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…
Tag: Cairn Gorm
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…
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…
[Author note. Andy was previously an Ecologist, now retired, working for an NGO in the Cairngorms. He is currently the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI) vice-county recorder for East Inverness-shire (https://bsbi.org/easterness). In recent years he has published a number of scientific papers including several relevant to this project. These include, ‘Identification and taxonomy…
(I wrote most of this on way to Alps a week ago and only got decent internet a week later. Apologies if it is now out of date or been overtaken by events but hope it is still worth saying). One would.hardly expext the new Chief Executive of Cairngorm Mountain (Scotland) Ltd, Mike Gifford, to…
Some of you will have seen the articles in the National and Strathy newspapers which led to Nick Kempe’s post (see here) about the “Toxic Culture” at Cairngorm Mountain (Scotland) Ltd (CM(S)L) and the apparent lack of action by either their senior management or board or Ms. Carrol Buxton, the Deputy CEO of Highlands and…
On 2nd May Highlands and Islands Enterprise announced (see here) that having re-opened the funicular on 27/02/2025, after one and a half years of repair work, it would be closing it again on 12/05/2025 – just ten weeks later – for another three weeks until 2/06/25: “while the company’s in-house engineering team carries out…
The proposal to plant Coire na Ciste on Cairn Gorm – a new low for conservation in the National Park
The caption reads “A solitary pine clings to the hillside in Coire na Ciste. A rare survivor in an otherwise treeless landscape”. Propaganda credit Spey Catchment IniitiatveA month ago, on 15th April, the Spey Catchment Initiative (SCI), a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation (SCIO), formed in December 2022 issued a news release announcing it was to…
This post takes a look at Highland and Island Enterprise (HIE)’s response to Gordon Bulloch’s Freedom of Information request of 05/12/2024 (see here) and attempts to explain what went wrong with the funicular repairs. As I said in the last post (see here) both COWI, the design engineers for the funicular, and Balfour Beatty, the construction…
This post comments further on the heavily redacted replies to Mr Gordon Bulloch’s FOI request of 05/12/2024 about the 2023 closure of the funicular. Email 1, sent on 23rd August at 23.17, was considered in the first post in this series. The emails are between the various parties involved:- Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE); Cairngorm…
On 5 December 2024 Gordon Bulloch submitted a two part information request to Highlands and Islands Enterprise. 60 working days later and only after a Review request he received a few highly redacted emails to the first part of his request which was for: All reports and associated correspondence concerning the decision to stop operation…
Yesterday with almost no notice the funicular at last re-opened. Highlands and Islands Enterprise, in a news release issued on Wednesday (see here) claimed that “all safety-critical matters have now been concluded” – not exactly the same thing as stating all the safety concerns that caused them to close the funicular in August 2023 have been…
Comments made to the Strathy on 23rd January by the local MSP Fergus Ewing suggest he was unaware of the “toxic culture” at Cairn Gorm (see here) and is still in denial about the funicular: “Much of the criticism directed towards the hill and in particular the funicular is in my view unwarranted and also…
The treatment of staff at Cairngorm Mountain For a number of years now I and other campaigners have heard about the toxic culture at Cairngorm Mountain (Scotland Ltd (CMSL) but until now staff and former staff have been very reluctant to speak out about it. Besides the bullying and intimidation referred to in the…
On 17th January BBC Scotland published a story “No opening date for funicular as funicular repairs near end (see here). In it they stated: “Owners, public agency Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE), had hoped to have it running again late last year but said bad weather had caused delays”. Consider the image above and compare…
Included in the press statement Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) released on Xmas Eve about the funicular not re-opening as planned by the end of the year (see here) was the following: As recently explained (see here) “Safety testing, trial runs, staff training” all take place AFTER the remediation works are finished and assuming that everything…
As predicted on Parkswatch (see here) the funicular will not be re-opening for the end of December “as hoped” because Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) still need to prove the repairs undertaken by Balfour Beatty have made the railway structure safe. HIE did not announce the news until Xmas Eve (see here). Until then the…
Following on from my post about the metal brackets being use to hold the funicular together (see here) this post takes a further look at WHY the concrete “I” beams have been disintegrating. It is now five weeks since my walk up the funicular and discussions with staff who told me the funicular would be…
On Friday 04/10/2024, prompted by HIE’s announcements about the timecale for the “snagging works” being carried out and paid for by Balfour Beatty (see here), I took a walk up to the passing loop of the funicular accompanied by two friends. Following what I had written last December (see here) I expected to see changes/ repairs…
In my two posts on the Flamingo Land story (see here) I covered some of the history of the pier head area in Balloch: how the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) in 2015 had offered up the land it leased from Scottish Enterprise (SE) there to the preferred developer for the West…
At the end of June an article in the Strathy (see here) alerted the public to Cairngorm Mountain Scotland Ltd (CMSL)’s latest planning application for Cairn Gorm, “playtime”. While Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA) planning staff called in the application for raising “issues of significance to the collective aims of the National Park it has…
On 10th July Mitie, acting on behalf of Three, who are working for Digital Mobile Spectrum Ltd, who report to the Big Four mobile operators which include Three submitted a planning application to erect a 22.5m telecommunications mast by Ryvoan bothy (see here for planning papers). A week earlier David Craig explained on parkswatch (see…