Moving the Glenkens Land Use Vision forward.
8th July 2024
The Smiddy, Balmacellan
Dalry Community Council
Agenda
Helen Keron,
GCAT Executive Manager,
New Galloway
Land Use Vision Process
Including a number of recommendations at a local, regional and national level.
Glenkens Land Use Vision
The Vision: That everyone who takes value from our land returns value to it.
That the Glenkens is an exemplar of sustainable land use practice in building resilience for climate, biodiversity & communities, where learning is valued and all voices are listened to and respected.
Key to this will be that:
• Land use enhances local climate and environmental resilience, biodiversity and thriving communities and supports re-population.
• There is a balance of land use, access and ownership, achieved using whole catchment planning.
• Every part of the community feels included.
• We have strong partnership working.
The three projects
Thanks to SOSE and NatureScot for their support of these projects, and to all the authors and volunteers who have committed so much time to them.
A word of caution
Morag Paterson,
Dalry Community Councillor,
Dalry
Glenkens Vision – Wider Context
Regional
Local
Agriculture and forestry subsidies
Carbon credits
Peatland Restoration
Biodiversity credits
Land reform
Just transition
Net Zero
National Planning Framework (4)
Regional Land Use Partnership
Local Development Plan (3)
Woodland and Biodiversity Strategy
Natural Capital Innovation Zone
Place Planning
Sub-catchment planning
Local land use network
Live projects
National
Opportunities?
Considering land-use in a much wider context - intrinsically connected to other agendas such as education, housing, health and well-being, local economic development.
Bringing together multiple operators and communities locally for sub-catchment level opportunities (connectivity, recreation, local employment, skills and education, housing projects etc.)
Engage with:
Challenges?
Lack of resources/capacity
Siloed culture
Too few people ‘round the table’
Lack of influence over national actions like agricultural or subsidy changes
Lack of influence over local decision making
Diversity of local perspectives
Dr Stephen Connelly,
Dalry
Feasibility Study into the creation of a �Land Use Forum in the Glenkens
Dr Stephen Connelly
8 July 2024
Introduction
Community Action Plan 🡪 Land Use Vision 🡪 this and other studies 🡪 implementation of the Vision
Purpose, approach, methods
How can the potential of the Land Use Vision be realised?
Starting point:
People matter: interests, emotions, beliefs…
Approach is pragmatic but idealistic:
what can be done in the face of:
combined market and policy forces +
very limited and weak opportunities for community input +
a changing and unpredictable policy environment?
Gathering information
+ policy documents, press articles
⇒ a set of 5 options
Options assessed for:
A set of options…
Option | Overall assessment |
Do nothing new | Unsustainable and insufficient to realise the potential of the Vision. |
Supported stakeholder interaction (ad hoc and reactive) | Very feasible, low risk, could achieve some positive change, but insufficient to realise the potential of the Vision. |
Flexible stakeholder group (seeking win-wins) | Feasible, low risk, would partially realise the Vision’s goals and improve stakeholder relations, but would not achieve structural change. |
Planning group (developing a Glenkens Land Use Plan) | Feasible, would provide a solid basis for future advocacy and possibly structural change; high risk of deepening divisions between stakeholders. |
A fully inclusive stakeholder Forum | Difficult to organise and high risk. The optimum outcome is very attractive, but unlikely to be achieved; failure could leave the situation worse than at the outset. Highly demanding of volunteer time and skills. |
Principles for recommendations
Conclusion 1: not a Plan…
Conclusion 1: …but a Glenkens Land Use Map
For: project planning, funding bids, policy advocacy, community consultation responses, plantation design…
Conclusion 2: not a Forum but a Network
…employment, education/learning, tourism, procurement, water etc.
= spatial planning for the CAP + LPPs
structure: a worker, a steering group, a network, task-and-finish groups
How does this link with everything else in the Glenkens?
How does this link with everything else beyond the Glenkens?
Regional Land Use Partnership (RLUP)
The Council’s Local Development Plan process
As long as it delivers something useful for us, the rest is a bonus…
What next? Some questions for discussion…
Who runs the Network and creates the Map? The CAP Steering Group (more effective?) or the community councils (more visibly democratic)?
