CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper 2 10^th June 2022

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

FOR DECISION

Title: CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK PART­NER­SHIP PLAN 2022 – 27

Pre­pared by: GRANT MOIR, CEO

Pur­pose To seek the Board’s agree­ment to the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2022 – 27 and its sub­mis­sion to Scot­tish Min­is­ters for approval.

Recom­mend­a­tion That the Board con­sider and agree the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2022 – 27 for sub­mis­sion to Scot­tish Min­is­ters for approval.

NPPP 2022 – 2027

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper 2 10^th June 2022

NATION­AL PARK PART­NER­SHIP PLAN 2022 – 2027

FOR DECISION

Stra­tegic Context

1. The Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan is the man­age­ment plan for the Nation­al Park. Every five years CNPA has a stat­utory duty to pre­pare a plan and sub­mit it to Scot­tish Min­is­ters for approv­al. The plan sets out how the rel­ev­ant part­ners will work togeth­er to address the big issues affect­ing the Nation­al Park.

Pub­lic Consultation

1. The CNPA held an inform­al con­sulta­tion from June 2021 until Septem­ber 2021 to pick up ini­tial key issues that people wanted to see tackled in the plan. In total 279 responses were received and a fur­ther 185 com­ments gathered from social media plus 20 qual­it­at­ive face-to-face interviews.

2. Fol­low­ing this the CNPA held a form­al pub­lic con­sulta­tion from 23 Septem­ber to 17 Decem­ber 2021. A total of 1453 responses were received on-line, by post or by email. This is the largest ever response to an NPPP con­sulta­tion and 4x those received dur­ing the last form­al con­sulta­tion in 2016. The response included feed­back from over 50 organ­isa­tions and interest groups, from land man­agers to loc­al busi­nesses, health­care pro­viders to com­munity groups. The draft plan was dis­cussed with all the Park-wide for­ums dur­ing this peri­od and feed­back from the con­sulta­tion was incor­por­ated into the final draft plan.

3. The staff of the Nation­al Park Author­ity also met with many groups and organ­isa­tions mul­tiple times through­out the past year to dis­cuss and devel­op the plan. This included reg­u­lar updates and dis­cus­sions with mem­bers of the NPPP Stake­hold­er Group and reg­u­lar ses­sions with the CNPA Board to dis­cuss pro­posed changes to the Plan.

4. Fur­ther detail on the con­sulta­tion pro­cess can be found in the con­sulta­tion report at Annex 2.

The Part­ner­ship Plan

1. The Plan sets out the vis­ion, out­comes and nation­al con­text for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. The intro­duc­tion to the Plan sets out back­ground inform­a­tion, the role of the Cairngorms 2030: Her­it­age Hori­zons pro­gramme and the over­all vis­ion for the Nation­al Park.

2. For each sec­tion on Nature, People and Place, the plan sets out: a) Out­come b) Object­ives c) Tar­gets / Indic­at­ors d) Actions e) Partners

NPPP 2022 – 2027

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper 2 10^th June 2022

1. There is also for each sec­tion a set of policies for the Nation­al Park for the next 5 years. These have been revised fol­low­ing con­sulta­tion responses.

2. Finally, the Plan sets out the approach to Cap­it­al Invest­ment, Region­al Spa­tial Strategy, Region­al Land Use Part­ner­ship and Research.

Nature

1. The con­sulta­tion demon­strated sig­ni­fic­ant over­all sup­port for the approach set out in the Nature sec­tion. 66% of people agreed with the Nature object­ives and 75% agreed with the over­all out­come. Those who didn’t agree split into roughly two camps – those who felt the plan hadn’t gone far enough, and those who felt the plan had gone too far. There was high­er sup­port from res­id­ents and vis­it­ors and less sup­port from the land man­age­ment com­munity. Work has been car­ried out over the past 5 months to dis­cuss the issues raised with organ­isa­tions, cla­ri­fy lan­guage, revise object­ives, tar­gets and actions and to add a nar­rat­ive sec­tion to each object­ive to make the reas­on­ing behind each object­ive clearer.

