Ice climbing on Beinn Udlaidh. Photo: Masa Sakano CC-BY-SA-2.0

The Australian company which has been refused permission to reopen a gold mine in the Scottish Highlands said it may have found another source of the precious metal nearby.

Scotgold Resources had hoped to start mining up to 20,000 ounces of gold from the Cononish mine in the shadow of Ben Lui, but its plans were thrown out by the Loch Lomond the Trossachs National Park Authority yesterday.

But is said this week it had found another potential source of gold and silver 5km (3 miles) away, outside the national park boundary, at Beinn Udlaidh.

At a meeting at nearby Tyndrum on Wednesday, national park authority convenor Dr Mike Cantlay said the potential economic benefits could not be balanced against conservation concerns.

He told the BBC: “The communities within the national park are fundamental and this has been an especially difficult application to consider. There were compelling arguments from both sides.

“Our main concern lay with the design, scale and visual impact of the waste management facility which would hold 820,000 tonnes of slurry waste.

“At the end of the day, we could not balance the potential economic benefits against our primary aim to conserve and enhance our natural heritage, one of the original reasons for establishing national parks in Scotland.”

Conservation charity the John Muir Trust welcomed the decision to turn down plans for a gold mine in the national park. It said the development at Cononish would have covered nearly 40 ha (99 acres) and included a large processing building, road access and car parking. Waste material extracted by the mine would have been be channelled into a 370m-long ‘tailing’, reaching up to 30m high.

Steven Turnbull, policy officer for the trust, said: “We are delighted the board has rejected this industrial development, which would have damaged the wild characteristics of the park. This decision clearly demonstrates that the national park values the conservation of precious landscapes and the biodiversity within them.

“If this development had been given the go-ahead, it could have set a dangerous precedent for further industrial projects within an area that should have the highest protection.”

The trust pointed out the site of the mine is on the route of the West Highland Way, which brings 50,000 visitors to the Park each year.

The John Muir Trust objected to the development along with the Mountaineering Council for Scotland, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the Scottish Campaign for National Parks and Scottish Natural Heritage.

However, the company said an extension of the Cononish seam, which lies just outside the national park boundary, could yield significant amounts of precious metal.

Chief executive Chris Sangster said: “The results continue to highlight the potential of the Beinn Udlaidh area to host high-grade, narrow-vein gold and silver deposits, in addition to the lower grade breccias systems which are the main focus of Scotgold’s current exploration program. Any such high grade deposits could be stand-alone operations in their own right.”

The company first identified gold deposits at the site, on the 840m (2,755ft) corbett in September last year. In a statement, it said: “Scotgold intensified its fieldwork at Beinn Udlaidh in March this year. In addition to the breccias pipe targets, Scotgold considers the veins systems at Beinn Udlaidh to be valid exploration targets in their own right.

“An extensive mapping and rock chip sampling program in the Beinn Udlaidh area has now identified a number of high grade, narrow vein systems, in addition to a significant strike extension to the Beinn Udlaidh vein.

“Scotgold plans to follow up the high-grade intersections with further drilling but will wait upon the results of an airborne magnetic survey to be carried out, which the Company expects to be early next year.”

The high price of gold has made previously uneconomic mines viable, with the estimated reserves at Cononish worth about £121m.

Beinn Udlaidh lies on the north side of Glen Lochy, 5km (3 miles) west of Tyndrum. Its northern corrie, overlooking Glen Orchy, provides winter climbs ranging from grade III to grade VI.