Solway coastline secures major restoration boost
The Solway coastline in south west Scotland has secured a major funding boost to help with its conservation, restoration and development.It is the first project to secure support through the National Lottery Heritage Fund's (NLHF) £150m Landscape Connections initiative.The Solway Coast and Marine Landscape Connections Project - Scamp for short - will receive £1.4m to shape plans which will help unlock a further £6.4m.It will work with the local community to deliver an extensive programme of habitat restoration right along the Dumfries and Galloway coast.
The project is the first of about 20 across the UK which will benefit from the funding aimed at boosting nature recovery, helping rural economies and attracting more visitors.NLHF chief executive Eilish McGuinness said it was the "perfect project" to get things started."The Solway Firth's rich natural heritage has supported communities along its length since the earliest settlement," she said."The heritage of millennia of human habitation are reflected in the landscape and history of the people, places and communities."This will be enhanced with National Lottery player support to deliver large-scale, long-term, meaningful change for the environment and its people, furthering our vision for heritage to be valued, cared for, and sustained for everyone, now and in the future."
Dumfries and Galloway Council is leading the Scamp initiative alongside a long list of local partners.Leader Gail MacGregor said: "With a potential total investment of almost £8m from the heritage fund this commitment demonstrates the huge potential of our Solway Coast to become a leading light in coastal and marine nature restoration, playing its part in helping with the nature and climate crisis."By allowing our coastal and marine environment to thrive we will be bringing opportunities for learning, green jobs, wellbeing and nature-related economic development to our communities."
Karen Morley, Scamp programme manager, said it welcomed the funding."It is rare for a nature restoration project to attract this level of investment over a prolonged period of time," she said."But it is also essential for this ambitious innovative programme of work to be delivered by ourselves and our partners and ensure we can make a real restorative impact on our Solway land and seascape."
The Scamp scheme will be delivered over 10 years including a two-year development phase.Five key habitats will be prioritised - seagrass meadows, native oyster reefs, saltmarsh, coastal woodland and sand dunes. It will also see 120 miles (195km) of new coastal trail created with 10 coastal "gateway" sites enhanced.Panels along the coast and trails will allow people to learn more about the Solway Firth and the surrounding area.
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The Independent
2 hours ago
- The Independent
Conservationists celebrate as long-vanished bird returns to the UK
Conservationists have hailed the white stork as "an emblem for nature recovery" as they work to reintroduce the long-vanished breeding bird to the UK. Once a common sight in Britain, with their large nests adorning rooftops, buildings, and trees, the birds disappeared centuries ago due to hunting and habitat loss. While migratory storks still visit from the continent, conservationists say that the lack of existing colonies prevents them from settling to breed. Since 2016, a reintroduction project in southern England has been underway, aiming to establish new colonies using rehabilitated injured storks. These colonies are intended to act as a "magnet," attracting other wild birds to settle and breed. The scheme has enabled a wild population of breeding storks re-establish itself for the first time in centuries and delivered unexpected benefits for other birds and wildlife, conservationists say. The white stork project uses rescued non-flying birds from Warsaw Zoo, Poland, some of which are kept at Cotswold Wildlife Park where they breed, with their young released from Knepp Estate, in West Sussex and Wadhurst Park in East Sussex, to encourage them to come back there to nest. Other Polish birds, some of which have injuries that mean they can fly short distances but not migrate, live in or around pens on the estates, breeding and establishing the founding colonies that will attract other storks. At Knepp, the storks are in a landscape that has been 'rewilded' since 2000, with former agricultural land turned over to natural processes using animals including longhorn cattle, red and fallow deer and pigs, whose grazing and foraging help create a mosaic of scrub, disturbed ground and grassland. There are also areas of woodland, the river has been restored to a more natural state and in just a few years, beavers in an enclosure have turned a small stream into wetlands rich in dragonflies, damselflies and other insects. Walking through the scrub and grassland punctuated by large trees, it is hard to miss the metre-tall storks soaring through the skies or stalking through the grass, while the distinctive bill 'clattering' they make echoes through the landscape. White stork project officer Laura Vaughan-Hirsch said they 'love it' at Knepp, where the rewilding process has created healthy soils and habitat and an abundance and diversity of insect life. While they are primarily wetland birds, 'they love mixed habitats, grasslands, woodlands and lovely big trees to nest in, anything that's insect-rich, worm-rich, that's their thing', she said. The first chicks were born to birds nesting in the trees in 2020, and non-flying storks produced their first young in ground nests in the fox-proof enclosure in 2023. This year Ms Vaughan-Hirsch said at least six birds born at Knepp have returned after an annual migration to Africa to nest in the colony, including one who has set up home in the same tree as her parents, and has been stealing nesting material from them. The team are expecting around 40 fledglings in 2025, including youngsters from the ground-nesting storks which are hand-fed pieces of fish to supplement food their parents can source in the pen. The storks' success at Knepp shows that 'sort the habitat out, the soils, insects, healthy water systems, and then your storks will come eventually,' she said. 