Storm Frank floods Aberfoyle

Forth floods Aberfoyle from the flank of Creag Mor

Main Street Grand Canal

Police Scotland without a motorbike??

Water junction

Land Rover delusions

Another one bites the dust

Well, that was an eventful morning. After a night of Storm Frank, formerly known as torrential rain, the flood levels had reached their highest levels by mid-morning, and still, the cars tried to get through. A timber lorry hauled out a car that was bobbing about between the hedgerows and towed it to the road opposite the Baillie where it was then dunked again as the river levels continued to invade the village. Then a brand new Range Rover Evoque was driven at speed into the deepest part of the flood before it began to float and then waltzed around in the swirling floodwater by the old post house. I have seldom seen such a carefree or careless, you decide, exhibition of driving.

We entertained a young couple from Aberdeen who had sensibly decided to wait for the floods to recede and needed a restroom. They are hoping to attempt to return home later but they may have to wait a few hours, or maybe days, before they can escape. Meanwhile, they have left their car in the drive and we have escorted them through the woods to beyond the floods where they can catch a lift back to Forest Hills to spend time with their family.

The views looking down from Creag Mor showed that Aberfoyle had acquired a couple of new 'Frankwater' lochs on either side of Manse Road. The main street was flooded, and bags were being dispensed as part of the usual belated and often pointless but nevertheless ritual celebration of flooding. Richard wore his waders to get through to buy his paper but even the co-op was closed so no crossword only cross words. The flood damage to the shops and Forth Inn could be substantial and expensive to rectify as was the case following the Aberfoyle Deluge three years ago. Maybe the Woollen Mill will be having a genuine flood sale!

Meanwhile, we are still waiting for the go-ahead for the ever-so-expensive flood prevention measures. They could have been constructed years ago (2002-2003) but for the onerous and time-consuming bidding process set up by the Scottish Government to evaluate proposals for grant assistance. The outcome of the Scottish Government's obsessive control of capital spending has been an over-ambitious and the costly designed scheme by consultants, who alone cost far more than the total cost of the council's original scheme in of c £300k. As soon as government funding is set aside for any development, it attracts a queue of financiers, construction companies, and engineering consultants eager to play for high stakes in the complex bureaucratic process that is endemic with centralised government funding regimes. £12m is a high cost for the Aberfoyle flood prevention measures and with Dumfries and Aberdeenshire now propelled to the front of the queue following Storm Frank, it may be a long time for any approval, if at all.

And so it came to pass, the Scottish Government published its National FloodRisk Management Plan on 11 January 2016. It contains 42 schemes costing £235m and there is no mention of the Trossachs or Aberfoyle although elsewhere in the three-part report it acknowledges that the annual cost of flood damage in Aberfoyle is up to £500,000, not nearly enough to justify £12m on the cost-benefit analysis. Sadly this takes no account of the lost days of education and this must be running at 3 or 4 days a year for the 90 children. There was another day lost to flooding on 26 January that made the national news when the Fire and Rescue team sent out a boat to belatedly retrieve the children from school, they had already escaped by the path through the woods behind the school but some teachers were floated through the village to waiting taxis. The days when professional staff lived in their communities are long gone, their commuting must contribute considerably to climate change.

Storm Frank enforces parking restrictions

Beinn Dearg, Glen Artney

Beinn Dearg from the south

Mor Bheinn and Ben Halton from Sron na Maoile

Deer on slopes of Sron na Maoile

Looking south to Campsies

Looking towards Sron nan Broighleag from Sron na Maoile

Descent of Beinn Dearg

Sron na Maoile on descent from Beinn Dearg

Tuesday, 29 December 2015
Ascent:      870 metres
Distance:   14 kilometres
Time;         4 hours 20 minutes

Beinn Dearg     706m       2hrs  48mins

All my remaining munros and corbetts are more than 2 hours drive away and, at this time of the year when daylight hours barely make 8 hours, it makes walking an exercise in stumbling along with a head torch as well as lots of night driving. I have done little walking over the past two and a half months so I needed something nearer and less time-consuming. Fortunately, I had received a copy of the new SMC guide to Grahams and Donalds for Christmas. It is a fine addition to the Scottish hill walking publications. And more to the point it has provided me with dozens of hills within 2 hours drive to while away those short winter days.

