The new draft Cairngorms National Park Local Development Plan 2020 was launched for consultation on 25 January (see here) and we all have until 5 April 2019 to plough through the 228 pages and the myriad of supporting documents and make our comments. This document is the outcome of the Main Issues Report which was…
Tag: Local communities
The case for the restoration of the Maid of the Loch The case for the restoration of the Maid of the Loch is extremely strong. The boat itself is part of our industrial and cultural heritage http:// https://www.maidoftheloch.org/history. As importantly, its mooring by the pier is located next door to the steam slipway and…
Charrette is the fashionable name given to events ostensibly designed to include and empower local communities in respect of local planning processes. The name appears designed to discourage and disempower, unless you happen to be French. Still, if well run, incomprehension can change to active participation while ideas and proposals can be produced and converted…
Four more hydro schemes are being proposed in one of the most special parts of Scotland which, if it were anywhere else in the world, be a National Park. Unlike the proposed schemes in Glen Etive (see here), which I hope to post more on soon, these schemes have so far received little attention…
Scottish Enterprise’s financial support for Flamingo Land Following the revelation from Jackie Baillie, the local Labour MSP, that Scottish Enterprise had valued the enormous West Riverside Site in Balloch at a paltry £200k, the Greens have discovered that Scottish Enterprise have been giving further help to Flamingo Land by paying for “site investigations”. “To date,…
The purchase of the Kinrara Estate by Wild Land Ltd, which is owned by Danish billionaire Anders Povlsen, received wide media coverage including from papers who like to treat such matters as part of our celebrity culture (see here). It raises some dilemmas for people who believe that fundamental land reform is needed to address…
While Highlands and Islands Enterprise are receiving a public drubbing at Cairn Gorm, Scottish Enterprise has so far been very successful at keeping out of the public eye with Flamingo Land. Their attempt to subvert the planning system at the West Riverside site in Balloch (see here) is part of a much larger problem in…
The Flamingo Land Planning Application should be central to the debates currently taken place in the Scottish Parliament on a new planning bill. The central question they need to address is how is it that the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority could be judged overall winner in the Scottish Quality Awards for…
West of the Keltie Water hydro scheme, which has been shortleeted for a Scottish Planning quality award (see here), on the other side of the ridge and high ground running south from Beinn Each, are two further run of river hydro schemes. Both are situated in forestry/woodland on the Drumardoch and Ardchullarie Estate above…
The consultation on the draft Cairngorms Nature Action Plan closes tomorrow on Friday 14th September. A month ago (see here) I considered the context for the plan and the proposed priorities for landscape scale conservation: farmland, freshwater restoration, woodland expansion and peatland . This post will look at the other two professed aims of the…
After the fire in December 2017, in which two people tragically died, Cameron House needs to be rebuilt. There are a number of other associated businesses on the site (234 berth marina, 87 lodges, restaurant, golf course and sea plane flights) that have continued to operate since the fire and need to do so…
As of today, there were 1008 documents on the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority Planning Portal (see here) associated with the Flamingo Land Planning Application. Most of them appear to be objections but even letters of support express significant concerns. Among local residents, whether objectors or supporters, one major concern is that Balloch…
Argyll and Bute Council have just announced that they are going to increase daily car parking charges at the main Cobbler car park (Glenloin No 1) and the neighbouring car park at the head of Loch Long (Glen Loin No 2) from £1 to £9 a day from the end of August. That’s a…
Descending from the Brazato pass, after a long and wild walk up the Valle del Ara (see here), Banos de Panticosa came as a surprise. While in a brilliant location, nestled under a chain of 3000m peaks, it provides an example of how not to do developments, whether in National Parks (its right on the…
The gulf between the rhetoric of the Scottish Establishment on the need for community involvement in planning and reality has created a massive crisis for the Flamingo Land Planning Application at Balloch. This post takes a look at people’s response to the Flamingo Land application, considers the key issues and the implications of what…
There have been numerous recent reports of failures to enforce long term planning obligations within the Cairngorms National Park – these are conditions of planning permissions which remain in place after the permitted work or development has been completed. They often cover the re-instatement of temporary works after the work has been completed or the…
Following my post last week on forestry and access (see here), Andy Gray sent Parkswatch a couple of photos he had taken on Saturday 12 May 2018 when he and his family had decided to enjoy an ascent of Cruach Tairbeirt, the small hill above Loch Lomond which is most frequently accessed between Tarbet and Arrochar. On…
Yesterday nominations opened for elections to the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority Board, the only scheduled local elections for Scotland this year. (The next Cairngorms National Park Authority direct elections will be in 2019). One third of the board of each of our National Park Authorities is made up of members directly elected…
Almost everywhere you go in the Haute Maurienne is evidence of community use of the forests which cover much of the valley sides. Locals use wood to heat their houses and in construction. The contrast with Scotland is striking: how many such wood stores do you see in the Argyll Forest Park or in Crianlarich?…
I am back from a couple of weeks ski touring in the Vanoise and, having taken a break from parkswatch last week, thought I would share this week a few things Scotland’s National Parks could learn from the Vanoise. The Vanoise National Park is the oldest in France, created in 1963, and consists on an…
The day of my post about the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority becoming a camping management authority (see here), the article above appeared in the Herald. Proof, if you want, that what I said is not the whole story and a reminder – if one is needed after the Cononish gold mine decision…
Both our National Parks have two statutory objectives which incorporate the term ‘sustainable’: “to promote the sustainable use of natural resources”, and “to promote sustainable economic and social development of the area’s communities”. As I revealed last week (see here), while the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority has adopted a policy on mining…
This post takes a look at the current Flamingo Land proposal for the riverside site (reddish area above) against the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority’s policy for the area, as set out in various plans. This reveals several shifts in policy in the last year. The National Park Development Plan, approved by the…
Ref: NOV302727 Notice Type: 02 Contract Notice Title: Review of Cairngorm Ski Area Uplift Infrastructure Published: 30/11/2017 Published by: Highlands and Islands Enterprise Deadline: 10/01/2018 Full Text: http://www.publiccontractsscotland.gov.uk/search/show/Search_View.aspx?id=NOV302727 (Notice issued by Scotland Contracts Portal) On Friday 30th November, following the public row about their removal of old ski infrastructure from Coire na Ciste which forced…
There has been a lot of community activity in Balloch since Scottish Enterprise announced Flamingo Land had been appointed developer for the Riverside Site. You can follow this activity and thinking through a number of Facebook Groups including “Balloch Responds”, “Friends of Drumkinnon Woods” and “Alternative Balloch – A Productive United Village”. Recently people have…