2. The major changes from the draft Park Plan are as fol­lows: a) Cla­ri­fic­a­tion around the wood­land tar­gets, recog­ni­tion of the value of com­mer­cial wood­lands and pro­tec­tion for in-bye agri­cul­tur­al land from whole­sale plant­ing. b) Increase in the peat­land tar­get fol­low­ing map­ping work. c) The red deer object­ive has been revised to include redu­cing impacts and the tar­get dens­it­ies will be assessed at DMG scale. d) Gamebird man­age­ment has been sep­ar­ated from moor­land man­age­ment with a focus on estab­lish­ing evid­ence around impacts on nat­ive biod­iversity. e) Fire man­age­ment has been revised and will be in line with devel­op­ing work on muir­burn licen­cing. f) Spe­cif­ic spe­cies work has been drawn out to include evolving work on caper­cail­lie and beaver and action to tackle wild­life crime has been strengthened. g) The approach to green fin­ance has been strengthened to include com­munity bene­fit and to con­sider future options through the Land Reform Bill. h) Object­ives have been merged where there was over­lap to provide great­er clar­ity. i) Word­ing has been revised through­out to make object­ives clear­er and meas­ur­able. Actions have been developed in con­sulta­tion with rel­ev­ant organisations.

People

1. The con­sulta­tion demon­strated sig­ni­fic­ant sup­port for the approach adop­ted in People sec­tion of the plan from all groups. 74% of people agreed with the People object­ives and 83% agreed with the over­all out­come. Work has been car­ried out over the past 5 months to dis­cuss the issues raised with organ­isa­tions, cla­ri­fy lan­guage, revise object­ives, tar­gets and actions and to add a nar­rat­ive sec­tion to each object­ive to make the reas­on­ing behind each object­ive clearer.

NPPP 2022 – 2027

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper 2 10^th June 2022

1. The major changes from the draft Park Plan are as fol­lows: a) The work­ing age pop­u­la­tion object­ive has been strengthened as a key issue in the Nation­al Park b) The well-being eco­nomy object­ive has been giv­en a strengthened nar­rat­ive to ensure clar­ity of pur­pose. c) Skills and train­ing have been strengthened as an issue men­tioned by many organ­isa­tions as a key ena­bler of a just trans­ition. d) A Park for All has been strengthened to include res­id­ents and vis­it­ors and provide an over­all approach to equal­it­ies work in the Park.

Place

e) Objectives have been merged into other objectives where there was overlap to provide greater clarity.
f) Wording has been revised throughout to make objectives clearer and measurable. Actions have been developed in consultation with relevant organisations

1. The con­sulta­tion demon­strated sig­ni­fic­ant sup­port for the approach adop­ted in Place sec­tion of the plan from all groups with par­tic­u­lar sup­port for tack­ling the issue of afford­able hous­ing. 84% of people agreed with the Place object­ives and 85% agreed with the over­all out­come. Work has been car­ried out over the past 5 months to dis­cuss the issues raised with organ­isa­tions, cla­ri­fy lan­guage, revise object­ives, tar­gets and actions and to add a nar­rat­ive sec­tion to each object­ive to make the reas­on­ing behind each object­ive clearer.

2. The major changes from the draft Park Plan are as fol­lows: a) Hous­ing has been brought to fore­front and type of hous­ing has been expan­ded to include all afford­able that are ​‘in per­petu­ity’. b) Trans­port has been revised to reduce the tar­get to 20% reduc­tion in car use by 2030 from 50% as it was felt the draft tar­get was not deliv­er­able in the times­cale. Increased link­ages in trans­port sec­tion to Cairngorms 2030: Her­it­age Hori­zons as key deliv­ery mech­an­ism for trans­port. c) Object­ives have been merged into oth­er object­ives where there was over­lap to provide great­er clar­ity. d) Word­ing has been revised through­out to make object­ives clear­er and meas­ur­able. Actions have been developed in con­sulta­tion with rel­ev­ant organisations

3. Fur­ther details of changes to the Plan fol­low­ing con­sulta­tion can be found at Appendix I and the con­sulta­tion report is at Annex 2.

4. The plan sub­mit­ted to Min­is­ters will include 5 maps – Cur­rent Hab­it­ats, Degraded Peat­land, Cur­rent Deer Dens­it­ies, Vis­it­or Infra­struc­ture and a Region­al Spa­tial Strategy sum­mary. It will also show visu­al rep­res­ent­a­tions of the over­all park vision.

NPPP 2022 – 2027

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Sub­mis­sion to Ministers CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper 2 10^th June 2022

1. The Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act requires that the plan is sub­mit­ted to Scot­tish Min­is­ters for approv­al. We will sub­mit the plan togeth­er with the back­ground inform­a­tion includ­ing the con­sulta­tion report and assess­ment reports sub­ject to Board approv­al by the end June.

