Last week Severin Carrell in the Guardian revealed that BrewDog had sold their “Lost Forest”, the Kinrara Estate, to Oxygen Conservation for £8.85m, £350k much more than the £8.5m they had paid for it five years previously (see here). This post considers some of the issues this raises including: why BrewDog sold the land for…
Author: Nick Kempe
The Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) Board meeting on Monday (9th March) considered a paper on the Standards Commission for Scotland (SCS) decision to suspend Sid Perrie, the locally elected member of Balloch, for six months for sending six emails (see here). Public bodies which come under the aegis of the…
Earlier this week in my post on how the National Lottery now appears to be picking up a significant proportion of funding for Scotland’s National Parks (see here), I stated that Sandy Bremner, Convener of the Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA) had recently been appointed to the Scottish Committee of the National Lottery Heritage Fund. That…
On 1st April 2022 a new Land Register, the Register of Persons Holding a Controlled Interest in Land (RCI), was created under The Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2016. Its intention was to cut through all the off-shore companies, trusts etc, which are often used to own and manage land, and enable the “real” owners and…
[This post was updated and corrected 6th March – see post on apologies to Sandy Bremner 6th March] The Scottish Government’s budget for 2026/27 included significant cuts for both the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) and the Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA) (see here for budget documents). Over the course of two…
I had set aside last Wednesday morning to attend the Standards Commission for Scotland (SCS) hearing into Councillor Fiona Higgins, who like Sid Perrie (see here) the local elected National Park board member for Balloch, has been investigated by the Ethical Standards Commissioner for trying to raise concerns about officials. I was tipped off on…
I was taken by surprise by the Scottish Government’s announcement on Tuesday that it had decided to reject Flamingo Land’s current planning application to build a holiday resort at Balloch five months after the Reporter, Mr Buylla, had submitted his second report on the proposed development (see here). I had thought the Scottish Government had…
Last Wednesday, 18th February, the Standards Commission published (see here) their decision to suspend Sid Perrie from the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) Board for six months for sending six emails questioning the Flamingo Land Planning process. The decision document is almost 24 pages long and, from my memory, appears to be…
Last weekend the Sunday Mail ran an article (see here) on the Standards Commission Hearing (see here) which declared Sid Perrie, the locally elected member for Balloch, guilty of bullying for sending six emails raising concerns about conflicts of interest in the handling of the Flamingo Land Planning application. As a consequence the Standards Commission…
I have been meaning to write about the Altan native woodland scheme, just to the south west of Loch Glascarnoch, since I through it in 2018 and 2021. Many hillwalkers will have used the track through the scheme which provides the quickest access to the eastern end of the Fannichs and the Corbett, Beinn Liath…
Yesterday, like many others I took advantage of the break in weather, and headed for the hills. Along with two friends we traversed the Meall nan Tarmachan ridge above Loch Tay from the main car park in fantastic winter conditions, hard snow, almost no wind and clear skies. Returning along the track…
This is the first in a series of posts which looks at what forestry grants to large landowners to plant trees has done for native woodland in Scotland based mainly on the evidence I have seen on the ground over the last few years. It provides lessons for our National Parks, not least because of…
Yesterday I went to the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) headquarters to hear the Standards Commission judge Sid Perrie while he is off sick with stress as a result of how he has been treated. Sid is the locally elected member for Balloch and had sent six emails trying to challenge the…
[This post was updated and corrected 12/2/26 to reflect the fact that the costs of creating new plantations are not fully met by Scottish Forestry grants] On Thursday Oxygen Conservation announced (see here) that they have been awarded £3.3m in forestry grants to plant a large chunk of the Invergeldie Estate north of Comrie. …
This post explains how the Code of Conduct for public life in Scotland, as applied to local authorities and quangos, has developed in the last 20 years and is now being used to do the opposite of what the Nolan ethical principles intended. The Nolan Principles and the Codes of Conduct in Scotland As a…
The BBC Scotland Outdoors radio programme broadcast from Cairn Gorm on 17th January (see here) included a piece on the montane planting project in Coire na Ciste. You would not know from listening to it on BBC sounds (here between 48-54 minutes) that there had been any controversy about the project, both because the Caledonian…
The predictable happened yesterday, the strong south east winds blowing across Cairn Gorm deposited large quantities of snow in the lee of the entrance to the tunnel at the top of the funicular blocking it. It took considerable efforts on the part of at least four CairnGorm Mountain staff working with shovels (see here) to…
Last Wednesday I published a short post (see here) informing readers that Dave Morris, Gordon Bulloch and I were giving evidence that morning to the Scottish Parliament’s Public Audit Committee (PAC) on the funicular railway at Cairn Gorm. The short notice and whether you were available to watch at the time didn’t matter as anyone…
Following my recent post on the landscape destruction at Tinto (see here), I wrote to the local office of NatureScot and have had a very helpful response. Staff confirmed that they had visited the site twice, the out of control muirburn had caused significant damage to the Site of Scientific Interest (SSSI) and that they …
Following “Parkswatch’s” submission to the Public Audit Committee (see here), the authors were delighted to be asked to attend the Committee to give further evidence. Three of us are doing so today (Wednesday 14th January) (see here). You can watch the session, which is due to start around 11am, live or afterwards on the Scottish…
In May 2015 (see here) Richard Lochhead, the Scottish Minister then responsible for tourism, opened a new viewing tower, dubbed An Ceann Mor, at Inveruglas on the west shore of Loch Lomond. The tower was the fourth and final structure to be installed in the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park as part of the…
After my two posts on the out of control muirburn on Tinto Hill 9th/10th April 2025 (see here)and (here), I was sent this photo taken by a friend of a friend. I had been meaning to visit the site before blogging about it again all last year but only managed to do so just before New…
My thanks to a reader who, following my post on the board games at the Loch Lomond and Trosssachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) (see here), alerted me to some further shenanigans which I had missed. Seven out of the eighteen board members of the LLTNPA are nominated by local authorities in the area. After a…
On 3rd December Historic Environment Scotland (HES) submitted a planning application (see here) to the City of Edinburgh Council which includes a proposal to erect a new “temporary” barrier across the Radical Road below Salisbury Crags in Edinburgh. The closing date for comments (see here) is Tuesday 13th January. There have apparently been seven comments…
Since 2020 there have been a number of peatland restoration projects on the north side of Glenfalloch Estate with more in the pipeline. In the December 2025 there was an interesting article in Scottish Birds, which has also been made available on the Glenfalloch Estate website (see here), about the positive impact this work appears…