Wind farms and housing will destroy ‘wildness’ of national park

Published on Saturday 26 November 2011 13:00

BRITAIN’S largest national park is in danger of losing its unique “sense of wildness” due to the damaging effect of wind farms and a proposed housing development, outdoor enthusiasts have claimed.

In a strongly-worded response to the Cairngorms National Park Authority’s draft plan for 2012-2017, the Mountaineering Council of Scotland (MCofS) has urged planners to ensure there is no further loss of natural habitat.

The council highlights the impact of wind farm developments and a housing project, which it claims will have an adverse effect on the natural landscape.

Similar concerns were raised by the director of planning for Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park. Gordon Watson said yesterday regular applications for wind farms close to the edge of the national park were putting treasured landscapes and views at risk.

“It is a worry,” he said. “It isn’t just about the impact on the landscape and environment but on the tourism economy as well.

“If you are sitting in a boat on Loch Lomond with turbines on the horizon in every direction then is the experience still as good and what impact does it have on people’s wish to come and visit?”

In its statement, the mountaineering council, which represents 11,000 walkers and climbers, say: “It is the wildness of the arctic-alpine zone, and the opportunities for quiet recreation and physical challenge both in those areas, and on lowland crags, that makes the national park special to mountaineers.

“The feeling of wildness is central to the special experience that the park offers.

“There is great urgency to address the threat of a reduced sense of wildness as a result of the visual impact of development.

“The minimum should be to achieve no loss during 2012-17 as wildness is frequently lost through both incremental and major developments.”

MCofS says wildness is one of the defining features of the park and that it is the “glue” for the identity of the scenic area.

It believes the CNPA faces a particular challenge in ensuring the landscape context of the park does not become a ring of wind farm developments.

“There is already a significant impact on the special qualities of the park which are threatened by the numerous developments constructed or planned close to the boundary of the park.

“Many are highly visible from core upland areas within the park, and are having a significant impact on the wild quality.

“These are primarily wind energy developments, which pose an immediate and growing threat as the cumulative impacts are already evident, and there are more applications in the planning system.

“This is a challenge that needs to be urgently and consistently addressed by the CNPA, which should exert as much pressure as possible on decisions outside the national park.”

The group has also reiterated its opposition to the proposed new town of An Camas Mòr at Aviemore because the development would “change the character of the park and detract from the communities’ ‘sense of place’ in the landscape”.

It welcomes a project to address erosion caused by human activity in the hills and supports the continuation of the “closed system” on the Cairngorm funicular mountain railway which stops users getting out and walking on the mountain summit.

Comments

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7

Ron Greer

Sunday, November 27, 2011 at 11:32 AM

6 Libra Do you think they should adopt the same policy in the Fennoscandian nationl parks?

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6

Libra Personified

Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 08:20 PM

Too many people in Scotland welcome Scotland being a wilderness. Let's face it we could grind down a mountain or 3 and still have plenty to spare.======================== The footslopes of Scottish mountains should be towns too - not wildernesses to satisfy the whims of the few.

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Greenheatman

Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 05:57 PM

The problem is that politicians only listen to 'self-appointed experts' drawn from the renewable energy industry so no matter what others say including royalty, they blunder on with the mantra that puny intermittent renewables is going to mitigate climate change. The best that renewable energy can do is to slow down the rate at which we are burning the planet's dwindling supplies of fossil fuels which could run out by 2050! Only when fossil fuels are all gone then we will realised that we have all been conned with promises of 100% renewables which will never happen - ever.

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Ron Greer

Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 05:48 PM

Alan, Your reactions to the tenure system and ethos of our so-called national parks in Scotland is very understandable and accords well with those of my friends and colleagues from the USA and the Fennoscandian nations, who, like you, were familiar with real national parks at home. What is really astounding is that prominent SNP personnae such as the MSP John Swinney, whose constituency contains much of the Cairngorm park, and the erstwhile Environment Minister and erstwhile radical land reformer, Roseanna Cunningham, just refuse to see the incongruity and tragic irony of being in a Scottish National Party that thinks that Scottish National Parks should NOT be owned by the Scottish nation. Perhaps they lost their way on the walk up through Strath Chicanery, through Glen Gerrymander to Beinn Oxymoron? After 20 years of talking and indeed campaigning with them, I can only assume that they have somehow been traduced and suborned by the land monopoly vested interests that run Scotland through the back door, into reneging on the strategic land reform, they and their party once promised the Scottish people.

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william

Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 05:17 PM

I think that it is time for all parties who are against the prolification of wind farms and even individual turbines to come together to say that enough is enough. There is obviously so much opposition to these that it is surprising that this has not come about, and I am surprised that the Scottish Government -- who have a respected "renewables" view -- has not become more involved ,in light of so many throughout Scotland voicing their displeasure at these structures.

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Peter Adams

Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 04:42 PM

“These are primarily wind energy developments, which pose an immediate and growing threat as the cumulative impacts are already evident, and there are more applications in the planning system.” These are yet more examples of Salmond’s renewable mania and the subsidy addicted developers destroying our landscape. Any highly expensive electricity produced is not even to the benefit of the locals although some communities will get “hush money” to stop them complaining. This doesn’t help either the communities or our tourist industry as who in the future would want to visit our turbine blighted countryside.

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Alan Craigie

Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 02:06 PM

Obviously Scotland has a different meaning to the term National Park than I'm used to from growing up in Canada. Seems it means Industrial Park here. Very sad for future generations.

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