Dave Hewitt discovers a cracking opener for his Quote of the Month spot, wonders just how well the Cairngorm Mountain funicular really is going and resolves the bothy bout over Slugain.
The first week of February seems as good a time as any for a state-of-play round-up of access stories from January, so we should start with what promises to become a regular feature - Quote of the Month. (Cue Uncle Des and some dance music and fancy graphics.)
The January award goes to John Mackenzie, owner of the Gairloch and Conon estate where the Shieldaig hydro scheme is planned - see Summit Talks, mid-December.
Mackenzie (not to be confused with his climbing'n'conservation namesake John Mackenzie, Earl of Cromartie - different bloke, different attitudes) gave an interview which appeared in both the West Highland Free Press and the Ross-shire Journal. He took a predictably pro-eco-energy line, implicitly linking the Shieldaig plan with the ongoing government push for "renewables".
"I welcome the renewed impetus behind alternative energy schemes," Mackenzie said, "because we have all kinds of potential in the Highlands to produce renewable energy. This area is a natural place for small-scale hydro schemes and it is a pity that some people are hung up on the notion that companies are proposing more huge hydro electric dams like those built in the 1950s, which of course are ugly. But that is not what is being proposed nowadays."
So far, so on-message but what he said next must have slipped out while the rep from Weber Shandwick Worldwide, the PR consultants retained by the developer, Highland Light and Power, had slipped out for a quick fag. "There is a lot of scope for small-scale hydro to benefit the remoter communities," Mackenzie continued. "Far too much attention is paid to the whingers and girners who come from other parts of Scotland on holiday. A great number of objections to our original scheme came from holidaymakers. Such schemes can be accommodated in the countryside perfectly well - the environment effects can be eliminated almost entirely."
Whingers and girners, eh? Good one, John. You win the January prize by a mile. Now let's see - where do whingers and girners fit in with the "wreckers" mentioned by Mr Blair the other day? And can one be a whinger, a girner and a wrecker all at the same time, or are jobshares not allowed in the bright new Britain? At least we do appear to be seeing some kind of joined-up policy starting to emerge here.
The same slant - that those who protest against "developments" come from outwith the relevant area and so shouldn't be heeded - was also to be heard from David Stewart, MP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, in the 15 January edition of his Inverness Courier "Our man in Westminster" column. Writing about the latest - and recently opened - adornment to Cairn Gorm, Stewart wrote, "The funicular has had its fair share of critics - most of whom live outside the Highlands and probably couldn't pin-point Cairngorm (sic) on a map - but for those who campaigned for the mountain railway, its launch was the perfect Christmas present."
Given that a large proportion of those who campaigned - and continue to campaign - against what they see as the Glenmore White Elephant live and work in the Strathspey area, Stewart's remark has unfortunate echoes of that made by the Loch Awe vigilante John Macdonald and reported here in late May last year. It will be recalled that in attempting to illegally keep walkers and climbers off Ben Cruachan during the foot and mouth crisis, Macdonald took to strolling around the Loch Awe laybys making cheery remarks such as "It's people like you who are ruining this country" and "When independence comes we'll see what happens then". Given that most of those addressed lived in Scotland and had been raised there, this didn't play too well.
Similarly with Stewart's comments re the funicular. To see a Westminster MP playing the "local policies for local people" card is depressing enough but when a substantial number of locals - including some of his constituents - have radically different views, he should maybe think again. Fortunately Stewart has to answer to the ballot box - unlike the mischief-making landowners at Cruachan and elsewhere.
There seems - predictably - to be some kind of broad based attempt to talk up the funicular, as the 22 January edition of the same Inverness paper contained a pro-funicular piece by Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber MSP Fergus Ewing (in his "Our man in Holyrood" column - it's good to see the art of by-lining in such good health). Ewing mentioned the forthcoming cross-party sport group's visit to Glenmore Lodge, including of course a "visit to the Cairngorm Funicular Railway, which operated very successfully over Christmas but is now facing the lack of snow".
Strangely, Ewing didn't also mention the problem with excess wind, as despite supposedly being capable of running in gales of up to 100mph, the funicular has thus far not performed well. It came into service on Christmas Eve and there have already been several reports of incidents ranging from the merely annoying to the potentially dangerous.
