What next for national parks now the Galloway plan has been scrapped?

Liz Hitschmann and Denise Findlay are frantic but thrilled when I call them less than an hour after it is confirmed that Galloway will not become Scotland’s third national park.

“I haven’t taken it on board yet to be honest, because there’s just been so much going on,” Hitschmann says, gesturing to her phone which continues pinging throughout our chat. “Obviously we’re highly delighted. We couldn’t hope for more, really, it’s a better result than we could have hoped for. We’re really pleased about it. We just hope that the statement that Mairi Gougeon has made is upheld. This area has suffered from years of neglect.”

The two women live in Gatehouse of Fleet, one of the small towns that would have fallen within the boundaries of the Galloway National Park. The pair hadn’t really known each other all that well until their opposition to the proposal brought them together. But when Findlay’s Facebook group ‘No Galloway National Park’ took off after setting it up in July last year, she reached out to her neighbour, Hitschmann, for support. The two have become close friends.

Findlay explains her chief concern about national park designation was over-tourism. She previously worked part-time as a ranger at Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park and has seen firsthand what that can mean for locals. “I didn’t want to be Loch Lomond. I didn’t want the numbers of tourists; I didn’t want the human waste and the litter that’s round every corner and things like that. That was my main concern, that’s how I started out. And that changed over the piece, when you’re speaking to more and more people.”

It’s an area that really needs a long-term future which is able to support the local communities

As their campaign grew, more issues emerged from others within the community – concerns about second homes and holiday rentals, an increase in low-paid hospitality jobs, pressure on infrastructure like the roads and water systems.

Other organisations started speaking out too. Scottish Renewables warned planning regulations could block onshore wind developments. Scottish Land & Estates said the cost of complying with new regulations “could prove the final straw” for some businesses. And the National Farmers Union said it would create “unnecessary bureaucracy” with no “tangible advantages”.

It was the backing of farmers and landowners, including some with a connection to former Scottish secretary Alister Jack, that drew a lot of ire to the No Galloway National Park campaign. Hitschmann admits she was quite taken aback by that. “Obviously farmers are going to be involved because this is a massive farming area,” she says, but adds she “never even considered them” when first setting up the group. She insists it has been “community-led”.

But the issues the two women highlight are the same as the ones mentioned by backers of the national park. Rob Lucas, chair of the Galloway National Park Association (GNPA), says during his conversations with locals it was clear they felt “they were getting a smaller and smaller voice in what happened in their area”. He points to problems with heavy traffic, the closure of local services, an economy built on low paid jobs, and depopulation as young people leave for opportunities elsewhere.

But unlike Findlay and Hitschmann, Lucas is of the view that a national park designation would help address these problems. “It’s trying to provide something that joins all those things together, which helps our fragile communities, helps our fragile economy, and our fragile environment... It’s an area that really needs a long-term future which is able to support the local communities,” he says.

The GNPA was set up in 2017 to explore the proposal following a paper commissioned by Dumfries and Galloway Council the year before. Lucas has been involved from the start.

“For the first five years, we were not only looking at what a national park might mean, but also trying to convince the Scottish Government that more national parks would be a good idea. They repeatedly said national parks are great, we like Cairngorms, we like Loch Lomond, but we’ve no plans for any more. That changed with the Bute House Agreement. And so, then it was about making the case for Galloway.”

The designation of at least one new national park in this parliamentary session was part of the deal between the Scottish Greens and the SNP. And while initially it seemed like the government would take forward the plan even after the BHA was scrapped, questions had started to be raised about its purpose and direction.

If we just got the name Galloway National Park without any of the crap, I would be delighted

Tory MSP Finlay Carson, who represents Galloway and West Dumfries, lays the blame with former Green minister Lorna Slater. He says her plans would have seen the emphasis shift away from “sustainable economic development” and towards environmental efforts like rewilding. It led to his party withdrawing its support.

The U-turn did not come without cost. Four Galloway councillors quit the Conservatives to set up a new independent group, Novantae. In a statement, Councillor Richard Marsh said the lack of support for the national park was “just one example of a broader failure to listen to the west of the region”.

Despite his opposition now, Carson still recognises the benefits designation could bring – if done right. “If we just got the name Galloway National Park without any of the crap, I would be delighted,” he says. “But the sad thing is, we still don’t know how the other two national parks in Scotland are performing and it’s maybe just jumping the gun a bit by not doing the cost/benefit analysis on the Cairngorms and Loch Lomond.”

Scotland’s two national parks are well over 20 years old now and yet, as Carson says, there has been no analysis by the Scottish Government in that time. Into this gap stepped charity Scottish Environment Link, which commissioned a report last year. It estimated the parks generated £700m per year and had directly created 250 jobs. In addition, it found the share of affordable homes built in the areas exceeded the national target and, contrary to popular belief, planning application approvals also exceeded the national average.

It begs a lot of questions about how we talk about the benefits of national parks

Still, Labour MSP Sarah Boyack suggests Scottish ministers may be struggling with how to sell a national park because they haven’t got to grips with the benefits themselves.

Boyack was environment minister when the National Parks (Scotland) Act was passed back in 2000, one of the first pieces of legislation for the newly reconvened parliament. She recalls: “I was passionate about it because Scotland had no national park. That just made us stand out globally because everybody else had [them]… I had been a town planner in the central region, and we had a regional park back in the day which we thought it should be a national park. So when I had the opportunity as environment minister, I was very keen to introduce national parks legislation.”

