Scotland’s National Parks legislation - time for amendment

In the light of the very mixed public response to the proposal for a Galloway NP, Ministers announced in July that they were not going to proceed with the designation of the area as Scotland's third National Park. They are nonetheless taking forward legislation designed to update (in certain limited respects) the statutory basis on which the two existing Parks operate. It would also underpin any new National Parks that are designated in the future. These proposed amendments have their origin in the consultation exercises carried out back in 2022 and 2023 and are now set out in Part 3 of the Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill. SCNP has of course been closely scrutinising these elements of the Bill and has conveyed its views both directly to Scottish Government and to MSPs, in particular the Parliamentary committee scrutinising it. 

What is being proposed?

The Scottish Government is proposing a number of amendments to update the four statutory aims of National Parks, to alter the duties for public bodies in relation to National Parks and to confer new regulation-making powers on Scottish Ministers to develop a fixed-penalty notice regime for enforcement of National Park byelaws. It is also proposed to make a minor amendment to the Land Reform legislation to ensure that any future National Parks can become Access Authorities as that legislation currently just refers to the two existing Parks.

 What do we think of the government’s proposals?

Most of the changes envisaged can be seen as improvements, broadly in line with SCNP's previous recommendations, albeit not going as far as we would ideally have liked. We are therefore working to see the bill strengthened in some areas.  We submitted evidence to the RAIC on Part 3 of the Bill as introduced (jointly with APRS) earlier this year which you can read here.

 Ministers’ decision to proceed with the proposed legislative changes is a welcome sign that the government's decision to abandon the Galloway proposal does not signal that they have lost all interest in National Parks. But their inclusion in the Bill potentially opens the door to less benign proposals for change. It will be important for all who are convinced of the benefits that National Parks can bring to keep an eye out for such efforts to undermine them and to guard against them.

See our new Blog article on the Bill for more discussion of it and the changes we will be seeking.