The Planning Application for the Hunter Global Leadership Centre at Ross Priory, which I wrote about in June (see here), is due to be considered by the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority on Monday. The Planning Report makes sorry reading and throws any pretence at objectivity to the wind. As in the…
Tag: landscape
It is hard to know whether to be inspired or depressed by the battle over vehicular use of “green lanes” which I touched on a year ago in post comparing what was going on in the Lake District National Park and the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park (see here) The latest newsletter of…
A tourist travelling north through the Drumochter for the first time, on looking up to their right and seeing this scar, might be forgiven for wondering if someone had tried build a new railway through the pass. I doubt they, or many of the thousands of people who cross the Drumochter each year, realise they…
In August, after the landslides at the Rest and Be Thankful, I visited Glen Falloch to look at what damage had been done to the run of river hydro schemes there by the heavy rainfall. It is three weeks since I blogged about the damage that I had missed seeing in 2019 (see here). That…
Last Sunday I went for a walk around Ceann na Baintighearna from Glen Buckie which runs south from Loch Voil. We took a slanting track up from north of Ballimore, past this neat farm dump. It had been preceded by piles of equally neatly stacked logs which were slowly rotting. A wasted resource. I don’t…
While Parkswatch has been critical of the Cairngorms National Park Authority’s failure to control Highlands and Islands Enterprise at Cairn Gorm, it has been doing far better in Glen Clova. The two most recent meetings of the Planning Committee have been rightly criticised for approving the planning applications to repair the funicular and install car…
Back in February I blogged about the Hunter Foundation’s proposals to develop a “Global Leadership Centre” on the shore of Loch Lomond near Ross Priory in partnership with Strathclyde University (see here). A Planning Application was submitted at the beginning of March (see here for planning papers) and has been slowly progressed during the Covid-19…
Following the planning application to repair the funicular (see here), Highlands and Island Enterprise have submitted another two Planning Applications at Cairn Gorm. These indicate that HIE intend to submit no less than six further applications in the short-term. This post explains what is going on and takes a critical look at the new applications…
I was pleased to have this letter published in the Herald last week following a post last year asking why grazing had been allowed to continue on the slopes (see here). The proposed Woodland creation scheme for the Rest and Be Thankful 2019-29 on the slopes of Beinn Luibhean is still open for consultation (see…
The latest plans to develop the shores of Loch Lomond were made known to the wider public at the weekend (see here – includes photomontage). Tom Hunter wants to develop a £10m “global leadership centre”, named after him, at Ross Priory on the South West corner of Loch Lomond. Ross Priory is run…
Preparatory work for the seven hydro schemes which Highland Council approved with conditions last March has now started. There are two separate pieces of work, one to upgrade the powerline in the glen, the other to upgrade the road so that construction traffic can use it without blocking visitors from the glen. Meantime the revised…
In Autumn last year, Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) put the next update of the Local Management Plan for the Strathspey Forest out for consultation until March 2020. Please look at the documents (see here) and send your views into FLS. This forest is important because it attracts a lot of tourist visits, 350,000 last…
The single worst thing about the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park (LL&TNP) stems from its origins as a Forest Park. An absurd proportion of its once-handsome glens have lost all natural character and beauty to curtains of sitka spruce along their lower and middle slopes, often drawn so tightly as to preclude any pleasant…
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…
While who gets elected in the General Election may in large part be decided by attitudes to Scottish Independence and Brexit, the wider issues facing the world are the ongoing crisis in the capitalism, the climate emergency and the collapse of the natural environment. Our National Parks are microcosms of that wider world and reflect…
Last week Revive, the coalition for grouse moor reform, issued a new report Untold Suffering about how thousands of animals are killed and trapped on Scotland’s grouse moors. Its one of the scandals of our time that this slaughter takes place even in our National Parks which were set up to protect nature (see here). …
The poisoned beech trees – but what is the way forward? Photo credit – Mary Jack Back in August 2017 (see here) I queried the felling of some beech trees and poisoning of others on the Island of Inchtavannach on Loch Lomond. That article was based on a study/paper claiming that the beech trees were indigenous…
The visual impact of electricity pylons in National Parks and Areas of Outstanding National Beauty have been a political issue for some time in England and Wales. In response to public pressure, a £500m UK wide fund was created to help underground powerlines. Scotland was allocated a share of this but development of proposals…
I first came across the newly constructed Gynack flood diversion channel above Kingussie by accident in October 2017, when visiting the three hydro schemes on the river. I have visited three times since, all in poor weather (as is evident from the photos!). On my most recent visit I found that the overflow…
Prior to the serious flood damage to some of the hydro schemes in Glen Falloch (see here), I had been trying to persuade the Convener of the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority, James Stuart, that there have been some serious planning failures in respect to hydro schemes in the National Park which his Board…
I was pleased to be quoted in Sunday Herald article “Call for crackdown on unregulated Scottish hill tracks” (see here) which was published at the weekend. The article contains some very interesting quotes from the the landowner and owner of the Glen Clova hotel, Hugh Niven, about the apparently unlawful road which is now…
On my way north on Saturday I noticed that Ewich Forest, which is currently owned by Forest and Land Scotland, has been put up for sale. Ewich Forest is the block of conifer forest which extends from Crianlarich north along the west side of the A82. The West Highland Way traverses the forest from Crianlarich…
Following the great rainstorm of 5th August, which swept away part of the West Highland Line, I was expecting to find significant damage to the seven hydro roads in Glen Falloch when I visited at the end of September. In the event found that the damage which the storm caused to the hillsides, in…
Back in February 2018 Parkswatch called for the Cairngorms National Park Authority to start taking enforcement action against the unlawful hill roads in Glen Clova (see here). The CNPA responded to say that in most of the cases it was unable, whatever it thought of the roads, to do so. This was either because…
Last Saturday I took to the hills above Ardgartan to climb The Brack and Cnoc Coinnich, both of which are classed as Corbetts. I had not planned to be on the hills at all that day, but the sight of bright blue sky above early morning mists in the Blane Valley proved irresistible. Armed with…