Late yesterday the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA)published an 187 page report (see here) with additional appendices for the board meeting on 16th September recommending board members reject Flamingo Land’s proposed development at “Lomond Banks”. While a welcome victory for campaigners, before anyone celebrates too much the reasons given at the end…
In my two posts on the Flamingo Land story (see here) I covered some of the history of the pier head area in Balloch: how the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) in 2015 had offered up the land it leased from Scottish Enterprise (SE) there to the preferred developer for the West…
The story of Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority and the Flamingo Land development (2)
In the lead up the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) board meeting on 16th September which is due to decide the Flamingo Land Mark III Planning application (see here), I thought it would be worth trying to tell the whole story. Its a long one, so the first part was about the…
The importance of outdoor education, the contribution this could make to people’s physical and mental health, safety (eg reducing drowning accidents) and understanding/enjoyment of the countryside, has been regularly discussed in Scotland for 50 years or more but since its heyday in the 1980s provision has steadily decreased. The failure of the Loch Lomond and…
Keir Starmer has been widely reported over the last couple of days in the UK media as being likely to say in a speech today that “things will get worse before they get better” (see here). Whatever the truth of this statement as applied to the economy as a whole, it is certainly not the…
At the start of the week I published the first part of the story about the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA)’s involvement in the proposed Flamingo Land development at Balloch (see here). In the process of checking the evidence for the second part of the story, I came across this important piece…
On Tuesday, 20th August, I and other objectors received this letter by email notifying us that the planning application for this 25m high telecommunications mast in the Glenmore Forest had been withdrawn. As usual, the description of the proposed development tells you little, but this is the “repeater” mast whose only purpose was to enable…
Following the Herald’s excellent coverage of Flamingo Land’s plans for Balloch at the weekend (see here) – which gave both sides of the “argument” and in which I was pleased to be quoted – it was very good to see the Balloch and Haldane Community Council (BHCC) challenge some of the misinformation being put about…
The story of Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority and the Flamingo Land development (1)
I have written a number of posts over the last seven years about the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA’s) involvement in the proposed Flamingo Land development at Balloch, on the south shore of Loch Lomond, but never put the whole story together. It deserves to be widely known before the LLTNPA Board…
Background The matters arising paper for the June meeting of the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) recorded that an ACTION recored in the minute the March meeting, that “SM to look at possibility of organising a site visit to the gold and silver mine at Cononish for Members”, was “closed”. The wording…
I have not visited Far Ralia, the land in the Cairngorms National Park Abrdn’s Property Income Trust (APIT) bought for £7.5m three years ago and has now put on the market for £12m, since January. I have, however, recently obtained a copy of an inspection Scottish Forestry (SF) conducted in June through a freedom of…
In May, in a welcome move, Highland Councillors rejected the recommendation of their officers to approve a 25m high telecommunications mast on the south facing slopes of Creag Dubh, above the A86 between Laggan and Newtonmore, and refused planning permission on the grounds that: “This proposed installation of a telecommunications mast is considered contrary to…
At the end of June an article in the Strathy (see here) alerted the public to Cairngorm Mountain Scotland Ltd (CMSL)’s latest planning application for Cairn Gorm, “playtime”. While Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA) planning staff called in the application for raising “issues of significance to the collective aims of the National Park it has…
One might have hoped that the controversy caused by the office-bearers of the Royal Scottish Forestry Society to try and sell of what was supposed to be a forest for a thousand years at Cashel (see here) and (here) might have caused the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) to reflect on the…
Mobile phone operator Three’s Planning Application for a 22.5m telecommunication mast 400m from Ryvoan bothy, ostensibly intended to provide mobile coverage for the big four operators in the “Total Not Spot” between there and Glenmore, is generating just the sort of criticism needed to scupper the whole disastrous Shared Rural Network (SRN) programme. Besides over…
Following my post (see here) on how the Royal Scottish Forestry Society (RSFS) are cashing in on Cashel , Andy Wightman wrote a fine follow up piece on the Cashel estate and the post war labour government. This filled in some of the historical gaps and demonstrated how the public ownership of land was once…
On 10th July Mitie, acting on behalf of Three, who are working for Digital Mobile Spectrum Ltd, who report to the Big Four mobile operators which include Three submitted a planning application to erect a 22.5m telecommunications mast by Ryvoan bothy (see here for planning papers). A week earlier David Craig explained on parkswatch (see…
The basic elements of the the scandal concerning abrdn’s proposed sale the Far Ralia estate in the Cairngorms National Park are very simple. Having bought the land now known as the Far Ralia estate for a reported £7.5m in September 2021, Abrdn are now trying to dispose of it for £12m having in the intervening…
After first hearing about the native woodland scheme at Muckrach I submitted a Freedom of Information request to Scottish Forestry (SF) for its contract with Calthorpe Estates, the family trust which owns the land, and any reports from inspection visits. Just like when the BrewDog Lost Forest disaster become apparent (see here), it turns out…
On 16th July the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) issued a news release (see here) stating its board had agreed a date, Monday 16th September, to take a decision on the (Mark III) version (see here) of the Flamingo Land Planning Application. This post will argue that the content of the news release…
Following my post on the disastrous new section of road at Muckrach (see here), the Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA) informed me that they weren’t aware of the work but were now looking into it. I then heard from another source that the CNPA were due to meet with Savills, who oversaw the whole Muckrach…
On 10th June I wrote to Dr Heather Reid, the Convener of the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) asking for a recording of the Board Meeting which took place that day. That request followed a discussion which, in my view, raises yet more serious concerns about the LLTNPA’s handling of the Flamingo…
On election day, 4th July, after the anaemic campaigns of the major parties, it was good to see some real politics being given prominence in the Herald and to be reminded of the time when the Scottish Parliament was prepared to introduce radical new laws. The royal family, the Scottish establishment and access rights…
When James Watt, sometime chief executive of the beer company BrewDog, speaks about tree planting in the Highlands, he reminds me of unpleasant landowners of the past. In his latest attempt at defending BrewDog’s disastrous planting efforts on their Kinrara estate near Aviemore in the Cairngorms National Park, Watt did not mince his words when…
Last Friday the Cashel Forest Trust, set up by the Royal Scottish Forestry Society (RSFS), announced they had put their property at Cashel on the eastern shore of Loch Lomond on the market at offers over £4,085,000 for the whole or as five separate lots. Goldcrest’s brochure (see here) claims this is an “opportunity…