offer by pressure from the commercial side of the tourist industry to suppress anything they see as competition for their policy of “Welcome to Scotland – now get your money out”.