190329CNPABdPaper1AACEOReport&ConvenerUpdate

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper | 29^th March 2019

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Title: CEO REPORT & CON­VENER UPDATE

Pre­pared by: GRANT MOIR, CHIEF EXECUTIVE

Pur­pose:

1. To high­light to Board Mem­bers the main stra­tegic areas of work that are being dir­ec­ted by Man­age­ment Team. These are areas where sig­ni­fic­ant staff resources are being dir­ec­ted to deliv­er with part­ners the aspir­a­tions of the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan.

Con­ser­va­tion:

a) Cairngorms Nation­al Park Forest Strategy: The Forest Strategy launch in Boat of Garten com­munity hall on 1^st March was a great suc­cess with around 150 people attend­ing. The speak­ers all did a great job explain­ing how import­ant the strategy is not only for the Nation­al Park but for Scot­land, which led to some use­ful ideas and very pos­it­ive dis­cus­sions. The chal­lenge now is to encour­age more landown­ers to pick up on the strategy’s vis­ion and object­ives and to fol­low the guid­ance it provides. With this in mind we are in dis­cus­sion with oth­er agen­cies and NGOs about cre­at­ing a ​‘chal­lenge fund’ to help encour­age more wood­land cre­ation in the Nation­al Park.

b) Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Frame­work: The Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund and LEAD­ER sup­por­ted caper­cail­lie pro­ject to answer the ques­tion ​“How can people who live, work and play in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park help secure the long-term future of caper­cail­lie?” Work in the pilot com­munity of Carr-bridge is cur­rently high pro­file. Dir­ect can­vassing and a much increased ranger pres­ence are show­ing a high degree of sup­port amongst wider res­id­ent pop­u­la­tion although there still remain a few very vocal crit­ics. Work to tee-up forest enhance­ment and expan­sion, gain bet­ter under­stand­ings of caper­cail­lie eco­logy and carry out pre­lim­in­ary audi­ence assess­ments in com­munit­ies of place and interest for the deliv­ery phase, are pro­gress­ing on sched­ule and budget.

c) East Cairngorms Moor­land Part­ner­ship: The part­ner­ship has recently been focused on col­lect­ing data on e.g. muir­burn, moun­tain hares, waders, and planned wood­land cre­ation. Col­lect­ively sig­ni­fic­ant pro­gress is being made on all of these top­ics. On 27^th March, CNPA Land Man­age­ment Team will meet with game­keep­ers from the six estates along with rep­res­ent­at­ives from the Heath­er Trust and Game and Wild­life Con­ser­va­tion Trust to observe and dis­cuss muir­burn on site. This will be an import­ant oppor­tun­ity to engage with the keep­ers dir­ectly about man­age­ment on the ground and to dis­cuss dif­fer­ent perspectives.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper | 29^th March 2019

d) Tomin­toul and Glen­liv­et Land­scape Part­ner­ship: 2019 is set to the busiest year of all for TGLP with a num­ber of very chal­len­ging major pro­jects set to be car­ried out. Work will start soon on sta­bil­ising Blairfindy Castle. The Scalan mills pro­ject is due to go for plan­ning per­mis­sion in April. The Spey­side Way Spur work is also due to start this spring. Already we are see­ing loc­al eco­nom­ic bene­fits from the Dark Sky Park des­ig­na­tion. The river res­tor­a­tion pro­jects (slow­ing the flow and water mar­gin man­age­ment, both rely­ing on the sup­port and com­plex fund­ing require­ments of a num­ber of part­ners) con­tin­ue to be chal­len­ging but we are con­fid­ent, based on suc­cesses to date that we will see more excit­ing pro­jects in place in the next few months. Over­all there are 20 pro­jects being under­taken by the Partnership.

e) Cairngorms Nature: The launch of the Cairngorms Nature Action Plan 2019 – 2024 was cel­eb­rated at a Holyrood recep­tion on 21^st Feb­ru­ary, hos­ted by Graeme Dey and atten­ded by 30 seni­or staff from NPPP part­ners. This fol­lowed three days of pro­mo­tion at a stand in the garden lobby when over 30 MSPs came and chat­ted to CNPA staff about con­ser­va­tion and sus­tain­able land man­age­ment in the Park. The Holyrood recep­tion was fol­lowed up with a loc­al launch, shared with the launch of the Forest Strategy, on 1^st March. It was well atten­ded by pro­ject staff from part­ner agen­cies and organ­isa­tions with dir­ect respons­ib­il­ity for deliv­ery. A bid for fund­ing Cairngorms Nature activ­ity has been sub­mit­ted to the SNH Biod­iversity Chal­lenge Fund.

f) Peat­land Action: The Cairngorms Peat­land Action Pro­ject Officers con­tin­ue to deliv­er res­tor­a­tion man­age­ment across the Nation­al Park with 13 pro­jects tar­get­ing over 1100 hec­tares of peat­land with a budget of £1.48 mil­lion in ²⁰¹⁸⁄₁₉. Eight of these pro­jects will com­plete by the end of March, with weath­er and con­tract­or capa­city delay­ing the oth­er five. Devel­op­ment work by the two pro­ject officers has iden­ti­fied over 1200 hec­tares across 11 peat­land sites for poten­tial res­tor­a­tion man­age­ment this year. With Peat­land Action hav­ing a very lim­ited budget in 2019, it is unlikely that all of these pro­jects will start this year.

