LOCALS in the region slated for Scotland’s newest national park feel like they are not being listened to, MSPs have heard.
We previously told how Galloway was chosen as the proposed site for the country’s third national park, after Loch Lomond and the Trossachs, and the Cairngorms.
On Wednesday, Holyrood’s Petitions Committee heard that the plans had been contentious in the region.
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Mhairi Dawson, regional manager of Dumfries and Galloway for the National Farmers Union Scotland (NFUS), said the issue has become “so divisive it’s horrible”.
She said there was a feeling among many locals, including across parts of Ayrshire, that the Scottish Government was not listening to them.
Ahead of a consultation on the new national park, she said local people were being asked what shape the project should take – rather than whether they want it to happen at all.
Dawson said: “There is an issue with the overall process. The people in Dumfries and Galloway, and particularly in Ayrshire, do not feel their voices are being heard.
“There are no answers to many of the questions we have proposed. It’s ‘it might be this’, ‘it might be that’.
“Our members and our communities are being asked to make decisions on a lot of assumptions, not facts.”
She added: “It’s now awful in Galloway. It has become so divisive it’s horrible. It has really divided a community.”
National park already a 'done deal'
Dawson said local residents feel like the national park is already a “done deal”.
She said local businesses were worried about the effect the project could have on them.
“I have members who have been on the phone to me in tears because they are worried about the future for their children and their grandchildren,” she said.
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“There are so many family agriculture businesses in Galloway and they are worried about their future because they do not know what this looks like.”
Denise Brownlee, of the No Galloway National Park campaign, said the Scottish Government had to fix the region’s infrastructure ahead of any national park.
“First of all, think of the people that live there,” she told the committee.
“Improve our roads. If our road system was better – the A75 and A77 – that would be a safer and more comfortable road.
“If we are wanting to increase tourism, because everything so far looks like that’s what this national park is about, just getting tourists.
“But we need improvements for the people who live there, as well as tourism, so that would be our starter, the infrastructure of the region – get it sorted first.”
'The idea that nobody knows about this is disingenuous'
Rob Lucas, of the Galloway National Park Association, said the project was eight years in the making.
“The idea that nobody knows about this is disingenuous,” Lucas (below) said.
The campaigner said locals wanted to put Galloway “on the map”.
John Mayhew, from the Scottish Campaign for National Parks, said there had been widespread attempts to consult local residents on the national park.
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He said a national park could give locals more of a say in what happens in their region.
Mayhew said: “That’s part of the advantage of the National Park Authority that it isn’t the Scottish Government or NatureScot saying this is what’s going to happen in your area.
“It’s setting up a structure which allows people in that area to set their priorities.”
Earlier this month, a report from an environmental charity said the national park could support “visible farm businesses”.
Deborah Long, director of Scottish Environment Link, said: “In Scotland, national parks are intended to protect and enhance the special qualities of an area’s landscape, including both natural and cultural heritage.
“Scotland has very little true wilderness, and in many cases those special qualities are a result of the way the land has been used and worked for many generations by farmers, crofters and other land managers.
“A key objective of our national parks, existing and future, is therefore to support farming and other food production.”
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