[This post was updated late on 14th April to reflect the fact the Slanj restaurant business no longer exists. The new business is called Kirk ‘O The Lochs and no longer allows campervans to stay in their car park overnight] The large car park owned by the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA)…
Tag: Camping bye laws
On Tuesday I took advantage of the nice day and went for a walk in Glen Lochay past Killin. Driving back along the A84 we passed Loch Lubnaig at about 5.30pm. Both the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) car parks were locked. Across the A84 from the cafe and main car park…
The Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 requires byelaws to be reviewed every ten years. Currently, the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) is secretly preparing a review of the camping bye laws, which prompted the creation of this blog, prior to a public consultation later this year. The review should start with some…
Scottish Ministers last week approved byelaws (see here for the text) which will make it an offence, with a fine of up to £500, for a person “without lawful authority” to light a fire or barbecue or “place or throw or let fall a lighted match, firework or any other thing so as to be…
A few weeks ago a reader alerted me that there were new unlawful access signs on the Auchreoch Estate, which changed ownership in January 2025, and that they had seen sheep grazing in the Coille Coire Chuilc. Two land-management failures in one! Unfortunately the reader sent no photos – if you see bad stuff, please…
On Monday morning I watched the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) Board Meeting online (see here for agenda and papers). It should be essential viewing for anyone who cares about what is happening to democracy in Scotland but neither the LLTNPA Board nor the Scottish Government want public to see how they…
On 16th April the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) announced on Facebook (there is nothing on its “news” pages) that it had taken over the management of the campsite at Sallochy from Forest and Land Scotland which had threatened to close it (see here). The campsite has played a crucial role…
A couple of hours after my post on FLS yesterday (see here) I received a response from FLS to a Freedom of Information request I had submitted on 24th February about the Sallochy campsite. I can find no acknowledgement from FLS of that request in my emails so the timing of their response is interesting! …
A couple of week after the Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA)’s approved byelaws, which seek to criminalise the generalise public for lighting a fire ANYWHERE in the National Park between 1st April and 30th September (see here), the Herald published this story about two 80 year old lottery millionaires from Kent. The contrast in approach…
The Flamingo Land planning application and the £2.4m investment Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) staff have agreed at the pierhead, which I considered in my last post (see here), is far from the only important issue facing the National Park Authority which is not on the agenda for the Board Meeting on…
On Saturday I was involved in a demonstration organised by the Right to Roam campaign at Scots Dyke, constructed in 1552 to delineate the border between Scotland and England. As one activist straddling the border put it, this foot has a right to be here, the other one doesn’t. The differences in access laws between…
Ten days ago I was in Balquidder and as far as I could tell most of the unlawful no access signs along the shore of Loch Voil are still there (see here). Some of these signs pre-date the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 which created access rights and the formation of the Loch Lomond and…
A significant row has developed in Glenmore, the most popular place for visitors in the Cairngorms, and various interests are now trying to stampede the Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA) into initiating measures to ban camping there. This post argues that primary responsibility for the problems in Glenmore lie with Forest and Land Scotland and…
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…
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…
James Stuart, the convener of the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA), has to step down in February having been on the board for eight years. At the LLTNPA Board Meeting on Monday Heather Reid – the former broadcaster known to many as Heather the Weather – was elected to replace him. That…
Our two National Park Authorities, along with Scotland’s 32 local authorities, are Access Authorities. Among other statutory duties under the Land Reform (Scotland) Act these are supposed to protect access rights and set up Local Access Forum (LAF)s to advise them about the exercise of those rights. This post looks at how the LLTNPA have…
Just two months after Forestry England (FE) and Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) bought back the Camping in The Forest (CiCF) business from the Camping and Caravanning Club (see here), all 16 campsites are all being outsourced again. FLS is currently advertising 15 year leases, through a company called CDLH, for Cobleland in the Trossachs,…
The divurgence between how people in Glasgow have welcome people to the COP -26 summit has been been most interesting. On the one hand sections of the population profiteering through exorbitant charges for accommodation – one wonders if any of the hotels or landlords charging delegates £1000s to stay will invest those profits in making…
I spent last week in the Lake District, the first part camping with friends on the east side of Lake Coniston. The small campsite where we stayed is run by a friendly farm and is only let out to groups, perfect for meeting up with friends after lockdown. The campsite was situated in a clearing…
Ten days ago I was out walking the hills around Glen Tarken and parked in the first layby on the A85 heading west from St Fillans. The entire shore of Loch Earn, together with the villages of St Fillans and Lochearnhead at either end, are part of the Trossachs Camping Management zone where camping is…
The relaxation of travel restrictions on outdoor recreation and the Lomond & Trossachs National Park
Nicola Sturgeon’s announcement last week that the restrictions on travel within Scotland for outdoor recreation would be relaxed on 16th April, ten days earlier than scheduled, took most people by surprise. The legal restrictions on travel which were first introduced on 27th November remain in place, meaning that you still can only travel outside your…
After its Board Meeting, which approved a large increase of expenditure on visitor management (see here), the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority held a pre-season Stakeholder Briefing Session on 26th March to tell people about their plans “to manage visitor pressures when lockdown restrictions begin to ease”. Too late for genuine consultation, it…
In 2014 the Land Reform Review Group published its report, the land of Scotland and the Common Good (see here). This contained a short section on access rights which concluded that generally they were working well: Since then, access rights have been challenged as never before, with the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority leading…
The Cairngorms and Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authorities (NPAs) were both awarded significant increases in funding in the Scottish Government’s budget (see here), a significant turn-around in fortunes. In September the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) reported a significant hole in their finances, with a projected deficit – after yet…