Part of the reason for my recent visit to Balquhidder (see here) was to take a closer look at the forestry plantation in Monachyle Glen, the one which was sold off on the cheap by Forest and Land Scotland (see here). The road up the glen has been upgraded in preparation for timber harvesting/profit reaping…
Tag: outdoor recreation
The consultation on the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA)’s National Park Partnership Plan (NPPP) 2024-29 has been live since 26th April and closes on Wednesday. There have been few responses so far through the online platform “commonplace” (see here) despite the LLTNPA’s attempts to frame the new plan as having a pivotal…
Last week I took two relatives from Australia, ecologists both, on a tour of Scotland which included parts of both of Scotland’s National Parks. Our first stop was Inveruglas, on the west shore of Loch Lomond, land owned and managed by the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority. It was good to find the…
The damage caused by Scotland’s exceedingly high numbers of red deer and muirburn are the two main issues that need to be tackled if we are to tackle the nature and climate emergencies in the uplands. This post takes a look at the three changes in the law the Scottish Government announced yesterday (see here)…
The Draft Partnership Plan from the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) has now been published (see here) and I have become convinced it should not be accepted without very significant changes. As it stands it fails completely to lay out how the Park should proceed in order to achieve its third objective:…
I am just back from a stravaig from Loch Arkaig around Knoydart and then a two day walk across the group of Munros north of the road to Ullapool. In six days on the hill we only saw one piece of litter and that only because we had camped on the rough ground between Seana…
Six years ago, on 1st April 2017, Gordon Watson, the Chief Executive Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA), closed the slipway and tried to close the ranger base at Milarrochy without consultation and without any consideration by his board . When the Loch Lomond Association wrote to James Stuart, the Convener of the…
If you have not seen it and care about either conservation or outdoor recreation you should watch this video which was added to the Cairngorms Capercaillie Project facebook page on 11th April (see here). In it, two birders who had come from England to view capercaillie, confess the error of their ways after being spoken…
On Easter Saturday, I walked up the tourist path on Ben A’an, which was rebuilt in 2018 as part of the Mountains for People project and which I last wrote about two and a half years ago (see here). It was a nice day and, as I expected, very busy but that was one reason…
Since my last post (see here), another 10,000 or so objections have been lodged through the Scottish Greens against Flamingo Land’s proposed development at Balloch, more than the original application in 2018 and the most in Scottish history. Flamingo Land’s response has been to issue a news release, which was quoted in various papers from…
Footpaths and climate change Yesterday there was an interesting feature in the Herald magazine about Bob Brown, the National Trust for Scotland’s footpath manager, who has kept the faith and continues to repair paths by hand rather than doing so on the cheap by machine, often with poor consequences (see here). Coming a few days…
Last summer the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National ParK Authority (LLTNPA) advised those who had responded to its much delayed (see here) Outdoor Recreation Plan (ORP) tthat it had decideded to incorporate it into the next National Park Partnership Plan (NPPP) (see here). The draft NPPP is to be considered by the LLTNPA Board today, prior…
On Monday I went for a bike ride on the Dunachton Estate with Dave Morris, a friend and fellow access campaigner. We rode from near Kincraig over to the River Dulnain and came across a number of advisory access signs, some good some bad, but one in particular really caught our notice. A new moorland…
Introduction In a previous post (see here) I commented how the inaction of the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park (LLTNP) on helping define the route of the A82 between Tarbet and Inverarnan was worrying. There appeared to be an unwillingness on the part of the LLTNP to do anything positive to ensure appropriate use…
As we celebrate twenty years since the passing of the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003, and as someone who was involved in the process that led to the establishment of the statutory access rights contained in that Act, and its subsequent implementation, I would like to contribute my personal thoughts on the current discussion around…
In my second post on the byelaw review, issued yesterday morning (see here), I included data on boat registrations supplied by the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) in response to a Freedom of Information request in June 2021. Having spent several hours checking the claims made about jet skis in the Review…
[NB Part of this post has been updated following the claim at the LLTNPA board meeting that the FOI response for 2022 only gave part year registrations and numbers increased considerably after that date] The single greatest flaw in the the Loch Lomond bye law consultation process, which I touched on in my last post…
On Monday, a special meeting of the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) is being held to consider and approve a report to Scottish Ministers proposing revisions to the byelaws which govern boating on Loch Lomond (see here for papers and to get a link on the day to watch the meeting, which…
On 18th January the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) issued a news release (see here) about improvements to visitor infrastructure that are underway across the National Park. This was then picked up by various media without critical comment. While new investment in visitor infrastructure is welcome, the news release failed to explain…
DC a Young people in Scotland who have grown up with the Right To Roam should be seriously concerned at attempts to erode and misinterpret this important legislation. It was with great concern that I read the posts a few weeks back (see here) and earlier this week (here) about the attempts from some in Scotland…
On 10th December 2021, Mrs and Mr Jones – Kirsty Young and her husband – submitted a planning application (see here) to build a luxury lodge on the north shore of Inchconnachan, the island on Loch Lomond they had bought from Luss Estates. The application included proposals to restore native woodland and manage visitors on…
After the first three questions in NatureScot consultation on National Parks, which are about whether to turn them into vehicles for “green finance” (see here), the fourth is about the role of local communities (see here). The introductory text to the section claims that our National Parks “provide exemplars of community engagement” but contain no…
On Monday Forest and Land Scotland (FLS) announced (see here) that a new company called Twinflower will take over the management of the Glenmore campsite from 1st December. It has made no announcement as yet about its other two campsites in the Loch Lomond and Trossach National Park, Cobleland and Cashel, which it put out…
Following the poorly designed consultation on creating a new National Park for Scotland which took place May-June (see here), the Scottish Government asked NatureScot, its statutory adviser on such issues, to provide advice on the role of National Parks and “how new nominations for National Parks could be evaluated”. In the summer NatureScot set up…
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…