Vehicle Hill Tracks

A year ago, I wrote about vehicle hill tracks. In the last edition of Mountain Views, we showed a copy of our reply to the Cairngorms National Park Authority’s draft planning policy on Vehicle Hill Tracks.

Well, events have continued to move on. Back in 2003 following numerous letters of objection from both NEMT and our individual members to Aberdeenshire Council, MPs and MSPs, Invercauld Estate did apply for retrospective planning permission four days before the Cairngorms National Park planning powers came into effect. Again, NEMT members and the trust itself have written numerous letters of objection to this retrospective application. Our perseverance has paid off.

The issue got six minutes on Landward just before Christmas. Although BBC Scotland weren’t allowed to film in the glen itself, our team were able to provide photographs to demonstrate what had happened over the last few years.

On Monday 20th December 2004, there was a site meeting to take the matter further. This was led by SNH and two NEMT Members were invited to attend. The minutes of this meeting are too long for this article. In summary, the following was agreed:

• There will be a further site meeting with the contractor, who will actually carry out the work, to agree the details of the work that will be required. This will be in terms of landscaping, drainage and culverts and stabilisation of the scree to return the site to an acceptable standard whilst not removing the new track;
• Aberdeenshire Council will revisit their policy on evolved tracks. (Evolved tracks come about over time and whilst not as a result of a specific bulldozing operations they are of course just as destructive to the landscape);
• Scottish Natural Heritage will check their photographs and notes on the Fairy Glen to see if any factual information can be established about track evolution in this glen;
• There was agreement that all parties should work together on a management plan for the area. The estate see improved access as essential to meet the increased deer cull numbers requested by the Deer Management Commission and fully supported by ourselves.

Pessimists will see this as leading to a probable climb down. I prefer a more optimistic view. There is precedence for full removal of such tracks where retrospective planning permission is ultimately refused. Even if the track remains, the site will have to be returned to an acceptable standard and the costs of doing this will act as a powerful disincentive to estates who are thinking of putting in crudely bulldozed tracks in the future. Working together on improved management plans for such areas provides a huge opportunity to build a partnership to get this right in the future.

Most importantly, the discussion moves the whole issue of planning into centre stage. It cannot be fudged over any more. Aberdeenshire Council have accepted that more specific guidance needs to be developed, particularly for evolved tracks. The Park Authority should now start to follow this and other leads. In this context, the work by the National Trust for Scotland on vehicle track removal on the neighbouring Mar Lodge Estate can be seen as setting a standard for the rest of the Park to apply.

Subsequent discussions within NEMT have crystallised our views as follows:

• This is a significant issue and we need to continue to campaign hard to turn the presumption from tacitly allowing these tracks to be built to the presumption that no further development of any vehicle tracks is allowed.
• We have asked to speak at the Marr area planning committee meeting when the application will be heard. We must use all avenues to ensure that we do get to speak.
• We need to work for a more radical approach to the problem. For example, if ponies are used to bring out deer carcasses, then a major widening influence will be removed. Working together will be most important. Path repair teams need to take more care when vehicles are used to bring in people and materials. In this case, UDAT work on hillwalking paths has contributed to widening and erosion. In other words, we are part of the problem and we need to be careful about trying to take the moral high ground.
• We have written to the CNPA asking them to delay finalising their draft planning guidance on Hill Tracks until some of the detailed issues raised by the Invercauld application have been resolved.
• We have collected together some information on precedents. We need to collect more and we need to improve our links with other similar NGOs to campaign to greater effect on this and other issues.

I started by noting that a lot is happening on this subject. I’m sure that it will feature highly in the next edition of Mountain Views. We need help in campaigning on this issue. Please let us know if you would like to help. I would like to finish this piece by thanking the two Kenny’s, Phil and Alisdair whose persistence in writing letters and never giving up has been the basis for the success so far.

Thank you very much.

David Windle

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