5.Mountaineering Council of Scotland
Page 12
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Well despite our best effort the funicular went ahead and opened at Christmas 2001. However, the controversy rages on. Already the Tourism Minister has come under pressure to scrap restrictions on Cairn Gorm and allow walkers onto the summit. Don't they realise that this closed system has to be in operation 25 years? So, not only is there pressure to let visitors onto the mountain, there are plans in the pipeline to extend the funicular - how much more ludicrous can the situation get? Sadly it needn't have been this way. There have always been other options for re-developing the Cairngorm area and for providing year round tourism opportunities. There was much talk of World Heritage Site status, and the international funds and employment opportunities this would have created would have outstripped those of the funicular.
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Now there's a plan for yet more state sponsored vandalism in the form of an extension to the railway - it's a sad, sad time for the truly magnificent Cairngorms.
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