Letter to the Press by BSCG Member Gill Nisbet 16th Sept 2002

Boat of Garten,   Inverness-shire   16 September 2002

To:   The Editor,  The Strathspey and Badenoch Herald,  High Street,  Grantown-on-Spey 

Dear Sir,

It was a pleasure to participate in the opening of the Community Garden in Boat of Garten on Friday. It is a wonderful asset for the village and will be enjoyed for years to come by residents and visitors alike. Many people from the village have worked very hard to create this amenity and in the words of Jim McColl, “ the people of Boat of Garten are to be congratulated on their achievement”.

It is ironic that while the residents of Boat of Garten have been working to enhance the village, the developers have been planning a major new development which will result in the loss of  a valuable amenity and destroy the character of the village.

I was appalled to learn that there was a planning application before the Council for a large housing development in the forest in the heart of the village. It is proposed to build 120 new houses, in an existing village of only 377 houses.

Visitors come to Boat of Garten because they enjoy the tranquillity of the small village atmosphere and to see the wildlife. Many bird-watchers stay here in the ‘Osprey Village’ because of the connection with the ospreys at Loch Garten. The area of forest in which the developers wish to build has a network of recently improved forest walks and is well used by both locals and visitors. It is a haven for wildlife and home to rare and endangered birds and animals. Not many folk in Scotland are privileged to see red squirrels in their gardens, or come across a capercaillie while out walking the dog! We should be striving to protect such places, not spoiling them with unnecessary development.

What will the local community get in exchange for our beautiful forest? We will get a development of luxury homes, out of the reach of local people, to be bought up as holiday homes by people who want to enjoy the quiet village life and beautiful surroundings which will be destroyed in the process!  They will contribute nothing to the community or the local economy. There is nothing to gain from this and much to lose in this precious amenity.

Such a development would also put pressure on local services which are already over-stretched. A new sewage system would be required (which should be taken into account when planning applications are being considered), and a new primary school is also badly needed.

It is no coincidence that there has been a spate of applications for large planning developments throughout the Strath during the last year, before the National Park comes into being. Surely it would be appropriate to have a moratorium on large scale housing developments especially in habitats like Scots pinewood in Strathspey until the Cairngorms National Park authority is in existence, and a new Local Plan is produced. Alternatively applications of this scale should be called in by the Scottish executive until such time as the National Park authority is able to deal with them.

Let us not spoil our natural assets before the National Park has even come into being.

Yours sincerely, 

Gill Nisbet