2. The plan presen­ted here is in a work­ing format, it will then be designed in a visu­al format and style ready for pub­lic­a­tion once approved by Ministers.

3. A min­is­teri­al launch with part­ners will be held in the Cairngorms once the CNPA receives form­al approv­al for the Plan from Scot­tish Government.

4. An exec­ut­ive sum­mary will be pro­duced, and a leaf­let sent to all house­holds in the Park at the time of the launch. All respond­ents to the con­sulta­tion will be kept up to date through reg­u­lar bul­let­ins and the web­site will be updated in due course.

Deliv­ery and Reporting

1. Once approved by Min­is­ters we will con­tin­ue to work with part­ners to co-ordin­ate and mon­it­or deliv­ery. It is pro­posed that there is an annu­al pub­lic report pro­duced on the deliv­ery of the Plan, a min­is­teri­ally chaired annu­al meet­ing of part­ners and 6 monthly updates to the CNPA Board focus­ing on any key challenges.

2. The actions in the Plan will form the core of the work of the CNPA over the next 5 years and will be taken for­ward through the devel­op­ment of the CNPA cor­por­ate plan.

NPPP 2022 – 2027

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper 2 Appendix | 10^th June 2022

Appendix I – NPPP4 Changes Fol­low­ing Con­sulta­tion Feedback

Gen­er­al com­ments across all sections

• Object­ives being more focused / spe­cif­ic: There were a num­ber of com­ments about object­ives not being clear enough and / or there being too many of them, both in the nature sec­tion and else­where. The final draft has tightened many of the object­ives up and provided clear rationale as to the reas­ons behind the tar­gets and object­ives. Object­ives have also been com­bined where pos­sible to reduce the total num­ber from 41 to 35.

• Edu­ca­tion and aware­ness-rais­ing: Some com­men­ted that there was a need for more edu­ca­tion and aware­ness-rais­ing about the envir­on­ment. This has been picked up in the People sec­tion, object­ive BII: ​“We will work with oth­er nation­al parks, part­ners and com­munit­ies to provide mean­ing­ful oppor­tun­it­ies for people to exper­i­ence and care for nature in the Cairngorms, and sup­port com­munit­ies in main­tain­ing and improv­ing their loc­al envir­on­ment.”

• Being clear­er about the Park Authority’s remit: Some respond­ents ques­tioned wheth­er the Park Author­ity were best placed to lead on a couple of the Place object­ives. As this is a part­ner­ship plan for the whole Nation­al Park and not for the Park Author­ity alone, a ​‘part­ners’ sec­tion has been included along­side all object­ives to clearly out­line who will be respons­ible for tak­ing for­ward these areas of work.

Nature

• More ambi­tious: People were keen for the plan to be more ambi­tious in tack­ling both the cli­mate and nature crises, set­ting out a timetable for going bey­ond net zero to a car­bon neg­at­ive pos­i­tion. The Park Author­ity is work­ing with Small World Con­sult­ing to estab­lish firm tar­gets for the Nation­al Park and Park Author­ity to achieve both net zero and a car­bon neg­at­ive pos­i­tion, and the tar­get for peat­land res­tor­a­tion has also been raised from 35,000 ha to a min­im­um of 38,000 ha (a 9% increase).

• Mak­ing private fin­ance work for nature and com­munit­ies: Con­cerns were raised about the risk of ​‘gre­en­wash­ing’ in the area of private fin­ance in the Nation­al Park. In the nar­rat­ive for this object­ive, the fol­low­ing inform­a­tion has been added: ​“We believe that the pur­chase of land for green invest­ment must deliv­er long-term bene­fits and be in the pub­lic interest. Bene­fits must be shared between the own­er and loc­al com­munit­ies.” An action has also been cre­ated linked to the devel­op­ment of the pro­posed Land Reform Bill.

• Right tree, right place: Some respond­ents were con­cerned that the wood­land expan­sion tar­gets would lead to ​‘indis­crim­in­ate tree plant­ing’, includ­ing on prime agri­cul­tur­al land. This has been addressed dir­ectly in the new draft plan: ​“Our guid­ing prin­ciple in the Nation­al Park is ​‘the right tree in the right place for the right reas­on’… There is also a need to ensure that the rel­at­ively lim­ited area of in-bye land in the Nation­al Park con­tin­ues to play a part in the nation’s food secur­ity and is pro­tec­ted from whole­sale con­ver­sion to wood­land.”

