A MINING company is to extract 72,000 tonnes of ore at a gold and silver mine at Cononish near Tyndrum.
An estimated £200m of precious metals will be extracted in the coming years.
This raises the possibility of a gold rush with social and environmental implications. Stirling and Argyll & Bute councils, in association with the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority, have carried out an impact study. Valuable lessons have been learned from similar events in California in 1848.
A source said: “We are primarily concerned with law and order implications. The streets of Tyndrum will be full of saloons with cigareets, whisky and wild, wild women. The kind of loose behaviour we usually associate with Arrochar. We also expect quite a few gold-diggers from Tarbert.”
There will be significant economic benefits from miners hiring mules, buying vittles, and drinking sarsaparilla out of dirty glasses. Planning applications have already been made for casinos. A number of crofters are seeking change of use to turn the byre into a bordello.
A posse of planning officers will be drafted in to deal with hordes of prospectors setting up campsites. There will be regulations preventing people going about dressed only in long johns (or combinations as they are called in The Broons) and singing I Was Born Under a Wandering Star in a Lee Marvin voice.
Residents are asked to be vigilant in case strangers stake a claim in their front gardens.
Stagecoach services will have armed guards. Trains running through Tyndrum will have a carriage-load of police with Gatling guns to foil attempted robberies.
The Tyndrum gold rush is expected to boost the Scottish film industry.
Already in pre-production is Treasure of Ben Lui in which a prospector looking awfy like Humphrey Bogart is robbed by bogus mounted policemen who say: “We don’t have to show you no stinkin’ badges!”
Look out also for Gunfight at the Green Welly Stop and the musical Agnes Get Your Gun.
Economists warn the boom will be short-lived and tumbleweed is forecast for Tyndrum by the year 2025. Media analysts predict an immediate 200% increase in headlines using the words “gold, them, thar and hills”.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article