SAFETY AND TRAINING NEWS

University Challenge! -
Club Safety and Good Practice Weekend 2001

First Aid Course 2001 for hillwalkers and climbers BASIC*PRACTICAL* LOW COST Glasgow Glenmore Club member Ingrid Parker is once again organising the MCofS First Aid course on the weekend of 3rd and 4th November 2001. The course provides an introduction to the skills and knowledge for casualty care in a mountain environment. The course is H&SE approved and the Chief Instructor is Jeremy Game from Lochgoilhead Centre. He will be ably assisted by members of the Arrochar Mountain Rescue Team and the British Red Cross. You will receive an H&SE approved certificate. [Please note that due to the need to make the most of 'hands on practice' in the short space of time, there may be no element of assessment so the course may not be suitable for those preparing for Mountain Leader training or assessment] Saturday night accommodation in the Glencoe Ski Club Lodge at Bridge of Orchy (easily accessible by train) is included in the cost. If you would like to stay on the Friday night, please add an extra £6. Access to the hut will be available from Friday evening for those staying there. The course starts at 9am on Saturday morning and is self-catering – please bring your own food.   Winter Skills Training Courses 2001-2002 The Glenmore Lodge Winter Skills Courses are again being offered to members at a discounted price. Approximately 60 places have been allocated for each set of dates. There are two types of course and they will run concurrently on the dates listed. Course Dates Friday 28 Dec - Sunday 30 Dec Tuesday 01 - Thursday 03 Jan Friday 04 - Sunday 06 Jan Friday 11 - Sunday 13 Jan Introduction to Winter Hill-walking Cost £95 Covers basic skills of navigation, winter safety, avalanche awareness and winter walking with ice axe and crampons (conditions permitting); it will not involve any use of ropes. The staffing ratio will be 1:8 Introduction to Winter Mountaineering Skills Cost £135 Training in winter skills at a more advanced level, involving basic rope work and belays (conditions permitting). Participants should already have basic winter walking skills; some experience of rope handling is useful but not essential. It is not an ice-climbing course, but is aimed at developing skills to undertake mountaineering routes such as the classic easy ridges involving some scrambling. The staffing ratio will be 1:4. We cannot guarantee that there will be suitable winter conditions but will provide relevant training on the 1:4 ratio. There is a maximum of 16 places on each course date. Course Administration Cost includes accommodation, food, instruction, equipment and transport from the Lodge to the hill. Courses start with an opening brief at 2000hrs on the first day listed. There is no evening meal on this day but bar meals are available in the Lochain Bar until 2100hrs. Rooms will not be available before 1830hrs. All courses end at 1600hrs on the last day listed. Rooms should be cleared by 1700hrs when tea and cake will be served. Bar meals are also available for a limited time on the Sunday. Please note that given reasonable winter conditions, no matter which course you are on, you will be issued with plastic boots and compatible crampons unless you have your own 3 or 4 season boots and an appropriate pair of crampons. As you will not be following paths and may be on steep ground in order to provide some realism to the training, it is essential to be properly equipped. You will need to have an OS 1:50000 map sheet 36 of the Cairngorms, (a 1:25000 is not appropriate to navigating in the winter); a good map case (or a waterproof map), a compass of the Silva Type 4 or a similar quality and a head torch and batteries. These items can be purchased from the Lodge shop. Full course payment is required at the time of booking. Any cancellation before four weeks prior to the course will result in the loss of a £30.00 administration charge, the remaining course fee being returned. Cancellation within four weeks of the start date of the course will result in the loss of the full course fee, unless the place is able to be sold to another MCofS member, in which case the fee, less the administration charge of £30.00 will be returned. Any change of course or date will result in a £20.00 surcharge. If the course is cancelled for any reason Glenmore Lodge will return the course fee in full (Glenmore Lodge Tel no. 01479 861256). Applications will only be accepted on the attached MCofS application form (or photocopy). Please note that bookings are done directly through the Lodge and not the MCofS Office.   SMSF Navigation Courses "Brush up on your Navigation Skills" If you want to increase your confidence in route finding and hill navigation in all weather conditions then get yourself onto one of these weekend courses this autumn. These highly popular courses are supported by the Scottish Mountain Safety Forum and organised by the MCofS. This year they are being held in Inverness, Aberdeenshire and near Stirling. The courses are aimed at the general public and aimed at folk with little mountain experience. Unlike the Winter Skills or First Aid courses, they are extended to non- members of the MCofS, local to the areas in which the courses are held and designed to encourage folk from outwith the club system. The courses are two days long, starting with an indoor theory session on the Saturday morning, and spending the rest of Saturday and all day Sunday out on the hills practicing and improving your skills. The course costs £35 per person and the dates are as follows: Inverness:3/4 November 2001 Aberdeenshire:10/11 November 2001 Central Region:17/18 November 2001 Please note that the courses are non residential and participants will need to provide their own food and accommodation. For more information contact the MCofS office direct.

