Following my post yesterday (see here), I thought it worth considering further the measures the Cairngorms National Park Authority claims will “mitigate” the impacts of the proposed An Camas Mor development and the implications for access on Speyside for both residents and visitors. It is now obvious from discussion with outdoor recreation interests, that any…
Tag: access rights
On Friday the Cairngorms National Park Authority Planning Committee will consider a revised planning application for An Camus Mor (see here), the proposed new town across the Spey from Aviemore. (Click here for link to the Park’s planning portal and all 236 documents associated with the application). The main change proposed by the the application is to…
By Nick Halls, resident of Ardentinny This is the fifth in a series of articles about forestry in the National Park near where I live (see here) The impact of windthrow The value of the trees relative to the difficulty of extraction and the dangers posed by windblown trees makes harvesting from areas like…
Dear Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority, It was stated at your June Board Meeting that there was evidence that fewer campsites are being abandoned in the National Park since the byelaws came into force. The Your Park consultation never analysed how many campers abandoned tents – my guesstimate is 1% – so I…
The “enforcement” of the camping byelaws Over the last couple of months its become clear that the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park’s Ranger service are not referring anyone to the Procurator Fiscal for breach of the byelaws. On the one hand this is because the byelaws are almost impossible to enforce against campervans,…
By Nick Halls, resident of Ardentinny This is the fourth in a series of articles about the Argyll Forest part of the National Park where I live (see here). Recently, as a stage in forestry operations, fencing seems to have proliferated. In the past fencing was usually used to exclude stock from the forest, as…
By Bruce Biddulph, local resident of Balloch and amateur historian Whilst we await the first views of any precise plans that the developer has for Balloch’s Drumkinnon Woods and the west bank of the River Leven (see here) and (see here for example), we can only guess and fear what these will be. What does…
Following my post on the unlawful application of the camping byelaws to campervans (see here), Rob Edwards’ excellent article in the Sunday Herald (I have an interest!) prompted an interesting piece http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2017/07/10/wild-land/ from Mike Small which is well worth reading: “Scotland’s divorce from nature is intimately connected to its divorce from land. But whilst we…
By Nick Halls, resident of Ardentinny This is the third in a sequence of reports (see here) and (here) on the impact of Forestry Commission Scotland practices in the Argyll Forest Park, which forms the south western part of the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park. Rhododendron ponticum, an invasive species, was apparently introduced…
Gross, poorly managed, temporary quarry on Forestry road at head of Glen Finart. NB apparently no regard for H&S or Mines & Quarry Legislation. All photos, save one, by author By Nick Halls Following the post on the destruction of a core path and right of way in the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park…
By Nick Halls (resident of Ardentinny) This is the first of a sequence of reports focused on access around Glen Finart in the Argyll Forest Park, which is part of the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park. The path was a traditional route, and Right of Way, that has existed since at least the 1940’s,…
By Nick Halls, resident of Ardentinny The changing landscape of the National Park I monitor the evolution of the Bye Laws and the incoherent manner of the implementation, by means of observation, talking to campers, visiting designated sites, reports contributed by ‘Parkswatchscotland’, and articles in magazines of Representative bodies of the physical activities in…
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…
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…
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…
At the beginning of March Councillor Fergus Wood, owner of Ledard Farm and a member of the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority, submitted a planning application to develop a small camp and chalet park on the shore of Loch Ard. Some of the documents associated with the application were published on the LLTNPA…
Camping byelaw 10 and 11 provides for exemptions from the camping byelaws in the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park. Camping byelaw 10 is for land (e.g campsites) and byelaw 11 for people. The Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority has used byelaw 11 to set up permit areas within the camping management…
The planning application for social housing at Balmaha on a site designated as Ancient Woodland raises some major issue (see here) which I hope to return to before it is considered by the Loch Lomond and Trossachs Planning Committee. Meantime, in order to understand the application, it needs to be considered within the wider context…
By Ross MacBeath Forest Drive In order to stop people from camping by the loch shores and to meet their commitment to Scottish Ministers to deliver 300 “new” camping pitches, the LLTNPA had to find somewhere else for people to camp – so they leaned on Forestry Commission Scotland to use their land and have…
By Phil Swainson As stated at the end of my last post on Badaguish in Glenmore (see here), Speyside Trust has made yet another planning application, this time to convert a toilet block into a site base for staff. Like many previous applications, it is full of false or misleading statements, and as pointed out…
Following the announcement by Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority staff of their decision to close the slipway and ranger base at Milarrochy (see here), Peter Jack, Chair of the Loch Lomond Association wrote to James Stuart, new convener of the LLNPA, asking the Board to review the decision at their meeting last Monday. …
Three years ago I knew nothing about boating on Loch Lomond and, if you had asked me about the Loch Lomond byelaws, – the ones that control boat users on the Loch – my response would have probably been along the lines of “anything which controls speedboats must be a good thing”. That way…
The east Loch Lomond camping byelaws 2011 should have been repealed before the new camping byelaws came into effect on 1st March. (In fact they should have been repealed completely, not replaced, as they had only ever been agreed as a temporary measure (see here)). However, the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority hit…
On Thursday, I went climbing near Glen Coe and on the way up and back down the A82 checked out a few things about the west Loch Lomond camping management zone. I almost missed the sign announcing the start of the zone, just before Luss, despite looking out for it. A large proportion of drivers…
Today probably marks the most retrograde in the history of access to land in Scotland since the Trespass Scotland Act of 1865 as the camping byelaws come into force. When even Radio 3, not renowned for covering the great outdoors, announces on its 7.30 news headlines that campers in one of Britain’s prime beauty spots…