When I stumbled across an unburied hydro pipeline in the Lakes recently (see here) it got me thinking about whether it might not be far less destructive and better for the landscape and natural environment if we left hydro pipelines above the ground. I could not help comparing that scheme in the Lakes to what…
Tag: Scottish Government
Following my post (see here) on the new planning application from Flamingo Land to develop much of the Riverside and Woodbank sites at Balloch, opposition to their revised proposals appears to be growing. The debate in the Scottish Parliament Yesterday, there was a debate in the Scottish Parliament, sponsored and led by Green MSP Ross…
[After publishing this post I was sent a couple of photos by Dave Morris, who had just spent a night in a campervan parked next door to a beaver lodge and the habitat they had created. Duncan Halley, a Scot resident in Norway helped facilitate the translocation of beavers for the Knapdale re-introduction]. At their…
A day after the initial consultation (see here) about creating a new National Park in Scotland closed, there was a Scottish Government sponsored debate in the Scottish Parliament on the issue, introduced by the responsible junior Minister, Green MSP Lorna Slater. (You can view the proceeedings here or read the official report here). While there…
When you see bizarre claims on a sign once they are easy to dismiss as the product of a landowner’s fevered mind. This, however, is the second sign I have come across in the last year that claims “red culls” are carried out “By Order of the Scottish Government”. (Apologies I cannot recall the location…
[Apologies, I made an error in my explanation of the law below and have updated this post. A full understanding of Board membership requires interpretation of the 2000 Parks Act, which is less than clear in this area, and incorporation of the separate designation orders and modification orders for the two Parks] Under the National…
Last month, in a great piece of investigative journalism (see here), Rob Edwards from the Ferret obtained a copy of a document called the “Salisbury Crags Rock Risk Management Options Appraisal 2021” from Historic Environment Scotland (HES). This revealed that HES are seriously considering trying to close the Radical Road in Edinburgh permanently. Although I,…
On Thursday, the Scottish Government’s Biodiversity Minister, the Green MSP Lorna Slater, who also has responsibility for National Parks, launched a consultation (see here for news release) on creating a third National Park in Scotland. It is to credit of the Greens that they have forced the Scottish Government to reverse their longstanding opposition to…
I have not blogged about the destruction caused by the Beauly Denny powerline construction since last July (see here). But each time I cross the Drumochter the scars left by SSE (formerly Scottish and Southern Electricity) appear just as bad and I have been meaning to go back and take a closer look at how…
It turns out that the financial disaster at Cairngorm is going to be even worse than Parkswatch predicted (see here). Not only are the funicular repair costs increasing but, as Martin Williams revealed in the Herald on Sunday 9 days ago (see here), there is no money to pay for this, let alone the annual…
On 25th February Forestry and Land Scotland and Forestry England issued a joint news release (see here) announcing that they had acquired the Camping and Caravanning Club (CCC)’s majority stake in Camping in the Forest (CITF) which manages three campsites in prime locations in Scotland’s National Parks: at Glenmore in the Cairngorms; Cashel on Loch…
“Monachyle Wood”, at the west end of Loch Voil in the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park, is being marketed by John Clegg, part of Strutt and Parker, at offers over £6,250,000 for 621 hectares (see here). The history of this plantation provides a good example of public sector financial mismanagement in favour of private…
On Friday the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) announced a swingeing increase (see here) in the fees it charges campers: from £3 to £4 or 33% per night for anyone wanting to camp in a permit area – places without any facilities – in one of the camping management zones; and from…
Inchconnachan, the Loch Lomond island, has been in news recently because of the proposals to get rid of its wallabies. This is linked to the planning application (see here) that has been submitted by the new owners, Kirsty Young and her husband Nick Jones, to develop luxury tourist accommodation on the island, part of the…
John Sinclair sent parkswatch more photos of the Allt Charnan two days ago. The water is not as cloudy as it was last month, when it featured in my post on the environmental damage that is being caused by the construction of the seven hydro schemes in Glen Etive (see here): But two days ago…
I was away up near Ullapool last week. Driving up the A9 the snow had helped pick out the muirburn in Glen Truim, north of the Drumochter and Dalwhinnie. Much of the hillside below the telecommunications mast, which is on land that appears to be owned by the North Drumochter Estate, would quickly regenerate as…
The same flock of sheep that are slowly killing off part of the Coille Coire Chuilc Caledonian Pine remnant (see here) appear to be destroying areas of peat bog on the broad summit ridge of Fiarach, the hill above. It’s on the same landholding, Auchreoch, bought by Richard Bayman Lewis of Killin for £240k in 2014….
In November I spent an hour or so on the eastern side of Coille Coire Chuilc, north west of Crianlarich (for maps showing location see below). The wood (“coille”) is the second most southerly fragment of the Caledonian Pine Forest in Scotland and protected as such, being a Site of Special Scientific Interest and being…
As a campaigner who is trying to change how Scotland’s two National Parks are managed, I am always pleased when posts are picked up by the mainstream media. I never expected my blog on the Royal Family and COP26 (see here) to end up on the front page of the Scottish edition of The Times…
While working on my last post criticising the response of the leadership of the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority to the climate emergency (see here), I had no idea of the damage that had by wrought by Storm Arwen at Stronachlachar in the Trossachs. My thanks to the Steamship Trust for including parkswatch…
The Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) website has had a makeover. If you click on their site address https://www.lochlomond-trossachs.org/ you are greeted by a photo of a digger in the uplands, the hashtag slogan “Let’s do net zero” and a page of links to information on various aspects of the “climate emergency…
The Abergeldie Estate, which I referred to in my post on the Royal Family last week (see here), is now under offer. That is hardly surprising. There are plenty of billionaires in the world for whom forking out £23m to become neighbours of the Royal Family is small change. Whether the prospective buyer will be…
There are lots of good aspirations in the draft Cairngorms National Park Partnership Plan (NPPP), which is out for public consultation until 17th December (see here), but at the heart of its plan for nature is an unambitious target for carbon emissions. The effect of this will be to allow unsustainable management of land to…
The divurgence between how people in Glasgow have welcome people to the COP -26 summit has been been most interesting. On the one hand sections of the population profiteering through exorbitant charges for accommodation – one wonders if any of the hotels or landlords charging delegates £1000s to stay will invest those profits in making…
“We need farmers”. Speaking in Glasgow on 2 Nov, alongside First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and young activists, the former Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Christiana Figueres, emphasised the role of farmers in making a “step change in our relationship to the natural world”. Such a step change was “really…