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…
Tag: land reform
When James Watt, sometime chief executive of the beer company BrewDog, speaks about tree planting in the Highlands, he reminds me of unpleasant landowners of the past. In his latest attempt at defending BrewDog’s disastrous planting efforts on their Kinrara estate near Aviemore in the Cairngorms National Park, Watt did not mince his words when…
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…
This post takes another digression from National Parks to consider what this crushed house says about the failure of the planning system to respond appropriately to the risks posed by climate change. It took a couple of days but the national tabloids have picked up on the story, first featured in the P & J…
In the majority of National Parks across the world land is publicly owned but not in Scotland nor the wider UK. That might not matter so much if Scotland’s National Parks had real powers to control how land is used and traded but their current powers are limited. Just as importantly, neither the Loch Lomond…
According to BEAR Scotland, the consortium of private companies who manage trunk roads on behalf of Transport Scotland, around 160mm of rain fell in 36 hours around the Rest and Be Thankful two weekends ago and caused eleven landslips (see here– news release dated 11th October): “One small landslide at the Rest and be Thankful….
Scotland National Parks and the Scottish Government If you want to understand why Scotland’s National Parks have achieved so little in the 20 years since they were created, you need look no further than successive Scottish Governments, both the Ministers responsible and the civil servants that have supported them. Instead of encouraging and empowering our…
Two years Abrdn Property Income Trust (formerly the Standard Life Property and Income Trust) bought 1400 hectares of land from the Ralia and Drumochter Estate with the stated intention of using the land to offset carbon emissions by planting trees. Abrdn were advised on the purchase and the “habitat restoration project” (see here) by Fenwick…
Following my post (see here) on how sheep and cattle were still grazing the slopes of Beinn Luibhean, despite the landslips, Andy Wightman sent me information about the ownership of the land from his website Who Owns Scotland (see here): This information, obtained from the Register of Sasines, is not yet online at the Registers…
The Cairngorms and Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Parks are part of the UK family of national parks. The experience gained in any one of these national parks may therefore be of relevance to other parks within the family and more generally as regards the enjoyment, management and protection of land and water in the…
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…
In October 2020 I covered some of the sorry history of McGregor’s Landing at Ardlui (see here). A failed commercial enterprise it was then leased by West Dumbartonshire Council as an outdoor centre until 2015 since when it has lain vacant. Ten months later, in August 2021, a company called Ardlui SPV Ltd, which had…
On 25th February Forestry and Land Scotland and Forestry England issued a joint news release (see here) announcing that they had acquired the Camping and Caravanning Club (CCC)’s majority stake in Camping in the Forest (CITF) which manages three campsites in prime locations in Scotland’s National Parks: at Glenmore in the Cairngorms; Cashel on Loch…
“Monachyle Wood”, at the west end of Loch Voil in the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park, is being marketed by John Clegg, part of Strutt and Parker, at offers over £6,250,000 for 621 hectares (see here). The history of this plantation provides a good example of public sector financial mismanagement in favour of private…
In November I spent an hour or so on the eastern side of Coille Coire Chuilc, north west of Crianlarich (for maps showing location see below). The wood (“coille”) is the second most southerly fragment of the Caledonian Pine Forest in Scotland and protected as such, being a Site of Special Scientific Interest and being…
I have stretched the meaning of the “Cairngorms” in this series of posts, half of which have featured land west of the A9, and I am going to stretch it even further in two posts which take a look at Brewdog’s proposals to create a “Lost Forest” on the Kinrara estate which they bought earlier…
Just over a month ago the Cairngorms National Park Authority announced (see here) that the Invercauld Estate had left the East Cairngorms Moorland Partnership “following the discovery of a poisoned golden eagle on their land.” This post takes a look at the implications for the Cairngorms National Park Authority and for land reform more generally….
This post examines the need to elect politicians to the next Scottish Parliament who are committed to land reform legislation. It notes the loss of experienced land reformers and the need to replace them with others who have equal enthusiasm for land reform. It provides examples of recent difficulties including serious misunderstandings within VisitScotland of…
It’s the height of the muirburn season and the clear blue skies at the start of the month helped highlight the folly as the Cairngorms National Park was dotted with plumes of smoke. The pollution caused by muirburn doesn’t just release carbon into the atmosphere, it reduces air quality and harms the health of people…
It’s now four years since I wrote about the potential for landscape scale conservation (see here) and the problem of bulldozed tracks (see here) on the Dinnet Estate. I have been meaning to explore the area further ever since so I was pleased recently to be sent some photos of the way the land…
This post takes a critical look at the implications that the Scottish Land Commission’s “Legislative proposals to address the impact of Scotland’s concentration of land ownership”, published on 4th February (see here), has for our National Parks in the light of the purchase of the Kinrara estate on Speyside the week before. The sale…
“Trespass” is a particularly loaded word. It comes from the Old French “trespasser” meaning “pass beyond or across, cross, traverse; infringe, violate”. In English it came to mean “transgress in some active manner, commit an aggressive offense, to sin” – as in “forgive us our trespasses” used in the Lord’s Prayer – but is also…
[Postscript – Good News! An hour or so after this was published the CNPA Planning Committee rejected this Planning Application by two votes! Well done them and what a contrast to the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority where Board Members rubber stamp whatever is recommended by officers. What the CNPA now needs to…
The Werritty report (see here), which was published a week before Xmas, is not disappointing, as some have claimed, its what everyone should have expected. Both the remit for the review and the membership of the review group were wrong from the outset. The question which the Scottish Government should have asked is not whether…
The Cairngorms National Park Authority’s consultation on its new Economic Action Plan, 2019-22, will close on Friday (see here). While there are some good things in the plan, this post argues its exhortation for people to work together won’t work under our current system and it fails to address the one economic matter over which the…