NPPP 2022 – 2027

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper 2 Appendix | 10^th June 2022

• Action on wild­life crime: A clear action on wild­life crime has been added under A13: Spe­cies recov­ery, say­ing: ​“Reduce wild­life crime in the Nation­al Park, with a spe­cif­ic focus on elim­in­at­ing it as a con­straint on rap­tor num­bers and range occu­pancy in the Nation­al Park.”

• More spe­cies-spe­cif­ic activ­ity: Clear actions have been added to object­ive A13: Spe­cies recov­ery on caper­cail­lie, beaver and rap­tors, with an addi­tion­al action say­ing: ​“Deliv­er spe­cies recov­ery plans for pri­or­ity spe­cies through the Cairngorms Nature Action Plan.”

• Recog­nising the role of moor­land man­age­ment: Whilst an area of con­ten­tion – with strong views on either side of the debate – the import­ant role moor­land man­agers play in sup­port­ing nature recov­ery in the Nation­al Park has been recog­nised. Gamebird man­age­ment has also been split out from moor­land man­age­ment, with a focus on estab­lish­ing evid­ence around impacts on nat­ive spe­cies. An expli­cit ref­er­ence to a new nation­al licens­ing régime has also been added in response to a num­ber of com­ments on the sub­ject. The nar­rat­ive for object­ive A5 – Moor­land man­age­ment says: ​“Moor­land man­age­ment plays a sig­ni­fic­ant role in sup­port­ing a range of hab­it­ats and spe­cies in the Cairngorms and is an import­ant part of its cul­ture and eco­nomy. Dur­ing the life­time of this plan a new nation­al licens­ing régime for grouse moors is due to be intro­duced by Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment.”

• Deer dens­ity tar­gets and wider herb­i­vore impacts: Whilst the deer dens­ity tar­gets remain in the plan (this is one of a num­ber of import­ant meas­ures that will help the Nation­al Park meet peat­land res­tor­a­tion, wood­land expan­sion and hab­it­at recov­ery tar­gets), the object­ive has been changed to include a focus on herb­i­vore impacts on eco­lo­gic­al res­tor­a­tion tar­gets. This recog­nises the fact that, whilst dens­ity is still a valu­able tool widely used in deer man­age­ment, an addi­tion­al meas­ure of impacts provides the evid­ence for action and indic­at­ors of success.

• Col­lab­or­at­ive work­ing: Some respond­ents sug­ges­ted that more col­lab­or­at­ive work­ing and skills / train­ing oppor­tun­it­ies were required, par­tic­u­larly for land man­agers. This has been taken on board through­out the new draft (e.g. in the skills and train­ing sec­tion below) and includes the fol­low­ing on deer man­age­ment: ​“We also need to con­sider how best to sup­port estates to deliv­er deer man­age­ment tar­gets and how best to sup­port stalk­ing employ­ment and the skills that will be needed to do this work over the long-term.” An expli­cit cross-ref­er­ence has been added to People object­ive B4 to increase skills and train­ing oppor­tun­it­ies, plus an action to ​“Sup­port skills train­ing pro­grammes rel­ev­ant to busi­ness needs and changes in land man­age­ment with­in the Nation­al Park.” A pro­pos­al has also been added to estab­lish a com­munity cli­mate action hub for the Nation­al Park to pro­mote a col­lab­or­at­ive approach to delivery.

People

• Pro­vi­sion of afford­able hous­ing: A com­mon con­cern was the lack of afford­able hous­ing for loc­al res­id­ents and work­ers. Whilst these issues were addressed in the Place sec­tion of the draft plan, they have been pulled to the start of the Place sec­tion in the final draft in recog­ni­tion of their import­ance. Afford­able hous­ing has also recog­nised as a pri­or­ity in the intro­duc­tion to the over­all plan, and in vari­ous sec­tions through­out the doc­u­ment, eg ​“Access to hous­ing for people who live and work in the area is a key issue for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. We need to increase access to

NPPP 2022 – 2027

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper 2 Appendix | 10^th June 2022

• afford­able hous­ing and the hous­ing mar­ket in the Cairngorms requires urgent change to sup­port loc­al, essen­tial hous­ing for work­ers and young people.”