Gregor had phoned and suggested a day out on the hills on Tuesday, the only half decent day according to the forecasts. It meant driving back from London on Monday and although I had originally intended to have a stopover in Lancashire or Yorkshire, the flooding there made it a hazardous option. We left Brixton at 9am and drove through an empty London making the M1 in little over half an hour. We stopped in Hemel Hempstead to visit old friends but thereafter the drive up the M1 and M6 was an exercise in extreme patience, not my strong suit, with long queues of family full cars making their way home from Christmas visits. It was 10pm before we reached home and Gregor was arriving at 9am and had left it to me to find a suitable walk. The new book was the perfect assistant and I decided to head for Glen Artney and climb Beinn Dearg, a hill at the head of a 7 kilometre long ridge. The forecast was for a dry windy day before the onset of Storm Frank.

As always it took time for us to sort out some gear and have a drink before setting out at 10am. Glen Artney is approached from the east on a long single track road from south of Comrie. The glen was basking in bleak midwinter, all colours banished from the landscape, even the red squirrel that scurried across the road had a mousy look about it. The few isolated houses were looking grim gripped to earth by the grey skies. We parked opposite the church in a generous car park that had two cars in it. We walked back along the road to the former schoolhouse, climbed the locked gate and dropped down a steep track to the river where a concrete bridge carried us over the raging currents. A track peels round to the left and passes a finely constructed stone barn beyond which there is a wooden gate leading to a large bog. The track continued but became impassable as the mud became inches deep.

We headed up the slopes towards the southern top of Sron na Maoile. The going could only be described as mind-numbingly rough with long flattened grass lying on root beds balanced on drainage channels. It continued like this for about 300 metres of ascent before the slopes became steeper but easier underfoot. I knew it would be difficult because of my long lay off but I managed a steady pace. We saw a lone walker on the top of the ridge and he started heading down towards us, we must have disturbed a herd of deer and for about five minutes they raced through the gap between us, I estimated about 160 head of deer, by far the largest herd I had ever seen. Reaching the top of Sron na Maoile revealed a long curving and undulating ridge that terminated at Beinn Dearg. It looked a long way in the grey winter light and the views were less than inspiring although a shaft of light fell briefly on the Braes of Doune wind farm and the Campsies were visible through a gap in the hills.

There was a faint path scored into the grass and heather that meandered round towards the next hill on the ridge, Sron nam Broighleag. The wind was becoming quite strong from the south-west and slowed progress in places although it was generally pushing us along. Several smaller herds of deer played hide a seek with us as we followed the roller coaster of a ridge. There were even more drops and climbs leading to Stuc na Cabaig, the next high point on the ridge. There has been some talk that this is higher than Beinn Dearg so I was careful in taking its height on my altimeter. It registered exactly the same as Beinn Dearg but that was another two kilometres away involving even more decent and ascent.

We found some shelter below the summit of Beinn Dearg, which has no discernible cairn, where we drank a flask of coffee before setting off on the descent. Any notion of continuing to cross the Allt Glas and climb Mor Bheinn, another Graham, was ruled out by the diminishing daylight, it was already 2pm. The route down was fairly obvious along the southern ridge of Beinn Dearg and then across the interminable leg sapping boggy grassland before crossing the Allt Coire Choire in spate. Despite the wet boggy ground I still had dry feet in my boots, Gregor was in a pair of trainers and by this time his feet were well and truly wrinkled.

We found our way back to the track beside the barn and dropped down to the bridge. The climb back up to the road was steeper than I had hoped but we were soon back at the car and talking to the man in the next car who had climbed the adjacent corbett, Meall na Fearna. The real treat came next, a mere 50-minute drive to reach home by 4:30pm, it was barely dark.

Orkney: Green and top of the class

Saab 340 at Kirkwall

Bleak Midwinter

Electric buses for the 10 minute airport shuttle

December Red Admiral in Office

St Magnus cathedral

Dusk at 3:15pm

My last work trip of the year was to Orkney, the day it was declared the best place to live in Scotland for the third year running according to the Lloyds bank, although I do have some doubts about the methodology. The unpredictability of the flights to the islands persuaded me to fly early in the day. Unfortunately the closure of the Forth Road bridge had diverted all the Fife vehicles onto the M9 from via the Clackmannanshire bridge. It meant that traffic was reduced to a crawl at times and I was relieved that I had started extra early to arrive at Edinburgh airport in time for the flight. 

It was on time and flying conditions were pretty reasonable although the cloud cover prevented me enjoying the slice of geography that lies beneath the flight path. The Saab 340 plane with its distinctive engine whine and the rattles from almost 30 years service has a charm that veils its age but its reliability is now in question and there seem no obvious replacements for this plane, which was designed to cope with cross winds, but has not been built since 1999.

