I have been trying since the summer to obtain copies of the “Land Management Plans” which the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park claim to have agreed with certain landowners (my appeal is with the Scottish Information Commissioner). The content of these plans seems to me important for understanding how far the LLTNPA are getting…
The National Park Partnership Plan is supposed to be the most important document governing what happens in our National Park, setting out not just what our National Park Authorities do but also the commitments made by their partners, from public authorities to private landowners. It was considered at the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park…
This post takes a look at the current Flamingo Land proposal for the riverside site (reddish area above) against the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority’s policy for the area, as set out in various plans. This reveals several shifts in policy in the last year. The National Park Development Plan, approved by the…
The Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority will, at its Board Meeting on Monday, consider an “Update Report” for Scottish Ministers on the operation of the camping byelaws in their first year. There is a cover paper (see here), the Report for Ministers (see here) and appendices (see here). The basic line the Park has…
Ref: NOV302727 Notice Type: 02 Contract Notice Title: Review of Cairngorm Ski Area Uplift Infrastructure Published: 30/11/2017 Published by: Highlands and Islands Enterprise Deadline: 10/01/2018 Full Text: http://www.publiccontractsscotland.gov.uk/search/show/Search_View.aspx?id=NOV302727 (Notice issued by Scotland Contracts Portal) On Friday 30th November, following the public row about their removal of old ski infrastructure from Coire na Ciste which forced…
Yesterday’s post on signage in our National Parks that contravenes access rights was published before I had read the Loch Lomond and Trossachs’s National Park’s response to an information request I had made for papers presented to the Local Access Forum this year (I received the response at the end of last week). The photos…
In the month or so since my post on grouse moor propaganda and our National Parks (see here), on two further outings I have come across further signs which undermine access rights and are contrary to the Scottish Outdoor Access Code. What this illustrates is that such signage is a far from isolated problem and…
There has been a lot of community activity in Balloch since Scottish Enterprise announced Flamingo Land had been appointed developer for the Riverside Site. You can follow this activity and thinking through a number of Facebook Groups including “Balloch Responds”, “Friends of Drumkinnon Woods” and “Alternative Balloch – A Productive United Village”. Recently people have…
Following my post on the proposed loch achray campsite, which received some well-informed comments from readers, further documents relating to the application have been uploaded to the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority Planning portal (see here). The papers for the December LLTNPA Board Meeting confirm that Loch Achray is the ONLY “new” campsite…
After my visit a few weeks ago to Glen Bruar and my post on the restoration work on the pipeline (see here), the Cairngorms National Park Authority indicated they had some further documentation about the restoration works and would place these on the planning portal. They did so a couple of weeks ago (see here)….
Yesterday the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority planning committee considered a planning application from David McCowan, an elected Board Member and member of the Planning Committee (see here). David McCowan represents the people of Balloch and West Loch Lomond and the planning application was to build a three storey extension onto the Woodbank…
Following my post on the new and “upgraded” hill track in Glen Banchor (see here), the Cairngorms National Park Authority has informed Dave Morris and myself that they will fully investigate what has happened and feed back to us what action they can take. This is most welcome. I also reported to them that works…
On Friday staff from Cairngorm Mountain entered the Scottish Ski Club Hut on Cairngorm and removed the Winter Highland Webcam. I have checked and there is proof of this from several sources including a telephone message that Janet Janssen, Manager of Cairngorm Mountain, left on the Winter Highland answerphone. Staff from Natural Retreats had not…
Since my post in June (see here) on Forest Enterprise’s “upgrade” of the Coilessan Glen forest track, I have been trying to get to the root of what has gone wrong. First I established that no planning application or prior notification had been received by the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority, then I…
Earlier this year, the owner of the Pitmain estate, who appears to be Abdul Majid Jafar, bought the Glen Banchor and Strone Estate behind Newtonmore. I say “appears” because the information on Pitmain Estate Ltd at Companies House fails to declare who has significant control over the company. While Abdul Majid Jafar resigned as a Director…
On Friday I went to the first of the Flamingo Land consultation events at Lomond Shores in Balloch. I was not sure what to expect partly because the proposals have been developed in secret (see here) but also because – like many people I suspect – I don’t think like a developer. The display of…
The failures in the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park’s consultation system A couple of weeks ago, at the Scottish Wild Group AGM, I was told that a planning application had been submitted back in August for the new proposal for waste storage waste from the Cononish Gold Mine (see here). The formal consultation period…
A few weeks ago I learned that someone had nominated me for the TGO Readers’ Award under the category Campaign or Campaigner of the year. I am really grateful that someone appreciated parkswatchscotland sufficiently to nominate me for this. I also think its great that TGO values campaigning and through the awards and its…
A strange thing happened on the 1st November, Natural Retreats UK changed its name to the UK Great Travel Company Ltd. This took place in the middle of a massive row which has erupted over a “Natural Retreats” planning application in the Yorkshire Dales. This post looks at the potential implications of both for…
In order to ban camping and get the camping byelaws approved, the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority misrepresented and grossly exaggerated the impacts campers were having on the loch shores. They did this by promulgating multiple images of irresponsible campers while ignoring their own data and misusing police data which put the problems…
Following my two posts last December about the destruction caused by the hydro scheme in Glen Bruar (see here) and (here), I took a jog up the glen on Saturday. I was prompted to do so after planning staff at the Cairngorms National Park Authority were kind enough to inform me – unprompted – that significant…
While I would love our National Parks to be litter free, when litter is getting worse everywhere in Scotland (see here), any attempt to reduce litter which does not take account of the wider context is almost certainly doomed to failure. Yet that is what the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority did…
The financial position of Cairngorm Mountain Ltd Following my post on the finances at Cairngorm (see here), a Natural Retreats spokeswoman claimed to the Strathy this week that “Overall despite an operating loss the company was cash flow positive requiring no group support or bank intervention”. This is completely misleading, as the Cairngorm Mountain Ltd accounts…
On 27th October, after six months of silence, agents for Flamingo Land lodged a pre-planning application consultation strategy with the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority. Anyone who follows Scottish Government planning policy knows that one of the big ideas and big pushes is towards “front loading” the planning system, with a shift to…
In September the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority submitted a planning application (see here) to itself as planning authority for a new campsite on the south shore of Loch Achray on Forest Drive in the Trossachs. There is widespread agreement that new campsites with basic facilities are needed in the National Park. So…