Further evidence of the political power of landowners in our National Parks was revealed yesterday when Kate Forbes, the SNH MSP for Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch, held a reception for the Gift of Grouse http://www.giftofgrouse.com/ at the Scottish Parliament. This was preceded by an excellent post from Raptor Persecution Scotland (see here) lambasting the claims…
Tag: Scottish Government
23rd January was the fifteenth anniversary of the passing of the Land Reform Act which enshrined access rights in laws. Behind the legislation was a recognition that any problem in the countryside which was associated with people taking access to land, from burgling houses to dogs being out of control and worrying sheep, was already…
If you have not heard it, most of Saturday’s episode of BBC Radio Scotland’s Out of Doors programme (see here) was devoted to Scotland’s access legislation as it approaches its fifteenth anniversary. If you want to understand the amazing story of how our access rights were secured – and in this case “our” really does…
Over the last year Parkswatch has featured a number of posts about the destruction of the landscape at Drumochter, including: the unrestored Beauly Denny construction track between Dalnaspidal and Drumochter (see here); the failure of Scottish and Southern Electric to restore the ground at Drumochter as required by the Beauly Denny planning consent from the…
By Bruce Biddulph (This text was included in an update to a petition to the Scottish Government to stop the sale of the Riverside Site in Balloch to Flamingo Land) Drumkinnon Bay, along with its Woods and the river bank along the Leven which flows from Loch Lomond, are steeped in history. This history was…
The Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority will, at its Board Meeting on Monday, consider an “Update Report” for Scottish Ministers on the operation of the camping byelaws in their first year. There is a cover paper (see here), the Report for Ministers (see here) and appendices (see here). The basic line the Park has…
In order to ban camping and get the camping byelaws approved, the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority misrepresented and grossly exaggerated the impacts campers were having on the loch shores. They did this by promulgating multiple images of irresponsible campers while ignoring their own data and misusing police data which put the problems…
Following my two posts last December about the destruction caused by the hydro scheme in Glen Bruar (see here) and (here), I took a jog up the glen on Saturday. I was prompted to do so after planning staff at the Cairngorms National Park Authority were kind enough to inform me – unprompted – that significant…
The financial position of Cairngorm Mountain Ltd Following my post on the finances at Cairngorm (see here), a Natural Retreats spokeswoman claimed to the Strathy this week that “Overall despite an operating loss the company was cash flow positive requiring no group support or bank intervention”. This is completely misleading, as the Cairngorm Mountain Ltd accounts…
Highlands and Islands Enterprise are currently in serious trouble at Cairngorm. Their Chief Executive may have ignored my email Charlotte Wright 170825 and other such representations from the public, but their actions and failures are now being given far more extensive coverage in the traditional media. This is forcing them to respond and reveals that…
If you see a digger in the hills……………report it! On Friday, I went for a run up Geal Charn and went just beyond the summit because the views then open up down Loch Ericht. There was a digger a little way to the south on what used to be a stalkers path into the Fraoch…
After the extensive coverage parkswatch gave to the destruction caused by engineering works in Coire Cas last year (see here for example), at the end of August a small group of us went to have a look at how the restoration work was going. In my view while there have been some improvements, there is…
At the end of August, after a stravaig over the east Drumochter hills, I looped back to Dalwhinnie through the Drumochter pass, the idea being to combine enjoyment with a look at the effectiveness of the restoration of the land along the Beauly Denny. Just beyond Dalnaspidal and hidden behind the A9 shelterbelt, I came…
Trees for Life announced this week a new project to use old isolated Scots Pine to restore areas which were formerly covered in Caledonian Pine Forest. It brought to mind An Camas Mor…………… ………..where the isolated old pines now sit among regenerating forest. A great example of rewilding (see here) and of what Trees for Life…
o Badenoch and Strathspey Conservation Group recently had the bright idea of playing the political parties at their own game and commissioning Survation, who conduct weekly national polls, to ask what people in Scotland thought of the proposed development at An Camus Mor. For those who care about the future of our National Parks it…
Large developments are, I believe, fundamentally incompatible with the whole concept of National Parks, wherever they are located across the world. National Parks are places where the natural environment should come first, not second. That’s why I, like many people, object to the An Camas Mor development in principle. We should not be building…
An extraordinary discussion took place at the end of the June Board meeting of the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority in which Councillor James Robb, one of several councillors who will be leaving the Board this Autumn (see here), proposed that the number of Board Members should be cut. The reason for the…
Anyone who tries to understand human affairs from a global perspective will have probably greeted last week’s announcement that a poll of readers of the Rough Guides had found Scotland to be the most beautiful country in the world with a deep shrug. It is of course just a piece of marketing based on…
Like many people, I suspect, I have been waiting for months for another case of raptor persecution to occur in the Cairngorms National Park. For under the current grouse moor management regimes that dominate much of the National Park, its not a case of “if” but “when” another raptor will disappear. While its taken longer…
On Friday, to no-one’s surprise, the Cairngorms National Park Authority unanimously approved the revised planning application for An Camas Mor and in effect gave Johnnie Grant a further three years to meet planning requirements. Paradoxically, this new decision, I believe makes An Camas Mor less likely than ever to go ahead. This is mainly because…
On Friday the Cairngorms National Park Authority Planning Committee will consider a revised planning application for An Camus Mor (see here), the proposed new town across the Spey from Aviemore. (Click here for link to the Park’s planning portal and all 236 documents associated with the application). The main change proposed by the the application is to…
Following my post on the unlawful application of the camping byelaws to campervans (see here), Rob Edwards’ excellent article in the Sunday Herald (I have an interest!) prompted an interesting piece http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2017/07/10/wild-land/ from Mike Small which is well worth reading: “Scotland’s divorce from nature is intimately connected to its divorce from land. But whilst we…
Following my posts on the Ledcharrie (see here), Coilessan (see here) Glen Clova and Glen Prosen (see here) and (see here) hill tracks I contacted the heads of planning in both National Park Authorities to find out what they were doing about this. The responses could not have been more different. The Loch Lomond and…
This afternoon, following the debate last week (see here), there is motion in the Scottish Parliament calling for an independent inquiry into the way the Scottish Parliament deals with Information Requests: That the Parliament condemns the Scottish Government’s poor performance in responding to freedom of information requests; calls for an independent inquiry into the way that…
The official consultation on the draft Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Partnership Plan (NPPP) 2018-23 closes on Monday 3rd July. The NPPP is the key document governing what the LLTNPA is supposed to do over the next five years so its important people respond. In this post I will take an overview of the…