Kirkwall airport is a haven of peace compared to most airports and I was soon on the Orkney Green all electric bus to the centre of Kirkwall and my B&B. I called into the Council offices to discuss my brief for the following day and was surprised to discover a red admiral butterfly flitting round the customer centre. Apparently this has happened for the last couple of years and with the December temperature at 13ºC there was a summer feel right down to the steady soft rain, however by 2pm the foreboding darkness suggested otherwise. 

I prepared for my session in the afternoon and then went to see Alistair in the evening. It was great to catch up with his family. It has been four years since I had spent the best part of a year in Shetland and our conversations were multi layered as we reprised and fast forwarded our lives. A hearty meal in a nearby hotel followed and I was well lubricated as I travelled back to Kirkwall by taxi. I discussed the reasons why Orkney was top place to live with the taxi driver and the local folk I came into contact with. The consensus was that it was about people, communities, good quality of services and absence of rapacious commercial practices. Then there was lots of space, freedom from restrictions, excellent local produce and no shortage of housing or jobs.

The next day was the hard reality of discussing with a group of senior managers how to cope with the Scottish budget, which had grabbed another 4% from the Council coffers. The Scottish Government had elected to implement the austerity measures handed down from Westminster and not to use their new powers to alleviate the damage to local services. How many lost jobs would this mean, what facilities would need to close and how could they square strategic decisions with the natural desire of local councillors to protect their services? 

It is the problem everywhere that I have been this year and I despair at the time and effort that goes into the liquidation of local services instead of focusing on how to inspire and deliver new and better services and identify new sources of investment. At least Orkney has access to new funding streams from marine activities, tourism and green activities that seem to be universally embraced by its communities. Chancellor Osborne has performed the most devious trick of allowing more freedoms for localities but only within a straight jacket that squeezes harder each year. The issue in Scotland is whether and when this will be unlaced by the Scottish Government as they realise that financial accountability is devolved and cannot totally be blamed on Westminster.

Identity Cards: private gain public loss

French IdentityCard

Polish Identity Card

Canadian ID Card

Egyptian ID Card

I like to travel light at all times. Only two keys - house and car, one small wallet with minimal loose change. The real heft in my wallet is the pack of plastic cards. When I was asked for my co op card yesterday, it was a struggle to find it amongst 12 cards in my wallet. Two bank cards and a credit card, driving license, blood donor card, entitlement card for free bus travel, mountaineering council card, rail card, oyster card, Screwfix card and Nectar card. What a palaver, and you should see Aileen's cards - there are well over 20 with a big shuffle of all the store cards.

Almost all of these cards are a means of sharing our identity with banks, stores, companies and some government agencies. Is it any surprise that we are besieged with promotional e-mails and harangued by cold-calling companies who have gained our details from private financial or store companies? Clearly, our personal data is being sold on, and it makes me question how much trust we should have in the organisations that I have provided with my identity data.

Yet it is a curious fact in Britain that we refuse to have a national identity card that would be invaluable in tackling so many issues, from gun crime to insurance scams. I understand the arguments for privacy and civil liberties, but should these take precedence over the need for a universal identity card based on a unique citizen reference number? It would provide a consistent record of our citizens that could be used to share information between different agencies, such as the police, health, education and social work, but under strict control by information protocols. Such a scheme, proposed by David Blunkett, was rejected by the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives in the 2010 coalition government and has been rejected by the SNP government in Scotland. The Lib Dems boasted about saving money, but £292m had already been spent on its introduction by the previous Labour government.

The only comprehensive records are the NHS ki numbers and these are far from perfect. Many patients, particularly students and mobile young adults, are logged into different GP practices. It explains why, according to NHS records, there are always more patients than people. The same could not be said about the electorate, people do not register out of either apathy or because they regard it as an intrusion that may lead to tax demands and like National Insurance numbers, they are only for adults. No wonder there are several million people disenfranchised. 

A national identity card, such as that developed in most European countries, and many countries around the world are introducing them, could overcome the current difficulties at a stroke. It could replace a driving license, be required for voting, payroll purposes, access to the NHS, and provide age identification. If address information was included, it could be used as an entitlement card for local services or to obtain discounts from local retailers and hospitality businesses. It would also help with immigration control and the exploitation of illegal immigrants by rogue employers. We should not let the fear of privacy from our moribund governments in Westminster and Holyrood scupper the many benefits that could accrue to citizens and government departments, and agencies. 

