Bog Myrtle & Peat

It seems increasingly unlikely that Galloway will be designated as a National Park after all. For a start, there’s absolutely no money to pay for it. While recent headlines focussed upon cash which was taken out of conservation pots to pay for employment disputes in the public sector, government cuts have run far more deeply across the entire economy. Even in my quiet little corner of conservation, tiny amounts of cash have been clawed back from existing budgets and put towards things which are regarded as more important. There are vague promises about money which might be made available for nature in future years, but for now it’s a desperate, plummeting dive into penury and stasis for many projects which had taken years to set up. In that context, the idea of a new National Park seems barmy. A lack of money alone is enough to kill the proposal right now – and if we do get a National Park after all, it’s probably fair to ask why it came at the expense of so many great initiatives which were already in place.

In the meantime, the anti-park campaign has built some hefty momentum over the last few weeks. The countryside seems to be full of NO PARK signs, and many of the shops in Castle Douglas have banners or leaflets available from the No Park camp. It’s hard to know what this publicity actually achieves; it could be the fruit of a tiny minority working in overdrive to make sure that their voices are heard – but it can’t be derided on that account. The same can be said of the tiny minority who set this discussion off in the first place. 

Defending their claim on public support, the Parkers refer to a consultation which was undertaken to endorse the application to the Scottish Government. They’re proud of this work, and it’s certainly impressive –  to quote from their website: “In all[,]GNPA has spoken to in excess of 2,500 people and organisational representatives at more than 130 meetings”. They also claim that 84% of people they’ve spoken to were in favour of promoting a Galloway NP – and that a further 68% strongly supported one. This is a big piece of work, and it’s been more than enough to get the ball rolling – but it’s not an impartial consultation. 

Given that there are no concrete figures around public opinion in Galloway, I’m getting used to generalising a sense of feeling from the people I know. It’s as good as anything – and I can still truthfully claim that I don’t know anybody who wants a Park here. I can also infer that if you don’t want a National Park, you’re unlikely to waste your time going to a consultation meeting to say it. Perhaps you’ll mutter something about it over a pint, but life goes on and it all seemed like a pipe dream until July anyway. The consultation work held so far has attracted a really positive response because that’s how people operate – change is invigorating; continuity stays at home. Even the most ardent Parkers must concede that a majority of 84% is madly optimistic for Galloway as a whole – in the unlikely event that it turns out that Parkers are in a majority at all, it’s going to be a mighty slender margin. What’s happened so far is a reasonable first stab at mobilising one side of the argument – nothing more.

There has been some discussion about a local referendum on National Park status – the idea is usually put forward by No-Parkers who understand that they probably have the weight of numbers behind them. By return, Parkers tend to claim that they already have a democratic support because the bid is backed by local authorities which do have something like a popular mandate. I’m not completely comfortable with this, not least because if you voted for Jimmy Bloggs in 2022 on a promise to fix the streetlight outside your house, it doesn’t immediately follow that Jimmy’s subsequent enthusiasm for a National Park mirrors your own. We mustn’t forget the fact that nobody was really taking this idea seriously until this summer. Even if Jimmy Bloggs said he wanted a National Park during hustings in 2022, you could easily have said “yeah, whatever… but can we go back to talking about my streetlight”. This is how democracy works, but it’s never a comfortable fit.

For my part, it actually weakens the bid to announce that it’s being endorsed by bodies like the Biosphere and Dumfries and Galloway Council. The Biosphere exists in a kind of hopeless, anaemic void, and what the Council gains by clarity of purpose, it loses by failure of delivery. Added to this, there’s no clear line between any of these organisations and the individuals behind the Park campaign. It seems like the same handful of people move back and forth between all three groups, so it’s hard to swallow the idea that each has given the other much critical thought or objective appraisal. No-Parkers are invigorated by a slightly oversized fear of “jobs for the boys”; the image of ID lanyards and fart-filled meeting rooms – it’s no surprise that invoking the insipid fuzziness of something like the Biosphere brand actually reinforces this. 

And all the while, a sense of confusion and fogginess continues to prevail over the entire discussion. Some people believe that there’s no need for any more consultation; the point has been proven and it’s now just a matter of signing the paperwork to create a Park. Others are shelling the consultation portal with raucous complaints and fury, terrified that the decision has been made without their input. 

Behind the scenes, official publicity around the idea has quietly shifted from the determined certainty of “we will create a new National Park for Scotland” to weaker, more diffident words like “if”, “could” and “might”. It seems like there’s now an escape-hatch for ministers to row back on the plan, and this has become the ever-more-likely outcome. Importantly, this escape-hatch didn’t exist six weeks ago; it was all confidence and bullishness back then. Without cash or clear consensus, the whole process has slumped into a bitter, worthless talking shop – and it’s hard to understand why the moment was fumbled so badly.