This email from Heather Reid, Convener of the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA), is not included in the Ethical Standards Commissioner’s report into her complaint about six emails Sid Perrie sent between 26th and 28th August 2024 (see here) and (here). When Dr Reid submitted her complaint on 29th August, in an attempt…
Author: Nick Kempe
I visited Coille Coire Chuilc (CCC), the second most southerly Caledonian Pinewood in Scotland near Tyndrum and a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), on Tuesday. The main purpose of the visit was to look at the state of the pinewood with two other people but also wanted to check whether the unlawful access sign…
The legacy of BrewDog and Scottish Woodlands at Kinrara (2) – the Caledonian Pinewood on the Dulnain
I have delayed this second post on the Lost Forest because I wanted to use what has happened at Kinrara to illustrate the arguments I and a number of others made in a paper published in the latest edition of Scottish Forestry: “Caledonian Pinewoods. A Conservation Framework” (Volume 79 No 3 Autumn/Winter 2025). Vicky Allan has…
“The community-led Local Place Planning process for Balloch, Haldane, and Jamestown is now underway, and we want you to be part of it. This is a chance for local residents, families, and businesses to come together and help shape how our community develops in the years ahead. Your input will cover everything from the spaces…
The Public Audit Committee inquiry into the funicular and the latest accounts for Cairngorm Mountain
Last Monday, 17th November, the accounts for Highland and Island Enterprise (HIE)’s subsidiary which operates Cairngorm Mountain were published on Companies House (see here). The next day the Scottish Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which is currently investigating the funicular railway, met local stakeholders at a round table session in Aviemore. Parkswatch campaigners have checked…
As I demonstrated in my first post (see here), seven minutes after the locally elected board member for Balloch, Sid Perrie, sent an email to Park Convener, Heather Reid, and Board Members on 26th August 2024 raising serious concerns about the involvement of senior members of staff in the Flamingo Land application, Dr Reid had…
One wonders how much further the price of the Abrdn Property Income Trust (APIT) will drop from the current asking price of offers over £6.9m once prospective buyers become aware sheep are grazing among the newly created native woodland plantation at Far Ralia (see here)? As Drennan Watson has observed, once planted trees start to…
Today the Public Audit Committee (PAC) of the Scottish Parliament, which is investigating the funicular railway (see here), is holding a round table discussion in Aviemore and is due to visit Cairn Gorm. Yesterday, the funicular was out of action yet again. The reference to “a remote technical team” is significant. It suggests that these…
Introduction This is the first in a series of posts which will explain how the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) has tried to silence the locally elected member for Balloch, Sid Perrie, and weaponised the Code of Conduct for board members to do so. This has serious implications not just for democracy…
On Monday 10th November the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) are holding a special board meeting to approve the evidence report for their new Local Development Plan (LDP)for approval by Scottish Ministers. Sid Perrie, the locally elected member for Balloch who is now off sick due to the actions of the Standards…
Update 6th November. At 16.00 hrs today, almost three working days after we sent the letter below, we received a three and a half page letter from the Standards Commission explaining they had informed the Helensburgh Advertiser of the Hearing and this was normal procedure. We have responded to the Executive Director of the Standards…
The funicular is currently closed for “maintenance” between 3rd and 9th November. This is the fourth time this has happened this year. As Graham Garfoot explained last week (see here), this is a portent of things to come. The complex tensioning system for the brackets which are holding the funicular structure together will require regular…
The Abrdn Property Income Trust (APIT) is now marketing Far Ralia for offers over £6.9m (see here), which is less than the recent £8m valuation, less than the £7.5m they bought it for five years ago and considerably less than the £12m they were asking for 15 months ago (see here). Deduct from the new…
Background After the Reporter appointed to hear Flamingo Land’s appeal, Mr Buylla, issued his Notice of Intention in May that their proposed development be approved (see here), the only option left to campaigners to stop the development at Balloch under planning law was to ask Scottish Ministers to call in the application and for the Scottish…
A couple of weeks ago I e-biked with Dave Morris over to look at Phase 2 of BrewDog’s Lost Forest which I had not visited since planting started there in 2024 – the year after over 50% of the trees planted in Phase I had died. Having shown that Oxygen Conservation’s claims that the Lost…
My thanks to the reader who, commenting on an old post, alerted me to Abrdn Property Income Trust (APIT)’s interim report and results for the half year to 30th June 2025, published on 30th September (see here). This confirms that APIT, which shareholders voted to wind up last year, has had difficultly selling off their land…
On 20th September I wrote about the sign above in a post on Scotland’s free trade in land & its consequences – Coille Coire Chuilc and Auchreoch. I reported the sign that same evening to the Access Team at the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) copying in Ramblers Scotland and the access…
On Thursday 9th October, the same day Jim Fairlie the Scottish Government minister responsible announced a further 9 month delay in the “watered down” – excuse the phrase – muirburn licensing scheme, a “controlled fire” on Culblean Hill got out of control. This caused a wildfire which it took fire fighters over seven hours to…
Following my post on Oxygen Conservation’s purchase of Kinrara yesterday (see here) a reader sent me a few photos taken on Friday which provides up to date evidence about the state of Kinrara and confirms that BrewDog has treated the land as a “construction” project to the very end. In their news release Oxygen Conservation made…
BrewDog’s sale of Kinrara, the estate near Aviemore which it purchased for £8,800,000 in December 2020, and the announcement by Oxygen Conservation earlier this week that it had purchased it (they have not disclosed the sum) were both sadly entirely predictable. The short explanation is BrewDog financial balloon has well and truly burst while Oxygen…
Scottish Ministers last week approved byelaws (see here for the text) which will make it an offence, with a fine of up to £500, for a person “without lawful authority” to light a fire or barbecue or “place or throw or let fall a lighted match, firework or any other thing so as to be…
[Post updated to include data from most recent Forest Research statistices and corrected 27th September]. Eighteen months ago I wrote a critical post (see here) about how Scottish Forestry is not only funding companies like BrewDog (see here) and Abrdn (see here) to plant trees, they have also been subsidising the production of trees by…
A few weeks ago a reader alerted me that there were new unlawful access signs on the Auchreoch Estate, which changed ownership in January 2025, and that they had seen sheep grazing in the Coille Coire Chuilc. Two land-management failures in one! Unfortunately the reader sent no photos – if you see bad stuff, please…
On Monday morning I watched the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) Board Meeting online (see here for agenda and papers). It should be essential viewing for anyone who cares about what is happening to democracy in Scotland but neither the LLTNPA Board nor the Scottish Government want public to see how they…
I really liked the message on this leaflet and the wider message of the ALP Project, which “aimed to safeguard high alpine habitat, one of the last pristine environments in southern Europe” (see here). Having not seen a single plastic tree tube and next to no litter in something like 300km and 25,000m of ascent…