Unfortunately, our governments are wedded to allowing their numerous departments and agencies to collect dozens of data sets that are incomplete, incapable of being linked up and seldom maintained with the integrity that is required for the effective management of services. In Scotland, we have a lightweight entitlement card that is mainly used for free bus travel for the elderly and disabled, and to give access to services for young people. It is far from universal, and it has to be applied for by citizens. It could do so much more, but the Scottish Government have not dared to make it universal and extend its use to voting, or the NHS; perhaps they are waiting for Westminster?, The picture of George Orwell as Winston Smith in the promotional material is a hint that, like Winston Smith, we may never catch up.

If we are to get there one day, we need to disrupt the timidness of our outdated democratic institutions and the fourth estate. It means tackling the British disease of hiding behind reviews, inquiries and an uncoded constitution that strangles progress.

Scotland's Access Card

A Hard Day's Night in the Monaliadhs

Tramping across from Geal Charn to Carn Dearg

Sunday, 2 December 2007

Ascent:     1285 metres
Distance:  31 kilometres
Time:        10 hours 43 minutes

Geal Charn             926m     2hrs  5mins
Carn Dearg             945m     5hrs  30mins  
Carn Sgulain          920m      7hrs 31mins
A' Chailleach         930m       8hrs 19mins  

This post is taken from my logbook of the fourth round of Munros, one of the Big Walks that I intend to add to the blog posts.

As it goes, this wasn't one of the longest in terms of distance or time, but for sheer determination in strenuous conditions, it ranks amongst the hardest of days. Nearing the end of the fourth round of Munros, I was exploiting every opportunity to fit in walks and hills when it would be easy to find an excuse for staying at home. The Monalaidhs are not the most exciting hills and they are a good distance away requiring a long winter trip up the A9.  If you attempt to climb all four with daylight hours at their minimum in December, they have to be an A to B walk. How I persuaded John and Mark to join me, an unrepentant Munro basher, on this folly I don't know. They both described it as one of the daftest walks yet in a year of strong competition but their sense of adventure prevented them from refusing.

We needed two cars so I persuaded John to drive up from the Borders and I drove Mark up. We were to meet at the car park at the end of Glen Road above Newtonmore at 8:00am, which meant leaving home at 5:30am to pick up Mark and drive up a near-empty A9.  John was late, unusual for him, so he
transferred his gear into my car and I drove the 20 miles to Garva Bridge for the start of the Geal Charn climb. We started shortly after 9:00am and walked west to east. John's car was left at the foot of the A' Chailleach path so he would be able to drive us back to collect my car at Garva Bridge once we had completed the walk. Even Eddie Stobbart would have had problems with the logistics of this outing. 

Conditions were quite benign at the start of the walk, there was little wind but visibility was not good and the tops were clad in cloud. I was struggling in the early part of the ascent with a heavy cold. John and Mark were forcing the pace up the two-foot-wide bog that doubles as a path. There was little sympathy for me, after all, I had dreamt up the crazy walk. Mark told John to let me suffer because I would probably be pushing the pace in 5 or 6 hours once I had got into my stride. It was warm work with poor views and the prospect of a very long cold day.

By 700 metres we had reached the fresh snow level and walking became even more difficult. As we reached the large cairn of Geal Charn we were treated to some shafts of sunlight but it was only fleeting. As we began the ever-so-long traverse across to the next hill, Carn Dearg, we realised that this would be quite a difficult walk. We had to make tracks in the snow that was over a foot deep with deeper pockets from wind-blown snow. I used my cold as an excuse to follow the tracks that Mark made over the next 3 hours. We had some food at the top of Carn Dearg but wasted little time as the winter light was already fading. We knew that we would be descending in the dark and, ideally, wanted to reach A’ Chailleach before the last light of the day.

We didn’t even stop to put on head torches for the long undulating leg to the inconspicuous summit of Carn Sgulain. The snow was less deep on the south flank of the ridge and we made more rapid progress than during the leg to Carn Dearg. It was almost 5pm and dark as we reached Carn Sgulain and again we stopped only briefly to drink and eat before the descent down a steep snow bank and then a tramp back up more deep snow to reach the cairn at A' Chailleach. I was beginning to feel frisky and took the lead in the dark as John and Mark both found it hard to distinguish features whilst wearing glasses. The double jeopardy of night and snow concealing the ground conditions.

I found some earlier footprints that helped as they confirmed my compass readings leading to A’ Chailleach. At the summit, it was pitch dark but the cloud cover had vanished and we could see lights in the glen below. I found a reasonable route to the river down the snow slopes and then through the heather-clad muddy slopes. Surprisingly we managed to cross without too much difficulty using our walking poles. They are always worth taking for river crossings in the dark, but they have also been useful in keeping our balance through the deep snow all day. The sense of achievement as we eased our way down the track for the last mile was evident and the jocular remarks about my stupidity in devising the walk began to lighten our mood. We made a quick getaway in John’s car to Garva Bridge where we picked up my car. The drive home was quiet on the A9 and I made it home by 10pm. 

