Dave Hewitt says the lack of spirit in fighting recent access problems could change the face of hillgoing forever.
These columns, at this late stage in proceedings, should not still be having to highlight wholesale "closures" of land in the Highlands. A rogue sign here and there is of course inevitable - witness the occasional General Election placard still affixed to a lamppost - but entire glens festooned with desk top published litter ought to be very much a thing of the past.
After all, the Scottish Executive guidelines on access have been utterly clear for weeks and you would have thought - or at least hoped - that the guardians of the land would have got the message by now.
Sadly, however, things continue to prove problematic, with landowners, landowning agencies and even councils still finding reasons not to act on official, statutory advice. Even if the retention of Keep Out signs is not deliberate (and I'm tempted to substitute the word "malicious" there), what is beyond doubt is that scores of quiet corners are suffering collective amnesia in terms of forgetting to take down tatty old notices.
Each one of these retains the capacity to deter a timorous walker who has missed or is simply not bold enough to act upon the Executive's advice on ignoring unofficial "restrictions" and each one can easily cause a walker to leave the area, thus denying the local tearooms and B&Bs their income - and that's without getting into the basic civil rights argument in which commercialism plays no part.
Foot and mouth seems to have spawned several parallel diseases, the most virulent being backwater syndrome. This painful-sounding complaint is defined in a textbook (which I'm sure I had in my hand just a minute ago) as, "a chronic ailment, rife in rural communities, the chief symptom being a childish belief that if nobody sees you doing something wrong, then it is admissible to do it".
At its most basic, backwater syndrome is a particularly nasty form of me-in-my-small-corner selfishness and every laminated sign flapping in the breeze outwith the officially restricted areas gives a clear nose-thumbing - or worse - to the notion that we are all in this together.
Scotland's main roads and big hills are now mostly sign-free but in the course of the past few days I've come across clusters of closure notices in Glen Buckie south of Balquhidder and along the B846 on the north shore of Loch Rannoch, plus I've heard reports from several parts of Argyll.
Each of these places is precisely the kind of sleepy hollow where backwater syndrome has been endemic for years, impossible to eradicate, leaping from farm to farm - who knows, maybe even carried on the wind. Foot and mouth has merely served to flush it into the open, providing visible confirmation that a considerable number of landowners only heed government advice when the time comes for applying for grants and subsidies whereupon they miraculously morph into model democrats.
"Keep off these paths and hills to help us stop this terrible disease," read one of the Rannoch-side productions - and on a right of way, too. But Rannoch is a backwater and pockets of resistance are almost to be expected in such places. When, eventually, even the quietest glen has been purged of its signs, the world is likely to feel a bit empty for those of us who have developed the skill of driving along with half an eye in the hedgerows, looking for signs which we can leap out and nab.
Much more worrying than Loch Rannoch's orthodox landowner signage was the evidence of secondary backwater syndrome in Glen Buckie. Here the signs were endorsed by the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs Interim Committee - a shadowy organisation mentioned before in these columns and one which will eventually oversee Scotland's first national park, oh joy. The LLTIC helpfully provides a contact number (01389 722600) so should anyone come across more of their signs, which appear to be profuse across the whole park area, it might be an idea to chivvy the officials about their litter-tidying responsibilities. We don't want the shiny new park looking unsightly, do we now?
The park itself is due to come into existence next April, ahead of which there will be a round of surgery-style meetings aimed at discussing the plans. The LLTIC has a faceless, negative feel at present, so these drop-in events should provide a good forum for airing concerns over foot and mouth closures and other matters. The full itinerary is given at the foot of this column and if you live in the area, or are simply passing through, August will provide a chance to remind the bureaucrats that there is life beyond the cosy world of committees, back-scratching and sook-upping chumminess.
Even though the various LLTIC-endorsed foot and mouth signs will vanish in due course, a more permanent indication of the committee's attitude can be seen on the Bracklinn Falls/Braeleny road north of Callander - a perfect example of a very quiet corner located right alongside one of the eventual park's hotspots. The roadside signs here finally appear to have been cleared away following reassurances from Stirling Council ranger service. So bouquets to them but something less fragrant to the LLTIC, which has a big new walking-information noticeboard where the track branches off at grid ref 637101 on Landranger 57.
The sign is generally useful (although it appears to have been erected backwards, facing away from the car park - shades of Kelvingrove Art Gallery). What is worrying, however, is a panel which reads, "some routes will be tolerated beside farmland". Quite what this means is unclear but the casual visitor/walker/tourist could be forgiven for seeing it as some kind of pre-emptive enforcement of the draft access bill, very much at odds with the current legal situation. I must confess to having felt tempted to add, "Aye, and some farmers will be tolerated" but it was a lovely evening, I was in a mellow mood and the felt-tip stayed in my pocket.
This farmer-rather-than-walker bias within the LLTIC is further borne out by a comment from software designer Kevin Woolley, subject of the first ever Summit Talks column and resident within the LLTIC's jurisdiction. He recalls an earlier round of public "explanatory meetings", one of which was held in Balquhidder village hall and included an ad hoc vote in which "everybody there except the local councillor and MP voted against joining the national park".
As Woolley points out, occupancy in the Balquhidder glen consists almost exclusively of farmers, landowners and residents, with very few tourist businesses - and hence the park is likely to be seen as an intrusive nuisance, encouraging the encroachment of outsiders. In contrast, Killin is a much more tourism-orientated community and has launched a campaign to be included within the park boundaries.