'We all see the white stork as a big charismatic species but what it really is, is an emblem for nature recovery,' she said. With each chick needing 35kg of food, such as crickets or worms, between hatching and fledging, their survival in the landscape is an indicator of how healthy the ecosystem is. And in turn the storks' nests – which can weigh up to a tonne – in trees or even on roofs attract an array of insects, while wrens, collared doves, house sparrows and, this year for the first time, blue tits have been seen nesting in the vast structures. Isabella Tree, who owns Knepp with her husband Charlie Burrell, said their impact on other species was an 'unexpected outcome' of the reintroduction. 'What are we are seeing is that even species that don't have a reputation as being keystone species have an effect on ecosystems. 'They are doing extraordinary things that we had never really known about.' And she said: 'We think we know what impact a species will have on the landscape, but how can we when our landscape is so fragmented and so depleted. The only way to find out is to try it.' It is ever more important as climate change pushes species to find new habitat to boost populations of even birds with naturally big ranges, she suggests. She said the scheme had naysayers in the beginning – including conservationists who did not think it should be attempted or would work. But she said: 'The absolute joy and excitement is that they are now flying to Morocco on migration and coming back and nesting and having chicks and interacting with wild birds and bringing wild birds back with them as pairs.' And the storks are a 'totem' for wider river catchment restoration and a way of connecting people with nature, she said. 'We have such a long relationship with these birds, from thousands of years ago, from Egyptians, and ancient Greeks and ancient Islam these birds have been cherished, and they're somehow in our DNA. 'We recognise ourselves in them, they kind of walk like us, they look like brigadiers on a parade ground when they're walking across the fields, and when they're flying they look like pterodactyls,' she said. Further projects to reintroduce storks are under way in Cornwall and Devon. And at Knepp it is hoped the birds will spread out from the estate and start nesting away from the current colony, raising the possibility that, in some areas at least, they will become a familiar sight in the skies, trees and on rooftops again.
Daily Mail
5 hours ago
- Daily Mail
How could one man give the nod to a brash £40m tourist trap in the best loved beauty spot in Scotland?
It is possibly the most unpopular tourism proposal in Scottish planning history. People living nearby are overwhelmingly against it. Even Conservative and Green politicians for a united front in condemning it. The number of objections from across the country and beyond is unprecedented. More than 155,000 people have said no thank-you to a leisure resort on the banks of Loch Lomond, perhaps the nation's most jealously guarded scenic treasure. But there is a number still more extraordinary than that. It is the number of people who, ultimately, decided whether a plan by a Yorkshire company called Flamingo Land to plonk a £43.5 million complex with hotels, lodges, restaurants, a waterpark and monorail in Scotland oldest national park should be given the nod. That number is just one. The lone decision maker was David Buylla, who goes by the title of principal reporter for the Scottish Government Planning and Environmental Appeals Decision. Unelected, his job is to field appeals from unsuccessful applicants and rule on whether – in his professional opinion – elected bodies answerable to voters made the right call in refusing them. If he thinks they did not, he has the power to turn their ruling on its head. Last month Mr Buylla delivered his verdict on the whether a unanimous decision by Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park (LLTNP) to reject the holiday resort on the land it is there to protect was the correct one. He has indicated it was not. In his view, providing Flamingo Land satisfies a series of conditions, they should go ahead and build the leisure park that holds the Scottish planning record for most objections. Unsurprisingly, the shock reversal has prompted a furious outcry. Demonstrators made their displeasure known outside the Scottish Parliament last week. Scottish Labour's deputy leader Dame Jackie Baillie, the local MSP, has called it an 'affront to democracy'. Ross Greer of the Scottish Greens says it is an 'anti-democratic outrage' and that the approval of the 'mega-resort' will be 'deeply damaging to our national reputation.' And SNP ministers? What do they say on the denouement to Scotland's most railed-against planning application ever? They merely assert that the 'expert' has spoken. On any analysis the Flamingo Land saga – some ten years in the making – raises serious questions about the planning system, its accountability to the public, its apparent democratic deficit – not to