Grousenomics

[admin]

Don't you just love big number statistics? If you do the maths -that comes to 95.89 extra visitors per day for every single day of the six years, each spending ?100 day. Solely on the basis of Red Kites. See "Three kinds of lie", Mark Twain.
It is going to be a great help to the Fife "red kite trail" and local economy to know that those responsible for the reintroduction of the birds did so "from a secret location"!

Don't forget the  13 full-time jobs each year of the project so far. Then there's  the grouse-type indirect jobs to consider. 

[Inchlaggan]

Tourism is Scotland's biggest earner or so we are told anyway. We are a country that is relatively poor in resources with a harsh climate. Our landscape is probably our major selling point our wildlife may  help make that even more attractive.

Wholly agree, but try it. You immediately hit a brick wall of vested environmental protection interests.
A local B&B was well served by the local wildlife. Eagles, otters, pine martens, red deer and much else could be seen without leaving the comfort of an armchair by the window in the lounge. The owners proposed an extension (conservatory/ hide) to better improve the views and another couple of bedrooms to increase revenue flow. This would increase income across the local community and another member of staff would be employed. Planning permission refused on the objections of.....SEPA, can you guess why?

[admin]

Planning permission refused on the objections of.....SEPA, can you guess why?

The outflow  from the bigger septic tank that would have been required might have upset the smolts in the local fish farm   cages?

Am I close?   

[Inchlaggan]

The outflow  from the bigger septic tank that would have been required might have upset the smolts in the local fish farm   cages?
Am I close?   

9/10.
Reduced to 5/10 for being sarcastic about smolts in cages.
Spot on about the sceptic tank though.
They had three letting bedrooms so the septic tank outflow would have increased, but the rooms are not occupied 365 days a year. However, if they had given up on the extension and the B&B business and raised a family of six, the septic tank outflow would have increased by around the same amount. And no authority could intervene.

[admin]

But surely the same  political will that protects the interests of Norwegian fish farmers and American billionaires in Scotland could have been brought to bear in this case?    Seriously, is there no route of appeal?

[Part-time]

Past land subsidies and the current single farm payment are only paid for agricultural use of land and have never been paid to landowners for grouse or any other kind of shooting.

Some grant payments have and are being made for habitat improvement/management works which most farmers/land owners would probably admit they enter mainly to get the benefits to their sporting/farming business (new fences paid for etc) but at the end of the day the habitat is improved and the public get the benefit they are paying for. If the landowner doesent do the work or maintain it any funding paid will be reclaimed with interest.

Funding for managing moorland has only started to receive funding in the last 4 years and even includes payments for heather burning. The funding is being made because all research (which even the RSPB agree with) points to well managed moorland providing better habitat than unmanaged moorland; by taking the funding the landowner has to follow best practice which includes protecting tree regeneration, wetlands etc within the moorland.

Not going to pretend that its all rosy out there as a lot of bad practice still going on but if anything subsidies are helping rather than hindering and are only being paid as there is supposed to be a public benefit. In the ideal world revenue from tourists coming to see birds of prey and managing moorland for grouse should not be mutually exclusive. 

Sorry didn't mean to go on so much


 

[Inchlaggan]

Seriously, is there no route of appeal?

I deleted the sarcasm again!
Nope.
SEPA (and others) may well object at the Outline or Detailed planning stages, and do.
However, SEPA are consulted at the Building Warrant stage. This is after the planning process (complete with right of appeal, all the way up to Wee Eck himself). Whilst the extension could have gone ahead, SEPA used their authority to insist upon a sewage treatment plant costing tens of thousands being installed. This in itself would require planning permission.
The same thing happened to me. The septic tank was installed in the 1950's to serve 20 persons and now serves two. It was updated to exceed current effluent standards. When I planned the new house, all went swimmingly through planning. I was demolishing a three bedroom house and replacing it with a two bedroom house pretty much on the same footprint. When it came to the Building Warrant stage, SEPA insisted on my demolishing the old septic tank and replacing it with a plastic one with a capacity for five persons. I was also required to pay them a one-off fee of ?70 for a licence to discharge. The good news is that I could do this online. I just had to mark a cross on an online map the discharge point of my tank. The scale of the map means that my cross was 100 x100 metres wide!

[admin]

Sorry didn't mean to go on so much

You didn't the post was excellent. I suppose one questions it does raise though is what is "well managed"  and "well managed" for what?

[Inchlaggan]

You didn't the post was excellent. I suppose one questions it does raise though is what is "well managed"  and "well managed" for what?

Agree, excellent post.

[Roobarb]

And while we are on the subject of public money, is this a good way to spend it?

http://www.flyfishing-and-flytying.co.uk/news/view/Montrose_salmon_nets_get_eu_grant/

Why not? Poorly regulated netting may have done great damage to salmon and sea trout stocks but I can't think of a river where netting pushed stocks to extinction. The same cannot be said for salmon farming. Why not do away with all the west coast salmon farms and replace them with properly regulated netting (once stocks have recovered). Netting is clearly far more sustainable than salmon farming and organic too.


I know next to nothing about grouse moors but I do wonder if it might be better the devil you know? The other options tried so far for the wide open spaces of Scotland have hardly done much for the environment or the local population - sheep farming, forestry, wind farms or super quarries anyone?


Andy