ACCESS and CONSERVATION Errata: The Article in SM8, entitled "Thick Mist on the Coruisk Cuillin" was erroneously accredited to Mike Dales. It was in fact written by Alan Blackshaw; whilst the eagle-eyed would have spotted that the photo captioned 'Collies Ledge' was actually The Thearlaich Dubh Gap, Cuillin by Fran Pothecary. Apologies to all. Access Legislation Spreading the Word The MCofS 'Road Shows' held across Scotland in June by Mike Dales and John Donohoe helped brief members on the draft Bill, and to encourage responses. The quality of debate was very high and helped MCofS in its response and hopefully increased the number and quality of individual responses. We would like to thank Tiso for their support and sponsorship, the Ochils Mountaineering Club and Climb Caledonia for helping to arrange local venues, and the Scottish Canoe Association for jointly organising the Perth briefing. MCofS also alerted the Outdoor Trade to the possibly devastating effect on their business and would like to thank The Outdoor Industries Association for their help in spreading the word. Finally, thanks to all those mountaineers and clubs who made submissions. The MCofS Response The MCofS 21-page response is available on the MCofS website, and hard copies can be purchased from the MCofS office (£1.50 inc p&p). The MCofS regarded The Draft Bill as a great disappointment, ignoring the Access Forum's proposals, to draft legislation that was confused and unworkable. One of the main principles behind the devolved Scottish Parliament was to be the preparation of draft legislation by "Civic Scotland" and the Forum was regarded as the embodiment of that process and the MCofS is still committed to the process of bringing together the recreational bodies, land managing interests and public agencies via the Forum. The general statement from the MCofS was that the legislation should more closely reflect the consensus recommendations of the Forum: Giving a more balanced package of responsibilities between users, owners and public bodies; Giving a clear right of responsible access that is clearly understood without expensive mapping and recording exercises to establish where it may or may not be exercised; Including some legislative recognition of the conservation safeguard and reducing the excessive land management safeguards; Leaving the detail of implementation for the Code, rather than the Bill; and Relying on co-operation, education and understanding rather than compliance and compulsion (except where this can be achieved by cross-referencing to existing legislation (e.g. litter, health and safety, conservation, etc.). So, where do we go from here? There have been in excess of 3,500 responses to the consultation, mostly from recreationalists. These responses will now be analysed by the Scottish Executive who will re-write the Bill. If the passage of the Bill follows the normal procedure the next version (which is a Bill as opposed to draft Bill) will be passed to the Parliamentary Committees. A lead committee (probably Justice 1) and other interested committees (probably Transport & Environment and Rural Development) will discuss, amend and refine the wording. After three readings in the committee stages the Bill is passed and becomes an Act. The MCofS submitted that the draft Bill was so far off target that the draft stage should be repeated and the public be given an opportunity to be consulted on a more sensible set of proposals. Land reform legislation is central to the Scottish Government's agenda, unfortunately, civil servants have now knocked it off course, and a number of politicians are now aware of this fact. There has been media speculation that the "Access" and "Community and Crofters' Right to Buy" sections of the legislation might be de-coupled with the "Right to Buy" allowed to progress more quickly, whilst "Access" is given more time to be re-drafted. This is a possibility but unlikely as most politicians feel there is no space in the Parliamentary timetable. The other option for the Scottish Executive is to write legislation and a draft Scottish Outdoor Access Code that reflects the consensus view and sensible and balanced package of measures that the Forum published in November 1998. MCofS will be lobbying MPs to take those proposals seriously. Most importantly, we will urge the politicians to make it their priority to get this legislation right, as this is far more important than the date when the Bill is passed. Access Symposium Where Next After the Draft Land Reform Bill? Saturday November 17th The AK Bell Library Theatre, Perth As a follow-up to the Access Briefings, this year's Access Symposium will debate the ongoing process of access legislation reform in Scotland. Given the anger that the draft Bill has generated, this is an opportunity to hear the latest news and help guide MCofS's reactions. Your support during the recent consultation period was tremendous, but there is more work to be done. This is a crucial issue and we urge members to attend this event.   