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: landscape
This is the view that the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) planners didn’t want people to enjoy. In August 2021 LLTNPA planning officers recommended a planning application from the Sir Walter Scott Steamship Trust to erect a viewing tower accessed by 188m of path throught the oakwoods above Trossachs Pier be refused….
David’s Jarman’s post (see here) on the destructive impacts of the proposed Lochan na h-Earba pumped storage hydro (PSH) scheme and the fate awaiting Scotland’s landscape, natural environment and cultural heritage appears to have struck a cord. Many people who strongly support the need to reduce carbon emissions and recognise that we need to store…
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,…
This is a fuller version of a story in Scottish Mountaineer this autumn, which takes its cue from the long-running “New Twists for Old Hills” series there. The literal ‘shafting’ is the driving of miles of tunnels through the Ardverikie Munros, linking hugely enlarged lochs for a Pumped Storage Hydro (PSH) scheme known simply and…
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…
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…
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…
I have not visited Far Ralia, the land in the Cairngorms National Park Abrdn’s Property Income Trust (APIT) bought for £7.5m three years ago and has now put on the market for £12m, since January. I have, however, recently obtained a copy of an inspection Scottish Forestry (SF) conducted in June through a freedom of…
In May, in a welcome move, Highland Councillors rejected the recommendation of their officers to approve a 25m high telecommunications mast on the south facing slopes of Creag Dubh, above the A86 between Laggan and Newtonmore, and refused planning permission on the grounds that: “This proposed installation of a telecommunications mast is considered contrary to…
At the end of June an article in the Strathy (see here) alerted the public to Cairngorm Mountain Scotland Ltd (CMSL)’s latest planning application for Cairn Gorm, “playtime”. While Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA) planning staff called in the application for raising “issues of significance to the collective aims of the National Park it has…
Mobile phone operator Three’s Planning Application for a 22.5m telecommunication mast 400m from Ryvoan bothy, ostensibly intended to provide mobile coverage for the big four operators in the “Total Not Spot” between there and Glenmore, is generating just the sort of criticism needed to scupper the whole disastrous Shared Rural Network (SRN) programme. Besides over…
On 10th July Mitie, acting on behalf of Three, who are working for Digital Mobile Spectrum Ltd, who report to the Big Four mobile operators which include Three submitted a planning application to erect a 22.5m telecommunications mast by Ryvoan bothy (see here for planning papers). A week earlier David Craig explained on parkswatch (see…
On 16th July the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) issued a news release (see here) stating its board had agreed a date, Monday 16th September, to take a decision on the (Mark III) version (see here) of the Flamingo Land Planning Application. This post will argue that the content of the news release…
Following my post on the disastrous new section of road at Muckrach (see here), the Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA) informed me that they weren’t aware of the work but were now looking into it. I then heard from another source that the CNPA were due to meet with Savills, who oversaw the whole Muckrach…
Despite a huge budget, hubris threatens to make the Shared Rural Network (SRN) a wasted opportunity for rural communities with inadequate mobile coverage. Without bothering to ask communities what was needed, the SRN set itself this target: To bring 4G coverage, from at least one operator, to 95%of UK land area. To achieve this area…
A few weeks ago I was alerted by a Parkswatch reader to an excellent post on facebook (see here) about the Muckrach’s new forest, which the estate describes as one the largest “landscape scale projects” in the UK (see here). On my way up north 10 days ago I decided to go and have a…
No corrie will be safe, no classic Munro round will remain sacrosanct, if they approve “Earba”. This is the developers’ secretive codename for a mega-pumped storage hydro scheme (PSH) which is with the equally secretive Energy Consents Unit to fast-track under some barely-accountable Energy Minister’s pen in amongst a sheaf of routine death warrants for…
Highland Council has decided not to approve the application (see here)) for a telecoms mast under the Shared Rural Network programme on Creag Dhubh, west of Newtonmore. This is not the first mast to be rejected by a planning authority (Perth and Kinross Council recently rejected one north of the west end of Loch Rannoch)…
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…
I am very grateful to all the people who have promoted my post on Sunday (see here) about Scottish Forestry and the tree planting disaster at Kinrara and my apologies that the parkswatch website then crashed. This does not appear to have been due to a cyber attack by defenders of the forestry grants system or…
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…
On 16th March 2024 Prior Notification of the intention to erect a 25m high telcommunications mast east of Corrour Lodge was published on the Highland Council Planning Portal (24_00979 TPNO see here). The proposal does not require full planning permission, even though it is close to the heart of the third most extensive Wild Land…
Following many months of speculation, the long-trailed Earba pumped storage hydro scheme proposed by Gilkes Energy for Ardverikie Estate is now the subject of a formal planning application on the Scottish Government’s Energy Consent Unit (ECU) website. Since it was first proposed, the installed capacity of the Earba scheme has doubled from 900 MW to…