Vis­it­or Experience:

a) Cairngorms Loc­al Out­door Access For­um: We will recruit four new mem­bers spring 2019 mak­ing a total of 12 includ­ing one CNPA board mem­ber with the first of the bi-annu­al meet­ing in May 2019. We are also look­ing at the poten­tial to organ­ise a one day con­fer­ence to coin­cide with Wee Walks Week look­ing at recre­ation and access in the Nation­al Park.

b) Long Dis­tance Routes: i. Spey­side Way: Plan­ning con­sent & fund­ing is in now in place from Low Car­bon Travel and Trans­port (LCTT) Chal­lenge Fund to com­plete the ​‘new build’ to New­ton­more by Autumn 2019. In addi­tion to path con­struc­tion in 2019 work on sig­nage, inter­pret­a­tion and cre­at­ing a start/​finish point at New­ton­more will be under­taken. Kin­gussie has secured Sus­trans fund­ing to improve access in the vil­lage that will also look at poten­tial improve­ments to the road­side sec­tion from Ruthven to the vil­lage. Fund­ing has also been

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper | 29^th March 2019

ii. secured from SNH to improve the sur­face and drain­age along the route between Boat of Garten and Aviemore.

Deeside Way: Plan­ning con­sent for the path line from Brae­mar to Inver­cauld Bridge has been gran­ted. How­ever, our prin­ciple com­munity link fund­ing sup­port Sus­trans are now only fund­ing multi-use tar­mac paths so oth­er sources of fund­ing will need to be secured to build this section.

c) Moun­tains and People Pro­ject: The five year Moun­tains and People pro­ject with­in both Nation­al Parks in Scot­land is approach­ing its fourth year. The work includes sig­ni­fic­ant upgrades to 52km of key moun­tain paths, and the involve­ment and com­mit­ment of people through train­ing, volun­teer­ing and learn­ing. CNPA are work­ing to main­tain a sus­tain­able leg­acy at the end of the pro­ject in both path main­ten­ance and pub­lic involve­ment through volunteering.

d) Act­ive Aviemore: The part­ner­ship com­pris­ing CNPA, High­land Coun­cil, Hitrans and Sus­trans has now com­pleted out­line plans for deliv­er­ing segreg­ated multi-use paths through the vil­lage that have been approved by both CNPA and High­land Coun­cil. The first phase of detailed, cos­ted, designs for the mul­ti­use path will be pro­duced for the area in and around the new hos­pit­al. These will be under­taken in first half of 2019 and will include loc­al con­sulta­tion. In addi­tion Kin­gussie and Dul­nain com­munit­ies have secured Sus­trans fund­ing to devel­op pro­pos­als for improv­ing multi-use access in and around the com­munit­ies. The Kin­gussie work is link­ing to Spey­side Way and NCN7 and Dul­nain look­ing for a mul­ti­use path link to Grant­own that also embraces the poten­tial to link with the pro­posed new dis­til­lery and any exten­sion of the Steam Rail­way. Lag­gan is at the early stage of look­ing at options to improve access to Newtonmore.

e) Glen­more: In part­ner­ship with Forest Enter­prise Scot­land we have sub­mit­ted a suc­cess­ful bid (sub­ject to plan­ning con­sent) to the Vis­it Scot­land Rur­al Tour­ism Infra­struc­ture Fund to con­struct a multi-use path through Glen­more link­ing car parks, vis­it­or attrac­tions and the path net­work. Detailed design is nearly com­plete with build sched­uled for autumn 2019. Forest Enter­prise Scot­land is redevel­op­ing their ​‘vis­it­or man­age­ment’ plan with pub­lic con­sulta­tion planned for Spring 2019.

f) Volun­teer­ing: To date 14 trained volun­teer rangers are con­tinu­ing to sup­port the work of six part­ner ranger ser­vices with recruit­ment early this year gen­er­at­ing 12 more people want­ing to under­take train­ing. Volun­teer ranger out­put to date amounts to 1.5 years’ worth of work sup­port­ing part­ners across the Nation­al. This sig­ni­fic­ant out­put has helped secure an addi­tion­al 10 months fund­ing from Lead­er+ to take ini­tial pro­ject to nearly four years.

