In his article, “Does Scotland Need the John Muir Trust” (see here), Victor Clements asks: “if the John Muir Trust didn’t exist, would we miss them?” His existential question is relevant for any environmental charity, and it is one that I welcome. In recent months, there has been no shortage of commentary about the John…
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…
(Updated Ed. Note. I offered Jane Smallman, chair of the JMT, the opportunity to reply to this post at the same time it was publishednstating I would be happy to publish any response Jane Smallman (or other trustees of JMT) have to Victor’s criticisms. I am pleased to say David Balharry, the Chief Executive, has…
This picture of two piers below the passing loop show just how bad things are. There are 47 brackets on the two “I” beams between those piers and the two insitu joints have been rebuilt. The beam in the photo was found to be delaminating in 2017 and the calcite bleed can still be seen…
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…
Introduction to the current problems Prior to the funicular returning to service on 27th February (see here) Highland and Islands Enterprise (HIE) made this announcement on 5th February (see here):- “Staff at Cairngorm Mountain have today (Wednesday 5 February) begun a series of maintenance activities on the electrical, mechanical and hydraulic systems that govern the…
I thought we lived in a world where science guided our decisions about how best to protect nature and the planet. Sadly this would appear not to be the case. Vested interests and the voices of the powerful now hold sway, with science only deployed by government where there is good reason to expect it’s…
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…
Introduction Two weeks ago (see here), I made the case that BrewDog’s 2020 PR shot of their soon- to- be Lost Forest was not on Speyside at all, but had a much more west coast feel about it. Feedback to the post suggested that the location was Craig Farm in Glen Orchy, and some internet…
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…
[Author note. Andy was previously an Ecologist, now retired, working for an NGO in the Cairngorms. He is currently the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI) vice-county recorder for East Inverness-shire (https://bsbi.org/easterness)]. Introduction Twinflower (Linnaea borealis) is an iconic and charismatic flower of the Caledonian Pinewood. It is a Nationally Scarce mat-forming creeping perennial,…
Introduction It has been well covered in the media recently that the craft beer company BrewDog have sold on their “Lost Forest” at Kinrara Estate, which stretches from Speyside into the Monadliath, things not having worked out for them in the way that they might have hoped. It is actually quite astonishing that a relatively…
Why the ban on camp fires in the Cairngorms National Park maybe political rather than sustainable…..
NIMBYism’ and ‘Park politics’ rather than fire risk is probably behind the move to ban camp fires (see here). My bet is that the Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNP) has caved in to pressure from residents and sporting estates who are anxious to blame somebody else for the wildfire problem land managers have, by…
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…
[The post first appeared on Prof Douglas MacMillan’s Linked-In feed. Our apologies, the original caption to this photo said it was taken from A9 at Drumochter – ed. Photo taken same day at Drumochter is now included below] Last week Scottish Ministers approved a ban on recreational fires and barbecues in the Cairngorms National Park…
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…
[Author note. Andy was previously an Ecologist, now retired, working for an NGO in the Cairngorms. He is currently the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI) vice-county recorder for East Inverness-shire (https://bsbi.org/easterness). In recent years he has published a number of scientific papers including several relevant to this project. These include, ‘Identification and taxonomy…
[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…