YOUR VIEWS: Not for Highland Council to restrict parking and camping at Glenmore

Reference Pay and Display for parking at Glenmore (Strathy, front page, 7th September).

I have read the consultation and have responded to this arrogant document.

More and more we seem to be living in an environmental dictatorship with some of the decisions public agencies are making.

Balanced decision making seems to be difficult. I use what has happened to the improvements at Loch Morlich as an example.

Highland Council probably need the money to pay for the removal of the fantastic improvements they made at Loch Morlich last year.

We have very many visitors who are entitled to wild camp.

It is not for the council to try and restrict camping by parking regulations.

If camping restrictions are needed it is up to the Cairngorms National Park Authority to bring in a byelaw.

If visitors are expected to pay for parking during the day, there is no reason why they cannot pay at night and make more income for the council.

This decision would appear to me to be a misuse of the Road Traffic regulations Act.

Many visitors park their cars and visit the hills and stay away overnight.

Banning overnight parking will completely spoil the visitor’s enjoyment of the area.

If overnight camping is banned, where would the council expect cars to park?

It would be very unfair to expect visitors booking a reindeer tour to pay for parking for a very short stay while waiting for a guide. What happens in the winter outside Coire Cas car park?

On busy days in winter, under the control of Cairngorm staff, cars are often parked down to the Ciste turn off.

Many drivers are parking overnight at the Hayfield.

When the snow gates are closed many people waiting for the gates to open ski in the Hayfield.

On bad days some will carry their skis up the hill.

Should we expect them to pay if the gates are closed?

There are several events taking place each year at Glenmore.

Organisers preparing and administering the sites need to park overnight.

I suggest some of these events will be cancelled causing a financial loss to the community.

Ray Sefton

Aviemore.

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Countryside now being put out of bounds to many people

I think it’s pretty disgusting of Highland Council but not unexpected from them that they go to no expense to penalise you if you park overnight but not to invest in the infrastructure.

How much does it cost to pay someone and a vehicle to give you a ticket instead of upgrading the area and make it acceptable for everyone.

What about the people who have parked on that road to access the Lairig Ghru or Corrour Bothy and who want solitude in the mountains from the likes of the council and their parasitical profiteering of the motorist.

Between them and the government they’re making it a miserable place to live.

What next – a tax on the views from your window ?

The antisocial behaviour of emptying chemical toilets just doesn’t happen overnight, it could happen any time of the day if the chose to do it.

An overnight parking fee should be introduced.

Forestry Land and Scotland should be forced to open their parking spaces too at this time then this would mean more room and traffic would be spread out.

These people need to realise this is our country and they should be made to manage it on our behalf for us.

I’ve been vaning for decades and now it’s been taking away because of irresponsible drivers .

Put up cameras and if anybody is seen doing anything untoward then they should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

Instead of locking down this country again, the council should be made to open it up.

Then it would create a wider space instead of everybody trying to cram into a smaller one.

Campsites are just not the answer as they are always full.

I don’t look forward to the future as a mountaineer who loves to explore all the crooks and crannies of this country as my right to park overnight is been taking away all the time by a council who should be encouraging it.

Pat Ingram

Muir of Ord.

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‘Trying living here in Glenmore and see what you think then’

I refer to your front page article on plans for car parking charges at Glenmore and subsequent thoughts from Colin Cadden.

As a resident of Glenmore for 50 years, ex-forestry worker and along with neighbours we are wholly behind the parking plan.

It’s all very well locals, meaning Aviemore residents etc, being against this plan but they don’t have to put up with motor homes, caravannetes, cars, tourist buses all parked in front of their houses, blocking and spoiling their views rather than using the car parks provided.

We never seemed to have this issue years ago.

There is also the safety element where the public have to walk on the road, sometimes with young children in tow and babies in prams.

The best idea would be to make a pavement from opposite Reindeer Centre to Hayfield and have double yellow lines.

During really busy times there is parking on either side of the road causing congestion.

The visitors park anywhere. Police? They are nowhere to be seen. Forestry and Land Scotland? They are nowhere to be seen.

The car parks are now being used as overnight stays. Obviously the motorists cannot read the signs and nobody is checking.

Alastair Dow

Glenmore.

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Fingers being pointed in the wrong direction on A9 dualling failure

We would all love the A9 to already be dualled (Highland campaigner Laura Hansler secures a committee inquiry into A9 dualling failures, Strathy online).

For 40 years the failings of successive UK governments contributed to the deaths on the A9.

I policed the A9 in the early 1990s when deaths were very frequent.

We pleaded then for action. But nothing come forth from London .

They put up barriers to improvement at every turn. It was only when the cameras went up thanks to the SNP’s devolved government that things began to improve.

The UK Government has invested zero in Scottish infrastructure since devolution.

