Act now to stop the spread of hill tracks (from Wild Land News, spring 2010)
Calum Brown
We are all familiar with the sight of bulldozed tracks driven into remote glens or mountainsides with little regard for their impact on the landscape or environment. Unregulated under current planning law, such tracks are highly visible and have contributed to the rapid loss, between 2002 and 2008, of one quarter of the land in Scotland classed as ‘visually unaffected by development’. If we want to save our remaining unspoiled views, urgent action is needed to pressurise government into changing planning regulations.
Wild Land News last ran an article on hill tracks in the autumn of 2006, when there were promising signs that the problem was being taken seriously. Several particularly egregious examples of careless track construction had received publicity and caught the attention of the Scottish Executive, which promised a review of relevant planning laws. Herriott-Watt University was commissioned to carry out this review, and it was published soon afterwards. Scottish Natural Heritage had also recently published a detailed best practice guide emphasising the search for alternatives and the importance of sensitive design and construction – and later removal – of hill tracks.
However, despite the universal concern and oft-expressed good intentions, hill tracks have continued their spread across the wild land of Scotland unabated, and still enjoy the Permitted Development status that exempts them from all planning safeguards. Originally granted in the postwar period, this apparent oversight in fact reflected government policy of the time - to encourage the rapid expansion and intensification of the forestry and farming industries. Planning laws that might hinder this were therefore circumvented, effectively providing blanket permission for infrastructural developments regardless of size, design, location, or even necessity.
Since then, of course, policy has changed. The intensification of farming and forestry is no longer encouraged - indeed it is actively inhibited by British and European regulations – and both industries have become subject to stricter environmental constraints. Diversification has become the official mantra for rural areas, and yet no other industry benefits from the extraordinary free hand of Permitted Development. Even American billionaires cannot yet entirely bypass the planning system.
In addition to this general inequity, many specific problems related to upland track construction have emerged. Numerous studies in the 1970s and 80s established that hill tracks have significant detrimental effects on local ecology, water flow, soil chemistry, vegetation patterns, and landscape. Soil chemicals are markedly depleted in their vicinity; vegetation cover is reduced; single species proliferate; and further erosion follows. In marginal habitats the floral community can take years to recover, and on moorland and blanket bog may never revert to its original composition. Hill tracks are far more than just eyesores – although their impact on landscapes for miles around is surely sufficient reason to curb their use.
In fact, governments have been considering such changes for many years. Legislation in 1992 (the amended General Permitted Development Order, or GPDO) was originally set to require the prior notification of farm and forestry track construction – a small step, already in force for buildings, that was nevertheless omitted from the final bill. Just three years later, a review found that “the GPDO is an overly complex and out of date mechanism…[which] is difficult to understand and interpret” [1995 white paper ‘Modernising the Planning System’]. Despite this, it was not until the Heriot-Watt report of 2006 that recommendations for changes were sought – recommendations that still await implementation.
The anaemic response of government has apparently influenced others – the Cairngorm National Park Authority, for example, issued a draft Local Plan in 2006 which included no curbs on track construction, even in the Park’s most sensitive areas. The SWLG argued in response that new and upgraded tracks should be entirely precluded here; a position that was also adopted by last December’s official report on the Local Plan Inquiry, which stated that “there should be a core within which there would be a presumption against any development including the intrusion of tracks” (p59). The absence of such a presumption represented “a defect which should be rectified before this local plan is progressed to adoption” (p60).
Similarly, the larger-scale Heriot-Watt report concluded that Permitted Development Rights for vehicular tracks should be “universally withdrawn” (p8) within protected areas, and that “if open landscapes with semi-natural vegetation are mapped, PDR should then be withdrawn from all private vehicular ways within them” (p9). Furthermore, the upgrading of non-vehicular tracks should require planning consent, as should the broadening of existing tracks beyond their current boundaries. Finally, the report recommends the imposition of “a general condition that any incidental or consequential damage to adjacent ground be made good” (p9).
The Permitted Development status granted to agricultural developments suffers from an obvious defect in itself – the GPDO does not define agriculture, and so offers no basis on which to distinguish a track’s purpose. Even if it did, of course, a prospective track-builder merely has to claim that an agricultural purpose will be served, and he may proceed entirely unfettered by normal constraints. We have all come across bulldozed tracks carved deep into mountain areas entirely devoid of farmed livestock and anything resembling arable land. Many of the most damaging examples of hill tracks have clearly been constructed for the purposes of field sports, and so should have been subject to planning permission. They were not, however, because the legislation remains confused and confusing, openly invites subversion, and is wholly outdated.
The only practicable solution is for Permitted Development rights to be removed from hill tracks in all areas, whatever their supposed purpose. If a legitimate case can be made for the construction of a new track or the improvement of an existing one, then planning consent should be sought, rather than pre-emptively granted. Reasonable conditions and safeguards can then be imposed, and not simply suggested in optimistic best practice guides.
Having commissioned the report carried out by Heriot-Watt in 2006, the Scottish Government is well aware of the action that needs to be taken to modernise and repair the GPDO. The fact that this is being repeatedly postponed implies either a lack of interest or a failure to grasp the urgency of reform. Fortunately, not all MSPs are guilty of the same inertia. Several are supporting a Motion put to parliament by Peter Peacock, MSP for the Highlands and Islands, expressing concern over the proliferation of tracks and requesting greater scrutiny and control in the future (the Motion can be viewed online at: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/business/motions/Default.aspx?motionid=18048 ). Without sufficient public support, however, it is unlikely that the momentum required for real change will be generated. It is crucial, therefore, that we act now to demand action on this issue, before any more of our wild land is lost because of ill-conceived planning law for the benefit of pseudo-agricultural interests.
