Ten days ago tree nurseries were in the news (see here) when Christie’s of Fochabers were quoted as claiming “We will have to burn millions of trees after cuts” as a result of the Scottish Government deciding to cut funding for tree planting by 44% to £45.4m next year. The BBC quoted Mr Christie, the…
Author: Nick Kempe
Following Peter Page’s post on 18th January (see here) showing the consequences of the failure to provide basic visitor infrastructure at Rowardennan below Ben Lomond , on 6th February the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) published a notice on the Public Contracts Scotland portal (see here). This showed the LLTNPA had awarded…
On 25th January it was a year and a day since the UK Department for Transport had declared the funicular safe to re-open and exactly five calendar months since the funicular was suddenly closed for safety reasons and to attend to ‘snagging work’. After announcing several dates by when it expected the funicular to reopen…
While staying in Newtonmore over New Year I heard that Storm Gerrit, which had hit Scotland on Boxing Day, had caused some spectacular damage in the lower parts of Glen Feshie. On my last day I went to have a look, little expecting that I would also get a post on sheep and woodland out…
There appears to have been no public news about what has been happening at the Cononish goldmine since its owner, Scotgold Resources, went into administration on 24th November. Following my post of 18th December (see here), which described some of the pollutions incidents that had taken place earlier this year and my efforts to bring…
Deer fencing and stock fencing generally serve very different purposes, the former is used to keep deer out, the latter to keep sheep and cattle in. While I have covered the disastrous consequences of deer fencing quite often on parkswatch, most recently in relation to the case of BrewDog’s Lost Forest and its impact on…
After a number of FOI requests, Rob Edwards revealed in an excellent article in the Ferret on 18th January (see here) that officials at Historic and Environment Scotland (HES) had been considering trying to close the Radical Rd below Salisbury Crags in Edinburgh permanently. While shocking, that was hardly surprising. Having fenced off access for…
Temperatures in Scotland on Sunday reached a UK record of 19.6 degrees at Kinlochewe in Torridon. There is an excellent short blog and photos showing the impact on the Scottish Avalanche Information Service website (see here). While the temperature spike is explained by the foehn effect (see here), it still beats previous heat records in…
On 25th January, Network Rail announced it was extending the platforms on eight stations along the West Highland Line by 15m at a cost of £1.7m to allow trains to run with an extra carriage (see here). The purpose of this investment is to help meet increasing passenger demand and enable the trains to carry…
Following my post on deer fencing and capercaillie on Speyside (see here), a friend and sometime contributor to Parkswatch, Nick Halls, brought to my attention to the latest issue of the Geographer, the magazine of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society. It is all about trees. In it there is an interview with Thomas MacDonell who…
On 20th October Highland Council validated a planning application (see here or ref 23/04700/FUL) to erect a 25m high telecommunications mast high on Creag Dubh between Newtonmore and Laggan. Since Creag Dubh is protected as a Site of Scientific Interest the mast requires full planning permission and Highland Council has the power to reject it….
Gaming the holes in Scotland’s planning system Yesterday I was notified by Highland Council that the planning application (Ref 23/04957/FUL) for a telecommunications mast and 2.4km of track in the Wild Land Area at the eastern end of Loch Mullardoch had been withdrawn. A small bit of good news. Highland Council has already withdrawn all…
It is just over a year since I explained how the Cairngorms National Park Authority has ignored the role of deer fencing in the decline of capercaillie (see here). While the causes of capercaillie and black grouse decline are complex – they include loss of habitat and climate change – the one thing that has…
Soon after suggesting that sporting estates managed for grouse pose the greater threat to access rights because of their concerted attempts to make people “keep to the path” (see here), I came across this salutary reminder that some deer stalking estates are still ignoring the Scottish Outdoor Access Code (SOAC). One of the primary meanings…
On Friday the following comment was submitted to my post on Access Rights and Grouse Moors (see here) “Without mammalian (mustelid and rodent) control there would be no ground nesting birds of any kind, grouse or otherwise.” Comment: This is plainly wrong. Ground nesting birds evolved along with mustelids and rodents long before any predator…
On 18th December two pairs of beavers were released on Speyside, one on the Rothiemurchus Estate and one on land belonging to Wildland Ltd (see here). This followed NatureScot’s identification of Speyside as one of the priority areas for translocation of beavers from the Tay and the decision of the Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA)…
Wildlife, however much depleted, is present everywhere. Consequently if wildlife was a reason to keep to tracks there would be no right to roam anywhere. And in my case I could not have attained my objective on Hogmanay, the trackless summit of Carn nan Tri-Tighearnan a few miles north of the Cairngorms National Park. The…
Following Storm Barbet (see here) Brechin and other settlements located by rivers which flow south and east out of the Cairngorms have TV once again been affected by flooding. People from Brechin whose property has been wrecked have been moved into hotels and describe what they have been through in the last three months as…
Last week I went out at Balmaha, the first time for over a year, and was greeted by a new forest of tree tubes. It looks terrible, is terrible for nature and ,this post argues, it exemplifies what is wrong with the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) and its new National Park…
I had not attended a Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) board meeting in person since before the Covid lockdown but on 11th December once again took the train to Balloch. Having just written a post on The fundamentally useless National Park Authority and its useless National Park plan it was very decent…
The Balloch and Haldane Community Council, who resigned en masse after backing the Flamingo Land development, is back up and running again with new people. That is a very good thing for the local community and Parkswatch is pleased to support their work by featuring this article by Lynne Somerville, their vice-chairperson, which is also…
The publication date of the April Monitoring report of the Cononish goldmine is given on the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA)as 26th October (see here), four days before the Planning Committee Meeting on 30th October (see here) which considered and then “noted” the “annual report” on the mine. There was absolutely no…
The Scottish Government’s consultation on Tackling the Nature Emergency (see here) closed on Thursday. It is yet another consultation that will have consumed vast amounts of time and energy but is unlikely to change much. This post considers some of the key reasons why the Scottish Government’s proposals for nature restoration won’t work. A second…
On Monday objectors to the proposal to build a telecommunications mast in the heart of Torridon (see here) were informed the application has been withdrawn. A small but significant victory which shows that the roll-out UK Government’s Shared Rural Network programme is far from a foregone conclusion. There had been 92 comments from the public…
By happy timing, John Urquhart’s agenda article for the Herald on the end of funding for the A82/A83 litter bins and loos (which might be easier to read here) appeared two days before the meeting on the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) on Monday. There is nothing in the papers for…