• Skills and train­ing: Many par­ti­cipants wanted the plan to include skills and train­ing oppor­tun­it­ies to sup­port chan­ging land man­age­ment prac­tices and encour­age young­er people to stay in the Nation­al Park. This has been pulled out in the nar­rat­ives in the Nature sec­tion for object­ives A3 – Peat­land res­tor­a­tion and A4 – Deer and herb­i­vore impacts (“We need to con­sider how best to sup­port… stalk­ing employ­ment and the skills that will be needed to do this work over the long-term”), and in the People sec­tion object­ives BI – Work­ing-age pop­u­la­tion, B4 – Skills and train­ing, and B5 – Com­munity assets and land.

• Equal­it­ies, diversity and inclu­sion: It was felt by some par­ti­cipants that the plan needed to provide more expli­cit sup­port for a range of under-rep­res­en­ted groups in the Nation­al Park. Hous­ing was one key con­sid­er­a­tion, and this sec­tion has been updated to say: ​“There is also a need to sup­port hous­ing which addresses the needs of… those facing eco­nom­ic hard­ship, people with dis­ab­il­it­ies, eth­nic minor­ity com­munit­ies and LGB­TQ+ com­munit­ies.” Spe­cif­ic actions have been added in to encour­age Dis­ab­il­ity Con­fid­ent and Carer Pos­it­ive employ­ers, and to sup­port the Young Person’s Guarantee.

• Com­munity own­er­ship, com­munity bene­fit: A num­ber of respond­ents ques­tioned the draft word­ing of the com­munity own­er­ship object­ive, say­ing that it should be expli­cit about com­munity own­er­ship deliv­er­ing increased com­munity bene­fit, and that com­munity man­age­ment could be just as sig­ni­fic­ant in some areas. This word­ing has been amended accord­ingly. It was also iden­ti­fied that fur­ther train­ing and sup­port would be required to ensure com­munit­ies could take for­ward these pro­jects with con­fid­ence. Object­ive B5 now includes the fol­low­ing: ​“Devel­op tar­geted skills ini­ti­at­ives to sup­port social enter­prises” and ​“Sup­port com­munit­ies to acquire and man­age assets / land through enhanced fund­ing and train­ing sup­port.”

• Sta­bil­ising the pop­u­la­tion of the Nation­al Park: Some respond­ents to the con­sulta­tion felt we needed to be clear­er about what was meant by ​‘sta­bil­ising’ the pop­u­la­tion of the Nation­al Park. This object­ive (BI) now includes a com­par­is­on date of 2020 to meas­ure pop­u­la­tion change against, and emphas­ises the young and work­ing-age pop­u­la­tion, say­ing: ​“The pro­por­tion of young and work­ing-age people in the Nation­al Park increases rel­at­ive to the total res­id­ent pop­u­la­tion, which remains stable”.

• Gael­ic and cel­eb­rat­ing wider cul­tur­al her­it­age: A range of views were expressed on our approach to Gael­ic, with a num­ber of respond­ents also high­light­ing the import­ance of Scots and Dor­ic. This lat­ter point has been recog­nised in Place object­ive C10 – Cul­tur­al her­it­age: ​“There is also a need to recog­nise the role of Dor­ic and Scots in the Nation­al Park (along­side that of Gael­ic) and to sup­port its use where appro­pri­ate.”

Place

• Improv­ing pub­lic trans­port: Points were raised on the need to improve pub­lic trans­port to and around the Nation­al Park. Whilst this was included in the ori­gin­al draft plan object­ives, the new draft includes more detail on the Her­it­age Hori­zons: Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme, which has a key object­ive of ​“work­ing with com­munit­ies and part­ners to improve pub­lic trans­port and bet­ter con­nect the Nation­al Park” through

NPPP 2022 – 2027

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• sev­en spe­cif­ic trans­port and act­ive travel pro­jects. Object­ive C7 also states that ​“There is a need to improve pub­lic trans­port to cater for res­id­ents, com­muters and vis­it­ors”.

• Afford­able hous­ing and con­trols on second homes / short-term lets: As ref­er­enced in the People sec­tion above, this was seen as the num­ber one pri­or­ity by the major­ity of those who respon­ded to this sec­tion. This has been recog­nised and the three object­ives on this top­ic – CI – Access to hous­ing, C2 – New hous­ing and C3 — Hous­ing and com­munity bene­fit – have been moved to the start of the sec­tion, with a more detailed rationale behind the tar­gets included. People also asked for more detail on second homes / short-term lets, some­thing that is covered in Object­ive C2: ​“We need to under­stand bet­ter the eco­nom­ic and social dynam­ics behind second homes, vacant and short term lets and reduce the loss of exist­ing or newly built prop­er­ties to such uses.”

