Bog Myrtle & Peat

It turns out that we’re not getting a National Park in Galloway after all. The decision’s been taken and the announcement made, but it’s not entirely clear how or why the option has been removed from the table. There has been mumbling about “significant opposition” to the plan, but little detail and no real explanation around where the tipping point lay.

All kinds of rumours are now being circulated to explain the failure of the bid and apportion blame accordingly. Some people believe that the park plan was completely stymied by Tory involvement in the NO campaign, and that such vast quantities of private money were ploughed into stopping the designation that there could only ever have been one outcome. Much as we’d like to blame a cabal of cat-stroking mega-rich villains for all our woes, the reality is often far more banal. It’s true that certain unsavoury characters were involved in backing the NO campaign, but it’s also misleading to suggest that the YES campaign was powered by a completely organic and grassroots popular majority. In the end, I only knew three people who wanted a park, and two of them only supported the idea on the basis that it “might be worth a punt”.  

It seems far more likely that the Scottish Government started this ball rolling without really understanding what it would mean to local people. They kicked a hornet’s nest, and then they seemed actively shocked by what happened next. In Government circles, National Parks are held to be unquestionably great. It seemed to come as a genuine surprise that anybody could feel differently. As soon as it became clear that Galloway’s reaction was more complicated than a rapturous “yes please!”, the wheels started to come off.

In terms of language and direction, the goalposts for this process began to lurch around within hours of the first push-back. Woulds quickly became coulds and wills became mights – there was back-pedalling and confusion from every angle, and it didn’t help that the consultation process was pathetically opaque and obstructive. “Neutral” facilitators came to explain the process, but even they struggled to articulate what would happen and when. Whether you wanted a park or hated the idea, nobody really felt heard by the process – and by the time we were formally asked for our opinion, the arguments were had been stoked to a red-hot fury. In the meantime, all the NatureSCOT facilitators could do was complain that their report had to be filed in a very quick turnaround – after all, the government had committed to designate a new National Park in double-quick time. Perhaps sinister millionaires did play a part in the collapse of this process – but it’s more likely that we landed on No because it was all getting bogged down in complication and expense. Ministers wanted a quick and straightforward confirmation of their plan. They didn’t immediately get one, so they binned the whole thing.

We’ll never know if Galloway really wanted a park. I don’t think we did, but perhaps it doesn’t matter now. We can argue about which side was better or fought the cleaner fight, but it does seem clear that we’re strangely willing to be foul to each other on the internet, regardless of what the issue is. That’s probably the most disheartening outcome of this debate (and almost every other one which spills onto social media). 

As the dust begins to settle, we can assume that if five percent of people really wanted a park and five percent vehemently opposed the idea, ninety percent of people in Galloway are now wondering what the hell just happened – and what’s going to happen next.