The consultation (see here) on the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park’s draft woodland and trees strategy, which is intended to set the strategic direction for forestry in the National Park for the next 20 years, closes on Monday. At the LLTNPA Board Meeting in March, which agreed the consultation, it was revealed that the Strategy…
Author: Nick Kempe
The Garabal Estate, which consists of a broad strip of land running south west from Inverarnan at the head of Loch Lomond is up for sale (see here for brochure). The asking price is c£652 an acre. This post takes a look at the issues this raises for the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National…
On the same day, 24th May, that the Cairngorms National Park issued a news piece entitled Our National Treasures about the European Day of Parks, the police issued a news release about four geese that had been found poisoned near Loch Gynack by Kingussie at the end of April. This received excellent coverage on Raptor…
Fourteen months ago I first blogged about the The Drumlean Case (1) – an incredibly important decision for access rights in Scotland. I still believe that, I think its really helped reinvigorate and inspire the access teams in our National Parks and those that have so far survived the cuts in our Local Authorities (I will…
The revised Planning Application to redevelop and expand the Ptarmigan Restaurant near the top of Cairn Gorm is to be considered by the Cairngorms National Park Authority on Friday (see here – item 6). Officers are recommending that the application should be approved. This post explains why CNPA Board Members should reject the application and…
Access issues created by the Forestry Commission – now Forest and Land Scotland – feature prominently in the first edition of the new Arrochar-Succoth-Tarbet community newsletter. Parkswatch first blogged about the longstanding access problems at Cruach Tairbeart, which forms a fine viewpoint between the head of Loch Long, a year ago (see here). A friend…
The 28 day statutory minimum consultation period on the revised Flamingo Land Planning Consultation ends on Monday when Green MSP, Ross Greer, is due to hand in over 52,000 objections he has helped gather to the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority. The LLTNPA, to it credit, has said that it will continue to…
Just six weeks after the Cairngorms National Park Authority adopted a set of working principles for future development at Cairn Gorm (see here), including the need for a masterplan BEFORE any new Planning Applications were considered, guess what? Highlands and Islands Enterprise has submitted yet another Planning Application to Highland Council for Cairn Gorm (see…
[This post was corrected and updated in June 2024 after I identified a mistake about the price Scottish Enterprise had paid for the Riverside Site]. Last week I mentioned the growing media interest in the Flamingo Land proposals at Balloch and it was great to see this powerful piece from Kevin McKenna at the weekend. …
In the last six weeks two retrospective applications for planning permission for works on hill roads have been submitted to the Cairngorms National Park Authority. The first (see here) is from Atholl estates for a section of road by Meall Tionail, south of Beinn Dearg. The second (see here) is from the Glenbanchor estate for…
When blogging about the unlawful forestry no access signs on the Drummond Estate north of Callander 10 days ago (see here), I did not have time to feature what lay behind them. Nor about how the Keltie Water hydro scheme (see here) looks six months on. The new “forestry” road into Glen Chroin When…
In the last couple of weeks Flamingo Land, which the multi-millionaire developer Gordon Gibb has tried unsuccessfully to rebrand as Lomond Banks, has become a national political issue. By that I don’t mean a party political issue – most politicians, both nationally and locally, are still sitting on the fence – but one which is…
I had been meaning to follow up why the last meeting of the Cairngorms National Park Authority Board had held a confidential discussion on Cairngorm Mountain when last week the Cairngorms National Park Authority published a new document., “Cairngorm Mountain – CNPA Working Principles”. An email to the Cairngorms National Park Authority established that the…
I have been too occupied with other things in the last week to blog much but seen plenty to blog about. On Saturday I went for a run with my daughter from just south of Braeleny, on the Keltie Water, over to Uamh Bheag and Beinn Odhar – the site of the Doune windfarm –…
Knowledge and the abuse of power Globally, there is a struggle going on about who controls information and part of this is about who gets to see publicly funded research. George Monbiot has given excellent coverage to how academic research is being captured by corporate interests and what people are doing to oppose this (see…
Evidence from the last few weeks shows that, despite some recent progress (see here for example), there is still an extensive failure to implement access rights in our National Parks. This is particularly worrying because our National Parks are the best resourced Access Authorities in Scotland and have had a statutory duty to promote public…
I almost never watch TV but last week, in the middle of the first week of the Extinction Rebellion protest, I did watch the BBC documentary “Climate Change – the Facts” narrated by David Attenborough. The footage of forest fires burning out of control and the evidence that not only have the numbers of fires…
Yesterday, Flamingo Land’s media consultants issued a New release on their revised Planning Application at Balloch. This received widespread media coverage and appeared designed to deceive. Most of the media did not fall for the attempt to rename the proposed development Lomond Banks and continued to refer to it as Flamingo Land. No-one, however, questioned…
This is the second, in a series of posts (see here), about HIE’s mismanagement of Cairn Gorm based on their latest response to my questions about the procurement process which led to CairnGorm Mountain Ltd being outsourced to “Natural Retreats”. In 2013 Highlands and Islands Enterprise excluded Cairngorms Snowsports, a sound local company with a…
After announcing a “major application” update last week (see here), the revisions to the Flamingo Land planning application appeared yesterday evening. There are about 40 new documents on the planning portal (see here), all dated 5th April rather than the 17th April when they were made public by the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National…
A couple of weeks ago the Environment Secretary, Roseanna Cunningham, announced the Scottish Government would create a new law to make it illegal to throw litter out of cars (see here). Funny, I had thought that littering was already an offence, whether or not thrown out a car window. It was also announced that…
At the end of last week Highlands and Islands Enterprise provided me with a number of documents relating to their decision to “appoint” “Natural Retreats” to “operate” Cairngorm Mountain Ltd. To give HIE credit, they have not tried to delay release of the information and relatively little of it is redacted. The documents confirm there…
Every time I travelled along the A82 last year I spotted people camping in breach of the camping byelaws in the tent free zone the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority has created between Inveruglas and the Falls of Falloch. The northern part of this was not included originally within the Loch Lomond West…
Following Dave Morris’ post (see here) on how the Cairngorms National Park Authority are trying to restrict access to paths, parkswatch has been sent some more photos of unlawful signs by readers. When a National Park, which has a privileged place on the National Access Forum, believes its alright to issue a news release telling…
In my view there is no justification for a Public Authority to commission research and then to keep this secret. That, however, has been what the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority has been doing for the last five years. Unlike the Cairngorms National Park, which has a Research Strategy and a dedicated website…