The foot and mouth crisis and the proposed Land Reform Bill have put access issues at the top of the outdoors agenda but it seems Ardverikie Estate is setting their own access agenda, according to Dave Hewitt.
Of the many worrying aspects of the draft land reform bill (which recently came to the end of its public consultation period having prompted over 3500 responses), the control of high ground access is among the most concerning. While Scotland's tens of thousands of hillgoers seem incapable of agreeing on most issues, one thing which does unite us is the defence, at all costs, of our hard-won rights to freely roam the hills and glens.
At all costs. Free access. Both phrases reinforce the belief that while land itself might be subject to the secular processes of buying and selling, the underlying essence of the hills - the open space, the fresh air, the wind and weather - is not in any way swayed by pricing strategies or the market economy. Going to the hills is about absenting yourself, however briefly, from a bureaucratic world where everything is controlled, managed, paid for. The hills are about freedom and ever will be. There ain't nothing fiscal about the Fiacaill ridge.
So it was with interest that I received a copy of a letter sent by Ardverikie Estate to Lochaber High School in mid-May, in response to an enquiry from a school party wishing to spend time in the Ardverikie hills in early June. Ardverikie is a great sweep of upland stretching south from Loch Laggan, covering 37,000 acres and including several chunky hill ranges. Organised groupings such as that from Lochaber often contact any estate they intend to visit, out of courtesy, so there was nothing untoward or unprecedented in the original letter. Besides, the teacher in charge - Derek Hamilton - was checking whether any access restrictions remained from the foot and mouth crisis. It was the response from Ardverikie Estate which caused the kerfuffle.
The reply was signed by the resident factor Peter Bruce, on behalf of CKD Finlayson Hughes, the agents who oversee the estate's affairs. While not placing any formal obstacles in the school's path, Bruce's opening statement indicated immediately something of the attitude in play here. "I can see no problem with granting access for the (requested) dates," he wrote. Very nice of him but it is questionable whether any estate has the right to grant (or, presumably, to refuse) responsible public access as things stand. That kind of language is, however, a function of the traditional us-and-them feel of Scottish land debate, with patriarchal landowners seeing themselves as benevolently tolerating great hordes of unwashed hillgoers.
It was the second paragraph of Bruce's letter which raised the real concern. "Due to the ever increasing number of requests for access and their subsequent permissions," Bruce continued, "the estate now advises groups or individuals that a donation can be made to Ardverikie Estate Ltd. The estate is run and managed as a commercial venture and whilst we are very happy to accommodate requests such as yours whenever possible, I am sure you appreciate the time and disturbance involved. The recommended donation is £30 and will be gratefully received, however I must point out that this donation is purely voluntary and has no bearing on your permission." The letter ended with a disclaimer in which Ardverikie accepts no liability for damage or injuries caused by the school party's activities and insists that "you or your group relieve the estate of any claim from your party's being on the estate".
Any cash for access request is likely to prompt outrage amongst the hillgoing community and the strength of feeling against a "recommended donation" is well expressed by Derek Hamilton himself. "The whole thing is just nonsense," he says. "I've often contacted estates before and there's never been any suggestion of money. When I initially phoned the Ardverikie office I was told the request was to cover "administration costs" - but what is there to administer? We were just walking to Loch Pattack to camp in the hills."
Aware that a Kirkintilloch school party had been asked for - and had paid - a similar "donation" last year, Hamilton simply ignored the Ardverikie request and took his party in as planned. No vehicles were used, no gates had to be opened, no mess was left. Nothing needed to be "administered".
Concerned about the precedent being set, I contacted Peter Bruce by email and asked a series of questions. He took the trouble to reply personally within a couple of days and at some length, starting with a response to the obvious background enquiry - why ask for donations?
"Over the last five years," Bruce said, "the estate has been approached by an increasing number of groups who specifically want to take organised, or on occasion commercial, access - Duke of Edinburgh parties, school camping trips, army manoeuvres, climbing camps etc - and often a fair degree of organisation and logistics (are) involved. In order to accommodate these requests the estate sometimes needs to reorganise other activities or to ask those taking access to reschedule their proposals around what is going on on the estate.
