Bog Myrtle & Peat

There have been growing calls for a referendum on a National Park in Galloway. It seems like an obvious step, particularly since there’s so much confusion and distrust around how the consultation’s being undertaken. Even if the referendum was merely advisory, it would give people a sense that their voices are being heard by the Government – and that’s a great deal better than the current status quo in which our views are being processed and pasteurised by civil servants who claim that once this consultation is over, they’ll be able to speak on our behalf.

A referendum is being resisted on three counts – firstly by the Government itself, which has seems to have absolute faith that the existing process is completely sound and solid. Given that the Government has publicly committed itself to designating a National Park as soon as possible (with Galloway the only “contender”), this vote of confidence further undermines public trust. Ministers know what they want, and they have an obvious reason to endorse the existing consultation because it’s the route they designed as a means of delivering it.

The second reason is that a referendum would cost too much. In an environment where money is being squeezed to the last penny, this sounds like a reasonable concern, but it has to be offset against the idea that the establishment of a National Park will be seriously expensive – and it’ll be unlikely to succeed if it’s not backed by a majority of local people. The narrative is therefore “we can’t afford to spend a bit of money making sure this is going to work – we prefer to spend a much greater amount of money on a leap towards the unmeasured assumption that it’ll be fine”. When you remember that the current consultation process is already costing the Government more than the price of a nice house in Auchencairn, a bit more money for a referendum surely isn’t entirely out of the way?

There’s a third concern that a referendum would be too complicated. The existing proposal offers to designate parts of Galloway and Ayrshire, and the implication is that involving two local authorities in a referendum would incur an unacceptable degree of complication and cost. That makes sense, but it sets an odd precedent for the future of a National Park which will be founded upon cooperation between two local authorities. If they can’t hash together a referendum between them, what hope for a park? And at the same time, it’s still not entirely clear why Ayrshire was ever involved in this conversation. An odd situation has arisen in which the National Park campaigners offered boundary options which run across two counties… and now argue that they can’t engage fully with stakeholders because the boundary might run across two counties. 

On the Ayrshire question, it’s also hard to see why the whole park needs to be brought into being in a single step. Other Scottish National Parks have been designated with a core area and then spread outwards with a series of expansions over ensuing years. If we’re so devoted to the idea of hauling parts of Ayrshire into Galloway, why not do it once the Galloway Park is already up and running? That way, everybody would understand what was going on and Ayrshire could take a measured look at the success or failure of Galloway and decide whether or not they wanted to be part of it.

This whole process has been based on a sense of rush – that it needs to happen quickly. Even in public meetings, NatureSCOT staff have complained that their report has to be delivered on a very brisk turnaround. However, this pressure is not local – it’s coming from Ministers who have promised to deliver a National Park. We need to be clear that the Government’s offer does not represent a sudden outpouring of love and recognition for Galloway. It’s part of a pattern of behaviour in which UK Governments suddenly need to lump large areas of land into designation in order to meet international agreements. Exactly the same proposals are currently being put forward in Wales – to a similar (and much more highly publicised) degree of controversy. All this designation has to happen at full speed because the targets are ambitious and there’s a need to get all the planning in place soon. The emphasis is not on making functional, effective parks which grow organically over time (although this would be infinitely better) – it’s more about making new parks which are as big as possible, as quickly as possible.

Trapped in a credo which believes that “more designation = more good”, this conversation is not being driven by what’s best for Galloway. It’s a product of national and international obligations to maximise the area of designated land. If the people of Galloway can get something good out of it, that’s great – but we shouldn’t kid ourselves that Government actually cares about this place.