On 21st October the Scottish Goverment upheld WHP Telecom’s appeal against Highland Council’s refusal of planning permission for the proposed O2 phone mast on Creag Dhubh (see here). The Reporter’s decision (see here) has potentially serious implications for the number of “competing” telecommunications mast in rural areas and for the landscape. Background Under the…
Tag: Governance
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…
Between the 11th July and 12th August – the statutory minimum period the Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA) allows the public to comment on planning applications – c530 individual objections were published on the CNPA planning portal objecting to the proposed telecommunications mast at Ryvoan. Since 12th August the CNPA has published NO further objections,…
Yesterday Raptor Persecution UK reported that a peregrine had been found shot in Glen Esk, around Tarfside (see here). This follows the osprey that a gamekeeper found shot on the inglorious 12th of August in nearby Glen Doll (see here). Both locations are in the northern part of the Angus Glens and lie within the…
28th Septembermarks the first anniversary of the closure of the Cononish goldmine (see here). This was they way when Scotgold announced that the vast majority of its staff were being put on short-term unpaid leave, The Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA)’s mine monitoring reports, published with their usual secrecy six months in…
On Monday 16th September, as widely reported in the media – the BBC gave it coverage on UK news – those of the board of the Loch Lomond Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) present duly accepted the recommendations of their officers, without amendment, and rejected Flamingo Land’s planning application. This outcome was as I had…
Late yesterday the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA)published an 187 page report (see here) with additional appendices for the board meeting on 16th September recommending board members reject Flamingo Land’s proposed development at “Lomond Banks”. While a welcome victory for campaigners, before anyone celebrates too much the reasons given at the end…
The story of Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority and the Flamingo Land development (2)
In the lead up the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) board meeting on 16th September which is due to decide the Flamingo Land Mark III Planning application (see here), I thought it would be worth trying to tell the whole story. Its a long one, so the first part was about the…
At the start of the week I published the first part of the story about the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA)’s involvement in the proposed Flamingo Land development at Balloch (see here). In the process of checking the evidence for the second part of the story, I came across this important piece…
On Tuesday, 20th August, I and other objectors received this letter by email notifying us that the planning application for this 25m high telecommunications mast in the Glenmore Forest had been withdrawn. As usual, the description of the proposed development tells you little, but this is the “repeater” mast whose only purpose was to enable…
The story of Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority and the Flamingo Land development (1)
I have written a number of posts over the last seven years about the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA’s) involvement in the proposed Flamingo Land development at Balloch, on the south shore of Loch Lomond, but never put the whole story together. It deserves to be widely known before the LLTNPA Board…
Background The matters arising paper for the June meeting of the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) recorded that an ACTION recored in the minute the March meeting, that “SM to look at possibility of organising a site visit to the gold and silver mine at Cononish for Members”, was “closed”. The wording…
One might have hoped that the controversy caused by the office-bearers of the Royal Scottish Forestry Society to try and sell of what was supposed to be a forest for a thousand years at Cashel (see here) and (here) might have caused the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) to reflect on the…
Following my post (see here) on how the Royal Scottish Forestry Society (RSFS) are cashing in on Cashel , Andy Wightman wrote a fine follow up piece on the Cashel estate and the post war labour government. This filled in some of the historical gaps and demonstrated how the public ownership of land was once…
The basic elements of the the scandal concerning abrdn’s proposed sale the Far Ralia estate in the Cairngorms National Park are very simple. Having bought the land now known as the Far Ralia estate for a reported £7.5m in September 2021, Abrdn are now trying to dispose of it for £12m having in the intervening…
After first hearing about the native woodland scheme at Muckrach I submitted a Freedom of Information request to Scottish Forestry (SF) for its contract with Calthorpe Estates, the family trust which owns the land, and any reports from inspection visits. Just like when the BrewDog Lost Forest disaster become apparent (see here), it turns out…
Last Friday the Cashel Forest Trust, set up by the Royal Scottish Forestry Society (RSFS), announced they had put their property at Cashel on the eastern shore of Loch Lomond on the market at offers over £4,085,000 for the whole or as five separate lots. Goldcrest’s brochure (see here) claims this is an “opportunity…
In a positive move, the local community in Balloch, the site of the proposed Flamingo Land development, have initiated a process to set up a local community development trust which would have the potential to take over some of the land in the village currently owned by Scottish Enterprise (SE) and the Loch Lomond and…
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…
The Flamingo Land planning application & the LLTNPA’s investment programme On 29th April the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) sent a letter (see here) to all those who had commented on the revised Flamingo Land Application advising them that new documents, some of which it had held back for over six months,…
On 22nd November the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) issued a news release announcing it was investing £1.6m of Scottish Government funds in its facilities over the winter in order for it to become a “net zero” organisation by 2030. The bulk of the money was earmarked for “retrofitting” the LLTNPA’s HQ…
The failed Cononish goldmine & the failures of the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority
This post provides a summary of some recent evidence that has emerged about the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA)’s mis-management of the crisis at the mine and some related financial developments. The “regular updates” given to LLTNPA Board Members about Cononish goldmine The Chief Executive’s report to the LLTNPA Board Meeting…
I was pleased to have this letter, full text below, published in the Herald on Tuesday. I hope it speaks for itself: “Your front page report on Saturday (Rural communities ‘at risk’ in phone network switch 13th April see here) shows the UK Government’s approach to telecommunications provision in rural areas, a Westminster responsibility, is…
In mid-February (see here) I described how many of the trees planted by BrewDog, as part of the Phase I creation of its Lost Forest, had died and how they appeared to be investing little, if any, of their own money in the whole disastrous project. A week after the post I received a response…
This post take a look at the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA)’s handling of three recent planning applications and the anomalies therein following Nick Kempe’s post earlier in the week about Inchconnachan (see here). More on Inchconnachan island I attended the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) Planning & Access…