Nugget of unrest over gold mine plan

Scotgold Resources Limited has applied for permission to extract 72,000 tonnes of ore annually for up to ten years at the Cononish Goldmine, near Tyndrum, in the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park.

The local community council has thrown its support behind the project, saying it could generate 1.5 million for the local economy each year and create 60 jobs. However, other groups are vigorously opposed to it, warning that it will create an "industrial" mine that will be visible from many parts of what is a wilderness area.

They say the gold mine goes against the National Park Authority's duty to conserve the natural heritage of the region.

It would be built next to Scotland's most popular long-distance route, the West Highland Way, along which up to 50,000 visitors walk every year.

Robert Maund, chairman of the Scottish Campaign for National Parks, said the gold mine would "industrialise" the national park.

He said: "The landform would be unnatural and the effect would be to create, within the national park, something akin to a major opencast operation for a period of up to ten years or longer."

He said the plans seemed to have been stimulated by "what might prove a temporary surge in world gold prices brought about by the current financial crisis".

However, Strathfillan Community Council chairman John Riley said they were confident all the necessary precautions would be taken while the mine was operating, and that "appropriate rectification of the landscape will be undertaken afterwards".

He pointed out that the "flagging economy" would be boosted by 1.5 million a year and about 60 jobs would be created. He said that, even after the mine closed again, the local community would benefit in the form of a visitor centre.

"The interpretive centre including a shop selling and maybe making jewellery made from Scottish gold will remain," he said.

The application is the biggest yet considered by the parks authority. If it goes ahead, mining will take place between 7am and 11pm every day of the week, apart from Sundays.

Board members face a difficult decision, trying to reconcile seemingly conflicting aims set out in the legislation under which the national park was created. This demands that the authority aims both to conserve the natural heritage of the area, and to promote economic development of local communities.

Simon Jones, director of the Friends of Loch Lomond and the Trossachs, said

that if there is a conflict between conservation and any of the other aims in the act, "we must give greater weight to the first aim".

Park chief executive Fiona Logan acknowledged the competing aims of the park authority, which it will have to try to reconcile when it tries to reach a decision in June. She said:

"Consideration of the potential impacts must also be weighed with the undoubted socio-economic benefits the proposal could bring."

Scotgold Resources Limited is a subsidiary of an Australian firm. Chris Sangster, the chief executive, said he believed the gold mine was "in accordance with the aims of the park", and added: "Our application has gone as far as we possibly can to mitigate any impacts."

A consultation into the Cononish Gold Mine application closes on 12 March.