The Mountaineering Council of Scotland (MCofS) is calling for destructive work on a Highland track to be halted and damaged ground restored.

The Attadale estate in Wester Ross is creating a huge scar across a Wester Ross hillside by using a bulldozer to change a narrow footpath into a vehicular road. Highland Council planners claim they are powerless to interfere with the creation of this scar on the landscape, because upgrading an existing track is considered to be "permitted development".

The track is on the west side of Bidein a' Choire Sheasgaich, a Munro known affectionately to hillwalkers as "Cheesecake". It is in a remote 'wild land' area, which government planning guidelines already aim to protect from vehicular intrusion.

MCofS Access and Conservation Officer, Mike Dales, said: "This should not be classed as permitted development, because this is introducing a significant new road into a remote and scenic area. The new road is wider, built to a lower standard of construction and is for a different purpose. In planning terms this clearly represents a change of use. We therefore call on Scottish Natural Heritage and Highland Council to take out an injunction and stop this work with immediate effect."

Mike Newbury, secretary of the MCofS Access and Conservation committee, went on to say: "If such destruction is permitted development then the rules need to be urgently reviewed, and the Scottish Executive should recognise this and act quickly before anymore of our wild land areas are desecrated in this way."

Mike Dales is planning to walk into this area on Thursday evening or Friday morning to look at the damage and take digital photographs.

The MCofS will be keeping mountaineers informed of this issue via this website, which is at: www.mountaineering-scotland.org.uk

The line of the track can be found on Ordnance Survey Landranger sheet 25. The track starts just east of Bendronaig Lodge at 018392, and is expected to follow the line of a path marked on the map to somewhere in the vicinity of where the path crosses a burn at 028417. The previous bulldozed road that was created last year runs from Bendronaig Lodge to Pait Lodge on the south shore of Loch Monar.