The A9 is a national artery deserving of UK cash. This campaigner is blaming the wrong people.

Contractors are out to make a fast buck and the Scottish Govenment’s hands are financially restrained.

She should aim her anger at the Westminster Government. If this is a UK, it’s time they invested in Scotland.

Colin Laing

Perth.

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Scottish Government must give us answers

It seems that the Scottish Government is more interested in covering up it’s own inadequacies than serving the public.

(Transport Scotland it is ‘not in the public interest’ to reveal A9 decisions, Strathy online).

What a feeble excuse of keeping these matters secret in the name of quality policy and decision-making – what a myth that is.

Do we live in a democracy, or has the Scottish Government now decided in its ivory tower that it knows what is good for the people of Scotland – keeping them in ignorance whilst they squander taxpayers’ money!

Gordon Bulloch

Grantown.

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Scotland is lagging so far behind on looking after holiday-makers

What an absolute disgrace it is that Highland Council intends to bring in pay and display and overnight restrictions on parking at Glenmore.

I am a member of the Perth Mountaineering Club.

We love exploring the hills and glens and also stay overnight in bothies.

If we are stopped from parking our cars and vans overnight, then how can we continue to travel and explore and stay overnight on the hills and in bothies etc.

This is another disasterous example of looking at drivers as an easy stream of cash inflow.

Just look at the NC500 – nowhere to park, nowhere to stay; toilets closed and locked and just locals given keys.

I do a lot of travelling and want to be able to stop and explore when I see stunning scenery but it is almost impossible now.

Highland Council and the other local public agencies needs to look at places like Australia, New Zealand and United States with fabulous national parks, plenty of parking and toilets and even free barbecue stop over locations.

We are becoming the laughing stock of Europe and the world and certainly not tourist friendly.

This is so short-sighted.

Dennis Underwood

Dunkeld

Perth.

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Mind where you step in woods by Loch Morlich

Is this what you want to see hanging from a tree while walking around the scenic Loch Morlich in a national park?

The question is where is this toilet roll being used (see opposite page)? In amongst the ferns?

Helen Taylor

Oldham.

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Renewable energy... strategy or delusion?

Correspondent Geoff Moore (Strathy, letters, August 24) accuses me of ‘appalling delusion’ that energy storage, such as pumped water, will solve the problem of intermittent solar and wind power.

If he is correct, then so too must the UK Government’s Energy Security Strategy be deluded.

I am unsure about his numbers.

That for UK primary energy consumption, including electricity, is exceeded 150 times by electricity generated in 2021 according to the Government’s Energy Trends: UK Electricity.

He estimates a two-week energy storage need as 2/52 of a year’s total energy consumption.

But storage is needed only for energy supply that is intermittent, e.g. wind and sun, not all energy as he calculates.

The Energy Security Strategy includes steady supply of energy from nuclear energy and fossil fuels combined with carbon capture and storage (CCS), among other sources.

Geoff’s anxiety is partially met by the Climate Change Committee (CCC) report of March 2023 ‘Delivering a reliable decarbonised power system’.

It sets out how the UK can meet its energy needs, even with greater future variability in weather, and at least doubling of our electricity demand by 2050, to meet the climate crisis.

The Climate Change Committee’s recommended solutions for intermittent wind and sun include trading energy with neighbouring countries when some have surplus and others have deficit, making and storing hydrogen when there is much wind and sun, pumped storage of water, for which more is planned than Geoff lists, compressed air, batteries for ‘hours-to-days’ storage, and consumers’ smart shifting of demand to times in the day when energy is plentiful.

Nevertheless, Geoff’s anxiety is valid, even if somewhat misdirected.

The CCC finds that the UK Government’s targets of decarbonising our electricity supply by 2035 are achievable but that progress towards achieving them is inadequate.

Without more rapid progress, the UK net-zero strategy may well be delusional.

Dermot Williamson

Kincraig.

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‘Be careful what you ask for on trespass’

Right to roam activists are planning to trespass along the English-Scottish border.

They want a change in English law to increase public access to the countryside since at present access is unavailable to over 92 per cent of the English countryside.

They are doing this since last year the UK government quashed a review into the right to roam in England’s countryside, amid anger from campaigners that the law of trespass stops people from walking freely around the country.

Well the Scottish Right to roam is not exactly a shining green beacon as is evidenced by the litter and antisocial behaviour in Scotland including our two national parks.

Wild camping, stag parties and even picnics result in litter, tents and barbecues abandoned, discarded drinks bottles and cans and of course human waste.

Animals and birds have been trapped in the assorted mess left behind.

Then there is the problem of dogs. Every year over 15,000 sheep in the UK are killed by dogs and the cost is £1.3 million every year. It is a pity Scotland does not have a law of trespass like England.

Clark Cross

Linlithgow.

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