Yesterday with almost no notice the funicular at last re-opened. Highlands and Islands Enterprise, in a news release issued on Wednesday (see here) claimed that “all safety-critical matters have now been concluded” – not exactly the same thing as stating all the safety concerns that caused them to close the funicular in August 2023 have been…
Tag: Scottish Government
Last week the Scottish Government published the fourth piece of legislation this Parliament ostensibly intended to improve how we use and manage land in the countryside, including National Parks – the Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill (see here for papers) This follows the Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Act 2024, passed a year ago and…
With little sign of the Scottish Government implementing the provisions of the Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Act 2024 and while the Cairngorms were aflame from muirburn (see here), the Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA) Board on 14th February approved new fire management byelaws and a draft “Integrated Wildfire Management Plan” for consultation with land…
Driving north up the A9 on Saturday Andy Cloquet observed muirburn on five sites between Dalwhinnie and Newtonmore with “an acrid smell over five miles of road” and sent parkswatch these two photos. The ostensible purpose of the Wildlife Management & Muirburn (Scotland) Act 2024 (“the Act”), which was passed by the Scottish Government last…
When first writing about the renewal of Scottish Enterprise (SE)’s Conditional Missives (Exclusivity Agreement) with Flamingo Land (see here) I had argued it was not clear if SE had voluntarily extended the agreement or was contractually obliged to do so. I had previously submitted a Freedom of Information request on 14th January asking SE to…
At the end of August I wrote about the proposal to install a telecommunications in Glen Undalain, the glen which runs south from the campsite at Shiel Bridge towards the Saddle and is part of the Kintail National Scenic Area (NSA). While few people know about NSAs, the designation intended to protect Scotland’s most beautiful…
On 20th December, just before the statutory deadline expired, Flamingo Land lodged an appeal with the Scottish Government against the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA)’s decision to refuse their proposed development at Balloch. On the same day Scottish Enterprise (SE) announced they were extending their “Exclusivity Agreement” with Flamingo Land to enable…
On 17th January BBC Scotland published a story “No opening date for funicular as funicular repairs near end (see here). In it they stated: “Owners, public agency Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE), had hoped to have it running again late last year but said bad weather had caused delays”. Consider the image above and compare…
The risk to Nick’s proposal to suspend the Scottish Forestry Grants system for a year (see here) is that you destroy the woodland creation capacity we currently have, including tree nurseries, and in a way that we never get it back again. No-one will ever trust the Scottish Government again and they won’t invest in…
In my last post I argued that the Scottish Government should transfer some of the £53m it has allocated for forestry grants next year to its own agency, Forest and Land Scotland, to reduce deer on its land. What’s been happening at Glen Prosen, which FLS bought in Autumn 2022 (see here), provides a good…
How to reduce Scotland’s climate emissions and damage to nature – suspend the forestry grants system
On 19th December 2023 the Scottish Government announced that Scottish Forestry’s grant budget would be cut by £32m or 41% for the year 2024/25. Almost a year later the Scottish Government, in its budget for 2025/26 announced ion 4th December, is proposing to increase spending on forestry grants next year from £45,367,000 to £53,000,000 a…
Well it’s that time of year again. Now you see it: Now you don’t: Last year’s pantomime dame, Susan Smith, has now retired and been replaced by another, although this time it follows tradition in being a man. The script, however, has not changed. After the funicular closed “ in the interests of public safety”…
In January 2020 the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) announced (see here) it had secured £135k in funding from Visit Scotland’s Rural Tourism Infrastructure Fund to modernise the toilet facilities and install smart bins at its Visitor Centre in Balmaha: “We know that the provision of things like high quality toilets and…
It is now five months since my post questioning how abrdn, Akre and the Natural History Museum (NHM) had applied the Biodiversity Intactness Index to the land at Far Ralia in an attempt to demonstrate that the careless and destructive tree planting there would result in an almost miraculous improvement in nature (see here and…
After putting Far Ralia on the market for £12m in July (see here)at the end of September Abrdn’s Property Income Trust (APIT) announced it had reached a deal to sell all the remaining propterties it owned to GoldenTree Asset Management (see here). This post consider the implications. Far Ralia and the sale of Abrdn Property…
On 21st October the Scottish Goverment upheld WHP Telecom’s appeal against Highland Council’s refusal of planning permission for the proposed O2 phone mast on Creag Dhubh (see here). The Reporter’s decision (see here) has potentially serious implications for the number of “competing” telecommunications mast in rural areas and for the landscape. Background Under the…
David’s Jarman’s post (see here) on the destructive impacts of the proposed Lochan na h-Earba pumped storage hydro (PSH) scheme and the fate awaiting Scotland’s landscape, natural environment and cultural heritage appears to have struck a cord. Many people who strongly support the need to reduce carbon emissions and recognise that we need to store…
On 30th September the Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA) and NatureScot launched a five year Emergency Plan for Capercaillie (see here) claiming it as “the most comprehensive plan of its kind ever produced for this iconic bird”. We have now moved from the Capercaillie Life Project 2002-07 to the Capercaillie Framework, launched in 2013, to…
This is a fuller version of a story in Scottish Mountaineer this autumn, which takes its cue from the long-running “New Twists for Old Hills” series there. The literal ‘shafting’ is the driving of miles of tunnels through the Ardverikie Munros, linking hugely enlarged lochs for a Pumped Storage Hydro (PSH) scheme known simply and…
On Monday 16th September, as widely reported in the media – the BBC gave it coverage on UK news – those of the board of the Loch Lomond Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) present duly accepted the recommendations of their officers, without amendment, and rejected Flamingo Land’s planning application. This outcome was as I had…
In my two posts on the Flamingo Land story (see here) I covered some of the history of the pier head area in Balloch: how the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) in 2015 had offered up the land it leased from Scottish Enterprise (SE) there to the preferred developer for the West…
One might have hoped that the controversy caused by the office-bearers of the Royal Scottish Forestry Society to try and sell of what was supposed to be a forest for a thousand years at Cashel (see here) and (here) might have caused the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) to reflect on the…
Mobile phone operator Three’s Planning Application for a 22.5m telecommunication mast 400m from Ryvoan bothy, ostensibly intended to provide mobile coverage for the big four operators in the “Total Not Spot” between there and Glenmore, is generating just the sort of criticism needed to scupper the whole disastrous Shared Rural Network (SRN) programme. Besides over…
The basic elements of the the scandal concerning abrdn’s proposed sale the Far Ralia estate in the Cairngorms National Park are very simple. Having bought the land now known as the Far Ralia estate for a reported £7.5m in September 2021, Abrdn are now trying to dispose of it for £12m having in the intervening…
On 16th July the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) issued a news release (see here) stating its board had agreed a date, Monday 16th September, to take a decision on the (Mark III) version (see here) of the Flamingo Land Planning Application. This post will argue that the content of the news release…