mention why a Scottish Government reporter's expertise trumps that of the raft of experts who say the resort is a non-starter. But the affair is messier and murkier than that. Even more uncomfortable questions are now emerging over a planning fiasco which critics say leaves the government hopelessly compromised. Why, for example, should its appointed planning officer's conclusion be trusted over the recommendation of the government's own environmental watchdog, Sepa, which says the resort, known as Lomond Banks, should be ruled out because it breaches flood protection rules? And what to make of the fact that the land on which the resort would be built is currently owned by the Scottish Government's economic development wing, Scottish Enterprise, which plans to sell plot to Flamingo Land on approval of its application? According to Dame Jackie and others involved in the saga from the outset, the holiday resort proposal arose following government instructions to Scottish Enterprise to 'realise your assets' to raise capital. Having chosen Flamingo Land as its preferred bidder, Scottish Enterprise 'courted' the developer, says the Labour politician. Others go further. Former Conservative councillor Sally Page claims the English company was not only 'encouraged' by both the Scottish Government and Scottish Enterprise but that planners on LLTNP 'guided' the developer through the process. She says: 'Flamingo Land have spent a six-figure sum preparing this application. They can probably show enough evidence to support the case that Scottish Enterprise, the Scottish Government and LLTNP encouraged them all along. 'It is probable that a KC would be able to put together the evidence and sue either the Scottish Government, Scottish Enterprise or LLTNP for wasting their time, should it not go through.' In the end, she suggests, it was 'easier for the LLTNP locally to turn it down and let the Scottish Government's faceless reporter make the difficult decision.' In a nutshell she is arguing that the planning body was acutely aware that any decision they made to refuse the application would be challenged, taken out of their hands and possibly overturned – but they, at least, would avoid taking the heat for it. A sorry reflection, many might conclude, on a planning system which, at the appeal stage, upends democracy and removes political accountability. But where does this leave a Scottish Government which finds itself on both sides of the equation? Its own agency is the landowner which stands to profit from the sale of it to a developer. Its environmental watchdog is a key voice in opposing the development. And yet another arm of government, its appeals division, is the ultimate decision maker – reaching conclusions against the backdrop of possible legal action against its employer. In the circumstances, can it be tenable that no one with Ministerial responsibility – and accountability to voters – is prepared to involve themselves? Or is the fact that Scottish Government fingerprints are all over this almighty planning mess already the very reason why Ministers now refuse to touch it? Dame Jackie tells the Mail: 'Scottish Enterprise, the economic development arm of the SNP Government, has courted Lomond Banks for close to 10 years. It is therefore little wonder that SNP Ministers don't want to call it in.' The proposal, critics point out, is to build a holiday resort which is entirely out of keeping with the natural beauty of a visitor attraction of profound national importance. It will put 250 extra cars an hour onto the already congested A82, bring minimal economic benefit for the West Dunbartonshire community of Balloch because the resort is self-contained, offer mainly low-paid jobs and destroy ancient woodland. It was opposed not only by 155,000 objectors but by Sepa, the National Trust for Scotland, Ramblers Scotland, community councils and the Woodland Trust. Appalled by the lone planning officer's finding against the weight of such considerable expert opinion, the latter's advocacy manager Simon Ritchie states: 'The loss of ancient woodland to a development anywhere is shameful. To see it destroyed in a national park beggars belief.' And yet, it would seem, the Scottish Government is content that a lone operative has dealt with the matter and sees no reason for Ministers to dirty their hands with the fall-out. Mr Greer, whose party was in a power-sharing agreement with the SNP while much of the planning row raged, is among the most vociferous critics of the Scottish Government on this issue. He insists democratically accountable Ministers must have the final say when an application is of national importance. 'In the case of Flamingo Land, the Planning Minister and the First Minister are hiding behind officials, despite this decision effectively overturning key protections in the national planning framework agreed by Parliament.' He adds: 'Ministers should use their powers of recall when it's in the national interest. That is why the mechanism is available to them. Hiding behind officials sows mistrust towards our institutions. In our democracy, the buck stops with those who are elected.' Dame Jackie, meanwhile, describes the reporter's conclusions as 'really bizarre' and says that, in any case, it is 'not acceptable' for one unelected appointee, however experienced, to be free to overturn the decision of an elected body on an issue of such magnitude, There should be set criteria which trigger ministerial involvement in planning decisions she says. 'It's the lack of consistency, it's the race to get this through – and it's ministers refusing to do anything about calling it in because it is a political hot potato. 