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Bill McDermott adds his voice to the growing call for the National Park Authority to have Planning Powers |
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Bill McDermott adds his voice to the growing call for the National Park Authority to have Planning Powers |
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Cairngorms National Park Debate
The following letter is by Bill MCDermott
a member of the Scottish Council for National Parks who has
spoken to BSCG.
It was Published in the Scotsman of 2nd December 2002.
It raises the issue of pressure by
Highland Council on SNH - something that concerns BSCG and could
help explain why SNH has been reluctant to object to developments like
the ones at School Wood and Carrbridge in native pinewood in
Strathspey. Currently Highland Council has two Councillors on local
SNH boards one of these in Strathspey. Another Strathspey Councillor
is a former SNH board member.
Executive's boundary decision
makes no sense
I am glad to see that Professor Roger Crofts has
gone public in his criticism of the Scottish Executive's approach to
the designation of a national park in the Cairngorms (Letters, 23
November).
Perhaps, had Scottish Natural Heritage, with him as chief executive, been less equivocal in its advice to the government on the need for park authorities to be independent planning authorities, with full responsibility for all land use planning and control of development, we might not have been faced with the half-baked proposals in the final version of the Executive's draft designation order. On the other hand, who knows to what pressure SNH was subjected by an Executive desperate to keep Highland Council on board While SNH was widely acclaimed for its extensive (and expensive) consultation process in producing its proposal for the national park, a more critical examination of the facts shows it to have been a flawed exercise in regard to the planning issue. On boundaries, there was such an overwhelming view that the park should include the wider mountain massif that nobody could argue that the proposal did not reflect both a national and local perspective. Even then, the Executive has chosen to present a boundary which makes no sense in the context of the enabling legislation. In the absence of an explanation, many continue to suspect that this has everything to do with the compromise over planning responsibilities. Unlike the boundary issue, the widely-held view is that the planning issue is polarised between locals, who want the local authorities to remain in charge, and a national view, mostly represented by environmental groups, professional bodies and some agencies, that the national park authority should have full responsibility for planning. While accepting that the SNH consultation did show a spread of opinion, there was by no means a local view that planning should remain with the local authorities. WG McDERMOTT Drumnadrochit Inverness-shire ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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