Questions of public access to Cairn Gorm

WE WELCOME the decision to provide guided walks from the top of the funicular railway to the summit of Cairn Gorm (your report, 7 July).

The project will allow more people to enjoy the high tops and is unlikely to compromise the closed system which restricts general public access from the funicular.

This was a key planning condition agreed to when approval to build the funicular was granted in 1999. Such a condition was an unfortunate consequence of the determination of Highlands and Islands Enterprise to build the funicular along the same alignment as the original chairlift. They ignored recommendations to change the alignment to ensure that the top station of the funicular was at a lower altitude, near the base of the Ptarmigan bowl. Such a change would have produced a top station and restaurant facility that provided equally good access to the snow slopes, a better view across the northern corries of the Cairngorms, the opportunity to develop a new network of walking and mountain biking routes and made the closed system for public access unnecessary.

The failure of HIE to properly discharge its responsibilities in the Cairngorms has been severely criticised recently by the Auditor General for Scotland and the Scottish Parliament's public audit committee. As you report, poor business management by HIE resulted in a project initially costing 14.87 million rising to a final cost of 26.8m of which 23m came from the public sector. Now HIE wants to spend a further 4m of public money on Cairn Gorm with no sign that they have learnt anything from their previous mistakes.

Now we have a National Park in the Cairngorms, surely this is the time for the Park Authority to bring all stakeholders in the Cairngorms, both local and national, around the table to discuss access as a whole to Cairn Gorm? Guided walks to the summit is one issue but more fundamental questions now need to be asked. Should public road access be stopped at Glenmore, with a shuttle bus service up to Coire Cas and Coire na Ciste; should the car parks on the mountain be removed and replaced by better designed parking facilities embedded within the woodland in Glenmore; should HIE spend their 4m on a gondola uplift facility from Glenmore to the base of the funicular? All these issues need to be addressed now, before HIE is allowed to spend any more public money on the mountain.

DAVE MORRIS

Director, Ramblers Scotland

Milnathort, Kinross