The bill set out the framework and broad aims for establishing national parks. Those were to: conserve natural and cultural heritage; promote sustainable use of natural resources; promote understanding and enjoyment of the special qualities of the area; and promote sustainable economic and social development.

Loch Lomond and the Trossachs became Scotland’s first national park in 2002, followed by the Cairngorms a year later. In the third session of the parliament, one John Swinney – then an SNP backbencher – led efforts to extend the boundary of the Cairngorms National Park into the northern part of his Perthshire constituency.

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Despite this show of support, no other national parks have been created. Boyack admits she’s “shocked” by this, particularly given the ongoing conversation for the last decade about a third. Galloway was not the only option. Other communities which had explored it include Loch Awe, Ben Wyvis and Glen Affric, and Tay Forest.

Boyack continues: “It begs a lot of questions about how we talk about the benefits of national parks, and is it time for the Scottish Government to actually learn the lessons? What’s really worked well in our national parks? What could be improved and how would you do that in any future national parks? It really is over to them.”

One person who is absolutely clear about the benefits is the CEO of Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park Authority, Gordon Watson. He, like Boyack, was involved with its creation from the start. He explains the role of the park authority is to “help communities develop against the vision they’ve set for themselves”.

We prevent quite a lot of bad stuff happening through the ranger presence

“Since day one, we have worked with communities on community action plans – nowadays we call them local place plans – and we’ve had community action plans for every community, which has led to a whole network of community development trusts and a whole network of community-led projects. Just last year, the community’s work levered in £2m towards projects they now own – assets like micro hydro schemes.”

Of course, the area still suffers from its problems and Watson is honest about that. But he argues that without the authority many of these issues would be worse – because Loch Lomond would still be an attractive destination but there would be less oversight. “Prior to the national park coming into being, local authorities were doing what they could in terms of trying to have for-purpose visitor sites and recreation routes, but it wasn’t really something that was the focus of a local authority.

“The amount of money that has been invested in recreation routes with our sites, we obviously have changing trends in tourism, there are changing trends in recreation activity – just recently we’ve reviewed the bylaws because of this huge growth in paddle sports, open water swimming, a rise in jet-skis.

“If you didn’t have a national park there to manage those competing recreation pressures, you would not only have a very poor visitor experience but you’d also have significant safety issues. We prevent quite a lot of bad stuff happening through the ranger presence and the visitor management measures we have in place. I wouldn’t pretend we’ve solved every single problem, but we’ve solved a lot of them.”

Rural communities are crying out for more protection

One specific issue the area is facing at the moment is the controversial Flamingo Land development. The Lomond Banks project, a £40m resort including a monorail, waterpark, hotel and restaurants, was first mooted a decade ago. When the planning application was unanimously rejected by the national park’s board last September, it was seen as a significant victory for local campaigners who had opposed it. But a Scottish Government reporter last month overturned that decision on appeal. After initially saying ministers had no intention of intervening, public finance minister Ivan McKee has now said the appeal will be called in – meaning ministers will take the final decision on the development.

That decision came on the eve of a Scottish Labour-led debate on the topic, led by local MSP Jackie Baillie, which would likely have meant a government defeat.

Baillie, the Greens’ Ross Greer and Tory Pam Gosal have made a bit of a motley crew by uniting to oppose the development. Indeed, on the same day as the announcement about the future of the Galloway National Park, the three join a small group of local campaigners protesting outside parliament about Flamingo Land, a demo organised by Greer. I ask him what message the two decisions are sending to rural Scotland. He says: “At the moment, the message the Scottish Government is sending is that they will stand up for a big business but won’t stand up for Scotland’s world famous natural environment. It’s as simple as that.

“Rural communities are crying out for more protection from these exploitative developers or from the massive spread of second homes. Holiday homes are causing so many issues with the local housing supply. Time after time, the Scottish Government has the opportunity to stand up for these communities and instead chooses to protect the interests of Airbnb or Flamingo Land… I can’t understand it from a party that says it stands up for Scotland.”

People saw this as the golden bullet that would change everything for the area

Hours later, rural secretary Mairi Gougeon is on her feet in parliament confirming there will be no third national park in Galloway. “The proposal does not have sufficient clarity, nor has it garnered sufficient local support to proceed to the next stage of designation,” she tells the chamber.

However, she recognises the many concerns people have highlighted as part of the process – “from roads, affordable housing and health services to business investment, environmental protection and opportunities for young people”. She continues: “What is important going forward is that we take note of the issues, concerns and opportunities that have been raised during the consultation process and that we place a renewed focus on delivering for the people of southwest Scotland.”

Back in Gatehouse of Fleet, Findlay and Hitschmann are keen to hold Gougeon’s feet to the fire. “We’ve started this, we can’t just say ‘great, that’s the end of it’. We’ve got to see it through to some sort of benefit for the area,” says Hitschmann. “We know that we’re going to get a lot of aggravation, a lot of negativity, because people saw this as the golden bullet that would change everything for the area. In some ways we feel beholden to that, in that we should pursue it and make sure that they are held to their promises.”