"The estate is a multi-activity business with an active sheep farm, outside graziers, commercial forestry operations, a large hydroelectric generating station, a deer forest with let stalking, holiday cottages, mineral extraction, fishing and most recently filming, ranging from Monarch of the Glen to Songs of Praise on the beach of Loch Laggan.
"The estate is also of course home to a large number of employees and tenants, including holiday visitors who pay for enjoyment of the whole estate. Economics and jobs are important. All these activities and the people involved in them often overlap, both in terms of timing and location and to try to make sure that third parties taking access on the estate can do so in a way that they want to. Gates can need unlocking to let vehicles through, staff going about the many activities on the estate need to know who else is going to be around where and when etc - often for safety as much as anything else. This all takes time, organisation and expense, all of which would otherwise be devoted to commercial estate activities."
As to the nitty-gritty of how the request works, Bruce notes that "it was decided that people would be given a chance to make a donation. The "recommendation" is there because the next question is always how much should we give. No condition attaches to it and people walking and climbing on the estate with or without "permission" are not treated any differently. People walking and climbing alone or in groups of two or three generally don't write, although often they may contact the estate office or stalkers during the stalking season to check whether a particular route will disturb what's going on."
Bruce was at pains to point out that this was a donation, not a charge, "The estate does not require anybody to ask for formal permission to walk the hills, nor does it charge them to do so. If people want to ask (a great many do), then they do so and if people want to make a donation (and a great many do), they do so. Both the asking and the donation are entirely at the discretion of people coming to the estate. That so many people ask and also that so many people wish to donate, seems to indicate both a natural courtesy and an understanding of estate life and in many cases is part of a long-term link with the estate."
Hmm. Strictly speaking a donation is a donation but it's human nature that once the issue of cash is aired, people will often cough up if only for peace of mind and avoidance of possible hassle - indeed this is the dilemma that school parties inevitably find themselves in. Certainly one of the lessons leant from the foot and mouth situation is that many walkers will turn back when faced with a No Access sign, even though this sign might have no grounding in law.
As to the question of where the money ends up, Bruce states that "any income to the estate from whatever source goes to fund the running of the estate including obviously paying employees and maintaining the infrastructure (roads, bridges, fences, houses) and maintaining the environment of an area which is enjoyed by owner, occupier and access taker alike." Information on the number of donations received isn't readily available, however. "We don't keep a specific financial record of all the donations," Bruce notes. "It is there somewhere in a miscellaneous income code and probably could be analysed out given a bit of time."
In light of all this, I asked Dorothy Breckenridge for her thoughts. Breckenridge is one of the founders of C-N-Do Scotland, a Stirling based group which provides guided upland outings and teaches hill-related skills. Were it to become common practice for estates to ask for money and were there a mood (or even worse a law) that to pay up was the right thing to do, then organisations such as C-N-Do would be massively - even fatally - hit in financial terms.
C-N-Do has not taken walkers to Ardverikie for a couple of years but a climbing group did go to one of the estate's crags - on Binnean Shuas - last year. "We may phone an estate or one of the Hillphone numbers to find out where stalking is taking place," Breckenridge notes. "That is the only time we would contact the estate; otherwise, we would pass through with minimum impact as we usually do. Although we have a walk from Dalwhinnie through to Kinloch Laggan next month (across part of Ardverikie), it's along the a right of way so I wouldn't contact the estate about it anyway."
On the more general principle of cash for access, Breckenridge is forthright, "C-N-Do has never paid for access as we do not provide anyone with access - it is the right of the individual. What we provide is safety management, education, information and advice about outdoor skills, conservation and the Scottish environment, history, heritage, culture enabling people to get into the outdoors who may not be able, or wish to do so, on their own. Part of the education ethos is the care for the land and trying to put something back, which we do through supporting various environmental and conservation organisations (and) footpath work."
Breckenridge also raises a concern central to the issue of estates asking for money from walkers and climbers. As the estates already receive a considerable amount from the public purse in the form of grants and subsidies, are they not simply asking people to pay twice? "The outdoors has always been a place for recreation for all," she notes, "with access enabling folk from all backgrounds to take quiet enjoyment in their countryside. That is what we pay taxes for, is it not?"
