This morning a reader posted a comment on parkswatch (see here) saying he was a happy laddie because he had just been informed that the camping byelaws don’t apply to campervans on Loch Earn – at least for a temporary period. If so, its hard to see how the camping byelaws can be applied to…
Category: Loch Lomond and Trossachs
By Ross MacBeath Camping provision without parking spaces, pitches you can’t find never mind camp on, and camping permit zones comprising bogs, scrub, briar, rough heath and felled forest all add to the growing list of failures in the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority’s claim to have provided new camping places, not just…
Last Thursday I wrote to Park Convener James Stuart asking to lead a deputation to the next Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority Board meeting on Monday 19th June about the Park’s selective application of the camping byelaws (see here) and failure to provide the 300 “new” camping places they had promised the Scottish…
A year after Parkswatch first started to cover the hydro schemes in Glen Falloch and highlighted thefailure of the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority to follow its own best practice guidance (see here) that penstock and other materials should wherever possible be in colours that blend into the natural environment, the penstock…
By Ross MacBeath Loch Chon infrastructure Driving along the B829 where trees are coming into full boom after the recent rain, the greater area of natural woodlands has greened up with mosses and other vegetation moving into their main growing season. Nowhere is this more obvious that at the Loch Chon site where easy access…
Over the last month, a number of examples have come to light about the LLTNPA’s inequitable application of the byelaws, the most notable being that Park staff have been told not to apply the byelaws to people in caravans (see here). This post will look at the Loch Lomond and Trossachs Authority’s selective application…
The chaos at Luss (see here) on the first weekend in May, was experienced at several other visitor hotspots in the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park, but most notably and predictably at Balmaha. The LLTNPA has an opportunity to reflect on what happened when its Planning Committee considers draft Supplementary Planning Guidance (SPG) for…
Thanks to Nick Halls for these photos and for information which has informed the commentary. The area around the former southern entrance to the torpedo station remains in a very poor condition with concrete barriers now replacing the plastic barriers across the broken entrance gates. The gates, which were installed to prevent vehicular access…
ON THE SPOT REPORT Thank to James McCleary for his permission to reproduce his experience as an “On the Spot Report” A great example of leave no trace camping and a good looking Spot on Loch Venachar. This area is a natural campsite and long time favorite with campers. Report begins: 13th May 2017 Loch…
That campsites can become “political” issues is demonstrated in Strathard where Fergus Wood, the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority Board Member, lost his Council seat on 4th May (see here). On 11th May he withdrew his planning application for a new campsite by the shores of Loch Ard on Ledard Farm (see here)….
By Ross MacBeath This post, following previous posts on the Loch Chon campsite in Strathard (see here) and (here) for example, looks at recent damage caused to the environment at Loch Chon by the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority. The photos in this post were taken before the recent dry period. Two new…
Contributors to Parkswatch have, over the last 15 months, regularly highlighted the failures of the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority to provide basic facilities for visitors. We are not the only people who have been saying this of course but in an extremely welcome development, Luss Estates, who I understand have been trying…
One of primary justifications the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority made for camping byelaws was that they were needed to address the problem of encampments on laybys by caravans and motorhomes over the summer. In their news release (see here) about the approval of the camping byelaws the LLTNPA included the following statement:…
The results of the Local Government elections last Thursday are likely to lead to a significant change in the composition of both National Park Boards over the next few months which provides an opportunity for all who care about how our National Parks operate at present. The headline is that eight of the thirteen current…
By Ross MacBeath Perhaps, after all the publicity even Loch Lomond National Park Authority have conceded that many of the camping permit zones they created in the Trossachs are not suitable for camping. This may explain why certain zones have been temporarily removed or do not appear on the permit booking system with the consequence…
Scotgold Resources Ltd are holding two “consultation” events at Tyndrum Village Hall on 10th and 24th May between 10.30 – 20.30 on new proposals for the Cononish goldmine. Their proposals are set out in a scoping report which is now on the Loch Lomond and Trossachs Park Authority Planning Portal (see here). The Report does…
By a happy coincidence, just as Dave Morris’ fine letter about how investment in the outdoors can benefit landscapes, people and the local economy appeared in the Herald, I received EIR 2017-037 Response Chemical Disposal points from the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park. From the sublime to the ridiculous – but its an indication…
By Ross MacBeath The new directive for Countryside Rangers – enforce the byelaws above all else. While the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park made a great hullabaloo claiming success with their byelaws on the East Loch Lomond shore, what they failed to explain was that to achieve this as yet unsubstantiated claim, they…
By Ross MacBeath It is now clear that much of camping provision intended as replacements for camping by our loch shores banned under the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority Byelaws is little more than a collection of undesirable areas with little or nothing to offer families or groups of visitors as a camping…
At the beginning of April, Flamingo Land (see here for most recent post and links) asked the Loch Lomond and National Park Authority whether an Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) would be needed for its proposed development at Balloch (see here) The response of the LLTNPA on 13th April (see here) was that a full EIA…
On Wednesday, James Stuart, new convener of the National Park had an agenda piece in the Herald to promote the consultation on the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park draft plan (see here). It included a commitment to engage properly recreational organisations – a implicit indictment of the way the LLTNPA bludgeoned through its camping…
Parkswatch has, since the camping byelaws came into force on 1st March, documented how the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority Park is trying to force campers into areas totally unsuitable for camping. Relatively little coverage has been given to how the LLTNPA is managing the permit areas which are being used by campers. …
First impressions count for a lot – I think “utter contempt” would describe what I thought on first viewing this site. That’s the utter contempt shown to visitors by the LLTNPA. They have the gall to suggest that this constitutes a replacement camping place to those now banned to visitors on our loch shores. Quite…
The General Election and National Parks Had this been been published when originally intended it would have been issued to subscribers at about the same time as the general election was announced yesterday! In the world of newspapers, radio and TV I guess the post would have been scrapped. I will persist! However, its…
By Nick Halls In my last post (see here) on the torpedo station, I stated that the gates blocking the old main road were both locked, thereby preventing vehicles entering the area. Recently, the southern of the two gates has been burst open and badly damaged. It was ajar for a period and it…