The consultation on the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA)’s National Park Partnership Plan (NPPP) 2024-29 has been live since 26th April and closes on Wednesday. There have been few responses so far through the online platform “commonplace” (see here) despite the LLTNPA’s attempts to frame the new plan as having a pivotal…
Category: Loch Lomond and Trossachs
The Right to Roam campaign https://www.righttoroam.org.uk/ has taken a far broader approach to access rights than has traditionally been the case in England and has been building a broad campaign for a new legal right of access on the Scottish model. One of the outdoor recreational activities that has been highlighted by that campaign is wild…
Last week I took two relatives from Australia, ecologists both, on a tour of Scotland which included parts of both of Scotland’s National Parks. Our first stop was Inveruglas, on the west shore of Loch Lomond, land owned and managed by the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority. It was good to find the…
On 30th June the Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA) issued a news release (see here) stating that Sandy Bremner and Eleanor Mackintosh had been elected as new Convener and vice-Convener of the Cairngorms National Park Authority on 28th June. The elections were to replace Xander McDade, who had announced earlier in the year that he…
Background The successful re-introduction of beavers to Scotland owes very little to our public authorities and everything to the people who, whether accidentally or not, allowed beavers to enter the catchment of te River Tay. While the official trial in Knapdale floundered – the river system was too small and the catchment isolated so the…
The Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) draft National Park Partnership Plan (NPPP), currently out for consultation (see here) says hardly anything about litter prevention or management and contains just one commitment that mentions litter: “Jointly plan visitor management with partners to ensure a co-ordinated approach to staff presence on the ground, litter…
The damage caused by Scotland’s exceedingly high numbers of red deer and muirburn are the two main issues that need to be tackled if we are to tackle the nature and climate emergencies in the uplands. This post takes a look at the three changes in the law the Scottish Government announced yesterday (see here)…
The Draft Partnership Plan from the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) has now been published (see here) and I have become convinced it should not be accepted without very significant changes. As it stands it fails completely to lay out how the Park should proceed in order to achieve its third objective:…
After from some excellent objections, no new documents have been added to the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA)’s planning portal (see here) since I wrote two months ago about how Flamingo Land appears to be losing the battle at Balloch (see here). While ostensibly not a lot appears to be happening, two…
Following my post on litter and outdoor recreation (see here), I was contacted by Tom Colville who had visited Knoydart a few days before me in his boat. He confirmed my observations that litter was confined to the coasts and noted that it was particularly prominent along the outer part of Loch Nevis and that…
Last week proposals to upgrade both the A83 and the A9 were in the news. None of the coverage mentioned that all of the A83 at the Rest and Be Thankful lies within the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park (LLTNP) or that much of the A9 lies within the Cairngorms National Park. This is…
I am just back from a stravaig from Loch Arkaig around Knoydart and then a two day walk across the group of Munros north of the road to Ullapool. In six days on the hill we only saw one piece of litter and that only because we had camped on the rough ground between Seana…
Six years ago, on 1st April 2017, Gordon Watson, the Chief Executive Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA), closed the slipway and tried to close the ranger base at Milarrochy without consultation and without any consideration by his board . When the Loch Lomond Association wrote to James Stuart, the Convener of the…
Following my post (see here) on how sheep and cattle were still grazing the slopes of Beinn Luibhean, despite the landslips, Andy Wightman sent me information about the ownership of the land from his website Who Owns Scotland (see here): This information, obtained from the Register of Sasines, is not yet online at the Registers…
My post on the financial crisis at the Cononish goldmine last week (see here) prompted some very interesting comments and a number of photos which have been published on twitter (see here for photos, videos and commentary). These suggest that environmental conditions are, as I feared, being breached. Tailing disposal Under the approved waste…
Following my post on 3rd April about the financial crisis at the Cononish goldmine and its possible environmental consequences (see here) there have been a number of developments. Scotgold’s finances In their interim results (see here) for the half year till December 2022, published on 30th March, the Directors of SGZ Cononish, Scotgold’s subsidiary…
Last week I travelled up the A83 and over the Rest and Be Thankful for the first time in over a year. What first caught my eye was the number of new tree shelters on the hillside. In 2020 Forest and Land Scotland committed to reduce its use of plastic tree shelters to a minimum…
On Easter Saturday, I walked up the tourist path on Ben A’an, which was rebuilt in 2018 as part of the Mountains for People project and which I last wrote about two and a half years ago (see here). It was a nice day and, as I expected, very busy but that was one reason…
Since my last post (see here), another 10,000 or so objections have been lodged through the Scottish Greens against Flamingo Land’s proposed development at Balloch, more than the original application in 2018 and the most in Scottish history. Flamingo Land’s response has been to issue a news release, which was quoted in various papers from…
It is almost two years since my last post on the Cononish goldmine (see here) and five since the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) granted it planning permission. Since the mine was first mooted there has been a steady stream of “news” stories from the owners, Australian Company Scotgold Resources Ltd, about…
Footpaths and climate change Yesterday there was an interesting feature in the Herald magazine about Bob Brown, the National Trust for Scotland’s footpath manager, who has kept the faith and continues to repair paths by hand rather than doing so on the cheap by machine, often with poor consequences (see here). Coming a few days…
The results of the local member elections for the Cairngorms National Park Authority, which take place by post vote, were announced on Thursday 23rd March and confirm that the voting system in both our National Parks is in urgent need of reform (see here for the elections to the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park…
Transport Scotland has gone silent about its plans (see here) to upgrade the A82 along Loch Lomond since the Helensburgh and Distict Access Trust (HADAT) lodged a complaint with Audit Scotland about the process last summer (see here). It is good to see that HADAT is keeping up the pressure, both with its petition to…
I had hoped to cover the members debate that took place in the Scottish Parliament on 12th March about Flamingo Land’s revised development proposals for Balloch on my way to the Alps two weeks ago, but doing that on the phone proved beyond me. It followed a previous members debate, also sponsored by local list…
Last summer the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National ParK Authority (LLTNPA) advised those who had responded to its much delayed (see here) Outdoor Recreation Plan (ORP) tthat it had decideded to incorporate it into the next National Park Partnership Plan (NPPP) (see here). The draft NPPP is to be considered by the LLTNPA Board today, prior…