What did the Galloway (and Ayrshire) National Park consultation ever do for us? The easy answer would be that it unnecessarily caused huge controversy, whilst belittling and dividing a rural community for nothing. And if we learn nothing from the experience that will be it’s defining legacy.

But if those with the ability to effect change, both at a national and regional level, political and organisational, are prepared to recognise the errors and learn from the mistakes that were undoubtedly made through the process (this could be done in a simple and quick feedback engagement), it won’t have been for nothing.

Many locals feel that at the core of the failings lay the process itself. When Scotlands other two National Parks have been proposed there has been a lengthy and considered consultation prior to any formal process beginning, to understand the specific needs of the regions and communities involved.

That doesn’t mean all will agree, but more will understand and have had input into the thinking. To impose the principle of a National Park on a community without discussion, recognition of their needs and issues, and expecting them to understand the complexities involved in such a process in just a couple of months, is deeply flawed.

It was seen by many as a top down imposition of remote political whims at the expense of those who would be impacted. The binary foundation for all that followed was beautifully set.

Many in the region already felt themselves to be the ‘unlistened to’ dumping ground for ‘paper based’ Government targets, including decades of commercial renewables, plantation forestry, and industrial agriculture causing tangible land use and biodiversity change. These generational changes across much of the region have been accepted for many years as part of the needs for the greater good but with no end in site or serious consideration of the cumulative, threshold and cultural........

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