I had now completed 260 Munros in just over three years and it left me with just 24 to complete a fourth Munro round. I could begin to believe that a finish was possible in the spring and that I could, with a few more unusual combinations of hills, achieve the round in 80 days. 2007 had been a splendid year on the hills although my running mileage had plummeted as work was now regularly taking 70 hours a week with the Council struggling to come to terms with coalition working and multi-member wards. 

At the summit of Geal Charn

Where are the Huskies when you need them

'Cold and crisp but not very even' ground conditions

Reprise of the Tartan Tories

In the 1970's the SNP became a significant political force and today's popular mythology would have us believe that they were a left-of-centre progressive party. This may have been because of  Margo MacDonald, the poster girl for the SNP who fought and won the Govan by-election. She was a genuine champion of social justice. The party embraced a wide cross-section of political views and the leadership during the 1980s was right of centre, led by Gordon Wilson and with many SNP Councillors and MPs fairly right-wing local businessmen who abhorred any form of socialist enterprise. There were others in this first flush of SNP growth such as George Reid, who has been an excellent speaker of the Scottish Parliament, and Margaret Bain who were far more progressive.

In recent years the SNP has embraced a lurch to the left and Nicola Sturgeon is certainly genuine in her commitment to social justice. Alex Salmond was more AC/DC depending on who he spoke to and whom he wanted to denigrate. The vast army of voters who switched to the SNP at the last general election came from the left, dismayed at the Labour Party with its drift to the centre under Blair and Brown and the absence of any effective Scottish leadership or direction since the loss of titans like Donald Dewar, John Smith and Robin Cook. The mediocre performance of the Lab/Lib government up to 2007, as well as disenchantment with Blair's Iraq adventure, was a  key reason that the SNP took power in the Scottish Parliament,

The SNP have been very skilful since becoming the government in 2007 at pillorying Labour for the economic recession, their failure to effectively challenge the Tories on austerity and their support for Trident. This played well with the electorate, as did the constant refrain that Scotland's increasingly fragile public services were the result of Westminster's control of tax and spending. Well, that no longer applies and there was the opportunity from the onset of the Scottish government to augment tax by 3p in the pound. Now that these powers have been transferred to the Scottish Government there is no longer any excuse for not protecting services if this is the proclaimed priority of the SNP.

It could be the tipping point for the SNP as they seek to be returned to power in the Scottish election next May. They decided in the Scottish budget not to deviate from the UK tax rates or to allow Councils to raise Council tax to offset the massive cuts they have already made and which will cut even deeper next year. It is time for the SNP to decide whether they are prepared to invest in services or simply continue to shadow the policies of George Osborne. The day of reckoning is approaching and after eight and a half years of SNP rule that has been sustained largely by criticism of the tribal politics at Westminster. They now have to be accountable. Clearly, they are frightened of deviating from the UK too much. After all oil prices are down from the $110 that they predicted before the independence referendum to $40, whisky sales are falling and tourism has had a mixed year as visitors from England have thought twice about visiting a country that seems to have turned its back on the UK.

New Dawn or another Pig in a Poke: the Spending Review

Dawn on 25 November

Our esteemed leaders

A splendid dawn had me rushing to find a camera, the red sky was indicative of ominous events. I spent most of the morning splitting logs for the winter ahead. I finished in time to listen and then watch the Chancellor deliver his Autumn Statement and spending review. George Osborne has acquired a confident style of delivery and reeled off an apparently impressive list of proposals that would invest in the country's future and eliminate the annual debt by 2020.

At times it was like the Four Yorkshiremen sketch by Monty Python, except that instead of each living condition being worse and less believable. each proposal was better but less believable. Oh yes and the Chancellor also displayed his newly acquired humility by backing down on his proposal to withdraw tax credits. This all was made possible by an apparent windfall of £27bn accredited to the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) that had revised its forecasts of tax take and lower interest payments on debt. So not real money but a gold-plated excuse to transfer the blame if things go wrong to the OBR.

