Following my post on the failed restoration of the Beauly Denny powerline access tracks (see here), someone asked on twitter “how would you have done this differently”? The answer lies just over the hill on the southern face of Carn Dearg Mor above Glen Feshie. There, Wild Land Ltd is in the process of removing…
Tag: Cairn Gorm
On Sunday evening I went up to take a look at Cairn Gorm, the first time since the repair of the funicular started. I got a photo of the construction (see here) of the tube slides before the rain started. The steel support structure for the slides, referred to in the planning application, appear to…
Following my post on the construction of the tube slides in the Lower Coire Cas car park (see here), this post takes a look at the repair work to the funicular. Parkswatch has previously raised a number of significant concerns about the decision to repair the funicular, including the business case and likely costs, the…
There have been a number of significant developments over the last couple of months that relate to Cairn Gorm that have not, as yet, been covered by parkswatch. The Scottish Minister responsible for the disastrous decision to fork out £32.42 million over the next five years on repairing the funicular (see here) and who committed…
When I wrote post (6) (see here) in the series with this title I thought I had covered the majority of the issues with the funicular. I arrived at the conclusion that yes the repairs would work but with no idea of the longevity of those repairs. Job done. Then, on 04/05/2021 it was reported in…
The idea of developing facilities for campervans at the Coire na Ciste car park is, in principle, quite sensible. Even though the Glenmore campsite has opened up this year, there are a lack of facilities in Glen More and a shortage of informal places to stop off overnight. Meantime, the Coire na Ciste car park,…
“Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive” This quote from Sir Walter Scott’s epic poem, of 1808, Marmion, is a neat way of saying that when you lie or act dishonestly you initiate problems and a domino structure of complications which eventually run out of control. It could have…
In the Cairngorm Mountain Scotland Ltd [CMSL] Business Plan that was published on 24 January 2020, the interim CEO wrote the following: Vision: ‘’To become a world class Visitor Destination – Ambitious to succeed’’ On 23 March 2021, CMSL submitted a planning application (see here) to Highland Council for a Campervan Park within the Coire na…
In my original post with this title (see here) I referred to “the demolition of other viable uplift”. This led at least one person to assume that Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) and Cairngorm Mountain Scotland Ltd (CMSL) were currently considering the demolition of other tows on the mountain. That was not my intention, I was…
Over the years there has been a lot of criticism of the positioning of the “mid-station” loading area and the increase in travel time, and hence delays, when it is in use, but this post takes a look at a couple of aspects that as far as I know have never been discussed. Why was…
Since the involvement of Highlands and Islands Enterprise HIE) with the Cairngorm ski resort and the construction of the funicular railway, the mountain business and its skier/ boarder capacity has gone downhill faster than G.B’s olympic skiers ever did. The folly is continuing with HIE deciding to have the funicular repaired at any cost and,…
A month ago I obtained the Cairngorm Mountain Business Plan 1st April 2020 – 31st March 2023, along with Highlands and Islands Enterprise’s operational agreement with Cairngorm Mountain Scotland Ltd, their fully owned subsidiary responsible for the plan, through Freedom of Information requests. Both documents are heavily redacted (sorry still too many MB in size…
This post takes a further look (see here) at the ongoing mismanagement of health and safety at Cairn Gorm. After concerns about the safety of the lift infrastructure at Cairngorm Mountain were raised by a member of the public in 2018 the Health & Safety Executive (H&SE) visited and issued three Improvement Notices. The Inspectors (“they”)…
When I started this series of posts (see here), (here), (here), (here) and (here) I had expected to write three, maybe four, before reaching a conclusion. But as time went on, more and more information has been revealed through Freedom of Information (FOI) requests. These FOI’s enabled correlation with the COWI (engineering )report, Highland and Islands Enterprise (HIE’s)…
Fifteen months ago, I tried to find out from Highlands Enterprise the estimated costs of removing the funicular and, after an initial brush off, they admitted they had commissioned a “Funicular Railway (Railway Dismantling Report” in May 2019 (see here). However, HIE refused to provide the report pending their development of a business case for…
Continuing this series of posts (see here), the idea for funicular at Cairn Gorm was I believe inspired by the Ellmau funicular. A comparison between the two railways is instructive and raises further questions about whether the proposed repairs to the Cairngorm Mountain funicular. The most outstanding difference is the viaduct itself, steel piers and…
[Tim Ambrose is a retired Chartered Accountant and Treasurer of The Cairngorms Campaign] The first Accounts of CMSL were published at the end of November (see here). They show losses as expected but raise many questions. Background – What is CMSL? When Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) took over the business of the former…
Following on from my last post (see here), which looked at whether vibration from poorly maintained rails could have caused damage to the piers supporting the funicular, this post focuses on the concrete parts of the structure, especially the ends of the “I” support beams and the in-situ blocks. The “I” beams are described as…
In the first part of this series of articles (see here), about whether the repairs Highland and Islands Enterprise (HIE) has planned for the funicular will work, the following picture was thought to be that of a pier base. Photo credit. G.Paton. It is now believed to be that of Anchor Block(AB) 48. Notice there…
In the last three weeks two very significant pieces of information about the funicular railway have been made public and both raise serious questions about the proposed repairs. The original plans for the construction of the funicular Highland and Island Enterprise (HIE)’s £16m business case for repairing the funicular (see here) did not explain why…
“Health and Safety and customer service is what drives us at Cairn Gorm” so claimed Susan Smith, Interim Chief Executive at Cairngorm Mountain Scotland Ltd (CMSL) in a video on 9th December (see here), a message repeated earlier in that same video by Colin Matthews their Operations Manager. If that is the case why, after…
[Post corrected 16th December 18.15] A week ago Cairngorm Mountain Scotland Ltd posted a video on facebook (see here) in preparation for the official opening of the new ski season on 19th December. Both interim CEO Susan Smith and Colin Matthews referred to the excellent snow cover on the mountain. As the video panned across…
In the summer of 2017, Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) organised the demolition of the Coire na Ciste and West Wall chairlifts (see here). That work was done at the same time as other clear-up work and it came at a cost of £267k in public money. Now that Coire na Ciste has been all…
Highland and Islands Enterprise/Cairngorm Mountain Scotland Ltd are now pushing ahead with repair work to the Funicular and the smoothing ground-work outside the Daylodge has been completed (see here). There are also plans to install two new tube slides, create a new access track, move the snow factory and install car park barriers. Meanwhile, nothing…
On 3rd November Highlands and Islands Enterprise announced that work to repair the funicular had started (see here). A large number of planning documents were published on the Cairngorms National Park Authority Planning portal the week before (see here). Among these is a timetable for the works: It would appear work has commenced two months late. …