Sack peak chiefs call
?
CONSERVATIONISTS are calling on the Government to “sack” the Highlands and Islands Development Board as managers of the controversial Cairngorm estate.
They say control of the estate’s site of special scientific interest should pass to the Nature Conservancy Council and the remainder to the Forestry Commission.
Badenoch and Strathspey Conservation Group chairman, Pat Wells, says such a move would end “the costly saga of the Northern Corries”.
She added: “During their 20 years as landowners of the estate, the board have clearly demonstrated their inability to manage such a sensitive and valuable environment, or to control the environmentally-damaging activities of their tenants.”
In her annual report she slates the board and regional council over the decision to give the go-ahead to the Cairngorm Chairlift Co for additional snow fencing.
“In years to come, more people than just the active conservationists of today will see the decision to allow development westwards, with concomitant destruction of valuable natural resource, as a bad decision and a serious indictment of those individuals who, in 1986, had the power to influence decisions on land use.”
Mrs Wells continued: “If the chairlift company get their way, future generations will have only our descriptions – and a mass of ironmongery and scars to look, just like Coire Cas.”
Council told: mind your own business!
AN ANGRY Newtonmore parent has hit out at his local community council for “poking their noses into business that doesn’t concern them”.
Ken Taylor claimed a number of local parents were upset by councillors’ references to under-age motorcyclists endangering themselves and other residents in the village.
“Most of these youngsters just push their motorbike up the Glen Road and then ride them about on the hill,” he told the ‘Herald’.
“There will be the odd one who jumps on the way up but I certainly don’t see them riding about the streets.”
“Nor are they terrifying old ladies in the village who would be much more frightened by the low-flying aircraft whose pilots are not called ‘tearaways’.”
Mr Taylor suggested the community council should look more closely at the lack of facilities for young people in the village.
“They should leave the local bobby and parents to look after the children and stop poking their noses into something that doesn’t concern them,” he added.
X-ray ‘no’ bitter pill for doctors
THERE will be no radiographer for Aviemore Health Centre’s £20,000 X-ray unit which GPs have been told to operate themselves.
Highland Health Board’s chief medical officer Dr Alex Morrison told local health councillors that the doctors agreed at the outset to operate the machine and the 200 x-rays a year did not justify the appointment of a full-time radiographer.
The x-ray unit has been idle since the new Aviemore Health Centre opened two years ago.
“As the time to operate the machine came near, people may have had second thoughts about what they agreed to,” said Dr Morrison.
Aviemore district councillor Miss Mairi MacSween said local GPs and residents were anxious to have a working X-ray service in the village.
“Although the bulk of X-rays in winter are from ski accidents, local doctors are very concerned about the care of own patients in a fairly large practice,” she said.
Badenoch and Strathspey Local Health Council member, Mike Eley, Kingussie, said a local x-ray service could make the board considerable savings in transporting x-ray patients by ambulance to Inverness.
Pitch under threat
NEIGHBOURS have shown the red card to a Grantown youth organisation which wants to provide an all-weather five-a-side football pitch.
They say shouting, cheering and excess noise will be detrimental to amenities and seriously disturb staff working in an adjoining office block.
Now Badenoch and Strathspey divisional planning committee will be recommending at their meeting to reject the application.
Grantown YMCA want to provide the floodlit outdoor sports area on land at the rear of their High Street community centre.
But John Partridge, divisional planning officer, who is recommending refusal, will tell his committee: “The proposal is, in my opinion, incompatible with the residential and office properties in the vicinity of the site.
“I am unable to offer any conditions which could be imposed on the consent and which could sufficiently ameliorate the potential nuisance as to render it acceptable from an environmental point of view.”
One of the objectors, McLeod Building Ltd, whose offices are next door to the proposed area, claimed excess noise would seriously disturb its working environment.
“Shouting and cheering is quite understandable at a football match, but is not conducive to a busy office,” says Alistair McLeod, managing director.
Wheels in motion for Speyside Tour
THREE hectic days of meetings have set the wheels turning on one of the biggest cycle road race events planned in the Scottish Highlands.
More than 60 of the country’s top riders are expected to converge on the Spey Valley next June for a two-day four-stage road race.
The gruelling 148-mile race in the shadow of Scotland’s highest peaks will take riders from the Tarmaced roads of the valley’s all-the-year-round leisure centre at Aviemore to 2,200 ft and the foothills of the Cairngorms.