The response to the speech by John McDonnell, the shadow Chancellor, was pre-prepared and as such failed to challenge the more mendacious proposals. He was increasingly hesitant as the hecklers from the Tory benches followed their script to disrupt him. It mattered not because, as we know from the days of Gordon Brown, it always takes a day or two to decode the budget and discover all the dastardly things that have been studiously excluded from or hidden in the Chancellor's speech. Increasingly we are more dependent on the think tanks to disassemble the blue book that contains the devil in the detail. The press and media no longer seem to have any more nous than the MPs in performing this role. The BBC's Laura Kuenssberg is always more interested in relaying Westminster gossip than analysing facts.

The savings on tax credits will be re-captured in future years as universal credit is rolled out, with the poorest assigned to suffer the brunt of the savings and at no cost to the wealthiest. The police were rescued from any further cuts, the NHS receives some of the budget growth that it requires and defence, security and prisons did quite well. It is no surprise, governments of all persuasions seem unable to resist the well-targeted lobbying by the security and defence establishment and cuts in health spending are taboo. This may be because Ministers responsible for these services are directly in the firing line if things go wrong. This is not the case where there is local democratic control, here the budgets can be chopped without qualms because the detailed decisions on cuts will be blamed on local politicians and organisations.

The issue that has been neglected in much of the subsequent analysis is the absolute devastation of public services in our local communities. The Chancellor is halving the local government central grant to Councils over the next four years. At the same time, he is letting them set their business rates so that they can "compete for economic growth". This might work well for the growing areas of the south-east but could be devastating for places like Scunthorpe and Middlesborough that have already been scuppered by the lethargy of Business Secretary, Sajid Javid.

The Chancellor's next trick was to allow a 2% increase in Council tax to pay for increased costs of social care. He claims that this will produce £2bn per annum which, as well as being insufficient to meet pent up demand by the increasingly frail and elderly population, is a grossly over-optimistic estimate of receipts according to Councils. The proposal is very much in line with the tendency of this government to pass the buck on the wicked issues. And, of course, the fact that any council tax increase is dedicated to social care means that there is no headroom to source alternative funding to replace the 56% cut in the central grant.

It is noteworthy that the Conservative chair of the Local Government Association (LGA), Lord Porter, has not exactly endorsed the autumn statement in his response.

"It is wrong that the services our local communities rely on will face deeper cuts than the rest of the public sector yet again and for local taxpayers to be left to pick up the bill for new government policies without any additional funding.

Even if councils stopped filling in potholes, maintaining parks, closed all children's centres, libraries, museums, leisure centres and turned off every street light they will not have saved enough money to plug the financial black hole they face by 2020."

The question is when will the electorate start to understand that the Chancellor's end game of reducing public expenditure from 47% in 2010 to 36% of GDP by 2020 is a momentous blunder. It has reduced local democracy to the role of a public liquidator. 

When communities realise the implications, and complaints about services from preschool to community care, from potholed roads to the closure of libraries, sports centres and community facilities reach a crescendo, the level of public indignation may even become discernible to the press and government.  The game will then be up for the Chancellor and the  OBR may no longer have the scope to deliver any more windfalls. But by that time George Osborne probably will be gone and the opprobrium for the problems made manifest by the Cameron government will be pointed at some other organisation such as the EU. 

Ben Venue by the Ledard Burn

Ben Venue 729m cairn from summit

Looking east: Ben Ledi, Loch Achray and Loch Venachar

Looking northwest over Loch Katrine to Cruach Ardrain and Stob Binnein

Icicles below summit

Beinn Bhreac in shadow and across to Stob Binnein

Looking down Ledard Burn towards Campsies and Dumgoyne

Sunday 22 November 2015

Ascent:     860 metres 
Distance:  12 kilometres
Time:        3 hrs 30 mins

Ben Venue          739 metres

After almost two months out of action, I awoke to a rare but beautiful winter's day: frost on the windows, blue skies, bare trees and not a whiff of wind. I decided to give my back a workout by a walk up Ben Venue starting at the Ledard Burn that runs into Loch Ard. I had made this climb on dozens of occasions but not recently. All the parking spots in the lay-by were taken so I drove to Kinlochard and walked back. I had deliberately left my phone, a map and anything else that would distract me from the walk, apart from a camera, at home. My longest walk in the last 6 weeks had been an hour and a half up and down Lime Craig and I felt that this might be too long and difficult a walk.

The start of the walk is along the short stretch of road leading to Ledard Farm. A gate to the left leads to a wooden footbridge and the path then climbs alongside the burn between confining fences and through a jumble of bramble shoots. The path is muddy at most times of the year and gaiters are essential in winter as boots regularly sink several inches into the brown stuff. You soon begin to climb through a native wood as the path meanders through the indigenous birch and oak trees. I happened upon a woman crouched down relieving herself as I rounded a bend, we apologised to each other and then realised that it was an untimely coincidence so engaged in friendly banter until we caught up with her companion, another woman carrying a massive 55-litre rucksack. She must have been subjected to carrying the equipment list from the Duke of Edinburgh's gold award with that sort of equipment.

