The lower pistes at Cairn Gorm, together with the Sunkid rope tow and the Carpark T-Bar uptrack have all been rendered unusable after just a couple of days of moderate thawing. The “Cairngorm Mountain Full Business Case” (see here), as prepared by Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE), has the following under Strategic Context: ‘’Cairn Gorm…
Tag: Scottish Government
Generally, Scotland should not be investing in new roads. The world does not appear to have sufficient reserves of minerals to replace fossil fuel powered vehicles with electric ones and we need therefore to replace private car use with public transport. That means fewer vehicles on the roads and little need to expand the vehicle…
Writing in the magazine British Wildlife in August 2018 David Hetherington, ecologist with the Cairngorms National Park Authority, explained the importance of natural regeneration in expanding the existing remnants of the Old Caledonian pine forests in the Cairngorms. Natural regeneration is the key defining character of these forests, demonstrating that they are descended directly from…
The title of the Scottish Government’s consultation, “Wildlife Management in Scotland” (see here), which closed yesterday, was very revealing. Despite the nature emergency and the Scottish Government’s commitment to protect 30% of the land by 2030 (see here), there were no questions about how natural processes could be restored or we might reverse the catastrophic…
A week ago the Ferret (see here) exposed how the Tulchan Estate, on the northern boundary of the Cairngorms National Park, was being funded both to restore damaged peatland and to burn moorland in the same small area. A similar scandal is happening on King Charles’s grouse shooting estate, Delnadamph, on the upper reaches of…
NatureScot’s consultation on National Parks closes today. In my view the most important section of the online survey (see here) is about the powers and functions of National Parks (questions 13-16). Get this right and there would be no need to resort to “green” finance as the means to address the undoubted problems in our…
On Monday Forest and Land Scotland (FLS) announced (see here) that a new company called Twinflower will take over the management of the Glenmore campsite from 1st December. It has made no announcement as yet about its other two campsites in the Loch Lomond and Trossach National Park, Cobleland and Cashel, which it put out…
[NB a postscript has been added to the post to take account of response from CNPA planners] In the last couple of weeks parkswatch has been sent several photos of works at Cairngorms by readers. Initially I thought this photo showed construction work on the magic carpet which Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) announced had…
The Planning Application (see here for planning papers) for a fish farm on Loch Long, along with associated road upgrades, was submitted just over a year ago. It is to be decided at a special meeting of the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) Board in Arrochar on Monday after a site visit…
Last week it was reported (see here, for example) that Forest and Land Scotland (FLS) are to buy 16,500 acres from the Glen Prosen estate for £25m to plant trees. This raises a number of important questions about land ownership and land-use in the Cairngorms National Park. It also illustrates some of the weaknesses with…
Urgent representations need to be made to members of the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government to stop the sale of Kinloch Castle and its grounds to an England based multimillionaire, Jeremy Hosking. The government body, NatureScot, who own most of Rum and manage it as a National Nature Reserve, aim to sell the castle…
A couple of weeks ago the latest accounts for Cairngorm Mountain (Scotland) Ltd (CMSL), Highland and Island Enterprise’s wholly owned subsidiary, were published (see here). They are a charade but confirm it is not just the financial liabilities created by the funicular which are the problem. While CMSL describes its principal activity as “the operation…
https://petitions.parliament.scot/petitions/PE1967 In February (see here) I looked at decision making by Transport Scotland on the A82 Tarbet to Inverarnan and the inaction of the National Park Authority. Their view has been that Transport Scotland is the statutory lead for major road development and that as a statutory consultee their main role is to comment once…
This post contains the third part of the report that was presented to Ivan McKee, the Minister responsible for Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) at the beginning of July (see here for background to the meeting and a note of the discussion). Draft Report in response to the financial crisis facing Cairngorm Part III…
This post contains the second part of the report (see here for first) that was presented to Ivan McKee, the Minister responsible for Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) at the beginning of July. Draft Report in response to the financial crisis facing Cairngorm Part II The bigger picture 4) What is needed at Cairn…
Introduction Following my post about the meeting between a concerned group of experts and Ivan McKee, the Scottish Government minister responsible for Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) (see here), parkswatch is publishing the report we discussed with him at the start of July over three posts. We presented the report as a draft and stated…
Most of my working life has been as a mechanic in various fields from commercial to private vehicles, so I have a practical and varied knowledge of mechanical engineering. In writing posts for parkswatch, I would hope it is obvious that I haven’t done all the work myself. I have been advised and assisted by…
Last week news emerged (see here) that the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) was proposing to sell off its former visitor centre in Luss. A paper was to be considered by the Board Meeting scheduled for today (see here) but, due to the death of the Queen, that meeting has been postponed…
Just four months after Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) bought back the lease for an undisclosed sum from the Camping and Caravanning Club (see here), the Strathy has revealed in an excellent article that this arm of the Scottish Government has not even shortlisted the Aviemore and Glenmore Community Trust (the AGCT) to operate the…
It was scorchingly hot when I started out on the Haute Route across the Pyrenees (see here) but it took me time to appreciate the impact this was having on the vegetation in the mountains. Almost all the flowers had gone, whether the land was grazed or not. Having not been to the Basque country before,…
Cover-up, incompetence, negligence or all three? At the end of my post in May (see here) I stated that the Scottish Government appeared at last to be realising that the business case presented by Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) for the repairs to the funicular railway was not as comprehensive as it should have been….
A couple of days after going to look at the botched Beauly Denny construction road restoration (see here) while walking north of Carrbridge, I came across a more recent example of SSE’s work to upgrade Scotland’s network of powerlines. Another landscape horror. In 2018, while visiting the Auchtertipper native woodland creation scheme on the Reforesting…
Following the local member elections on Thursday, the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) issued a news release with some brief biographical details about the successful candidates (see here). You can read the full results here. The LLTNPA news release announced that turnout was 31% across the National Park but did not…
Last month it was reported that Brewdog had been awarded over £1m in grants by Scottish Forestry Scotland as part of its Lost Forest project at Kinrara. The Scottish Forestry website is very hard to use – searches for Brewdog, Kinrara and on its land based database all come up blank – and I have…
I had been wanting to take a look at SSE’s “trial restoration areas” for the Beauly Denny powerline at Drumochter for several years and eventually managed to do so on Friday. Unlike the landscape scar immediately south of Balsporran Cottages and north Drumochter Lodge (see here), which is clearly visible as one travels through the…