Conservation Charity Cleans Up Another National Park Gateway

The well-known conservation charity, The Friends of Loch Lomond and The Trossachs, was busy on Thursday 1st May around beautiful Loch Lubnaig. Although smaller than Loch Lomond, it is no less beautiful and suffers from similar problems as it lies on a major gateway into the National Park. Overlooked by Ben Ledi, it is known for its excellent Forest Holidays site and the old railway track bed linking Callander with Killin via the scenic Pass of Leny and “Bonnie Strathyre” and utilised here by both The Rob Roy long distance Great Trail and National Cycle route 7.

“It is over 4 years ago since the Friends last held a Make a Difference Day for volunteers to help clean up this stunningly beautiful area, said Friends’ Chairman, John Urquhart.

“The last time, we had a big turn out and collected about 30 bags of rubbish, but this time we only had 9 volunteers, so were hoping there would be much less to collect. Sadly we ended up with a similar amount. As before, it was clear that the rubbish was falling into 3 primary categories: 1. Bottles, cans, food packaging and camping equipment mainly left on beaches, 2. Left over debris from agricultural, forestry and power company operations, and 3. Local domestic rubbish. It was also once again clear that a fair amount of the stuff had been fly tipped in lay-bys along the A84 - including a lorry wheel, a tyre, a large mangled agricultural gate and a washing machine drum.

It is a continual source of disappointment to us that neither the National Park nor the local Council authorities seem able to get themselves sufficiently organised to deal adequately with this problem which perennially blights our most beautiful areas.”