I raised the tax issue with Bruce, who denied that people were being asked to put their hands in their pockets twice. "The Countryside Premium Scheme and Woodland Grant Scheme both have optional parts whereby an applicant can claim an extra grant specifically for defining, providing for and encouraging access to certain areas within the grant schemes. Ardverikie is in both types of scheme but has not taken up these extra options and claimed taxpayers' money for public access. It is pretty bizarre that they exist anyway if you follow the view that access is there for the taking, with or without a grant, consent, encouragement or whatever. Perhaps these parts of these schemes will be revised as part of the access debate?"
Returning to the original Ardverikie letter, it will be noted that "the estate now advises groups or individuals that a donation can be made". In other words, it's not just organised groups which are being asked for money but solo walkers and climbers as well. Requesting payment from groups is controversial enough but it appears that the "donation" scheme also extends to lone walkers seeking out the solitude of a prime piece of landscape. Bruce, in his email response, denies this saying, "If an individual walker did write and received a "donation" letter, it was not what was originally intended but may well happen".
Which brings us to Iain Slinn of Inverness, who recently phoned both Ardverikie and the neighbouring Ben Alder Estate to check on any stalking clashes that might occur during a three day expedition planned for mid-July. "Ben Alder Estate was very helpful," Slinn writes "and said that they hadn't started yet but that access was by foot or bike only. Ardverikie, by contrast, said all such requests must be submitted in writing and that "in general" their policy was to permit access, even during the stalking season."
This was already unusual, as Slinn explains. "Few hillwalkers are disposed to letter writing and seeking "official" permission. The whole basis of walkers working with the stalkers has always been to ring the keeper and check with him who is going to be where on a particular day and to work around this."
With this in mind, Slinn almost didn't bother writing to Ardverikie, preferring to "just go and run the gauntlet and hope not to end up on the wrong end of a keeper's wrath". He decided to send an email however and quickly received another of Peter Bruce's letters. The format and phraseology is very similar to the Lochaber High School letter - the same introductory remarks about ensuring proper disinfection in the light of foot and mouth disease, the same advice about the need to take out insurance - and an identical statement to that received by school about the estate's policy whom it chooses to approach for money. As with the school, Bruce wrote without ambiguity to Slinn that "the estate now advises groups or individuals that a donation can be made". Again a figure of £30 was quoted.
All of which seems to raise more questions than it answers. On the one hand the factor says that any request for money from individuals is "not intended" yet he is repeatedly - even routinely - firing off letters which unequivocally state the opposite. Letters which might well, for all we know, have already prompted some individuals to send a cheque. After all, according to Bruce, "a great many" walkers have chosen to send money. Ardverikie was undoubtedly aware that Slinn was an individual walker and not part of any group. This was clear both from his initial phone call to the estate office and his follow-up email to Bruce. Yet he still received a request for money.
Similar confusion afflicts another of Bruce's claims, "This is not a sophisticated system that attempts to measure group size, or a pricing structure." Summit Talks has however heard that rather than all requests being set at a flat rate of £30, a party of pensioners recently drove up an estate road after complying with a request for £80.
All of this does seem unprecedented. Neither Hamilton nor Slinn could recall any previous instance of an estate requesting money for access and neither could the conservation organisation representative who received a shock when making a standard courtesy call to Ardverikie a couple of years ago. The call was routine - the organisation occasionally drove on to the estate and there had never been any problem with the arrangement. On this occasion, however, the conservationist was told by Bruce (at that stage fairly new to his job) that "there is now a charge for this". The conservationist declined to go along with this, opting to walk on to the estate on that and every subsequent occasion.
The suspicion amongst local land-users is that Ardverikie has made big bucks by way of its involvement in the Monarch of the Glen TV series and now the estate's managers view every enquiry with pound signs in their eyes. The demand for payment from the conservationists predated the television crew however, so that argument appears too simplistic. Whatever the reasoning behind the estate's policy, there is no doubt it is being viewed as cash for access by the hillgoing community.
The anger this has provoked is perhaps best voiced by Iain Slinn, who proudly describes himself as a person who would never pay for access to Scotland's hills. "I take the view that landowners are determined to exploit the diminishing knowledge and awareness of traditional access to Scotland's hills and countryside," he says. "Scottish people under a certain age are much less aware of the "status quo" and history and the Ardverikie letter is the thin end of the wedge.
"Give this another 20 years and estates will not be seeking "donations" they will be charging for "safe" parking. I think it stinks, frankly," he said.
Dave Hewitt
7/8/2001
