A few days after they had provided me with a copy of the contract for the Creag Bhalg woodland creation scheme near Kingussie (see here), Scottish Forestry responded to my complaint about the locked pedestrian gates there. After their Conservator for the Highlands and Islands, John Risby, had confirmed their contract with Balavil covered these…
Category: Cairngorms
Our National Park Authorities are unique among Scotland non-department public bodies (NDPDs) in that their boards are not wholly appointed by Scottish Ministers but some members are directly elected and others appointed by local authorities. That three-way division of power in theory makes Scotland’s two National Park Authorities accountable not just to the Scottish Government…
On 19th March I wrote to both Scottish Forestry and the Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA) about the locked gates (see here) in the deer fencing around the Balavil Estate’s Creag Bhalg woodland creation scheme. I had asked Scottish Forestry for a copy of their contract with Balavil, which I received yesterday, and requested they withhold…
[This article originally appeared last year in Mountain Views, the excellent journal of the North East Mountain Trust. I am pleased to republish it, following my post on Seedy Sitka (see here), using some additional photos from other areas to illustrate the points Drennan makes] A walk up Bern Vrackie is a good day out…
Last week the Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA) issued a news release (see here) which started with the following statement: “Members of the Public are being advised not to use the following paths into Abernethy Forest from Glenmore and Nethy Bridge during early mornings (before 8.30am) over the next few weeks to avoid disturbing breeding capercaillie: Ryvoan…
Having burned late into the autumn last year, NASA Firms data base (see here) shows Scotland’s grouse moor owners and managers started burning again at the start of March. At the end of this last week the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) issued their first very high fire risk warning (see here) of the…
The woodland visible around the top of Creag Bheag was funded under the Woodland Grant Scheme 3 in 1999. Twenty years later the Balavil Estate engaged Trees for Life Woodland Services to design a new area of native woodland on the estate, around Creag Bhalg. This is about 3 km north east of Kingussie, was…
My most recent post on Abrdn’s mismanagement of the Far Ralia estate for carbon offsetting purposes (see here) included this photograph of a new stock fence erected alongside an old deer fence and across this gate making it unusable. I then notified the responsible manager at Abrdn, who was not aware the gate had been…
Last week Severin Carrell in the Guardian revealed that BrewDog had sold their “Lost Forest”, the Kinrara Estate, to Oxygen Conservation for £8.85m, £350k much more than the £8.5m they had paid for it five years previously (see here). This post considers some of the issues this raises including: why BrewDog sold the land for…
Earlier this week in my post on how the National Lottery now appears to be picking up a significant proportion of funding for Scotland’s National Parks (see here), I stated that Sandy Bremner, Convener of the Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA) had recently been appointed to the Scottish Committee of the National Lottery Heritage Fund. That…
On 1st April 2022 a new Land Register, the Register of Persons Holding a Controlled Interest in Land (RCI), was created under The Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2016. Its intention was to cut through all the off-shore companies, trusts etc, which are often used to own and manage land, and enable the “real” owners and…
[This post was updated and corrected 6th March – see post on apologies to Sandy Bremner 6th March] The Scottish Government’s budget for 2026/27 included significant cuts for both the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) and the Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA) (see here for budget documents). Over the course of two…
[This post was updated and corrected 12/2/26 to reflect the fact that the costs of creating new plantations are not fully met by Scottish Forestry grants] On Thursday Oxygen Conservation announced (see here) that they have been awarded £3.3m in forestry grants to plant a large chunk of the Invergeldie Estate north of Comrie. …
There can be few among us, who, when they hear the name ‘Galapagos’ do not have mental images conjured up, of all the wonderful TV documentaries over several decades, perhaps even going right back, as in my own case, to the black and white transmissions of ‘Baby-Boomer’ childhood. The Galapagos are imprinted on our collective…
The CairnGorm Mountain [Scotland] Ltd [CMSL] accounts for the year ending 31 March 2025 were published in November 2025 (see here). They showed that the business recorded an operating loss of £2,833,280 for that financial year. That’s the day-to-day operating loss and nothing to do with the Capital Expenditures associated with the Funicular Repairs or…
The BBC Scotland Outdoors radio programme broadcast from Cairn Gorm on 17th January (see here) included a piece on the montane planting project in Coire na Ciste. You would not know from listening to it on BBC sounds (here between 48-54 minutes) that there had been any controversy about the project, both because the Caledonian…
The predictable happened yesterday, the strong south east winds blowing across Cairn Gorm deposited large quantities of snow in the lee of the entrance to the tunnel at the top of the funicular blocking it. It took considerable efforts on the part of at least four CairnGorm Mountain staff working with shovels (see here) to…
Following “Parkswatch’s” submission to the Public Audit Committee (see here), the authors were delighted to be asked to attend the Committee to give further evidence. Three of us are doing so today (Wednesday 14th January) (see here). You can watch the session, which is due to start around 11am, live or afterwards on the Scottish…
The legacy of BrewDog and Scottish Woodlands at Kinrara (2) – the Caledonian Pinewood on the Dulnain
I have delayed this second post on the Lost Forest because I wanted to use what has happened at Kinrara to illustrate the arguments I and a number of others made in a paper published in the latest edition of Scottish Forestry: “Caledonian Pinewoods. A Conservation Framework” (Volume 79 No 3 Autumn/Winter 2025). Vicky Allan has…
The Public Audit Committee inquiry into the funicular and the latest accounts for Cairngorm Mountain
Last Monday, 17th November, the accounts for Highland and Island Enterprise (HIE)’s subsidiary which operates Cairngorm Mountain were published on Companies House (see here). The next day the Scottish Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which is currently investigating the funicular railway, met local stakeholders at a round table session in Aviemore. Parkswatch campaigners have checked…
One wonders how much further the price of the Abrdn Property Income Trust (APIT) will drop from the current asking price of offers over £6.9m once prospective buyers become aware sheep are grazing among the newly created native woodland plantation at Far Ralia (see here)? As Drennan Watson has observed, once planted trees start to…
In response to my blog post of 10th October (see here) on ‘The near total destruction of a Twinflower population at Creag Bheithe Bheag in the Cairngorms National Park. What went wrong, and what lessons might be learnt for the future?’ I received replies from the CEO of the Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA), Scottish Forestry (SF)…
Today the Public Audit Committee (PAC) of the Scottish Parliament, which is investigating the funicular railway (see here), is holding a round table discussion in Aviemore and is due to visit Cairn Gorm. Yesterday, the funicular was out of action yet again. The reference to “a remote technical team” is significant. It suggests that these…
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…
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…