A couple of weeks ago Highlands and Islands Enterprise lodged yet another planning application for Cairn Gorm, this time for the creation of a beginners ski area above the day lodge (see here for planning documents). James Gibb from HIE made no mention of this at the meeting organised by the Aviemore and Community…
Tag: HIE
Following Alan Brattey’s post The Cairn Gorm Funicular: Repair or Remove?, on Thursday Highlands and Islands Enterprise revealed at a meeting organised by the Aviemore and Glenmore Community Trust (see above) that they intend to repair the funicular as: “We have an indicative cost of repairs, which is less than the costs of removing the…
With the Funicular currently out of action and its future unknown, the recently published SE Group addendum into uplift a Cairn Gorm (see here) is ostensibly recommending the creation of 8.7 hectares of new ski terrain in Coire Cas as part of their revised plans. This post explains why this figure is wrong and far…
It has now been 9 months since the Funicular Railway was taken out of service but whether or not it will be repaired remains unknown. The focus though of Highlands and Islands Enterprise is entirely on whether or not it can be repaired. The HIE website has this: ‘’HIE has consistently stated that its preferred…
Following my two posts on the proposed Mountain Coaster (see here) and (here) , I will take a look at the financial and environmental aspects of the proposed new uplift at Cairngorm as outlined in the SE Group report of November 2018 (see here). I will use the same kind of format as the Mountain Coaster…
The Snowfactory at the top of the Coire Cas Carpark is 8m tall and stands sentinel to HIE’s bureaucratic mismanagement at Cairn Gorm. A snowfactory trial was undertaken at CairnGorm during the winter of 2017/18. That was a direct response to the Aviemore Business Association exhorting the Cabinet Secretary with responsibility for HIE, Fergus Ewing…
This is a picture of the Fiacaill ridge in Coire Cas which is being proposed as the new site for the Mountain Coaster, an idea which is, I am reliably informed, already attracting a lot of interest, and not in a positive way. The second photo is a close up of the same area showing…
[Update 5/7/19: following publication of this post HIE’s subsidiary Cairngorm Mountain Scotland Ltd appear to have backtracked, having announced the ATV experience will be limited to the road up the Ptarmigan and is unlikely to take place more than once a month (see here). That appears a tacit admission that their original proposal was contrary…
“A mountain coaster is a massive source of income but has to be implemented by the community”. This was part of a Facebook post on Sunday 23/06/2019, the claim being that the business plan proposed by the Aviemore and Glenmore Community Trust (A&GCT) and the SE Group showed a good profit could be made from…
On 19/02/2019 I applied to Highlands and Islands Enterprise, under a Freedom of Information request, for the ADAC Structures report into the Condition of the Funicular Railway from November 2015, (see here – 6.5MB file). I subsequently received this on May Bank holiday Monday, 06/05/2019, at 09.31. This was five days after the Big Breakfast…
Audit Scotland has at long last decided to take a look at Highland and Island Enterprise’s management of Cairn Gorm (see here) as part of their annual audit process. The areas for investigation have been identified with staff, which gives little cause for confidence, and focuses on risk from the narrow perspective of an annual…
The compulsory parking charge scheme at Cairn Gorm, introduced by Natural Retreats in June 2018 was dropped in September of that year (see here). There was no point in continuing to make parking charges compulsory when the Funicular failed and the number of tourist visits crashed. The number of skiers who visited Cairn Gorm last…
Parkswatch previously published information about the amounts collected from Voluntary Donations at the Coire Cas car park between 2013 and 2017 (see here). HIE were asked to detail how that money had been spent and although they ‘did not have that information’’ they asserted ‘funds were committed to car park maintenance and other projects’ We…
The revised Planning Application to redevelop and expand the Ptarmigan Restaurant near the top of Cairn Gorm is to be considered by the Cairngorms National Park Authority on Friday (see here – item 6). Officers are recommending that the application should be approved. This post explains why CNPA Board Members should reject the application and…
Highlands and Islands Enterprise, as owners and custodians of the Cairn Gorm Estate, have full responsibility for the maintenance and upkeep of the public assets that lie within the estate. In an article published in the Press and Journal on Thursday 16 May 2019 headed “Cairngorm funicular report held up over potential legal action” (see…
Just six weeks after the Cairngorms National Park Authority adopted a set of working principles for future development at Cairn Gorm (see here), including the need for a masterplan BEFORE any new Planning Applications were considered, guess what? Highlands and Islands Enterprise has submitted yet another Planning Application to Highland Council for Cairn Gorm (see…
The Scottish Parliament has been a target for Climate Change protesters, including ‘Extinction Rebellion’, while school children have been taking days off school to protest. It’s big news and rightfully so with the future of our planet and even our very existence at stake. The Scottish Government have declared a ‘Climate Emergency’ and vowed to…
I had been meaning to follow up why the last meeting of the Cairngorms National Park Authority Board had held a confidential discussion on Cairngorm Mountain when last week the Cairngorms National Park Authority published a new document., “Cairngorm Mountain – CNPA Working Principles”. An email to the Cairngorms National Park Authority established that the…
This is the second, in a series of posts (see here), about HIE’s mismanagement of Cairn Gorm based on their latest response to my questions about the procurement process which led to CairnGorm Mountain Ltd being outsourced to “Natural Retreats”. In 2013 Highlands and Islands Enterprise excluded Cairngorms Snowsports, a sound local company with a…
At the end of last week Highlands and Islands Enterprise provided me with a number of documents relating to their decision to “appoint” “Natural Retreats” to “operate” Cairngorm Mountain Ltd. To give HIE credit, they have not tried to delay release of the information and relatively little of it is redacted. The documents confirm there…
Almost the first thing Highland and Islands Enterprise did after it bought back Cairn Gorm Mountain was to inform the Cairngorms National Park Authority that it wished to proceed with the Planning Application to redevelop the Ptarmigan building near the summit of Cairn Gorm (see here for background). About a month ago stories appeared in…
The posts on parkswatch last week by Graham Garfoot (see here) and Alan Brattey (see here) coincided with the excellent coverage from the BBC about Highland and Islands Enterprise’s disastrous management of Cairn Gorm. This appeared on both radio and TV and while I had been interviewed for the story a few weeks ago I…
The CairnGorm Funicular has been inoperable for the last 6 months and the economic impact of the closure was brought into sharp focus this week in an article published in the excellent Strathspey and Badenoch Herald. There has very clearly been a considerable negative impact and local businesses have expressed dismay at the lack of…
Following my post on 28/2/2019 about the ADAC Structure and COWI reports on the funicular (see here), this post shows how Highlands and Islands Enterprise are deliberately trying to cover up and hide information about what has gone wrong with the Funicular on Cairngorm. I sent an FOI request on 03/10/2018 for two other reports…
Following the failure of the Funicular Railway and the predictably adverse impact that this would have on the hill business and the wider local economy, Highlands and Islands Enterprise purchased a SnowFactory and 8 TR8 Snow Cannons from TechnoAlpin in an attempt to ensure at least some snowsports on CairnGorm, this winter. This post looks…