CONFIRMED MINUTES OF THE 2nd MEETING OF THE SNH PROTECTED AREAS
COMMITTEE – OPEN SESSION
17 February 2009 - Great Glen House, Inverness
Present
Keith Geddes (Chairman)
David Mackay
Joan Mitchell
Apologies
Amanda Bryan
In attendance
Ian Jardine (Chief Executive)
Susan Davies (Operations Director North)
Mike Taylor (Board Committees co-ordinator)
Item 1: Apologies, introductions and opening remarks
1. The Chair welcomed everyone to the meeting and noted apologies from Amanda
Bryan (AB). AB had provided written comment for consideration at the meeting.
Item 2: Minutes of last meeting, action points and matters arising
2. The Committee discussed the level of detail which needed to be minuted. The
Chair did not expect a verbatim record to be taken whilst David Mackay (DMack)
advocated a short concise record summarising the key points, recording
decisions made and actions required. When any agreed amendments had been
made the revised minutes should be sent to the Chair for final confirmation.
3. Susan Davies (SD) said that the Sound of Barra and Mingulay were
controversial sites which required thorough consideration and then put forward
AB’s amendments to the minutes. These were as follows:

Sound of Barra: AB asked a series of questions relating to the selection of the
site for the interests given and how this related to other comparable sites for
the different interests. When previously considering sites being put forward we
have generally been presented with information about how this sits within the
suite of sites for any given interest and its relative importance both in terms of
quality of qualifying interest and distribution. This is particularly important in
relation to the common seal interest which for this site which is only listed as
global C grade. AB specifically asked if there were any global b grade sites
which had not been designated and if so why this site was being put forward
ahead of them. The response was along the lines of while there are b grade
sites in Orkney, Orkney already has common seal sites and for improved
distribution/ representation of sites it was important to have a site in the
Western Isles. When AB then asked why the Sound of Barra as opposed to
any other location within the W Isles the response was that the initial advice
from SMRU had been for a much extended site ranging from the Sound of
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Harris south but that in management terms the site being proposed was more
manageable. AB was content with both these responses and indicated that in
future it would be useful to have these type of explanations within the paper in
terms of providing a coherent case. In terms of the dolphin interest AB made
the point that she felt that the global c grade was generous interpretation of
the grading and that the case presented indicated that the interest was d
grade at best.

Mingulay: The discussion was not just about boundaries as stated but also the
selection of the site itself. There should be a description of the fact that the
site is selected on best current knowledge and that extensive survey to enable
identification of the best sites does not exist. A clear statement needs to be
included on why we are proceeding on the basis of partial information and
acknowledging the limitations of this process.
The Committee agreed that these points should be incorporated within the
final minutes of the previous meeting.
Item 3: Confirmation of summary responses to Onich Woods & Shore SSSI.
4. The Chair confirmed that the correspondence paper had been considered by all
of the Committee and that the decision was to approve the confirmation with the
change to the SSSI’s name as proposed in the paper.
Item 4: Contribution to the Scottish Component of the UK Special Areas of
Conservation List: Selection of (i) the Sound of Barra (ii) Mingulay reefs.
5. SD gave a verbal update on the item. There is considerable press interest on
this subject and it has generated a lot of direct correspondence with Scottish
Government Ministers from interested parties such as Local MSPs, councillors
and fishermen. SNH’s Chairman had been in contact with the previous Minister,
Mike Russell to clarify whether Scottish Government wished to receive advice
from us on these sites. The audit trail was not clear regarding this, due to the
absence of relevant file notes and minutes. A response was awaited from the
new Minister for Environment, Roseanna Cunningham. SNH is ready to progress
matters whatever response is received.
6. Ian Jardine (IJ) said that it was not SNH’s job to advise Ministers on the likely
risk of infraction or otherwise. SNH must take more care in the future to record
discussions with Scottish Government of when and what was discussed (file
notes) so that there was a clear audit trail. He then went on to say that a
response to the Chairman’s letter was expected from Roseanna Cunningham. A
parliamentary question had been made regarding local concerns and what if
anything was being done to address these? Richard Lochhead was awaiting
advice from SNH on this before responding.
7. SD noted that SNH had to identify a site. Through the moderation process, the
UK was deemed deficient in features and sites. There was also a gap in
geographic coverage, hence the inclusion now of these sites in the Western
Isles.
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8. IJ asked that it be recorded that SNH is not aware of any threat to these sites,
and that any delay would not therefore pose a threat to the natural heritage.
Item 5: AOB
Future cases for the Protected Areas Committee to consider.
9. SD informed Members that a paper would be forthcoming on this subject. There
were a limited number of known cases to come forward. Amongst these were
inshore aggregations of breeding waterfowl, possibly the SSSI denotification of
Kinloch Village on Rum and West Inverness-Shire Lochs which is currently out at
ACSSSI.
AP1: SD to bring a paper to the next meeting on known issues and timescales.
ACSSSI
10. The Chair asked for a short update on the future of ACSSSI. SD said that
various options were currently being developed for discussion with Scottish
Government. Once these have been refined further a recommendations paper
will come forward to this Committee.
11. There was no further business and the meeting closed.
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