Meeting of the Parliament 24 May 2017
I begin, as is customary, by congratulating Finlay Carson on bringing the debate to the chamber. He, like Emma Harper and Claudia Beamish and me, serves on the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee, which has oversight of national parks. Additionally, a small part of my constituency falls within the boundary of the Cairngorms national park. I look forward to the publication of the final version of its partnership plan for 2017 to 2022 shortly.
The establishment of the Cairngorms national park has been a good thing but, as Scottish Land & Estates has acknowledged, being able to see the benefits of national park status does not necessarily translate into automatic support for the creation of more national parks, as that is a more complicated issue. Conflicts will always arise around how national parks operate. In Loch Lomond and the Trossachs, we have seen the controversy over the approach to tackling wild camping issues, and in the Cairngorms, we have seen the park authority oppose wind farm applications from sites outwith its boundaries. Access to housing for local people has also been a problem.
By and large, from the environmental perspective, national parks are a vehicle for good, so I get the desire on the part of some for more parks. I also have some sympathy with the call for a marine national park. However, to paraphrase what the UK Prime Minister said on another matter, I wonder whether now is the time.
Although I entirely respect Finlay Carson for speaking up for his area, I will play devil’s advocate from a Scotland-wide perspective. Committee colleagues know that I quite enjoy playing that role, and I hope that my remarks will be accepted in that spirit.
The motion refers to calls for a review of national parks and the consideration of establishing new ones. What form would such a review take and what resource would it tie up? At a time when the relevant area of the Scottish Government has, for example, action on deer management, biodiversity, and wildlife crime issues to consider and implement, and a Scottish Natural Heritage report on the future vision for Scotland’s uplands to digest and act on, is it realistic to increase that workload, especially as it is set to be added to greatly by the consequences of Brexit? We should recognise that deer management, wildlife crime, land use in the uplands and biodiversity are, to varying degrees, issues of direct relevance to the existing parks and they would therefore be caught up in any such review.
My understanding is that the creation of a new national park would then take anything between two and four years, depending on the level of support, functions and governance structures, and the number of parks involved. As we have heard acknowledged, the level of support is critical. We would need to be clear that there was, if not a clamour, then certainly majority support for such a structure to be introduced among the local authorities and the affected communities.
How many new parks, whether all-singing or lite versions, would there be? Seven possibilities have been advanced.
Then there is the cost that will be involved. The financial memorandum that accompanied the 2000 act estimated the annual running costs for the two parks that we now have to be £6 million each when adjusted for inflation.