Andy Wightman MSP amendments to the Planning Bill

In June 2019 we asked our supporters to write to their MSPs to support stronger control of vehicle tracks in Scotland's uplands. Working with Scottish Environment LINK and others, SWLG has been involved in this long campaign for many years and there was a real opportunity to change the law.

In the Stage 3 debate on the amendments to the Planning Bill on 20th June the Tory and SNP MSPs teamed up en masse to vote against Andy Wightman's series of amendments. These quite moderate and reasonable proposals would have afforded a degree of protection to our wildest landscapes and also introduced a much needed right for the general public to have a voice in these developments. The MSPs were lobbied hard by Scottish Land and Estates and Scottish Renewables. Due to this, we have lost a key opportunity to change the law. However, we are definitely not giving up on this and will persist in our work.

Report for Scottish Environment LINK published September 2018.

The major new Changing Tracks report from Scottish Environment LIK has found the current planning system for agricultural tracks to be confusing, undemocratic and failing to protect our world-famous uplands.

This campaign has been a major work output for SWLG over the last 5 years and we need your support! We're urgently calling on all lovers of Scotland's outdoors to ask their MSPs to support that important amendment, and save our hills and wild areas from further lasting damage.

Read the press release and full report or see coverage of the campaign on the BBC website.

Article from Mel Nicoll, LINK Hill Tracks Campaign consultant

As someone who has spent the past twenty five years walking and climbing in the Scottish hills I've come across a fair few bulldozed tracks that have raised at least an eyebrow, and sometimes downright ire. Now, I'm delighted that I've been taken on to work with the Scottish Environment LINK Hill Tracks Campaign to help boost the campaign to change the legislation and bring all hilltrack construction into the full planning system. This is needed to bring a greater measure of environmental and landscape protection and counter the democratic deficit in the current system as there is no requirement at present to invite comments from the public or organisations. The wealth of photographic evidence gathered by the campaign, its member groups and the wider public over past years should leave no-one in any doubt that poorly-sited and constructed tracks can have significant and sometimes disastrous impacts on the environment and landscape. But there's still work to do.

The introduction in December 2014 of a system of "prior notification" where landowners building tracks under permitted development rights now have to give notice of their intentions was of course a step in the right direction but it's vital that we keep hilltracks as an issue in the public consciousness, and widen public engagement. It's fantastic that the campaign has established a network of hard-working volunteers from all corners of Scotland (and beyond!), taking time each week to sift through what can be long lists of documents on local authority planning web pages and alerting us to their findings. With the public's continued involvement in monitoring local authority planning web pages, reporting tracks of concern and sending in their images we can continue to build the evidence we need to ensure that politicians understand the issues and the depth of support for change.

My role over the coming year is to help the hard-working Steering Group members by collating and recording the reports coming in from the volunteer "trackers" as well as the wider public. Helping to free up some of the Steering Group's time by taking over some of the administration will allow them to focus on more in-depth scrutiny of tracks of concern and making comments on the various proposals and other investigations - there are times of course when sadly tracks do not seem to have gone through the prior notification system at all!

During the year I'm also going to be starting to prepare what will be a major report for publication in 2018 where we will set out how we think the prior notification system has been working and related issues. Several themes, as well as potential case studies, are already beginning to emerge. During 2016 we became increasingly concerned, for example, about the quality of track work associated with hydro schemes and the lack of adequate restoration work after the commissioning phase of some projects. The report, like the impressive "Track Changes" report before it, will be a central element of our advocacy work to support the campaign's goal to get a further change in the law. The campaign will also be working to demonstrate that the hilltracks issue is part of the wider context of responsible land management and use. In that respect the Scottish Government's current focus on the land reform agenda - incorporating a stronger representation of the public interest through responsible stewardship of the land and sustainable land use - gives the campaign enhanced opportunities to move beyond being seen as a niche issue only of concern to people who spend time on recreational activities in the uplands.

It goes without saying that we continue to welcome photos of tracks of concern, along with supporting information and, although we now have fairly good coverage of the key Scottish local authority areas in terms of monitoring planning lists, we are always interested in hearing from people who could be on standby to take over an area or give us back up at certain times. You can find more information about how to submit photos and about being a volunteer "tracker" on the Hill Tracks Campaign web page of the Scottish Environment LINK website. Thanks for your ongoing support.

Mel Nicoll
LINK Hill Tracks Campaign consultant
hilltracks@scotlink.org