The Report in the Strathy last week was based on the proposals for winding up the former Cairngorm Mountain Ltd (CML) which the Administrator has lodged at Companies House (see here). This post takes a further look at what it reveals about the mismanagement of Cairngorm Mountain over the last five years. Background note…
Tag: Scottish Government
Yesterday, I received a copy of a paper on the development of the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority’s Camping Development Strategy which had been considered by their “Delivery Group” on 22nd November 2018. This post will take a look at what that paper tells us about the adequacy of provision for campers in…
Highland and Islands Enterprise’s announcement last week (see here) that the funicular would remain out of action for the summer and possibly longer, failed to explain what has caused the problems or the likely cost of the repairs that might be needed to make it safe to use again. Meantime it has announced that the…
There is a case for tourism development at Balloch which goes all the way back to the Clyde Valley Regional Plan in 1949. That envisaged a number of developments along the south west corner of Loch Lomond segregated by green spaces. The problem is the developments now being proposed on the south shores of Loch…
Following my post (see here) on the flawed and unfair procurement process which resulted in Cairngorm Mountain Ltd being sold off to Natural Assets Investment Ltd, I have started to work out the costs to the public purse to date of that disastrous decision. The HIE Board should be doing this that would mean them…
While rumours are circulating that the Flamingo Land Planning Application to develop much of Balloch may be withdrawn and replaced by a number of separate applications, officially the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority have suspended the Planning Process since August while awaiting information from the applicant (see here). That hardly tallies with the…
While Highlands and Islands Enterprise announced last week that the funicular railway would be closed for the rest of the snowsport season on safety grounds, they have kept secret the three Improvement Notices served by the Health and Safety Executive in early December (see right above). While HIE has been keen to demonstrate that it…
Most of the Information Requests that activists have submitted to Highlands and Islands Enterprise about Cairngorm are now being deal with under the Environmental Information [Scotland] Regulations 2014 rather than the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act, though both pieces of legislation are broadly similar. The EIRs place a duty on public bodies to make environmental…
Anyone driving along the A82 this summer will have seen the test drilling rigs in Loch Lomond. While the A82 along West Lomond north of Tarbet undoubtably needs to be upgraded, Transport Scotland ruled out tunnelling right from that start on grounds of cost. This was a terrible decision, made without any proper public…
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…
[This post is partially in response to comments made by Ray Sefton on Drennan Watson’s post “Time for a re-think at Cairn Gorm” https://parkswatchscotland.co.uk/2018/12/05/time-for-a-re-think-at-cairngorm/”] Rights of public access, as established by the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003, apply to all ground around the Ptarmigan restaurant and beyond, to the far reaches of land and water…
In June Parkswatch exposed the unlawful warning system the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority had introduced along with the camping byelaws (see here). Staff had no legal authority to introduce such a system, were failing to inform people who were warned of the consequences or their rights, and were retaining personal data about…
HIE yesterday announced a new £27m vision for Cairn Gorm (see here), along with a video and Executive Summary (here). The figures dwarf the £4m they had previously identified as necessary to secure the future of CairnGorm Mountain Ltd and Natural Retreats. There are three good things about the announcement. First, that a public agency…
“Claims that the funicular railway is reliant on public money are totally absurd and without foundation” (Fergus Ewing MSP, 21 Dec 2000). Perhaps the greatest skill possessed by Highlands and Islands Enterprise is their ability to dupe most of our politicians, of every political party, in the European Parliament, Scottish Parliament or Highland Council. Never…
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 proliferation of vehicle hill tracks in our National Parks, whether agreed through our planning system or not, has been a constant theme of Parkswatch over the last two and a half years. The first thing that we need to do to address the problem is to bring all vehicle tracks into the planning…
Following the election of local representatives to the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority earlier this year (see here), the end of last week saw the announcement of the new Scottish Government appointees to our National Park Boards. The appointments appear to have attracted little publicity so this post points readers to information…
There is no hope for the future of Cairn Gorm while Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) remain as owners of the land on this mountain, while also acting as funders of most of the developments on the upper slopes. This was evident from the time that their predecessor body, Highlands and Islands Development Board (HIDB),…
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…
While the move to develop a tourist tax gathers apace in Edinburgh and is now being advocated for other cities (see here for article by Marianne Taylor in Herald) there continues to be silence on this issue from our National Park Authorities. The issue of inadequate investment in tourist infrastructure in the countryside is as…
The launch of a campaign last week (see here) by Green MSP Ross Greer to get people to object to the Flamingo Land Planning Application and promoted by Save Loch Lomond (see here) has had a huge response. 26,520 people to date have registered objections on the portal the Greens have set up Whether the Loch…
Following my post on the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority’s war on campers (see here). I submitted an FOI request asking for the LLTNPA to explain reasons the Loch Achray campsite had not been opened (it was due to open in March 2018) and to make this public. On 10th September I received…
On Saturday I was delighted to be one of the speakers at a demonstration against Flamingo Land organised by Save Loch Lomond (see here) and which was covered on STV news (see here). While I believe the decision about whether Flamingo Land goes ahead will ultimately be decided by politics, part of my speech covered planning…
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…
At the end of June the Cairngorms National Park Authority Planning Committee considered the responses to its public consultation on Local Development Plan, the Main Issues Report, which has previously been covered on Parkswatch (see here for example). There were 331 responses and these are summarised and considered in a 247 page report to the…