'It is an affront to democracy that this decision has been made by a single reporter, when less contentious applications have been called in previously. She adds: 'I want somebody who is democratically elected to look at this properly, and that's what I think Ministers should be doing.' The Scottish Government does have form for calling in planning decisions it deems of national importance. Back in 2008, Ministers stepped in and obliged Donald Trump whose plan to build a golf resort on the Menie Estate was refused by Aberdeenshire Council. The future US president's project was duly given the nod – resulting in years of controversy. Seventeen years on, there is zero Scottish Government appetite for ministerial involvement in the long-running and highly complex Lomond Banks row. Indeed, public finance minister Ivan McKee claims it is not even appropriate for him to comment on the application because it 'remains live'. Technically that may be the case – but only because the Scottish Government reporter has given Flamingo Land a deadline of six months to satisfy 49 conditions and reach a legally binding agreement with the national park. Yet he did feel free to say that, in view of the 'very technical' issues in the case and the high level of public interest it was appropriate that 'objective planning judgement' was applied. 'For that reason, I do not intend to recall this appeal'. He added: 'The expert in this case is the reporter, who is tasked with going through the planning regulations as they apply, looking at the evidence in depth.' Nor was Mr Swinney any more keen to step in to 'save' Loch Lomond. 'The appeal remains live. Members have to understand that it would not be appropriate for me to comment.' The democratic deficit at the heart of Scotland's planning appeal system is, of course, not a new discovery for many. Rural dwellers who oppose the imposition of wind farms on their doorsteps have highlighted it for years. They win the first battle when the local authority rejects the plan – then lose the second when a lone Scottish Government reporter uphold the appeal. Mr Greer's suggestion, then, that the Lomond Banks case represents an 'anti-democratic outrage' strikes some as a bit rich. Graham Lang, the chairman of Scotland Against Spin, says: 'We have no sympathy for him or his party who have chosen to ignore that the same scenario has been played out on an almost weekly basis for the past two decades in rural communities throughout Scotland. 'Mr Greer must be aware of this but has never complained when his beloved green energy developments are granted planning permission against the wishes of the majority of local residents.' For his part, the Green MSP argues these installations are about 'keeping the lights on across the country'. 'However, no one could argue that Flamingo Land is of national importance to Scotland.' The lone planning official's ruling was certainly welcomed in some quarters. Lomond Banks development director Jim Paterson said the company was 'delighted' by the decision, adding: 'As we look beyond today's decision, we remain committed to being a strong and valued contributor to the local economy and we look forward to progressing with our proposals as we now consider detailed planning.' Meanwhile Friends of Loch Lomond and the Trossachs, a group which has long campaigned in favour of the resort, said the reporter had 'resoundingly demolished' the arguments for opposing it. Responding to the allegations put to it by the Mail, including the claim that Flamingo Land was 'courted', leaving the Scottish Government conflicted, a spokesman said: 'These claims are untrue. The independent reporter is an experienced planning professional who provides an objective planning judgement.' Will the Scottish Parliament and the 155,000 who campaigned against Flamingo Land accept that answer? Or will they drag democratically accountable Ministers, kicking and screaming, into the spotlight? The last chapter in a story the SNP government are anxious to close the book on may not yet be written.
BBC News
8 hours ago
- BBC News
Kent's rare snow leopard cub dies after just one month
An animal sanctuary has announced that its rare snow leopard cub, born just last month, has cub, nicknamed Little Lady, was born to mother Laila at The Big Cat Sanctuary in Smarden, Kent, on 10 May after months of dedicated work by it has been confirmed that Little Lady died late on Wednesday night, though her cause of death is not yet known."We are all devastated by this news," said Cam Whitnall, wildlife expert, conservationist and managing director of the sanctuary. Snow leopards are listed as vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature red list, with an estimated 2,700 to 3,300 mature adults remaining in the Lady was just the second cub to be born at the sanctuary. The first was her sister, Zaya, in Lady's birth followed months of work by primary trainer Simon Jackaman, who built the trust necessary for mother Laila to voluntarily participate in ground-breaking ultrasound sessions."While deeply saddened by this loss, our commitment to snow leopard conservation and the European Endangered Species Breeding Programme remains as strong as ever," said Mr Whitnall."Every life is precious and this loss, though profoundly felt, reinforces the vital importance of our work to protect these magnificent and vulnerable big cats."The sanctuary said it remains committed to helping maintain a genetically healthy captive population to provide "a critical safety net for the future of this elusive big cat"."These moments are never easy, but they reflect just how important our work is," Mr Whitnall added.