g) Edu­ca­tion and Inclu­sion: Fol­low­ing Board decision in Decem­ber work devel­op­ing the Euro­parc Youth Mani­festo into sus­tain­able engage­ment with young people is under­way and with Lead­er+ fund­ing sup­port part­ner­ship with Fin­ish young people will con­tin­ue over Spring and Sum­mer with a recom­mend­a­tion com­ing to Board in Septem­ber 2019. ​‘Into the Moun­tain’ and ​‘Writer in Res­id­ence’ pro­jects encour­age people to cre­at­ively cel­eb­rate the out­stand­ing cul­ture of Cairngorms. Both pro­jects are sup­por­ted by Cre­at­ive Scot­land, with Wood­land Trust sup­port­ing the ​‘Writer’ programme.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper | 29^th March 2019

h) Inform­a­tion and Inter­pret­a­tion: Nation­al Park inter­pret­a­tion is being installed in two key vis­it­or attrac­tions; Land­mark in Carr-Bridge and Spey­side Centre in Dul­nain Bridge. New, 2019 ver­sions of Wel­come, Tread Lightly and Explore for A Day leaf­lets & sponsored tear off map are being pro­duced and Gael­ic Place Names, Hill Paths widely circulated.

i) Snow Roads Scen­ic Route: CBP launched the SnowRoads Scen­ic Route Web­site and App at their con­fer­ence in Novem­ber 2018 and fur­ther raised aware­ness with four half day work­shops in com­munit­ies along the route in Feb­ru­ary 2019. This work won the Aber­deen City and Shire 2018 Tour­ism Award for innov­a­tion. CBP has secured Vis­it Scot­land Growth Fund sup­port to deliv­er an £80k pro­ject that uses the SnowRoads to tar­get inter­na­tion­al buy­ers in France, Ger­many, Scand­inavia and North Amer­ica for the first time, encour­aging them to list the Cairngorms for trav­el­lers who design their own itin­er­ar­ies and arrange their own travel plans.

Rur­al Development:

a) Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2020: Con­sulta­tion on the Pro­posed LDP is ongo­ing until 5 April. Sev­en drop-in inform­a­tion events have been held across the Nation­al Park with approx­im­ately 250 people attend­ing and a spe­cial con­sulta­tion event was held for CBP mem­bers attract­ing about 20 attendees. At mid-March there had been 55 form­al rep­res­ent­a­tions. The social media used as part of the con­sulta­tion, par­tic­u­larly the video fly-overs of each com­munity, had proved very pop­u­lar had been viewed over 25,000 times.

b) Plan­ning case­work: The Plan­ning Com­mit­tee have approved sig­ni­fic­ant plan­ning applic­a­tions to fur­ther extend the Spey­side Way towards Kin­gussie, redevel­op the site of the former Spit­tal of Glen­shee Hotel, and recently, pro­pos­al for a new health­care facil­ity in Aviemore. Dur­ing Feb­ru­ary, Speymalt Whisky Dis­trib­uters, the par­ent com­pany of Gor­don and Macphail, held a pub­lic exhib­i­tion in Grant­own-on-Spey for their pro­posed new dis­til­lery south of the town. CNPA drew togeth­er the pro­moters of four poten­tially pos­it­ive devel­op­ments near Grant­own – the steam rail­way exten­sion, the A95 trunk road upgrade, the new dis­til­lery and the com­munity path link to Dul­nain Bridge.

c) Cairngorms Busi­ness Baro­met­er: The Cairngorms Busi­ness Baro­met­er for Q4 for 2018 showed a reduc­tion in cus­tom­ers and turnover com­pared to pre­vi­ous quar­ters. There was also a decrease in busi­ness con­fid­ence com­pared to pre­vi­ous quar­ters and many busi­nesses were con­cerned about being unable to fill vacan­cies. CBP noted that the funicu­lar clos­ure and con­sequent neg­at­ive nation­al pub­li­city about the area was likely to have played a sig­ni­fic­ant role. Mean­while the over­all level of sup­port provided to busi­nesses from a range of organ­isa­tions was well above aver­age for recent peri­ods. Report is avail­able here https://​vis​it​cairngorms​.com/​b​a​r​o​meter.

d) Eco­nom­ic Action Plan: The Board approved the Action Plan in Decem­ber and we are due to go out to con­sulta­tion in Spring. This has been delayed to refine the actions and avoid over­lap and poten­tial for con­fu­sion with the LDP consultation.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper | 29^th March 2019

e) Tour­ism Action Plan: A com­pre­hens­ive update on tour­ism activ­ity is provided in a sep­ar­ate board paper on this agenda.

f) Afford­able Hous­ing Deliv­ery: Staff and Board mem­bers atten­ded the Rur­al Hous­ing Con­fer­ence in Birnam in early March. The fol­low­ing week a pos­it­ive meet­ing took place of our Com­munity-led Hous­ing Group, involving rep­res­ent­at­ives from Aviemore, Dul­nain Bridge, Boat of Garten, Car­rbridge, Tomin­toul, