Restoring Scotland’s natural woodland cover and biodiversity from centuries of over grazing is an urgent and necessary step towards sustainable management and care for our hills and mountains. Woodland regeneration could, within decades, extend throughout the uplands allowing a natural woodland mosaic to develop, increasing biodiversity while protecting and enhancing the terrestrial carbon cycles. The…
Category: Cairngorms
The funicular railway on Cairn Gorm was returned to service in late January 2023 after having been closed for repairs since October 2018. Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) committed >£26m to the work that it had deemed a better option for the future of the CairnGorm Mountain business than removing it. The eye watering final…
The Scottish Government’s consultation on Tackling the Nature Emergency (see here) closed on Thursday. It is yet another consultation that will have consumed vast amounts of time and energy but is unlikely to change much. This post considers some of the key reasons why the Scottish Government’s proposals for nature restoration won’t work. A second…
After my post on Concrete and the Death of a Ski Resort (see here) the following comment was posted which I think deserves a proper reply. Environmental change Significant human intervention began at Cairn Gorm when skiers first arrived and decided it was the best place to build a ski area, a resort that has…
The Scottish Government’s consultation on “Tackling the Nature Emergency: Scotland’s Strategic Framework for Biodiversity” (see here), which was launched in September and includes proposals to reform Scotland’s National Parks, closes on 14th December. To date I have only considered the Scottish Government’s undemocratic proposal to increase Ministerial control over appointments to National Park board appointments…
Cairngorm Mountain (Scotland) Ltd (CMSL) is Highland and Islands Enterprise (HIE)’s subsidiary that is responsible for operating the facilities at Cairn Gorm, including the funicular. Earlier this month saw the publication (see here) of its accounts for the year to 31st March 2023. They start with this statement signed by Peter Mearns on behalf the…
Work by the Pitmain Estate to rebuild the River Gynack overflow, which had failed soon after it was initially constructed in 2017, appears to have been completed in August. The rationale behind the work and why it had not been re-opened by the time of the floods on Speyside in early October has not been…
After my last post I had conversations with a couple of people about my conclusions that the insitu stitch/ joints are the wrong way up, i.e. instead of the joint being wedge shaped, as in the picture above, it should be more of a pyramid, as in my drawing below. There were a…
I had said I would follow my post looking at the impact of BrewDog’s tree planting at Kinrara (see here) with one that looked at the impact of the new deer fences. However, having looked at further further information about BrewDog’s carbon emissions at Kinrara, it seems more important to cover that first. The carbon…
The UK Government, landowners and telecommunications masts – the landscape and environmental impacts
Who benefits from the telecommunication masts? The spate of new telecommunications masts which, as George Allan from the North East Mountain Trust explained on Monday (see here), threaten some of Scotland’s finest landscapes are intended to eliminate “total not spots”. They form part of the Shared Rural Network programme and are being funded by…
Planning applications are coming in thick and fast for 25 metre communications masts in remote hill country in Scotland as part of the UK Government’s Digital Connectivity Programme – the Shared Rural Network. Some appear to have almost no public benefit and are proposed for Scotland’s finest landscapes. Anyone for near to the Falls…
At the start of October, almost a year after they bought the Glen Prosen Estate for £17,555,000, , Forest and Land Scotland (FLS) launched an initial consultation of what to do with the land and buildings under the banner of developing an Angus Glens Land Management Plan (see here). When I last wrote about Glen…
The accounts for Natural Assets Investment Ltd (NAIL) (see here), the zombie company which bought Cairngorm Mountain Ltd (CML) from Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE), were published at the end of September. NAIL placed CML into administration after the funicular became unsafe to operate in 2018 and was one of the parties HIE subsequently sued….
The recent report from Cairngorms Connect (see here), which explained the last 30 years experience of rewilding on the western slopes of the Cairngorms massif, was covered in the Strathspey and Badenoch Herald (“Fences are “no answer in Forests””) and attracted two letters in responses from Basil Dunlop and myself – see below. The information…
The headwaters of the River South Esk, which flooded Brechin last week with such destructive effect, lie in Glen Doll in the Cairngorms National Park. The River South Esk then flows down Glen Clova, where it is joined by the River Prosen, before leaving the Cairngorms massif and turning in an easterly direction through Brechin…
While researching why the funicular was beams were built out of concrete rather than steel (see here), apart from being told that the beams should have been deeper, “tensioning” was mentioned. I didn’t appreciate the importance of what was being talked about at the time but then, after my last post (see here), this comment appeared:-…
Living as we do on the western edge of Europe, in its windiest country notorious and one that is notorious for its wet weather, I had tended to assume that Scotland bears the brunt of the storms that cross the Atlantic. After the Met Office had issued warnings for Storm Alex at the end of…
Since the funicular was closed on 25th August for “snagging” (see here) to address public safety concerns the re-opening date keeps getting put back. The latest is Monday – 16/10/2023! Little further information has been forthcoming from HIE about the reasons for the closure or the work being done although following my post they did once…
“Forest” = “a large area covered with trees and plants/undergrowth” Following my posts about BrewDog’s “Lost Forest” at Kinrara in February (see here) and (here), I was sent further photos showing work that had taken place in October and November last year to restore peatland and prepare the ground for tree planting. It looked terrible…
The Luibeg mast planning application Yesterday the planning application for the proposed telecommunications mast above the Luibeg bridge on the Mar Lodge estate (see here) was temporarily withdrawn by the developer “in light of recent consultation responses received“. The application was rapidly developing into a test case for plans to erect similar masts (with access tracks…
An application (link here) to erect a 20m digital communications mast adjacent to the Luibeg footbridge and the paths to the Lairg Ghru and to Coire Sputan Dearg has been called in by Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA) for a decision. Background to the Luibeg application As readers of Patchwatch will know, this area is…
In June HIE claimed the funicular was perfectly safe On 09/06/2023, after being contacted by several Parkswatch readers, I wrote a letter (see here) raising safety concerns about the Cairn Gorm funicular to Stuart Black, Chief Executive Officer of Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE), who own it. On 21/06/2023, I received a reply not from…
Scotland National Parks and the Scottish Government If you want to understand why Scotland’s National Parks have achieved so little in the 20 years since they were created, you need look no further than successive Scottish Governments, both the Ministers responsible and the civil servants that have supported them. Instead of encouraging and empowering our…
{NB this post has been corrected following a comment below} The GR5/52 from Lake Geneva to the Mediterranean is about 650km long and crosses through two of France’s National Parks, the Vanoise and the Mercantour (and a number of other protected areas). Much of the lower parts of the route go through forest and I…