Who funds it?
Where do we start…
Dr Kerry Morrison,
Balmaclellan
The Task��To Design a Participatory Monitoring Scheme of Land Use in the Glenkens ��
��Get Out �And About �And Engage �
Wild swim meets…...Boating on the Ken….. Crafting groups ……. Photography groups…............Writing groups…… Art classes…… D&G Arts Festival Networking Meet up ……..…………………………..
Community woodlands with volunteering opportunities…………... Singing groups .…. Ornithology group ………. Producers’ market….. The Glenkens Story: Music-Making: Past, Present and Future ………. Woodland creation consultation for Duchrae, Lochinvar
Out and About: The Process of� Engagement and Recording Land Use �
The Stewartry Ornithology Group, Balmaclellan
From Corriedoo along the A702 towards Dalry�
The cows, black
The calves, white-ish
Suckling
Lying
Clustered together
On high ground
Rush, Wet land indicators
16 black cows
12 white-ish claves
In the air, strong, sweet, pungent dung aroma
melding and fading with the wind and the grasses
Rams across the road
Stare at me
I draw him
curiously
Staring back at me
Fixed point land-use monitoring
�
�Artist Responses to Land Use in the Glenkens�
Written in response to the loss of marginal grassland habitats in the Glenkens through either commercial Sitka spruce dominated forestry or farming intensification and the impact this is having on whinchat and other farmland birds
Susan Bielinski
Tormentil, Eyebright, Thyme
Tormentil, eyebright, thyme
Tormentil, eyebright, thyme
The whinchat rests its weary wings, over,
Tormentil, eyebright, thyme
The skylark hovers overhead, sings too
So before you bring the darkness
Or use your poison spray
Look down to the ground. Look all around, over
Tormentil, eyebright, thyme
For among the broom and hawthorn,
The riggit Galloways graze,
And atop the blackthorn the whinchat songs, over
Tormentil, eyebright, thyme
Tormentil, eyebright, thyme
Tormentil, eyebright, thyme
The cuckoo calls across the glen, over
Tormentil, eyebright, thyme
Cairn Chorus
Cairn Valley Song Cycle. In 2016, Cairn Chorus commissioned new material to illustrate:
what our landscape means to the community, what community means to us and how changes in a rural community affect us.
Galloway Sangstreams— Songs Of Life, Land And Legacy (2024) follows on from this with new commissioned works alongside pieces from Cairn Valley Song Cycle. This growing body of work, created and performed by members of our community is inadvertently recording/monitoring changes in land use, and actively singing out the importance and relevance of land use to local people - past, present, and future.
deliberately inconclusive investigations into absence
�Helmut Lemke
Ted Leeming and Morag Paterson
Ted Leeming. Artful Migration, 2023
Morag Patterson, The Species Scrolls, 2023
The Glenkens Story: Music Making Past, Present, and Future
We are producing material, data, and snapshots of our landscape.
We are reshaping the landscape to increase biodiversity, bring back and regenerate lost landscapes, increase access to nature, and working towards economic and environmental sustainability.
We are creatively responding to our landscape through song and music, creative writing, performance, and the visual arts.
Environmental organisations, groups, independent environmental scientists, and nature enthusiasts are collecting quantitative data.
We are participating in the array of Nature & Culture opportunities that the Glenkens landscapes offer.
Throughout the Glenkens, people are actively participating in these landscapes and are invested in them.
A Land-Use Festival
Could it happen across the Glenkens? Perhaps in all the community halls?
How can I get involved?
Our area needs something like this.
A biennial land use festival, what a fantastic idea.
And it would have art and science stuff? Wow, that’s a great idea.
I’m really interested in this, but I don’t live in the Glenkens. Could I still be involved? Maybe I should move here.
This is just what we need!
