The Cairngorm National Park Planning Committee saw fit to grant Cairngorm Mountain [Scotland] Ltd (CMSL), Highland and Island Enterprise’s wholly owned subsidiary, permission to set up a Campervan Park in Coire na Ciste on Cairn Gorm. That consent was granted on 21 May 2021. CMSL indicated to the planning committee that they might be able…
Tag: planning
On 19th August a firm called Caledonian Building Surveyors Ltd submitted a Screening Request (see here) to Highland Council on behalf of the Pitmain and Glenbanchor Estate Ltd. It asked if an Environmental Impact Assessment was required before they could upgrade and create new tracks and upgrade part of the public road up Glen Banchor…
Last week I was sent this picture of a sign spotted outwith the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority Loch Chon campsite (see here) in Strathard. It is a con. The Scottish Government stated right from the start on the pandemic last year that our access rights as set out in the Land Reform…
Storms and construction work While my own walk round Cairn Gorm on my week in Speyside was affected by a heavy shower (see here) , I hate to think what might have happened had the torrential downpours which occurred in Grantown and Glen Banchor a few days before before (see here) had hit the mountain….
At the June meeting of the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA), Board Member Ronnie Erskine repeated the suggestion he had made in March, that they should prepare to showcase the work they are doing for the Climate Change summit that begins on 31st October. The political need to prepare for the COP…
Following my post on the failed restoration of the Beauly Denny powerline access tracks (see here), someone asked on twitter “how would you have done this differently”? The answer lies just over the hill on the southern face of Carn Dearg Mor above Glen Feshie. There, Wild Land Ltd is in the process of removing…
I have looked down on the section of the Beauly Denny which runs between Feagour, in Strath Mashie, to the A9, just north of Dalwhinnine, from two different viewpoints in the last week. Much of this section looks even worse than the scar which disfigures the Drumochter (see here). Before the Beauly Denny, the powerline…
On Sunday evening I went up to take a look at Cairn Gorm, the first time since the repair of the funicular started. I got a photo of the construction (see here) of the tube slides before the rain started. The steel support structure for the slides, referred to in the planning application, appear to…
The Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority used to operate three visitor centres around the southern half of Loch Lomond. It owns two, those at Luss and Balmaha, which date back to the Lomond Park Authority and were transferred to the LLTNPA on its creation. The third, at Balloch, was constructed by Scottish Enterprise…
Following my post on the construction of the tube slides in the Lower Coire Cas car park (see here), this post takes a look at the repair work to the funicular. Parkswatch has previously raised a number of significant concerns about the decision to repair the funicular, including the business case and likely costs, the…
There have been a number of significant developments over the last couple of months that relate to Cairn Gorm that have not, as yet, been covered by parkswatch. The Scottish Minister responsible for the disastrous decision to fork out £32.42 million over the next five years on repairing the funicular (see here) and who committed…
It’s now three years since the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) approved the new planning application (see here) for the financial gamble that is the Cononish goldmine. After it was reported in December that the mine was fully funded until 2022 and the first gold from the mine had been poured (see…
The idea of developing facilities for campervans at the Coire na Ciste car park is, in principle, quite sensible. Even though the Glenmore campsite has opened up this year, there are a lack of facilities in Glen More and a shortage of informal places to stop off overnight. Meantime, the Coire na Ciste car park,…
In the Cairngorm Mountain Scotland Ltd [CMSL] Business Plan that was published on 24 January 2020, the interim CEO wrote the following: Vision: ‘’To become a world class Visitor Destination – Ambitious to succeed’’ On 23 March 2021, CMSL submitted a planning application (see here) to Highland Council for a Campervan Park within the Coire na…
After visiting the Upper River Falloch hydro scheme last August, I argued that the scheme was unsustainable on the basis of the evidence that I saw then (see here). Photos sent to me this week show that in the eight months since there have been significant landscape changes and engineering works. These raise further questions…
In August 2019 the Glen Ample Estate submitted a Prior Notification to widen a section of the core path through the glen for forestry purposes. The core path forms part of the popular walking route from Loch Lubnaig to Beinn Each and the Munro, Stuc a Chroin. The Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority…
A story in the Daily Record last week, about how a bride and groom who found their wedding venue at Balloch abandoned (see here), provides further evidence of the disastrous consequences of the National Park Authority’s commercialisation policy and its murky relationship with David Moulsdale, the founder of Optical Express. The wedding venue was located…
Ten days ago the Green MSP, Ross Greer, issued a news release (see here) after being informed by Fiona Hyslop, the Cabinet Secretary for the Economy, that Scottish Enterprise “will not be a co-applicant in the planning process” with Flamingo Land for their proposed new development at Balloch. The story was picked up a couple…
The planning system in the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park is so bad that normally it can be difficult to laugh. But regular readers might just enjoy this tale of an application to install a glorified tap at the back of the toilet block at Rowardennan…………….. The story, I believe, begins in 2018 when…
On Friday the Scottish Government’s Planning and Environmental Appeals Division rejected a request from the local community at Gartocharn that the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) should have required the Hunter Foundation to conduct an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) before approving their planning application at Ross Priory. The reasons for the decision…
Fifteen months ago, I tried to find out from Highlands Enterprise the estimated costs of removing the funicular and, after an initial brush off, they admitted they had commissioned a “Funicular Railway (Railway Dismantling Report” in May 2019 (see here). However, HIE refused to provide the report pending their development of a business case for…
Following my second post (see here) on the Inverardran forest road near Crianlarch, Mary Jack sent me a list of all the prior notifications for forest roads considered by Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) last year and their decision in each case. This post considers what that list (see here) tells us…
After my post about the Cairngorm Hotel’s failure to pay the minimum wage to all their staff (see here), the court case this week about the fire at Cameron House provides further evidence that we need to take a far more critical approach to the tourist industry. Elements of it are far from benign and,…
On 6th September, a couple of days before my post More forestry shenanigans – the recently constructed road in upper Glen Falloch, I had written to the Director of Planning at the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority asking him to clarify when the track was built and out of what materials. I received…
Just before Xmas Scottish Enterprise (SE) announced (see here) it intended to renew its Exclusivity Agreement (EA) with Flamingo Land which was due to expire at the end of December. If approved by Scottish Ministers, the EA will legally commit SE to selling the land it owns at Balloch to Flamingo Land, should they secure…