The failures in the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park’s consultation system A couple of weeks ago, at the Scottish Wild Group AGM, I was told that a planning application had been submitted back in August for the new proposal for waste storage waste from the Cononish Gold Mine (see here). The formal consultation period…
Tag: landscape
A few weeks ago I learned that someone had nominated me for the TGO Readers’ Award under the category Campaign or Campaigner of the year. I am really grateful that someone appreciated parkswatchscotland sufficiently to nominate me for this. I also think its great that TGO values campaigning and through the awards and its…
On 27th October, after six months of silence, agents for Flamingo Land lodged a pre-planning application consultation strategy with the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority. Anyone who follows Scottish Government planning policy knows that one of the big ideas and big pushes is towards “front loading” the planning system, with a shift to…
Gleann Casaig runs from the east shore of the Glen Finglas Reservoir, north of Brig O’Turk, up to the ridge between Ben Ledi and Ben Vane in the Trossachs. The glen forms part of the Woodland Trust’s Glen Finglas estate and part of the Great Trossachs Forest project which in 2015 was designated as Scotland’s…
Following my post about how the planning documentation for the Ledard farm campsite has been altered (see here), I have been trying to obtain final confirmation from the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority of the status of the new track being used to construct the Hydro Scheme (see here). On 28th September a…
This post will consider the failure of Scottish and Southern Electric to date to restore the landscape caused by the Beauly Denny construction works in the northern section of the Drumochter. A central planning assumption behind the Beauly Denny was that once the construction phase was complete the land would be restored to it…
If you see a digger in the hills……………report it! On Friday, I went for a run up Geal Charn and went just beyond the summit because the views then open up down Loch Ericht. There was a digger a little way to the south on what used to be a stalkers path into the Fraoch…
Anyone who tries to understand human affairs from a global perspective will have probably greeted last week’s announcement that a poll of readers of the Rough Guides had found Scotland to be the most beautiful country in the world with a deep shrug. It is of course just a piece of marketing based on…
The work funded by HIE to remove the ski infrastructure from Coire na Ciste, using trucks, has progressed apace in the last week. The sheer amount of rubble pictured above provides evidence of the number of truck journeys that have been made up and down the mountain to the West Wall area without protective measures…
This letter in response to the current destruction of ski infrastructure in Coire na Ciste provides an excellent summary of how downhill skiing has been managed by HIE at Cairngorm. It raises much wider issues of what are National Parks are for. Also this week on BBC Highland there was a feature on HIE…
While the impact of windfarms on landscape make front page news – the latest being the predictable decision by the Courts to uphold the Scottish Government’s decision to give the go-ahead to the Creag Riabhach scheme in Sutherland (see here) – hydro schemes rarely receive any coverage at all. For a long time, most people…
I have just returned from the Dolomites to find extensive media coverage on how Scotland is failing to provide the infrastructure necessary to support visitors. On Skye, there are claims that the island has reached the limit in terms of the number of visitors it can sustain (see here), while in Orkney suggestions of a…
By Nick Halls, resident of Ardentinny This is the fifth in a series of articles about forestry in the National Park near where I live (see here) The impact of windthrow The value of the trees relative to the difficulty of extraction and the dangers posed by windblown trees makes harvesting from areas like…
On 7th July, an application for a new hydro scheme on the slopes of Ben More by Crianlarich, one of the highest and best known Munros, was validated on the Loch Lomond and Trossachs Planning Portal (see here) (or if the link does not work go to http://www.lochlomond-trossachs.org/planning/planning-applications/find-an-application/ and search for application Ref 2017/0119/DET or…
During a round of the Glen Prosen watershed 10 days ago, I came across a bulldozed track on the plateau at the head of the Glen which appears to be just inside the boundary of the Glen Isla Estate and therefore created by that estate. The lack of vegetation on the surface – on what…
Glen Clova Hydro Construction Track A week before taking action against the Cluny Estate track (see here) the Cairngorms National Park Authority issued a planning contravention notice against the owners of the Glen Clova estate for failing to remove the temporary hydro construction track behind the hotel. This is another very significant action from…
This post looks at the Conservation and Land Management section of the draft Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Partnership Plan (NPPP) which is out for consultation until 3rd July (see here). It argues that the Outcomes (above) in the draft NPPP are devoid of meaningful content, considers some the reasons for this and outlines…
Gross, poorly managed, temporary quarry on Forestry road at head of Glen Finart. NB apparently no regard for H&S or Mines & Quarry Legislation. All photos, save one, by author By Nick Halls Following the post on the destruction of a core path and right of way in the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park…
By Nick Halls (resident of Ardentinny) This is the first of a sequence of reports focused on access around Glen Finart in the Argyll Forest Park, which is part of the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park. The path was a traditional route, and Right of Way, that has existed since at least the 1940’s,…
Back in March, hillwalker Rod McLeod, wrote an excellent report (see here) on Walk Highland about new track work he came across in Coilessan Glen, west of Loch Long, in the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park. The glen is an important recreational route, being taken by the Cowal Way, and has recently become even…
By Nick Halls, resident of Ardentinny The changing landscape of the National Park I monitor the evolution of the Bye Laws and the incoherent manner of the implementation, by means of observation, talking to campers, visiting designated sites, reports contributed by ‘Parkswatchscotland’, and articles in magazines of Representative bodies of the physical activities in…
A year after Parkswatch first started to cover the hydro schemes in Glen Falloch and highlighted thefailure of the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority to follow its own best practice guidance (see here) that penstock and other materials should wherever possible be in colours that blend into the natural environment, the penstock…
I understand that Natural Retreats were not happy last week that their proposals for Cairngorm were obtained through Freedom of Information (see here). As John Hutchison pointed out on twitter in response to my post, the secrecy at Cairngorm rather undermines – or perhaps reinforces the need for! – the current Scottish Government consultation on…
On 6th May, during the very dry spell, I went for another walk over An Caisteal and Ben a Chroin, almost a year to the day after a similar round The Glen Falloch hydro schemes (2) (with several visits in-between). The walk provided yet more evidence of why Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park…
Scotgold Resources Ltd are holding two “consultation” events at Tyndrum Village Hall on 10th and 24th May between 10.30 – 20.30 on new proposals for the Cononish goldmine. Their proposals are set out in a scoping report which is now on the Loch Lomond and Trossachs Park Authority Planning Portal (see here). The Report does…