National Parks MCofS Cairngorms National Park Consultation Response The full MCofS response to the written consultation exercise can be found on our website, or alternatively a paper copy can be ordered from our office (A5 SAE please). We were concerned that the consultation paper did not explain what the current problems are that could be addressed by a National Park. Without this appraisal of where we are now and how we arrived here, it is difficult to plan our way forward. Our overriding concern is on the issue of planning powers. We believe passionately that the National Park should be its own planning authority. To have a National Park with the various local authorities holding onto the planning powers is a policy that has been demonstrated not to work. The experience of English and Welsh National Parks should serve as a reminder. The first two National Parks in the British Isles were the Peak District and Lake District. Both started out with the National Park being the planning authority, but the next eight Parks, all created in the 1950's, had the planning powers vested in the local authorities. Planning issues were more properly and efficiently dealt with in the Peak and Lakes, and years of campaigning for all Parks to be their own planning authorities finally succeeded in 1995 with the passing of the Environment Act. Are we about to copy that mistake? The MCofS expressed its concerns that the government will wish to see Scotland's first two National Parks working effectively before it agrees to further National Parks. We believe that other parts of Scotland meet the criteria for a National Park, but their chances of achieving this designation could be set back if one or both of the first two Parks runs into problems. We believe that problems are far more likely to occur in the Cairngorms if it, unlike Loch Lomond and the Trossachs, does not have control of the planning powers. Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park draft Designation Order The progress of the move to set up Scotland's first National Park around Loch Lomond and the Trossachs is continuing apace. Rhona Brankin, the deputy Rural Affairs Minister launched the consultation on the draft Designation Order for the Park on June 11th. The closing date for this latest consultation is September 21st. Copies of the consultation document can be obtained by phoning the Stationery Office Bookshop on 0870 606 55 66 or by e-mailing npb@scotland.gsi.gov.uk (or here) The MCofS's initial reaction to this document is that we are pleased to see the National Park controlling the planning functions in respect of the local plan and development control. In terms of the boundary we are pleased to see the Argyll Forest Park and Loch Earn included within the Park, but feel that more of Glen Dochart should be included than is currently proposed.   Snippits Hillphones This is the sixth year of operating the system and two new areas have joined, bringing the total number to 12. Atholl and Lude estates, to the north of Pitlochry, form one of the largest Hillphone areas, whilst three estates on the southern half of the Island of Jura will make up the remotest Hillphone area. Posters and leaflets will be found in shops, information centres, hotels and cafés throughout Scotland and a leaflet is enclosed with this newsletter. Please contact the MCofS office if you can display a poster or want more leaflets. In the aftermath of FMD and the unjustifiable attempts at maintaining closures, and following the disappointment of the badly drafted Access Legislation, the Hillphones scheme demonstrates that ordinary people on the ground can work together and communicate sensibly. Foot and Mouth Disease Conference Sport Scotland, in collaboration with the Scottish Tourist Board and Scottish Natural Heritage is organising a one-day conference on the impact of the foot and mouth crisis on outdoor recreation and tourism in Scotland. The conference is open to all (not just for the professionals), and is being held on September 11th at Heriot Watt University. Loch Duntelchaig Parking Water Authority work on the dam at Loch Duntelchaig near Inverness have meant parking difficulties for climbers and walkers causing blockage to the single-track road. This is obviously not an ideal situation. However, reports in the press indicate that the original 'unofficial' car park will not be reinstated once works are finished. We have been in contact with Highland Council who are aware of the problem and are attempting to resolve the issue. Along with the Council we hope that a proper managed car park can be created there. The MCofS is on the case and will report back in the next issue of The Scottish Mountaineer. Masts The MCofS welcomed the Scottish Executive announcement that telecommunications masts have been brought under full planning control. This should end the free-for-all erection of masts across the Scottish countryside, which has resulted in significant scenic damage. Mobile telephone companies were sheltered from the main planning system as masts were designated as "permitted development". The MCofS has campaigned for the removal of this status since 1998. We are pleased that the Scottish Executive has acted, but unfortunately, in many areas the damage is now done with bulldozed tracks leading to hill top masts. Under the previous planning arrangements masts under 15 metres in height were permitted, but from July 2001 onwards all ground based masts will require planning permission. The Scottish Executive news release announcing this change in the planning rules can be found at: www.scotland.gov.uk/news/2001/06/se1534.asp Proposed Shieldaig Hydro Scheme There is still no planning application for this controversial scheme. The MCofS is determined to protect this area of wild land and will campaign vigorously to prevent its destruction.   Back to Newsletter index     next article

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