Move to extend national park is rejected by MSPs

Published on Tuesday 6 March 2007 03:45

MSPs have rejected a call to extend the Cairngorms National Park into Highland Perthshire, effectively killing off any possibility of enlarging it in the near future.

Holyrood's environment and rural development committee said it was rejecting a proposal by John Swinney, the SNP MSP for North Tayside, to extend the park by 300sq miles. MSPs said they had sympathy with his arguments but did not believe his member's bill was the right approach.

The Executive will next year review all aspects of the park, including its boundaries, and the committee decided it was best to leave any discussion on the size of the park to that review.

However, the decision was reached only after a close vote, which ended up five to four against Mr Swinney's bill.

The committee split along party lines, with MSPs from the coalition Labour and Liberal Democrat parties voting to reject the bill and all other MSPs backing it.

The Cairngorms park covers 1,466sq miles and Mr Swinney wanted it extended to include the Forest of Atholl, including Blair Atholl, the Beinn Udlamain mountain group to the west of the A9 and an area around the A93 including Glas Tulaichean and the Spittal of Glenshee.

However, Sarah Boyack, the deputy environment minister, told the committee that would cost an extra 150,000 a year.

Mr Swinney said he regretted the committee's decision, particularly as it had not contradicted or disputed any of the evidence he had put forward.