Publications Catalogue

In the Commission's report, A Park System for Scotland, we devoted a chapter to the question of landscape conservation and said that we had set in hand a review of areas of unsuprassed attractiveness which must be conserved as part of our national heritage. In this further report we set out the results of this review which has now been submitted to the Secretary of State.

We are confident that all of the 40 areas which we have selected will find general acceptance as being of outstanding scenic beauty. There will be many further areas which informed readers may consider could also have been included. We believe that many such areas will be of interest, particularly to local communitites. In such cases it will be important for these areas to be identfified and conserved by the local authorities concerned.

In the course of our review we have gathered a considerable amout of relevant information which we would be glad to make available to planning authorities, and which we hope will prove useful in the perparation of regional and local plans. The Commission looks forward to close consultation about ways in which policies might be developed for the conservation of this aspect of Scotland's national heritage.

Jean Balfour
April 1978

The scenery of Scotland is renowned throughout the world, and one aspect of being Minister of State at the Scottish Office with responsibility for planning and conservation which gives me great satisfaction is the opportunity to develop policies for the way in which we use our fine countryside. Planning is about choice - choice as to the way in which we use our resources, whether to exploit assets or to conserve them, whether to use them wisely or unwisely. When our successors look at how we have faced up to our responsibilities to conserve our national heritage, it is the way in which we have gone about making these choices by which we shall be judged.

Surprisingly there has been up to now no overall assesssment of Scottish scenery and I have therefore encrouraged the Countryside Commission for Scotland to look at this question and to produce advice which will help all of us in the planning process in central government and in planning authorities throughout the country. This the Commission have now done and the outcome of their work is set out in this report.

Scenic quality is essentially an aesthetic matter which does not readily lend itself to objective assessment. Nevertheless, the Commission have managed to introduce a degree of objectivivity into the way in which they have tackled this job and I am sure that the report will be referred to as the basic working document for all those interested in this subect for many years to come.

This assessent offers a basis for the development of a new framework for landscape conservation. While the document will no doubt be referred to widely and for many purposes, its main aim is to focus the attention of planning authorities on areas of particular scenic distinction which, from the national standpoint, are of outstannding importance. This should be of help in the preparation of structure and local plans and I would expect to see the work of the Commission on scenic areas taken into account in the policies proposed by authorities for these areas.

In their introduction the Commission discuss their ideas about management agreements which were first put forward in the report "A Park System for Scotland." The further proposals which the Commission make on this will obviously need to be the subject of consultation between the Government, the Commission, and local authorities. At the outset I said planning was about choice. This report provides a basis for some of these choices. It therefore gives me great pleasure to commend this work to planning authorities and to the much wider readership which is also interested in the Scottish countryside.

John Kirkhill

Part II contains details of the 40 areas referred to in paragraph 3.2 of the report. For each area there is a description and a map. The description in each case consists of three sections, the first describing the location and extent of the scenic area, the second describing the scenic characteristics of the area, and a third relating to some other national interests in the area. This third section is not exhaustive and has been based on information available to the Commission from its own records. Generally it attempts to record national nature conservation interests, Forestry Commission ownerships, National Trust ownerships, Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland ownerships, Department of the Environment ownerships and the existing National Park Direction Areas, all factors which may have significance for the conservation of scenery. The Commision recognises that there are many other factors not recorded which will also have a bearing on the conservation of scenery.