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Tag Archives: Ettrick Bay
Bute’s Island Time Bridge
Great to see Argyll’s Ise of Bute mounting an imaginative, ambitious and complex project as part of Argyll’s contributon to Homecomong Scotland 2009. Island Time Bridge will run throughout the summer from 1st June to 27th September.
It will be the result of a marriage of art, landscape and archaeology and of seroius efforts to make contacts with and draw upon the experience of historical Scottish diaspora communities in Canada and Australia.
Discover Bute Landscape Partnership along with the Step Up Project will run an arts and culture programme of events and workshops throughout the summer, themed around emigration (Canada and Australia) and will have two parts;
- One is a digital interactive photographic and sound exhibition portraying contemporary life on Bute contrasted with life on Scotland Island NSW, Australia. This is an Artist-led project with the involvement of the local community.
- The other is the Giant – a mega-festival of activities, workshops and happenings finishing with three large scaleoutdoor events. Working with the ‘Big Man Walking’ team the Giant will interact and take part in Flag and Banner waving, Puppets and Lantern procession and will open the new Tramway all-access pathway to Ettrick Bay. The route will have events and performances examining and marking the history of the island’s emigration. This project will be actively seeking links with similar communities in Canada and Australia.
This event is part of Discover Bute Landscape Partnership’s Archeological Research project. The Giant will lead the procession along the 2.5mile time corridor passing events and happenings highlighting the island unique archeological and cultural heritage. The route will encourage the elebration of the island’s migration and emigration over the years.
Opening of new hide at Bute’s Ettrick Bay
There is a special event on 24th January at Ettrick Bay on Bute. It’s being run in connection with the RSPB’s 30th anniversary Big Garden Birdwatch which For Argtll has reported on below.
The new hide is being opened, RSPB staff will be there to help in identifying birds, answering wildlife-related questions and telling people about the wildlife and healthy living initiative run through the Bute Landscape Partnership Scheme.
Discover Bute project launched – but Ettrick Bay water quality will be an issue
The Discover Bute project got off to a lively start recently when, after the official cutting of th first sod at Ettrick Bay, entertainer Johnny Beattie, dressed in thr kilt for the occasion, leapt into the JCB and dug a few more sods himself.
The occasion marked the official start of a four-year programme of improvements to Bute’s rural landscape after the June award of £3 million funding, including £1.78m from the Heritage Lottery Fund.
Ettrick Bay and its environs wll be the site of most of the early work by the Discover Bute initiative. The main thrust of development will be on the route once followed by the Rothesay Tramways Company in the early 20th century, bringing hosts of daytrippers from Rothesay and Port Bannatyne to this popular beach. The route from Port Bannatyne is to be converted into an attractive cycle track. There will be a car park at the south end of the beach with a bird hide nearby.
However, all this effort will be undermined unless a permanent solution is found to the continuing failure of Ettrick Bay to achieve a level of water quality appropriate to the EU’s designation of it in 1999 as a bathing beach.
After its designation it failed Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) water quality tests in six successive years. It then managed to get to good water quality in 2005 and 2006 after work carried out by local farmers guided by SEPA and the Scottish Agricultural College. But in 2007 and again this summer it failed to reach minimum standards.
The problem largely stems from regular heavy rain washing cattle excrement from nearby fields into burns emptying into the bay.
SEPA has encouraged all farmers in the area ‘to adopt practices that should lead to a reduction in bacterial pollution of the local streams’. It confirms that that remedial action has been taken at several farms to deal with excess surface water draining from contaminated yard areas.