The path through the forest continues for another kilometre and rises steadily, it seldom allows you to relax as it dips and rises and squirms through the dense birch wood. You emerge eventually onto the open hillside where the mud path disappears and gives way to a waterlogged grass slope. After a while, this reaches a crossing of the burn over some iron bars and leads to a high wooden stile over a deer fence. It follows the fence before taking a steeper turn up rough ground. The path serves as a drainage route for surface water that had gouged out a deep channel making progress a tiresome slog. About halfway to the bealach between Beinn Bhreac and Ben Venue is a small cairn where, feeling the effect of steady climbing after a long layoff, I needed to take a rest and a drink.

A couple that I had passed lower down the path came past as I slouched on the cairn and asked if I was alright.  Although I had been thinking that this was as far as I wanted to go it merely increased my resolve to continue. The ground had become frozen at this height and I regretted leaving my walking pole in the car. The recent heavy rains and snow had been frozen into ice patches on the path. I had caught up with the couple by the time I reached the fence at the bealach and I knew that there was no turning back from here. The views to the north over Loch Katrine opened up and I wanted to photograph the snow-capped peaks to the north.

The path is level for about half a kilometre as it traverses a slope and then rises over a couple of knolls. Stob Binnein and the Balquidder hills were a frieze of jagged snow-covered peaks etched against the azure sky. There is a descent to where the path from Loch Achray joins the ridge. Beyond here the path was covered in pillows of ice and watching other walkers struggle I elected to take a route to the left up steep grass banks. There are a couple more ascents and descents before the final climb to the summit. It was bare of walkers as I arrived so I found a bit of shelter to drink a flask of coffee before spending 10 minutes enjoying the panoramas and taking photos with my SLR that I had lugged up in anticipation of views like this. They are the very reason for hill walking and winter often provides the best views of all seasons.

I began the descent feeling chilled by the cold air, it begins to get colder from about 2pm on days like this. I avoided the frozen path and found a good route down through the more forgiving grass slopes. Another dozen or so walkers were on the ascent including some couples that I had passed on the ascent. There was no time to relax on the descent, when I reached the path that traverses back to the bealach it was necessary to stride gingerly along the sheet ice-covered path. After crossing the fence at the bealach it was easier to walk down the rougher ground than to slither and tumble on the icy path. I stopped at one of the sparkling burns to gulp down some water before crossing the stile and beginning the long slog through the birch wood. It seemed just as long as on the ascent so I was glad to finally reach the car in Kinlochard. It was 3:20pm so I had taken three and a half hours. It reminded me that Ben Venue is a serious hill in winter and that the days of running up it on a summer evening after work are no longer relevant as check times.

The worst of times

As I look at the impact of present government policies and actions on everyday essential local services I cannot help but be reminded of Dicken's introduction to the Tale of Two Cities. It could be easily adapted to present times.

"It is the worst of times, it is the age of foolishness, it is the epoch of incredulity, it is the season of darkness, it is the winter of despair, we have nothing before us, - in short, the present period is so far like the past, that some of its noisiest authorities insist on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative."

Not content with failing completely to reduce the national debt through his austerity measures over the past five years, George Osborne, the Chancellor, is now boasting that his spending review and autumn statement will reduce the growing debt in the next five years. "I can report to you that - with the support of my brilliant colleague Greg Hands, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury – we have reached a provisional agreement on the spending plans of four government departments: the Department for Transport, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Department for Communities and Local Government, and of course the Treasury. The resource spending, that is the day-to-day spending of those four departments, will be cut on average 8% a year for the next four years, that’s by 30% in total." Bravo Chancellor and have you thought through the consequences for people and places? Your time is up.

Greg Clark, the Secretary of State of Communities and Local Government has a similar myopia as his predecessor, Eric Pickles. He has aligned himself with the Chancellor, seemingly oblivious to becoming part of the curmudgeonly wing of ministers. Although he knows that local government cuts can be laid at the door of Councils; after all, it is up to them to determine their priorities! Has he no idea what damage has already been wreaked on Councils? The ineptness of this government is creating havoc with our public services with no tangible advantage to the economy. Blaming Councils and the European Union are soundbites from the absurd school of political lightweights.

