Were you in the Glen Etive area between 15th and 16th November?

Were you in the Glen Etive area between 15th and 16th November? Police are making enquiries into a break-in on Dalness Estate. Officers are keen to trace occupants of a blue landrover discovery with front damage seen in the area. If you can help please call 101 quote: 
NP3161/19.

Are the land managers of Glencoe and Glen Etive pocketing community funding?

This week there were several different film crews filming in the Glencoe and Glen Etive community. Before we go any further lets have a wee look at an extract from the Highlands Filming Code of Practice

"When possible, a donation to the Community Council of areas affected is encouraged so that local residents and the wider community can sustainably support the impacts that filming in the area creates." The words "when possible" is used as it was intended to be a relax way of  generating goodwill on all sides, not a "tax" loop hole for excluding the community from getting anything which appears has happen this week.

The film companies are refusing a wee donation for my Community Council on the grounds they are already paying the landowners our share (no one should pay twice for a service). I engaged with one of the land owning organisation senior employee on the day of filming along with the film location manager, they both said they would contact me with further details of their refusals to work with the local community. (a wee note here, same organisation who got two police officers to turn up at my home, recommend watching You've Been Trumped by Anthony Baxter, must add the two local police officers quickly realised what was going on and were totally professional.)  I feel both senior employee and location manager were just humoring me and they have not contacted me, but this code of practice was set up for everyone to benefit from our Scottish film industry.

I am making contact with Creative Scotland to ask for their view on this situation. One film location manager is not too happy about the situation, in fact it appears that many people in the film industry are appalled when no money goes to the community at the grass roots.

You may ask why I am so interested in this situation, in the past rouge film crews would physically stop residents from accessing their homes on the public roads with illegal road closures and intimidation with the presence of private security, there was no willingness at that point to have a filming code of practice for the Highlands (most areas in the develop countries have a filming code of practice including many Scottish councils).

So the bottom line is our Scottish film industry has probably paid out many thousand of pounds to film in my community this week and it appears all the land managers have pocketed all the money including my community share.

Where do we go from here, all what I am asking is for a few crumbs off the table for my community, not thousands but a couple of £50 pound notes a day. The film crews are even saving on a few hundred pounds a day on police presence needed when I took non-violent direct action on days of filming on our public spaces in my community to get a filming code of practice (many people came together to gain this, respect to them for the partnership which delivered the code of practice).

The land owners are so quick to ask for community support for their developments but refuse to give us crumbs from the filming kick backs. I fully support our Scottish film industry, maybe for another post, are they being extorted for filming in our country by some land managers? could this be undermining our film industry future? is this acceptable behavior towards our Scottish film industry? 

My well of goodwill is drying out very fast, this is the 21st century, meaningful community engagement is going to happen.

A wee question, is a Glencoe and Glen Etive strategy document required, would anyone be bothered to have one? Have a look at THE NEVIS STRATEGY 2020-40 CONSULTATION DRAFT

Glencoe and District Flower Show Sunday 25th August 2019

A wee reminder of the Glencoe and district flower show at the Glencoe village hall on Sunday 25th August 2019. Opens 1.30pm, free admission, teas and cakes £1.50. Prize giving and raffle draw is at 3pm.

Up-date bridge by Invercharnan, Glen Etive

Highland Council installed safety netting on the bridge yesterday.

Link to previous news https://glenetivelivingcommunity.blogspot.com/2019/07/bridge-by-invercharnan-glen-etive.html

Bridge by Invercharnan, Glen Etive, critical condition.

The barriers have gone from the bridge by Invercharnan, Glen Etive, which were put in place when the railings failed. Does this impose a risk to the public? Highland council have now been informed via email.

Link to previous news https://glenetivelivingcommunity.blogspot.com/2019/07/railing-collapsed-on-bridge-by.html

Railing collapsed on bridge by Invercharnan, Glen Etive.

Bridge by Invercharnan

Railing has now collapsed on the bridge by Invercharnan ,Glen Etive.

Reported to Highland Council
(Reference: FS131639548) 17 July 2019
(Reference: FS125452436) 18 June 2019

Why are outside environmental lobby groups trying to undermine our living community in Glen Etive, our chosen path to a sustainable community is for us alone to choose, not for organisations out side to dictate their values on us.