For example 14 January. The first day on which the funicular was unable to run due to strong winds. There have been other wind-related problems since then and while no one would expect it to run in truly exceptional gales such as that on 28 January, the original robustness does seem to be wearing thin rather quickly. There has also already been at least one mention of "the wrong kind of wind", so it would be good to keep a log of those periods, however brief, when the brave new choo-choo has to fester in its shed.
Also on 18 or 19 January. A serious incident which remains shadowy (Cairngorm Mountain didn't rush out a press release) but which appears to have involved an electrical fault and an abrupt halt which threw passengers into each other and against the sides of the carriage, resulting - according to one unconfirmed source - in cuts and bruises. A Moray Firth Radio report told of passengers - including elderly and disabled people and some children - being trapped for 45 minutes. (Another report says it was an hour and a half before the doors could be opened and the passengers released.) Refunds and hot drinks were hastily offered and the operators announced that anyone who felt badly treated should get in touch with them.
Is anyone out there able to provide a first-hand - or at least close-quarters - description of what happened here, if only to pin down the date and other details? If it was on 19 January (a Saturday) then that was an extremely windy day, with severe gusts from the north west. Was that a factor in what happened? We need to know, for the safety and the viability of the development. If the operators are already, just a few weeks in, covering up and keeping quiet about major problems, then it doesn't bode well for the future.
There have also been more general reports about the administration of the differing user groups on the hill - eg that if you buy a "ski spectator" ticket (costing the same price as a ride on the train) then you can leave the compound at the top, contrary to what was agreed in the planning application. (As things stand, anyone going up the funicular in winter has entered into a contract to stay within the ski area.) Similarly, climbers are being allowed to hop on the train for a lift down at the end of the day - handy of course but again not what was agreed.
In the interests of transparency and in being able to provide a proper assessment of the success or otherwise of the funicular, a log of problems ought to be objectively maintained. This site, with its wide hill-user base, is as good a place as anywhere from the point of view of information-collation, so do please get in touch if you know of any specific problems with the funicular - or, conversely, if you've been there, done that and think it's a really good day out, well worth the money.
On the other, quieter, side of the Cairngorms, the mini-saga of the Slugain bothy has reached a predictable and on the whole, satisfactory conclusion. (See the mid-January Summit Talks for the full background to this.) An EGM was held in Blair Atholl on that same windy Saturday, 19 January, attended by the Mountain Bothy Association's Eastern Highland organiser Ross Farrell, MBA fundraiser Neil Parish, a trustee in the form of John Arnott and several maintenance officers and interested individuals.
From this it emerged that the initial move with regard to Slugain had been made by Farrell, who approached Invercauld Estate about the possibility of bothyising the ruin. The initial response was described as "favourable" but at the subsequent area MBA meeting at Tannadice it was agreed - and minuted - to sit on the idea. Something got lost in transmission however, such that the overall management committee later approved a fundraising operation and pulled in £1,000 from the Cairngorm Partnership and £2,000 from Scottish Natural Heritage. News of this inevitably angered the local MOs, who had assumed the matter either backburnered or closed. A vote was taken at a subsequent area meeting (held at Charr bothy), with Farrell being the only person present to vote for the project.
Still the message didn't sink in at MBA HQ and a late-2001 edition of the MBA newsletter announced that the Slugain project would be going ahead in 2002. The MBA chair Colin Scales also wrote to one of the north-easterners saying that things had already gone so far that the MBA could not now back out. A further letter from Scales apparently stated that he personally wasn't keen on the Slugain plan - it had come from Roger Hammond, the MBA's acting director of projects.
The mood of the Blair Atholl meeting was one of frustration if not anger and a unanimous vote was taken to affirm the Charr decision, namely that the MBA would not progress with Slugain. Unsurprisingly there were still concerns that this would again be overruled/ignored by head office but the trustee John Arnott gave assurances that no MBA development would now take place up the Slugain glen.
In light of this, a planned meeting in Aberdeen the following Tuesday, to be chaired by an SNH rep and involving various interested parties, was cancelled. Parish also had to go the Cairngorm Partnership and announce that their money wasn't needed after all. Not exactly good PR for the MBA.
Our man in the cyber bothy
Dave Hewitt
7/2/2002
You can contact Dave at Dave.Hewitt@dial.pipex.com