Even his department acknowledges that there will be a 35% decrease in overall funding for local government services by 2019/20, despite council tax, business rates and charges increasing slightly. This reduction excludes Education, Social Care and Waste, which obtain separate funding streams or are protected. The department accepts that this magnitude of savings cannot be achieved by efficiencies and will require severe reductions in statutory services as well as the wipeout of many discretionary services such as libraries and leisure. These will impinge significantly on the quality of life, particularly of children and the dependent elderly.

The Tories may believe that Education is being transferred to Academies or Free Schools and that Community Care is an NHS function but this fails to recognise that local government has still the major responsibility for these vital services. They are protected to some extent but only at the expense of non-statutory services like sports, leisure, libraries, museums, play, youth work and many other services that enhance the quality of life. Meanwhile, roads and transport, business support, community facilities and urban regeneration are starved of investment. Our localities no longer have the resources or the capacity to provide the leadership that is essential for thriving sustainable communities.

Local Government has been treated with disdain by this and the previous coalition government. It is an easy target, unlike the NHS or Defence, where the backlash of any cuts is against the Government. Direct ministerial control means that these services are safeguarded from the swingeing cuts that are applied to local government. The consequences of perpetual harsh settlements are beginning to be realised by the electorate as well as the angry phalanx of activists in the arts, sport, environment and voluntary sector who see their facilities, projects and services wither away There is a clamour for the return of council housing as private landlords milk their tenants; town centres are in meltdown; the loss of sport, arts and other community facilities and services are being challenged.

Public services are not an optional extra but an essential part of the framework for living, working and playing. They certainly need to modernise and adapt but they cannot be junked in the way that the chancellor and his cohorts seem to believe. They are the 'powerhouse for improvement' as he seems to acknowledge to some extent in his Northern Powerhouse initiative. Although it would seem that this is a way of ditching some central government services onto local government without any extra resources for day-to-day spending. It just shifts the opprobrium for central government-imposed cuts to local councils.

Osborne and Greg Hands have shown that they neither understand nor care what havoc will be wreaked by this squeezing of public services. It is of secondary importance, what matters is the reduction of the bottom line - this is how your political virility is measured. The PM has also shown how out of touch he is with local public services this week in an exchange of letters with the Conservative leader of Oxfordshire County Council, The PM wrote that he was "disappointed at the cuts in frontline services and urged the Council to make back-office cuts and sell off surplus property". The leaders' reply showed no remorse "That's already been done over the past 5 years, along with a 40% reduction in the most senior staff.  That is why the Council have had to heavily prune libraries, museums, play areas, parks along with children's centres and services for the elderly."

Oxfordshire County Council like many other Conservative Councils in England has local leaders who understand the suffering caused by the reality of five years of imposed austerity. They have had a devastating effect on local services and incurred a massive shedding of jobs.  It is relatively painless for Whitehall to agree to cuts of this magnitude, particularly if like Greg Hands you represent Westminster, the most wealthy Council in the country. Even the protection of the more affluent and growing shire counties in the southeast has not inured them against the damage.

If the PM is concerned about services in his cherished constituency what must it be like in the far-forgotten north and the cities? They have not been blessed by the manipulation of grants offered to the Tory homelands. I know from working in Oxfordshire, admittedly a long time ago, that Tory leaders are pragmatic and realistic about protecting their domains. But why are they not getting the message through to ministers? Do they need to shout louder or is the government not interested in hearing these messages? Unlike the Armed Forces, the Police, the Universities and the NHS, local government is not able to lobby the London establishment. Its leaders are based in their localities and too busy and strapped for cash to lobby, exploit the media or behave like charlatans to protect their interests.

In the past year, I have mentored twenty or so top managers in local government. Their agenda is one of perpetual cuts, removing many so-called non-essential services and reducing essential services. They are punch drunk, and they have lost many experienced colleagues and people who hold the institutional memory that safeguards against permanent mistakes in the slashing of services. They no longer have time to think creatively nor do they have the resources to bring forward new services or improvements that communities are demanding.

There is no doubt that the Chancellor has deliberately set out to roll back the role of the state. The consequent outcome is a loss of capacity. Private care homes, privately rented housing, free schools, and commercial sports and leisure facilities do not plug the gaps in services previously provided on a universal or priority basis by councils. Moreover, the private provision woefully fails the most vulnerable families and dependent adults. Similarly, the multitude of voluntary organisations is not the panacea that the PM would have us believe as he found out with considerable embarrassment with the collapse of the Kid's Company recently. Voluntary organisations depend upon the goodwill and tithes from the public and this is not the most productive or efficient way to render services.