GB TTIt is over three years since parkwatch published a letter from Alistair Bell in Canada about HIE’s corporate gaslighting at Cairn Gorm and why people had allowed downhill skiing there to die (see here). There have of course been several campaigns against HIE before, successful in the case of the opposition to extend downhill…
Category: Cairngorms
I was pleased to have this letter, full text below, published in the Herald on Tuesday. I hope it speaks for itself: “Your front page report on Saturday (Rural communities ‘at risk’ in phone network switch 13th April see here) shows the UK Government’s approach to telecommunications provision in rural areas, a Westminster responsibility, is…
I am very grateful to all the people who have promoted my post on Sunday (see here) about Scottish Forestry and the tree planting disaster at Kinrara and my apologies that the parkswatch website then crashed. This does not appear to have been due to a cyber attack by defenders of the forestry grants system or…
In mid-February (see here) I described how many of the trees planted by BrewDog, as part of the Phase I creation of its Lost Forest, had died and how they appeared to be investing little, if any, of their own money in the whole disastrous project. A week after the post I received a response…
The funicular may have been non-operational and much of the other uplift removed but provision for snowsports at Cairn Gorm this winter was much worse than it should have been given the amount of snow making equipment Highlands and Islands Enterprise had bought for its subsidiary Cairngorm Mountain (Scotland) Ltd (CMSL). The screenshots in this…
Question: how does France (along with many other European countries) manage to have so much more woodland than Scotland and “do” forestry without fencing and planting? Answer: they control grazing by large herbivores, whether livestock or deer, using completely different legal mechanisms than exist in Scotland The fundamental failing with the legislative proposals in the…
The Scottish Government’s consultation on proposals to modernise the legislation which governs deer management in Scotland closes today (see here). There is a survey which is relatively easy to complete. The primary aim of the proposed legislation is to ‘ensure it is fit for purpose in the context of the biodiversity and climate crises’. The…
On the evening of 28th February, HIE’s fully owned subsidiary Cairngorm Mountain Scotland Ltd (CMSL) announced it was moving to a five day week and would not be operating on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. This decision was met with disbelief by snowsports enthusiasts, particularly those who had bought season tickets, but also affected CMSL’s ability…
On Thursday the Wildlife Management and Muirburn Bill (WMMB) (see here for text) was passed by the Scottish Parliament. Judging from the responses of some of the main proponents and opponents of the Bill one could be fooled into thinking will usher in major changes to how grouse moors are managed. On the one hand…
[Ed note. While I wrote about the proposed mast on Creag Dubh in a previous post (see here), this objection to the Planning Application from Dave Morris sets out a reasoned and detailed case about what is wrong with the Shared Rural Network programme and the approach they are taking to fixing the “partial…
Never, when writing my post HIE’s crumbling empire on Wednesday (see here), did I guess that Cairngorm Mountain Scotland Ltd (CMSL) would have confirmed my analysis within 24 hours with this admission that the one ski resort in Scotland with natural snow, high in the Ptarmigan bowl, was inaccessible due to the lack of uplift….
The funicular, HIE’s crumbling empire at Cairn Gorm and the need to reform Scotland’s National Parks
The current position ” Risks associated with reinstatement of the Cairngorm funicular railway were addressed through robust internal and external governance and project management” (HIE Annual Report 2022-23 as laid before the Scottish Government in October). There was no public news release but last week Highlands and Islands Enterprise let it be known through the…
It is over 18 months since I explained why the Scottish Government needed to review how Scotland’s two existing National Parks have done before creating a new one (see here). Instead of doing that the Scottish Government has been pressing ahead with the creation of a new National Park but using a new process to…
It occurred to me that those of us who speak out against phone masts in Wild Land areas [Ed. see previous posts in this series] need to get out the fact that there are alternatives to mobile phones – not just coming alternatives, but here-and-now alternatives, some of which have been around for decades. The…
On 5th February a planning application was published on Highland Council Planning portal to erect a 27.5m high telecommunications mast along with 2 x 15m wind turbines and 36 solar panels in the heart of BrewDog’s Lost Forest (see here). While the application states “the proposed site is located towards the foot of Creag Shollier,…
How many of the trees planted at Kinrara last year have survived? After my posts in the autumn about the destruction being caused by BrewDog’s tree planting at Kinrara and how it has been releasing carbon into the atmosphere (see here) and (here), I heard through a third party that someone with professional expertise thought…
Ten days ago tree nurseries were in the news (see here) when Christie’s of Fochabers were quoted as claiming “We will have to burn millions of trees after cuts” as a result of the Scottish Government deciding to cut funding for tree planting by 44% to £45.4m next year. The BBC quoted Mr Christie, the…
On 25th January it was a year and a day since the UK Department for Transport had declared the funicular safe to re-open and exactly five calendar months since the funicular was suddenly closed for safety reasons and to attend to ‘snagging work’. After announcing several dates by when it expected the funicular to reopen…
While staying in Newtonmore over New Year I heard that Storm Gerrit, which had hit Scotland on Boxing Day, had caused some spectacular damage in the lower parts of Glen Feshie. On my last day I went to have a look, little expecting that I would also get a post on sheep and woodland out…
Deer fencing and stock fencing generally serve very different purposes, the former is used to keep deer out, the latter to keep sheep and cattle in. While I have covered the disastrous consequences of deer fencing quite often on parkswatch, most recently in relation to the case of BrewDog’s Lost Forest and its impact on…
Following my post on deer fencing and capercaillie on Speyside (see here), a friend and sometime contributor to Parkswatch, Nick Halls, brought to my attention to the latest issue of the Geographer, the magazine of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society. It is all about trees. In it there is an interview with Thomas MacDonell who…
On 20th October Highland Council validated a planning application (see here or ref 23/04700/FUL) to erect a 25m high telecommunications mast high on Creag Dubh between Newtonmore and Laggan. Since Creag Dubh is protected as a Site of Scientific Interest the mast requires full planning permission and Highland Council has the power to reject it….
It is just over a year since I explained how the Cairngorms National Park Authority has ignored the role of deer fencing in the decline of capercaillie (see here). While the causes of capercaillie and black grouse decline are complex – they include loss of habitat and climate change – the one thing that has…
Parkswatch has already featured the Shared Rural Networks (SRN) scheme, and some instances of its potential impact (see here), (here) and (here). Some digging (mostly by others) reveals that the potential impact of the SRN scheme is much bigger and much worse that many people previously thought. To recap, the Shared Rural Networks (SRN) scheme is…
The Cairn Gorm funicular railway first went into service on 24 December 2001. The significant cost overruns have been well documented but it should be made clear that the construction costs were met from the public purse and that there was no requirement on the operating company to repay any of that grant funding. The…