At risk of cynicism, it could be argued that the LLTIC knows it will never want for enthusiasm from the tourist sector and so is appealing to - even aligning itself with - the farming community. Which, as Woolley adds, "doesn't bode well for the future".
Backwater syndrome is a complex problem however - and like it or not, the habits of recreational hillgoers have to be studied alongside those of the landowners and land managers. The big hills/main roads factor mentioned earlier is significant, as walkers habitually get worked up about threats to the highest and most celebrated chunks of land while tending to overlook those hills below 900 metres.
Before foot and mouth swept in to dominate everything, the best example of this came with the issue of wind farms. Regardless of whether you enthuse about or oppose the construction of massive turbines on hilltops (or whether, like me, you can see both sides of the argument and simply don't know what to think), it is clear that the level of public protest increases exponentially when such structures are proposed on the higher, more obvious hills.
A planning application for a wind farm - or a telecommunications mast for that matter - on even the most pudding-like of Munros would be met with a massive and well co-ordinated wave of opposition from mountaineering and environmental groups, such that it would almost certainly never progress beyond the proposal stage. Take the height down a notch - to Corbett level - and while the opposition would still be there it would be a little more ragged, with not quite so many big names offering soundbites about the hill's "sanctity".
Take it down to Graham level and you start to struggle - as shown in 1999 when the owner of Mount Blair calmly bulldozed a track, moved the old cairn and bunged up a Meccano-style phone mast on the much-admired Angus summit. There was local opposition, allied to a small amount of coverage in the national press but the main land-monitoring bodies paid far less attention than had this 744m hill been 170m higher.
Bring the horizon down still further, to below 600m/2000ft and you're unlikely to see any agitation beyond that from irate locals and community councils. Yet any genuine survey of the "best hills in Scotland" (whatever that means) would inevitably include a fair few lower summits - and almost every anonymous 400m pudding is somebody's favourite afternoon stroll.
This is basically what has happened in the foot and mouth crisis. A massive initial wave of protest, focused particularly on the big-crag hills being deemed out of bounds in perfect winter conditions, followed by sustained campaigning so that by mid-May pretty much every Munro, apart from those at Bridge of Orchy and Dalmally, could be tackled by a sign-free route.
Yippee, some folk said, we're back on the hill. Well, yes - except that there is more to Scottish hillgoing than big winter gullies and corridor routes up Munros, not that you would necessarily guess it from the bookshop shelves. It was disingenuous - of individuals and of agencies - to regard the mere re-opening of the standard routes as constituting a genuine return to access in the true Scottish definition of the term.
The way we have come, over the years, to accept that it is primarily the big hills that matter has undoubtedly added to the lack of consistency in the re-opening process. In theory, re-opening should have been uniform across the whole of northern and central Scotland. Nowhere has actually had foot and mouth and there is, after all, only the one set of Executive guidelines to which all councils and agencies must adhere.
It hasn't been anything like uniform, however. Some places have dutifully followed the progression of advisory signs, then Comeback Code signs and buckets of dip and finally sign-free status. Areas such as Glen Buckie, Rannoch and Knapdale have, conversely, dragged their green-wellied heels. And this has come about, at least in part, because we as a hillgoing community have let the more reactionary landowners secreted up obscure Munro-less glens get away with it. Our lack of a sufficiently rounded view of the landscape - where all hills and glens are worth a visit, whether big or small, spectacular or sleepy - has played into the hands of those who strive to ban us and control us.
For a while now there has been a belief - a presumption, even - that the foot and mouth battle has been won in the Highlands, that access restrictions are a thing of the past. Not so - things are better, yes but to assume we're done is dangerously complacent and risks ceding access rights in the quieter backwaters. Not only will complacency leave us with far fewer freedoms than we had at the start of the year, it will also - with the draft access bill having just been returned to parliament - show the land-closure merchants that while we might be prepared to get revved up about big hill access, we by and large let backwater closures through unchallenged. We might not see it that way but those looking to restrict and restrain access undoubtedly will and with good reason.
Until just a few months ago the climbing/walking/bothy community had an enviable reputation for feistiness and fierce radicalism, for defending free access across every square inch of Scotland. That reputation has diminished substantially since the end of February - not least because the so-called access agencies have taken such an over-cautious approach from within their committee rooms. Certain groupings and individuals have retained their integrity of course but they are voices crying in an increasingly controlled and corridorised wilderness. It could even be argued that the real radicals in the access debate are the opportunistic landowners who realised very early on that by acting impulsively - rather than meandering through bureaucracy - they could gain ground.
Sounds silly? Well, look at it this way. Time and again agencies such as the National Trust for Scotland and the John Muir Trust chose to hold another yet committee meeting rather than simply going out and taking down their closure signs. They doubtless had their reasons and their justifications for acting this way but how many landowners felt the need to hold a committee meeting before slapping up their signs? They just went out and did it. And which had the greater effect on the ground?
We hillgoers might think we've come out of this whole foot and mouth thing well but in manor houses and chandeliered rooms across the country, our deference and our lack of genuine chutzpah will have been noted. We have, I fear, lost ground and the closure signs will be back in due course.
Dave Hewitt
19/7/01
Those Loch Lomond and the Trossachs Interim Committee dates in full (each surgery lasts from 9am until 9pm): 7 August, Callander kirk hall (room 3); 8 August, Crianlarich village hall; 9 August, the Cobbler Hotel, Arrochar; 13 August, Port of Menteith village hall; 14 August, Lomond Park Hotel, Balloch; 15 August, Queen's Hall, Dunoon; 20 August, MacLaren Hall, Killin; 21 August, Lochearnhead community hall.
