ANTI National Park campaigners are infuriated after being snubbed by the Scottish Government.
Members of the No Galloway National Park group were at Holyrood last week for a round table discussion.
And they were shocked that neither Rural Affairs Secretary Mairi Gougeon, nor her government officials, took part in the key discussions, describing it as “disrespectful and rude”.
Last Thursday’s meeting in the Scottish Parliament was to discuss the need for a review of the two existing parks.
It was arranged by Pam Gosal, the Scottish Conservative MSP for West Scotland, and was attended by two other Scottish Conservative MSPs, Stephen Kerr and Finlay Carson, and the SNP MSP for Inverness and Nairn, Fergus Ewing.
A petition calling for an independent review of the two existing Scottish national parks before a third is created is currently before the Scottish Parliament’s Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee and has nearly 4000 signatures.
The campaigners travelled from Galloway to speak at the event, where they were joined by others from Lochaber who had successfully persuaded the Scottish Government not to select their region for the third park.
Ms Gougeon declined to attend the event. Instead, Ms Gosal will write to her to convey the view of the meeting that an independent performance review of the existing parks was long overdue.
Commenting on events, No Galloway National Park founder Denise Brownlee said: “People came a long way to attend the meeting, and it was disrespectful and rude for it not even to have been attended by an officer, never mind a minister.
“Maybe minds are already made up, but I find it very hard to understand why anyone in government who is considering such a big decision would not want to hear from the people who have to live with the reality of a national park.”
Debbie Carmichael, who led the Lochaber National Park No More campaign added: “It’s a disgrace that politicians who want to foist this bureaucratic waste of money on communities can’t even be bothered to listen to their concerns,” she said.
Meanwhile, Galloway and West Dumfries MSP Finlay Carson told the meeting he feared the Natural Environment Bill now going through the Scottish Parliament, which changes the way national parks are run, would be amended “with some crazy stuff” just before becoming law.
