After my post on The Scottish Planning Bill, hill tracks and our National Parks a reader sent in what appears to be a standard letter which SNP MSPs have been sending to constituents who have lobbied them. With Andy Wightman’s amendments to bring most hill roads into the planning system due to be debated in…
Tag: planning
Scottish Enterprise’s decision to make a joint planning application with Flamingo Land at Balloch, with a view to selling off the publicly owned gateway to the National Park for private profit, is looking increasingly foolhardy. First Scottish Enterprise included the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority, the body that has to decide the planning…
On Monday the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority re-advertised (see here) the Flamingo Land Planning Application and announced a new statutory 28 period for the public to respond. The reason for this is that Ian Cowan, the consultant commissioned by Ross Greer and the Greens whose work has been financed by a crowdfunding…
The compulsory parking charge scheme at Cairn Gorm, introduced by Natural Retreats in June 2018 was dropped in September of that year (see here). There was no point in continuing to make parking charges compulsory when the Funicular failed and the number of tourist visits crashed. The number of skiers who visited Cairn Gorm last…
The Garabal Estate, which consists of a broad strip of land running south west from Inverarnan at the head of Loch Lomond is up for sale (see here for brochure). The asking price is c£652 an acre. This post takes a look at the issues this raises for the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National…
The 28 day statutory minimum consultation period on the revised Flamingo Land Planning Consultation ends on Monday when Green MSP, Ross Greer, is due to hand in over 52,000 objections he has helped gather to the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority. The LLTNPA, to it credit, has said that it will continue to…
Just six weeks after the Cairngorms National Park Authority adopted a set of working principles for future development at Cairn Gorm (see here), including the need for a masterplan BEFORE any new Planning Applications were considered, guess what? Highlands and Islands Enterprise has submitted yet another Planning Application to Highland Council for Cairn Gorm (see…
In the last six weeks two retrospective applications for planning permission for works on hill roads have been submitted to the Cairngorms National Park Authority. The first (see here) is from Atholl estates for a section of road by Meall Tionail, south of Beinn Dearg. The second (see here) is from the Glenbanchor estate for…
When blogging about the unlawful forestry no access signs on the Drummond Estate north of Callander 10 days ago (see here), I did not have time to feature what lay behind them. Nor about how the Keltie Water hydro scheme (see here) looks six months on. The new “forestry” road into Glen Chroin When…
In the last couple of weeks Flamingo Land, which the multi-millionaire developer Gordon Gibb has tried unsuccessfully to rebrand as Lomond Banks, has become a national political issue. By that I don’t mean a party political issue – most politicians, both nationally and locally, are still sitting on the fence – but one which is…
I had been meaning to follow up why the last meeting of the Cairngorms National Park Authority Board had held a confidential discussion on Cairngorm Mountain when last week the Cairngorms National Park Authority published a new document., “Cairngorm Mountain – CNPA Working Principles”. An email to the Cairngorms National Park Authority established that the…
I have been too occupied with other things in the last week to blog much but seen plenty to blog about. On Saturday I went for a run with my daughter from just south of Braeleny, on the Keltie Water, over to Uamh Bheag and Beinn Odhar – the site of the Doune windfarm –…
Yesterday, Flamingo Land’s media consultants issued a New release on their revised Planning Application at Balloch. This received widespread media coverage and appeared designed to deceive. Most of the media did not fall for the attempt to rename the proposed development Lomond Banks and continued to refer to it as Flamingo Land. No-one, however, questioned…
After announcing a “major application” update last week (see here), the revisions to the Flamingo Land planning application appeared yesterday evening. There are about 40 new documents on the planning portal (see here), all dated 5th April rather than the 17th April when they were made public by the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National…
Modern ATVs allow estates motorised access to almost anywhere and their widespread use is causing environmental damage as well as creating ugly visual intrusions into otherwise unspoilt landscapes. Inevitably, planning applications are now coming forward to construct vehicle tracks where ATV damage has occurred, supported by the argument that built tracks are the lesser of…
Last week the full Highland Council decided to approve the remaining three Glen Etive hydro schemes (see here). It was clear during the debate that a number of Councillors voted for the proposals because they believed the impacts of construction could be mitigated and the landscape restored to close to its existing state. While that…
Most people travelling north over the Drumochter pass will have noticed the terrible scars across the hillside on the right after the summit. Many probably realise they are a consequence of the construction of the Beauly Denny powerline. Few will realise, unless they have read previous parkswatch posts, that this destruction has taken place in…
The papers for the next Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority Board meeting on Monday 18th March were published last week (see here). There are some good things in them, particularly the papers on “Wild Park” and a new Forest Strategy (see here), which I will consider further in due course. There are also…
Following the parkswatch post on the illegal felling of trees at Carrbridge, in the Cairngorms National Park (see here), here is an example of a felling application of trees with Tree Preservation Orders (TPO’s) The following are extracts for TPOs from LL&TNPA’s weekly planning list: The second extract is the Decision:- I note that 29…
Last year parkswatch covered Fergus Ewing’s intervention on behalf of the owner of the Carrbridge Hotel, Mr Watt, to create a new car park in an area outside the village settlement boundary where trees had been illegally felled (see here). This has been followed up by the environmental journalist, Rob Edwards, who published the…
The revised Planning Application for the Ben More Hydro scheme (see here) is to be considered by the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Planning Committee tomorrow (see here). I had intended to speak to my objection but have been called elsewhere. While there are provisions for objectors to nominate substitutes, there are none to allow…
At the end of November, I took a critical look at the Balloch Charrette, the community planning event that took place in 2016 (see here) AFTER the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority had already committed to Flamingo Land going ahead. Out of the event came an Action Plan (see here) complete with lead partners…
I had walked up Glen Prosen a couple of weeks ago to look at the new roads at the head of the Glen but was prompted by the 26 traps we saw to blog first on wildlife and trapping in the Cairngorms National Park (see here). This post will took at the two new roads…
Following my last post on the seven Glen Etive hydro schemes (see here) I found that Mountaineering Scotland had issued an excellent news release prior to the site visit by Councillors on Monday (see here). This does not appear to have been picked up by the mainstream media. What did get coverage in the Press and…
Today the South Area Planning Committee of Highland Council is taking a (road-side) look at the sites of all seven proposed Glen Etive Hydro Schemes, and a further hydro scheme in Glen Coe. Then, at a special meeting on Wednesday at Council HQ in Inverness they will take a decision on the applications (see here…