INVERNESS & BLACK ISLE U3A
STUDY DAY
Panel Session
Questions arising from the Group Discussions.
Landscape and Heritage
Should we value industrial landscapes and preserve them to the same extent as we do with prehistoric structures?
Should the oral/intangible history of a building be valued as much as the tangible? If so, how would the panels go about preserving the intangible?
Landscape, Industry and Energy
How could we achieve an integrated national strategy for energy and how might this affect the Highland Landscape?
Because of the landscape impact, should development on farms, estates and forest enterprises be subject to the planning system?
Landscape
How do we give ordinary people a stake in the Highland Landscape and its development?
Are we devoting enough resources to recording what is going on around us so that we make meaningful decisions about the future of the landscape?
Landscape and Population
What areas of the Highlands are we willing to sacrifice with the need for housing and industry?
Assuming an increase in 250,000 people (20, 000) households, how do we supply energy, medical services and social services?
Landscape and Tourism
Should we be spending more on managing tourists e.g. dealing with litter, having more toilets, advertising local walks, more small car parks by the sides of roads, more information boards describing scenery/geology, providing more linked up information on public transport. And how will this be paid for?
Should we attempt to educate local inhabitants on the benefits tourists bring to the Highlands? How do we do this?
Panel Session
Jean Urquhart, Anne Coombs, Fran Lockhart and Anthony Bryant
1. Should we value industrial landscapes and preserve them to the same extent as we do with prehistoric structures?
All the members of the panel were in agreement that industrial landscapes should be valued and protected.
Industrial landscapes are an important part of our heritage and are probably more relevant to twenty-first century citizens than prehistoric or medieval landscapes.
Although such industrial sites are usually quite small, in relation to the wider landscape, the linkage with traditional skills and real people helps celebrate identity and gives locality a sense place.
2. How could we achieve an integrated national strategy for energy and how might this affect the Highland Landscape?
Jean Urquhart argued, and the panel agreed, that a National Energy Strategy should stress the importance of sustainability. Using less energy more effectively would be less exploitive of the Highlands and be less damaging to the global environment.
Jean voiced the concern that some entrepreneurs see subsidies for generating renewable energy as an easy way of making money without regard to the effect on the landscape or the wider social and economic implications at the local, national and international levels.
3. How do we give ordinary people a stake in the Highland Landscape and its development?
Panel members were in broad agreement that people, and particularly young people, should have real access to the planning process.
Community Councils in the Highlands should take a clear lead in this process, developing a clear vision with regard to their local landscape, listening to people’s concerns and working to promote well designed landscapes and townscapes.
Anthony Bryant and Fran Lockhart pointed out that there are many voluntary groups and organisations that are interested in both the natural and man-made environment and that organisations such as the National Trust for Scotland, The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and The John Muir Trust give ordinary people greater access to having a say in what goes on in the landscape, especially through local membership groups.
Several members of the panel raised the question of Land Reform at this point, pointing out that much of the land that is held to contribute to the distinctive character of rural Scotland is held by a relatively small number of individuals and that land use change on large estates often falls outside the normal planning remit. Land Reform should emphasise the fact that landscapes are a shared resource and would serve to give citizens the sort of stake in the Highland Landscape that would be required if they are to play an active and meaningful role in making decisions about the changing character and quality of their environment.
4. What areas of the Highlands are we willing to sacrifice with the need for housing and industry?
The panel felt that, going back to the issues of sustainability and Land Reform, that it should not be necessary to sacrifice any of the unique Highland landscapes in order to cope with population growth.
Sustainable, small-scale development in keeping with the current character of a settlement and within the limits imposed by its existing infrastructure does not have to impinge on the landscape in the way that large-scale developments do. This approach has been successfully demonstrated in Orkney where a dramatic increase in population and industrialisation has been managed without significant loss to the character of the island landscape.
5. Should we be spending more on managing tourists e.g. dealing with litter, having more toilets, advertising local walks, more small car parks by the sides of roads, more information boards describing scenery/geology, providing more linked up information on public transport. And how will this be paid for?
This question raised a number of issues. Firstly, because of the way in which people holiday in the Highlands, is was felt that the term ‘tourists' only applies to a small number of holiday makers and that the great majority of people who come (often regularly) to the Highlands are better defined as ‘visitors’.
Panel members felt that everyone (including residents) would like to see less litter, more toilets and car parks, better public transport etc. and that what was good for visitors was good for residents and vice versa. To this end it was agreed that there is a need for better facilities and services across the Highlands, serving not just the need of visitors or residents alone but the community as a whole.
The final point, made by several of the panel, was that the people who make most from visitors/tourists do not necessarily bear the cost of the basic services and facilities infrastructure. While it is assumed that visitors inject large sums of money into the local economy the actual cost of creating and maintaining the supportive infrastructure is met by the wider community, which may not see any direct financial benefit. To this end it was suggested that there should be a fairer way of spreading the cost of catering for increasing numbers of visitors, particularly if the profits generated by increased visitor numbers were flowing out of the region or were accrued by a limited number of individuals.