We are all familiar with the sight of bulldozed tracks driven into remote glens or mountainsides with little regard for their impact on the landscape or environment. Unregulated under current planning law, such tracks are highly visible and have contributed to the rapid loss, between 2002 and 2008, of one quarter of the land in Scotland classed as ‘visually unaffected by development’. If we want to save our remaining unspoiled views, urgent action is needed to pressurise government into changing planning regulations.
Wild Land News last ran an article on hill tracks in the autumn of 2006, when there were promising signs that the problem was being taken seriously. Several particularly egregious examples of careless track construction had received publicity and caught the attention of the Scottish Executive, which promised a review of relevant planning laws. Herriott-Watt University was commissioned to carry out this review, and it was published soon afterwards. Scottish Natural Heritage had also recently published a detailed best practice guide emphasising the search for alternatives and the importance of sensitive design and construction – and later removal – of hill tracks.
However, despite the universal concern and oft-expressed good intentions, hill tracks have continued their spread across the wild land of Scotland unabated, and still enjoy the Permitted Development status that exempts them from all planning safeguards. Originally granted in the postwar period, this apparent oversight in fact reflected government policy of the time - to encourage the rapid expansion and intensification of the forestry and farming industries. Planning laws that might hinder this were therefore circumvented, effectively providing blanket permission for infrastructural developments regardless of size, design, location, or even necessity.
Since then, of course, policy has changed. The intensification of farming and forestry is no longer encouraged - indeed it is actively inhibited by British and European regulations – and both industries have become subject to stricter environmental constraints. Diversification has become the official mantra for rural areas, and yet no other industry benefits from the extraordinary free hand of Permitted Development. Even American billionaires cannot yet entirely bypass the planning system.
In addition to this general inequity, many specific problems related to upland track construction have emerged. Numerous studies in the 1970s and 80s established that hill tracks have significant detrimental effects on local ecology, water flow, soil chemistry, vegetation patterns, and landscape. Soil chemicals are markedly depleted in their vicinity; vegetation cover is reduced; single species proliferate; and further erosion follows. In marginal habitats the floral community can take years to recover, and on moorland and blanket bog may never revert to its original composition. Hill tracks are far more than just eyesores – although their impact on landscapes for miles around is surely sufficient reason to curb their use.
In fact, governments have been considering such changes for many years. Legislation in 1992 (the amended General Permitted Development Order, or GPDO) was originally set to require the prior notification of farm and forestry track construction – a small step, already in force for buildings, that was nevertheless omitted from the final bill. Just three years later, a review found that “the GPDO is an overly complex and out of date mechanism…[which] is difficult to understand and interpret” [1995 white paper ‘Modernising the Planning System’]. Despite this, it was not until the Heriot-Watt report of 2006 that recommendations for changes were sought – recommendations that still await implementation.
The anaemic response of government has apparently influenced others – the Cairngorm National Park Authority, for example, issued a draft Local Plan in 2006 which included no curbs on track construction, even in the Park’s most sensitive areas. The SWLG argued in response that new and upgraded tracks should be entirely precluded here; a position that was also adopted by last December’s official report on the Local Plan Inquiry, which stated that “there should be a core within which there would be a presumption against any development including the intrusion of tracks” (p59). The absence of such a presumption represented “a defect which should be rectified before this local plan is progressed to adoption” (p60).
Similarly, the larger-scale Heriot-Watt report concluded that Permitted Development Rights for vehicular tracks should be “universally withdrawn” (p8) within protected areas, and that “if open landscapes with semi-natural vegetation are mapped, PDR should then be withdrawn from all private vehicular ways within them” (p9). Furthermore, the upgrading of non-vehicular tracks should require planning consent, as should the broadening of existing tracks beyond their current boundaries. Finally, the report recommends the imposition of “a general condition that any incidental or consequential damage to adjacent ground be made good” (p9).
The Permitted Development status granted to agricultural developments suffers from an obvious defect in itself – the GPDO does not define agriculture, and so offers no basis on which to distinguish a track’s purpose. Even if it did, of course, a prospective track-builder merely has to claim that an agricultural purpose will be served, and he may proceed entirely unfettered by normal constraints. We have all come across bulldozed tracks carved deep into mountain areas entirely devoid of farmed livestock and anything resembling arable land. Many of the most damaging examples of hill tracks have clearly been constructed for the purposes of field sports, and so should have been subject to planning permission. They were not, however, because the legislation remains confused and confusing, openly invites subversion, and is wholly outdated.
The only practicable solution is for Permitted Development rights to be removed from hill tracks in all areas, whatever their supposed purpose. If a legitimate case can be made for the construction of a new track or the improvement of an existing one, then planning consent should be sought, rather than pre-emptively granted. Reasonable conditions and safeguards can then be imposed, and not simply suggested in optimistic best practice guides.
Having commissioned the report carried out by Heriot-Watt in 2006, the Scottish Government is well aware of the action that needs to be taken to modernise and repair the GPDO. The fact that this is being repeatedly postponed implies either a lack of interest or a failure to grasp the urgency of reform. Fortunately, not all MSPs are guilty of the same inertia. Several are supporting a Motion put to parliament by Peter Peacock, MSP for the Highlands and Islands, expressing concern over the proliferation of tracks and requesting greater scrutiny and control in the future (the Motion can be viewed online at: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/business/motions/Default.aspx?motionid=18048 ). Without sufficient public support, however, it is unlikely that the momentum required for real change will be generated. It is crucial, therefore, that we act now to demand action on this issue, before any more of our wild land is lost because of ill-conceived planning law for the benefit of pseudo-agricultural interests.
