YOUR VIEWS: Time for a public enquiry into the mountain railway
Click here to sign up to our free newsletters![1]
The Cairngorm funicular is expected to return to service later this month after latest setback.
On June 9, earlier this year, after being contacted by several Parkswatch readers raising safety concerns about the Cairngorm funicular, I sent a letter expressing these concerns to Stuart Black, chief executive of HIE.
The reply from customer services on June 21 was as follows: “The design and implementation of the strengthening programme for the funicular viaduct was implemented and checked repeatedly by Cowi and independent design checker Mott MacDonald – both of them world leading specialist bridge engineers.
“Following completion of reinstatement works towards the end of 2022, a senior official from the authorised technical body for the Department for Transport conducted both a rigorous document review and physical inspection of the Cairngorm funicular viaduct and control system.
“The inspector’s conclusions were positive and enabled the department, through the UK Secretary of State for Transport, to authorise the safety cases, providing clearance and assurance for the funicular service to resume safe operations in January 2023.”
But by August 25 despite these assurances, the decision was taken to close the funicular. It had already been closed every Tuesday from the end of May.
HIE stated: “At a board meeting, Cairngorm Mountain (Scotland) Ltd (CMSL) agreed with the HIE decision to temporarily withdraw the funicular on the grounds of public safety.”
What exactly has gone wrong? How long will the funicular be out of service? Will it be repaired in time for the forthcoming winter season?
Will the work now proposed, at more taxpayers’ expense, finally return the funicular to a full and long service life or will there be continuing issues year after year as raised by Parkswatch readers?
Only time will tell as information coming from HIE is very limited.
It’s about time a full public enquiry was carried out into the whole sorry state of affairs. The snowsports and the wider community deserves better.
Graham Garfoot
Jarrow.
* * *
Best of luck with apartments plan
I don’t understand this ‘objection’ culture. The vast majority of us are here as a result of massive expansion of what was a railway junction town: Aviemore (which would now be redundant as no junction) into a major holiday resort in the 1960s.
We rely on tourists for employment, local businesses, tax income to pay for an increasingly ageing population. We need to expand business not contract.
We don’t apparently want tourists using holiday homes – we don’t want residential property being used for this purpose – now apparently we don’t want guest houses that already catered for tourists being used for a more modern desired, self catering accommodation.
This is not ‘robbing’ residential, it’s moving with the times.
What’s this assumption that the tourists wanting modern holiday accommodation will be hooligans whereas guest house tourists won’t? And there are many modern ways of monitoring noise and having management processes in place to handle any untoward behaviour without the need for a concierge on site.
It just sounds like rank prejudice against change.
It supplies a modern tourist demand replacing an out of date tourist demand and continues bringing tourists into the heart of the town where they spend money and support local business.
If we don’t offer what the modern tourist wants the tourist goes elsewhere and if we don’t support investment in this area the investment goes elsewhere.
What is this objection culture – last person to leave switch out the lights?
I am delighted to see the planning officers that understand the planning rules and framework recommended acceptance.
I wish Sweeney Rooms every success with their appeal.
Gordon Thomson
Ruthven Road
Kingussie.
* * *
Learn A9 lesson from the railways
Each section of the current dualled A9 should have a sign at the beginning of how long each dual is and reducing half mile markers along.
I have driven the A9 for 40 years and I still cannot accurately gauge the length of each dual for overtaking purposes. Train drivers have these distance markers across all routes and don’t have to overtake!
Michael Goodall
London.
* * *
More food for thought on touted tourist levy
Nicky Marr makes a valid point about ‘tourist tax’ in her recent article when she points out that visitors use the infrastructure and facilities that locals pay for but it’s a double-edged sword.
We all pay some form of council tax where we live whether at home or away; it doesn’t stop while we’re temporarily away from home.
If visitors live in a tourist hotspot themselves, they may benefit from their own tourist tax – if they have one – looking after their home area, and we would benefit from that in return were we to visit there, but if they don’t live in such a place, then they are being asked to pay local taxes twice with no reciprocation.
That in itself is not a reason to object to the tax, as people come to tourist areas expecting them to be well-kept and may be willing to pay extra for that but it’s another argument to add to the mix.
Stephanie Bruntlett
Tornagrain.
* * *
‘Wind turbines are a curse upon the land’
Mr Dermot Williamson’s reply (Strathy, 31August) to my allegations that windmills are ‘anything but green’ concerns only the carbon dioxide (CO2) released in their manufacture.
Any greenness is negated by demands for many tons of foreign steel, transport and installallation in concrete plus their huge demand for land and very many gallons of lubricating oil.
Their intermittency of generation necessitates constant fossil fuelled back up. Demolition, after less than 20 years, yields more CO2.
