NatureScot’s consultation on National Parks closes today. In my view the most important section of the online survey (see here) is about the powers and functions of National Parks (questions 13-16). Get this right and there would be no need to resort to “green” finance as the means to address the undoubted problems in our…
Tag: CNPA
After the first three questions in NatureScot consultation on National Parks, which are about whether to turn them into vehicles for “green finance” (see here), the fourth is about the role of local communities (see here). The introductory text to the section claims that our National Parks “provide exemplars of community engagement” but contain no…
On Monday Forest and Land Scotland (FLS) announced (see here) that a new company called Twinflower will take over the management of the Glenmore campsite from 1st December. It has made no announcement as yet about its other two campsites in the Loch Lomond and Trossach National Park, Cobleland and Cashel, which it put out…
[NB a postscript has been added to the post to take account of response from CNPA planners] In the last couple of weeks parkswatch has been sent several photos of works at Cairngorms by readers. Initially I thought this photo showed construction work on the magic carpet which Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) announced had…
Yesterday the Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA) notified those who had commented on the proposal by the Pitmain and Glen Banchor estates to build 4.83km of “forestry roads” above Newtonmore (see here) that the planning application had been withdrawn. Good news! Yet the reason why the application “has been withdrawn from the Cairngorms National Park…
I have written several posts on parkswatch about the Royal Family’s environmental hypocrisy (see here for example), advocating action to tackle the climate and nature crises to the world while doing the opposite on the land they own in Scotland. But until now it has been very difficult to show simply how bad this is….
Following my post about the Pitmain Estate’s proposed telecommunications mast on the Corbett, Carn an Fhreiceadain (see here) I contacted the Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA) about the application and took the opportunity to ask what was happening with the proposal to create new roads linking the estate to Glen Banchor (see here). At the…
[Post updated 22nd September].After the planning application to build a telecommunications mast on Carn an Fhreiceadain in the Monadhliath Wild Land Area was withdrawn for the second time, following a significant number of objections, I commented (see here) that it was impossible to know if Savills or the Pitmain Estate would come back again. Six…
It was scorchingly hot when I started out on the Haute Route across the Pyrenees (see here) but it took me time to appreciate the impact this was having on the vegetation in the mountains. Almost all the flowers had gone, whether the land was grazed or not. Having not been to the Basque country before,…
I am back from six weeks in Europe, the first four walking and running the Pyrenees from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean by the Haute Raute (HRP), followed by a section of the GR5 from Les Houches below Chamonix to Modane. I had half-intended to keep parkswatch going with some posts while away but my…
Although I have been over and around Beinn a’ Bhuird several times I had never walked up the line of the infamous road which, in the last century, became a cause celebre among wild land campaigners. Adam Watson was at the forefront of recording and raising awareness of how wild land was being eroded by…
TVForest and Land Scotland (FLS) have recently submitted a prior notification to Highland Council that they intend to restore an area of peatbog at Cairn Gorm below and west of the Coire Cas car park (see here). Most of the area is on land FLS own but two hectares are on the Cairn Gorm estate…
Cover-up, incompetence, negligence or all three? At the end of my post in May (see here) I stated that the Scottish Government appeared at last to be realising that the business case presented by Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) for the repairs to the funicular railway was not as comprehensive as it should have been….
A couple of days after going to look at the botched Beauly Denny construction road restoration (see here) while walking north of Carrbridge, I came across a more recent example of SSE’s work to upgrade Scotland’s network of powerlines. Another landscape horror. In 2018, while visiting the Auchtertipper native woodland creation scheme on the Reforesting…
I really value the comments readers make on parkswatch posts and this week there has been an interesting debate on sheep. The first reader, rightly pointed out that it is not just deer but also sheep that prevent woodland regenerating naturally. The second comment, from Tom Colville, is worth quoting in full: “The reason we…
I am not a good enough botanist to tell whether this is a Sitka or Norwegian spruce but it tells a tale. I spotted it during a stravaig round the Mar Lodge estate in what is still, despite global warming, a very challenging environment for trees. While the sapling had been browsed – two nibbled…
As the UK Government and possibly the British state continues to unravel, today is local member election day for the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA). Back in May, when I wrote a series of blogs on democracy in the National Park (see here, here and here), I had hoped the parkswatch could play…
Last month it was reported that Brewdog had been awarded over £1m in grants by Scottish Forestry Scotland as part of its Lost Forest project at Kinrara. The Scottish Forestry website is very hard to use – searches for Brewdog, Kinrara and on its land based database all come up blank – and I 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,…
Following my post in March about Highland and Island Enterprise (HIE)’s proposal to build mountain bike tracks at Cairngorm (see here), parkswatch has not considered the matter further. Meantime the Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA) considered and approved the application (see here) at the end of May. I did not watch the planning committee meeting and…
I had been wanting to take a look at SSE’s “trial restoration areas” for the Beauly Denny powerline at Drumochter for several years and eventually managed to do so on Friday. Unlike the landscape scar immediately south of Balsporran Cottages and north Drumochter Lodge (see here), which is clearly visible as one travels through the…
When I stumbled across an unburied hydro pipeline in the Lakes recently (see here) it got me thinking about whether it might not be far less destructive and better for the landscape and natural environment if we left hydro pipelines above the ground. I could not help comparing that scheme in the Lakes to what…
[After publishing this post I was sent a couple of photos by Dave Morris, who had just spent a night in a campervan parked next door to a beaver lodge and the habitat they had created. Duncan Halley, a Scot resident in Norway helped facilitate the translocation of beavers for the Knapdale re-introduction]. At their…
A day after the initial consultation (see here) about creating a new National Park in Scotland closed, there was a Scottish Government sponsored debate in the Scottish Parliament on the issue, introduced by the responsible junior Minister, Green MSP Lorna Slater. (You can view the proceeedings here or read the official report here). While there…
When you see bizarre claims on a sign once they are easy to dismiss as the product of a landowner’s fevered mind. This, however, is the second sign I have come across in the last year that claims “red culls” are carried out “By Order of the Scottish Government”. (Apologies I cannot recall the location…