Proposed themes for monitoring & recording Land Use and Changes Over Time
| ||
| Theme | Example |
|
|
|
1 | Treasured places and views | Otter Pool, views from Waterside Hill |
2 | Landscapes at risk | ‘unproductive’ and unprotected areas |
3 | Climate adaptation | Forest to bog, riparian tree planting, regenerative farming |
4 | Climate change impacts | Flooding, droughts, storm damage |
5 | Landscapes undergoing change | New forestry, changes in farming practice |
6 | Micro recording | Species, water quality, and sounds |
7 | Work, rest, and play | Dog walking, wild swimming, cycling, rambling, meditation |
8 | Inspiration, spiritual connectedness, and aesthetic appreciation | Deeply personal connections to landscapes and nature |
9 | Just because/it’s on my doorstep | Hedgerows, verges, lanes |
10 | The overlooked | Scrubby, dank areas, post-industrial and brownfield sites, lay-bys |
�Land-Use Festival Themes
Thank You
Becca Nelson,
Glenkens Community Space Network facilitator,
Dalry
Land use in Dalry’s
Local Place Plan
Local Place Plans were introduced in the 2019 Planning (Scotland) Act
Schedule 19: Local Place Plans
Introduced by section 15A
Preparation of local place plans
Planning circular 1/22 (extract)
4. Local Place Plans are community-led plans setting out proposals for the development and use of land. Introduced by the 2019 Act, these plans will set out a community’s aspirations for its future development. Once completed and then registered by the planning authority, they are to be taken into account in the preparation of the relevant local development plan.
The LPP must comply with:
NPF 4 highlights the climate emergency and biodiversity crisis
Information gathering:�data/GIS mapping
Community engagement
Workshops
Underlying principles section of LPP
Template Local Place Plan
(From a presentation of the Reports and Vision to Scottish Government, May 2024)
From the Glenkens Land Use Vision
We are a forested area, a farming area, an energy generation area.
We are a watery area, given life by our rivers and lochs.
Our natural environment is so special that we are part of the Galloway and Southern Ayrshire UNESCO Biosphere.
Our landscapes attract visitors from all over the world.
We are a peaty area and our soil stores some of Scotland’s best carbon.
It is our home, where we work, live and play.
Effective partnership working
Delivery of CAP priorities
CAP SG – community decision making
GDT – bring in the money!
GCAT – lead on delivery
Monthly meetings between Chairs to check in on CAP delivery through GCAT
GDT Chair and up to 3 GDT Trustees sit on CAP SG
Clear separation between GCAT (project delivery) and GDT (project funder)
Land Use Context
Overwhelmed by speed and intent of land use change in the area and by lack of power that we hold to effect change.
The disconnect between national and regional policy intent and what is actually happening in the Glenkens feels absolute.
Little opportunity for partnership working with developers, owners and managers
Market forces / outdated woodland strategy / inflexible forest grant scheme options mean cumulative impacts and habitat connectivity are not adequately assessed.
Land Use context
Land use developments in our area appear to be essentially extractive. Most profits and benefits are realised elsewhere, jobs are created elsewhere.
Community Wealth Building principles are not embedded or mandated. Therefore the impact of these developments on our communities is not a catalyst for more jobs, a circular local economy and thriving and sustainable communities.
Lack of community agency in decision making or governance.
Low awareness of and/or attention to Just Transition and LRRS principles by developers, owners and managers.
Dalry Parish – case study
36% of parish currently planted or consented for commercial planting (up from 26% a decade ago). More plans in pipeline.
Issues concerning private water supplies
Grazing lands change hands, hedgerows pulled out.
Waterside Hill, a treasured landscape - difficult to engage with manager and owner.
Off-market land sales
Land Use Forum – Policy and Strategy Alignment
RES
RLUP & RLUF
Natural Capital Innovation Zone
D&G Woodland Strategy
D&G LBAP
Local Government Reform
NSET
LRRS
Just Transition
Community Wealth Building
Land Reform
Scottish Forest Strategy
ARCB
Glenkens Land Use Network
Glenkens Land Use Map
Local Place Plans
Glenkens Community Action Plan
Local
National
Regional
Next steps for us
Opportunities & Challenges
Opportunities:
Challenges:
Further information