As surfers battle for a beach hut, developers plan yet another golf course
It’s not hard to imagine a scenario where the golf course gets built regardless
To build by the sea or not to build by the sea – that is this week’s question. By pure fluke, I recently received two emails about two very different coastal planning applications in quick succession. The first concerned the ongoing campaign to prevent an 18-hole golf course and clubhouse from being constructed on Coul Links near Dornoch in the Moray Firth; the second had to do with the attempts of members of the Tiree Surf Club (some of whom, I should state for the record, are good friends of mine) to gain retrospective planning permission for a hut they’ve put up on the beach at Ballevulin, in the island’s northwest corner.
On the face of it, we’re talking about the same thing in both cases: humans looking to make changes to stretches of coastline that, up until now, have been left more-or-less in their natural state. But the closer you look the more obvious it becomes that, while one of these schemes involves very little in the way of environmental impact while providing a valuable amenity for local people, the other is an ecological disaster waiting to happen, dreamed up by a couple of millionaires living on a different continent.
The little wooden hut on the beach at Balevullin was constructed in 2016 by the local surf school, Blackhouse Watersports, and made available to Tiree Surf Club to make it easier for its 52 members to surf there all year round. It is situated towards the west end of the bay, above the high tide line but in front of the sand dunes, and measures 4.8m long by 3.6m wide by 2.2m high – not exactly palatial, then, but affording just enough space to store boards, wetsuits and other gear, and to allow three or four chilly surfers to change out of their wetsuits at the same time while sheltering from howling North Atlantic winds.
More than a third of the children at Tiree High School are now members
of the surf club, and two of them – Ben Larg and Finn Macdonald – have represented Scotland at international level. Both have spoken in the media about how the hut makes it easier to train all year round (although anyone who has tried changing out of a wetsuit al fresco in Scotland in the middle of February shouldn’t really need that explaining to them.) There’s also a safety benefit to the hut: its only window gives a good view of the surf break, so, while there’s no official lifeguard cover on Tiree, the hut at least makes it easier for more experienced club members to keep an eye on less experienced ones when the weather’s less than perfect.
By contrast, the construction of the proposed golf course at Coul Links would involve the bulldozing, digging, turfing and mowing of some 53 acres of dunes within the Loch Fleet Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). According to Scottish Natural Heritage, the government conservation agency, SSSIS are “those areas of land and water that best represent our natural heritage – its diversity of plants, animals and habitats, rocks and landforms.” Among other things, the threatened area is home to frog orchids, small blue butterflies, unusually large carpets of rock-rose and the northern brown argus butterflies that feed on them.
The American developers – golf course giant Mike Kaiser and Todd Warnock, owner of the five-star Links House hotel at nearby Royal Dornoch – have teamed up with Texas-based golf course architects Coorecrenshaw to produce the plans, and claim that the new course will attract 15,000 tourists in its first year of operation. A Proposal of Application Notice (PAN) was submitted to the Highland Council last July, and in an interview with linksmagazine.com, Bill Coore of Coorecrenshaw suggested they might make their next move this summer. In the meantime, conservation charities including the RSPB and the Scottish Wildlife Trust have spoken out against the proposal and a “Protect Coul Links” petition has racked up almost 9,000 signatures.
According to SNH, “it is an offence for any person to damage the protected natural features of a SSSI,” but given the scale of the project, and the potential boost to the local economy, it’s not hard to imagine a scenario where the golf course gets built regardless. Meanwhile, the future of the Tiree surf hut hangs in the balance. When Argyll & Bute Council debated the matter the votes were split down the middle, with the chair casting his deciding vote against. An appeal has now been submitted to the Scottish Government and there is to be a site visit by a reporter, who will make a final decision.
Do we really live in a country where it’s OK to bulldoze more than 50 acres of a SSSI to make way for yet another golf course, but where a 17 square metre wooden hut, of obvious benefit to young people in a remote island community, has to be torn down, simply because somebody thinks it spoils the view? Only time will tell.