Their non-recyclable blades need landfill. Experimental attempts at recycling these are so far pie in the sky. Taking account of all their dirty and wasteful features, windmills are anything but green. The worst waste is of the land, otherwise usable for agricultural productivity and/or tourism.
At £250,000 or more, and with so many defects, windmills are neither green nor a bargain. These windmills are a curse upon the land.
Charles Wardrop
Perth.
* * *
The cost of ‘shrink-flation’ in the UK
Notice on display at Aviemore police station.
Since the 2008 banking crash, the world, UK and Scotland have been struggling with a common invisible problem: ‘shrink-flation’ ie paying the same and getting less.
Whether it’s goods or services from the smaller bag of crisps to closing a local swimming pool, we are all in the same boat.
These are felt hardest in our smaller and rural communities. The local pub closes, the local Post Office closes, the local bank closes, the local police station closes…
We all know the story, We all have to save money. I don’t know about all Strathy readers, but my bills just seem to be going up. More for less!
Recently I had to call at Aviemore police station and use the external system, which is supposed to connect to a control room – I think it’s in Dundee – where they would forward your enquiry to the relevant department.
The system is basically inaudible and I would suggest not fit for purpose. I first reported it over a year ago.
In an age where I can contact family in real time in Australia by video link, is it not time that these services moved into the 21st Century?
This current provision renders local police offices all but closed to the general public.
Mark Duncan
Aviemore.
* * *
More of the same old
Nothing in this response (Transport Scotland responds to demands made at A9 Crisis Summit) indicates any significant improvement to safety.
Junction improvements to provide adequate acceleration/deceleration lanes at every minor junction, and grade separation (overbridges) at busy black spot junctions should be the short term response.
The design of these could be harmonised with future dualling.
Alan Searle
Aviemore.
* * *
Glenmore should be a welcoming place… charges will stop this
A notice of the proposed parking charges on display at Glenmore.
I have just recently become aware that there is a plan to turn all the lay-byes in Glenmore into pay and display zones.
Charges will be £2 for one hour or £4 for six, which means that almost everyone will have to pay £4.
There will be no-waiting restrictions along this road, so no stopping except in lay-byes. (https://www.highland.gov.uk/troconsultations)
The stated reasons for this are: “Under the Road Traffic Act 1991 the Highland Area has been designated as ‘a permitted parking area and a special parking area’.
“This designation and the variation order enable the Highland Council and its authorised officers to enforce parking, waiting and loading prohibitions and traffic restrictions within the Highland Area.
“Highland Council parking enforcement officers issue Penalty Charge Notices in respect of contraventions of this Order.
“The above-named order will assist with traffic management in general and specifically relating to congestion and unsafe / unmanaged parking experienced on the C1126 Glenmore main Road and Glenmore Lodge access road.”
The first section just says ‘we can do this’.
The second part relates to traffic management ie the no-waiting restrictions.
While I have no objection to the traffic flow measures, the addition of parking meters is simply the collection of money: it is not something that can stop ‘congestion’ or ‘unsafe parking’ or help with traffic flow.
There is no stated reason why it is considered necessary to introduce parking charges, what problem this is supposed to solve, or how.
Reading their own document, it’s as if the Highland Council is saying ‘We’re going to introduce parking meters because we can’.
Additionally, the plan is a blanket 24 hour/365 days per year regime, yet after 6pm even in the peak summer season traffic is light and parking spaces are plentiful.
Metered parking in the evening (and for much of the year in the daytime) is a solution in search of a problem.
I’d prefer to see Glenmore as a welcoming place for all local people and not have barriers erected to their enjoyment of their own backyard.
Parking charges will simply put local people off visiting the area (vis. a remark from a keen local runner ‘no more Glenmore for me’) and could easily be relaxed at quiet times of the day and year.
If you live locally and would like to object to these plans please contact [email protected] before 13 September.
Malcolm Hinsley
Aviemore.
* * *
Time to right a wrong at the Nethy old kirk
The damaged wall at Abernethy Old Kirk.
On 4th December 2021, a Stagecoach bus slid on a snowy road and demolished this wall at the Abernethy Old Kirk.
I do not understand how Stagecoach and their insurers have failed to accept liability and repair the wall in nearly two years.
If the wall crumbles further they may have a much more expensive personal injury claim to settle too.
I am pretty sure their own bus was repaired within a few weeks.
They have left an eyesore for passers-by, and for the many people who visit, or celebrate family events in this fine old building.
Roderick McLeod
Kinnaird
Nethy Bridge.
Do you want to respond to this article? If so, click here[2] to submit your thoughts and they may be published in print.
References
- ^ Click here to sign up to our free newsletters! (www.strathspey-herald.co.uk)
- ^ here (www.strathspey-herald.co.uk)