• Spread­ing vis­it­ors out (time of vis­it and loc­a­tion): A small num­ber of respond­ents ref­er­enced a need to spread vis­it­ors around the Nation­al Park to relieve pres­sure on ​‘hon­ey­pot’ sites and to spread the eco­nom­ic bene­fits of vis­it­ors around. Object­ive C5 – Vis­it­ors to the Park now says: ​“Our ambi­tion is to see the bene­fits of the vis­it­or eco­nomy being real­ised more widely across the Nation­al Park and pres­sures eased, with more focus on the off-peak sea­son.”

• Act­ive travel and vehicle usage: Many respond­ents were keen for the draft plan to say more about act­ive travel, e.g. improved path and cycle net­works, with a spe­cif­ic focus on access­ib­il­ity. Whilst this was covered in detail in the ori­gin­al draft and in the Her­it­age Hori­zons: Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme, the latest ver­sion includes the fol­low­ing addi­tion­al detail: ​“Improve path, cycle and out­door access net­works to give out­stand­ing oppor­tun­it­ies to exper­i­ence the nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age of the Nation­al Park to the widest range of people.” Some res­id­ents also felt the plan was being too ambi­tious with the tar­get of >50% of jour­neys not tak­ing place by private car, point­ing to the rur­al nature of the Nation­al Park and the medi­um-term shift towards elec­tric vehicles. This tar­get has been adjus­ted to 20% in line with Scot­tish trans­port commitments.

• Improv­ing vis­it­or infra­struc­ture, includ­ing access­ible toi­lets: Amongst the con­sulta­tion responses, a num­ber of people wanted to see a more expli­cit com­mit­ment to improv­ing vis­it­or infra­struc­ture (for example, camp­sites and toi­lets). Object­ive C9 – High qual­ity vis­it­or infra­struc­ture now says: ​“There is also a need to ensure that our vis­it­or infra­struc­ture is of high qual­ity and helps us to give every vis­it­or a great exper­i­ence of the UK’s largest nation­al park.” It also includes a spe­cif­ic action on access­ible toilets.

• Diver­si­fy­ing the eco­nomy: A num­ber of people com­men­ted that they would have liked more emphas­is on eco­nom­ic diver­si­fic­a­tion, par­tic­u­larly in the area of sus­tain­ab­il­ity and the cir­cu­lar eco­nomy. Object­ive B4 now includes the fol­low­ing: ​“Encour­aging and sup­port­ing busi­nesses through­out the Nation­al Park to use nature-based solu­tions to sup­port a diverse eco­nomy and employ­ment will help make the Cairngorms an exem­plar for rur­al eco­nom­ies across Scot­land and the rest of the UK.”

There were also a num­ber of changes and addi­tions to policies and actions in the part­ner­ship plan to ensure a robust set of deliv­er­able meas­ures between 2022 and 2027.

NPPP 2022 – 2027

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper 2 Appendix | 10^th June 2022

Sup­port­ing Information

Annex I – Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2022 – 2027 The draft plan for sub­mis­sion to Scot­tish Ministers.

Annex 2 — Con­sulta­tion Report Detailed report set­ting out responses to the consultation.

Annex 3 – Stra­tegic Envir­on­ment­al Assess­ment & Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Appraisal To ensure that the NPPP does not have any sig­ni­fic­ant adverse effects on the envir­on­ment a Stra­tegic Envir­on­ment­al Assess­ment (SEA) has been car­ried out in accord­ance with the Envir­on­ment­al Assess­ment (Scot­land) Act 2005. The SEA Envir­on­ment­al Report con­cludes that the effects of the final NPPP are pre­dicted to be over­whelm­ingly positive.

The NPPP has been sub­ject to the Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al (HRA) pro­cess. The pur­pose of the HRA is to determ­ine wheth­er the NPPP would be likely to have a sig­ni­fic­ant effect on any European site, either indi­vidu­ally or in com­bin­a­tion with oth­er plans or pro­jects. The final NPPP has there­fore been screened for its likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects. The HRA Report con­cludes that the NPPP will not adversely affect the integ­rity of any Natura site.

Annex 4 — Equal­it­ies Impact Assessment The NPPP has been sub­ject to the Equal­it­ies Impact Assess­ment (EqIA) pro­cess in accord­ance with the Equal­ity Act (2010).

NPPP 2022 – 2027