On Friday to mark the end of the camping byelaws – you were a criminal if you pitched your tent without a permit on Saturday but from past midnight could camp in the same place scot free – Phoebe Smith has a piece on Radio 4’s “You and Yours” http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b095ptx2. (It runs from 28 mins…
At the end of August, after a stravaig over the east Drumochter hills, I looped back to Dalwhinnie through the Drumochter pass, the idea being to combine enjoyment with a look at the effectiveness of the restoration of the land along the Beauly Denny. Just beyond Dalnaspidal and hidden behind the A9 shelterbelt, I came…
The Your Park paper update paper to the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority Board on 18th September (see here) contained a very short section of enforcement of the camping byelaws. While the LLTNPA has reported that 7 cases have been reported to the Procurator Fiscal since the byelaws came into effect, what they…
Highlands and Islands Enterprise appointed McGowan, an Aviemore contractor, to undertake the “clear-up” that is currently being undertaken at Cairngorm. This has involved removal of potentially re-usable lift infrastructure from Coire na Ciste and has ignored environmental standards (see here). HIE have now provided, as a result of FOI requests, information ITT Report – Redacted…
The debate about visitor numbers, which started this summer with reports of visitors “swamping” Skye and the North West Coast, has moved to the Outer Hebrides and the current focus is on “motorhomes”. However, unlike in the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park where the numbers of visitors are treated as a problem, in the…
Trees for Life announced this week a new project to use old isolated Scots Pine to restore areas which were formerly covered in Caledonian Pine Forest. It brought to mind An Camas Mor…………… ………..where the isolated old pines now sit among regenerating forest. A great example of rewilding (see here) and of what Trees for Life…
Retiring Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority Board Member and former SNP councillor Fergus Wood was featured in the Stirling Observer last week due to his alleged failure to abide by planning conditions set by the National Park Authority for the hydro scheme at Ledard Farm which he is reported as describing in the…
The Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Board Meeting on Monday (see here for papers) was far more open than meetings in the past but showed the Board still has a considerable way to go. The fundamental issue is that most Board Members appear to have little idea of why they are there. It was…
o Badenoch and Strathspey Conservation Group recently had the bright idea of playing the political parties at their own game and commissioning Survation, who conduct weekly national polls, to ask what people in Scotland thought of the proposed development at An Camus Mor. For those who care about the future of our National Parks it…
In the paper on the camping byelaws presented at the June LLTNPA Board Meeting, it was reported that: “86% of people said that they would be quite likely or very likely to recommend staying over in a camping/motorhome permit area” and “82% of people found it easy or very easy to find their permit area”….
Large developments are, I believe, fundamentally incompatible with the whole concept of National Parks, wherever they are located across the world. National Parks are places where the natural environment should come first, not second. That’s why I, like many people, object to the An Camas Mor development in principle. We should not be building…
An extraordinary discussion took place at the end of the June Board meeting of the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority in which Councillor James Robb, one of several councillors who will be leaving the Board this Autumn (see here), proposed that the number of Board Members should be cut. The reason for the…
Anyone who tries to understand human affairs from a global perspective will have probably greeted last week’s announcement that a poll of readers of the Rough Guides had found Scotland to be the most beautiful country in the world with a deep shrug. It is of course just a piece of marketing based on…
The work funded by HIE to remove the ski infrastructure from Coire na Ciste, using trucks, has progressed apace in the last week. The sheer amount of rubble pictured above provides evidence of the number of truck journeys that have been made up and down the mountain to the West Wall area without protective measures…
Following my post on lessons for path investment from the Dolomites I am pleased to report that the short link path to the Three Lochs Way at Arrochar has been cleared of vegetation by the West Dunbartonshire Community Payback Team. Well done to them and to the volunteers who asked them to help! That the Loch…
Like many people, I suspect, I have been waiting for months for another case of raptor persecution to occur in the Cairngorms National Park. For under the current grouse moor management regimes that dominate much of the National Park, its not a case of “if” but “when” another raptor will disappear. While its taken longer…
This letter in response to the current destruction of ski infrastructure in Coire na Ciste provides an excellent summary of how downhill skiing has been managed by HIE at Cairngorm. It raises much wider issues of what are National Parks are for. Also this week on BBC Highland there was a feature on HIE…
While the impact of windfarms on landscape make front page news – the latest being the predictable decision by the Courts to uphold the Scottish Government’s decision to give the go-ahead to the Creag Riabhach scheme in Sutherland (see here) – hydro schemes rarely receive any coverage at all. For a long time, most people…
Following my visit to the Ledcharrie Hydro Scheme in Glen Dochart with members of the Munro Society (see here), I made an information request to the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority to find out what they were doing to address deficiencies in the development, particularly the damage to the landscape that has been…
On Monday I was up at Cairngorm on a pre-arranged visit to look at the Shieling Hill Track (about which more in due course) and did not go to the top of the hill. It was not difficult though to get photos illustrating the lies and hyprocrisy about what is going on at Cairngorm (see…
Following my post on the destruction going on at Cairngorm (see here) parkswatch has been sent more photos which show that HIE and Natural Retreats appear to have deliberately destroying infrastructure at Cairngorm that could have been re-used. Its worth repeating that there has been no consultation on this from either HIE or Natural Retreats…
On Monday works started to remove the West Wall chairlift. These demonstrate yet again that both Natural Retreats and HIE are totally unfit to manage Cairngorm. This is not just because of the environmental damage they are causing, its because the works appear deliberately designed to frustrate any chance of alternative development in Coire Cas…
By Mary Jack History Perhaps one of the best travel books ever written about Scotland is The Companion Guide to the West Highlands of Scotland [1968] by W.H.Murray. Early on he touches on Loch Lomond: The banks of Loch Lomond are clothed by deciduous woods. Oak, beech, chestnut, larch, and birch predominate … That the banks…
Most visitors to Balmaha and beyond this summer will have probably been struck by the new cycle lanes through Milton of Buchanan. I use a bike to get around Glasgow, campaign in the area I live for more cycle lanes and when driving try to be as “cycle friendly” as possible. Coming into Milton of…
On Friday, to no-one’s surprise, the Cairngorms National Park Authority unanimously approved the revised planning application for An Camas Mor and in effect gave Johnnie Grant a further three years to meet planning requirements. Paradoxically, this new decision, I believe makes An Camas Mor less likely than ever to go ahead. This is mainly because…