People following the contentious issue of bulldozed hill tracks may be aware that the Scottish Government has signalled its intention to change the law. The current situation is that planning consent is required for new tracks, or alterations to existing ones, unless they are for forestry of agricultural purposes in which case planning consent is not required. This has created a ‘grey area’ which has allowed some landowners to bulldoze often badly constructed tracks claiming that they are for forestry or agriculture when they are for sporting purposes, for example an estate which uses its tracks primarily to get access to grouse shooting butts may argue that the tracks are needed for annual sheep gathering and are therefore agricultural tracks. Conservationists have argued that many fine landscapes have been ruined in the process.
What the government is proposing is that people considering creating new tracks should submit their plans to the relevant planning authority for consideration (‘prior notification’).
A number of organisations under the umbrella of Scottish Environment LINK have been running a campaign to ensure that all tracks should be subject to full planning consent. While LINK acknowledges that the Government’s proposed changes are an improvement, it believes that these fall far short of the open, democratic scrutiny that a full planning application entails. The LINK hill tracks campaign is keen to keep getting information regarding tracks and is calling for hill walkers to send photos of tracks. Photos can be emailed or sent via the LINK website along with as much of the following information as possible:
– email address
– date of photo
– location (grid reference)
– direction (eg looking north)
– location (start and finish)
– estate (if known)
– any other info (eg condition of track; if new etc).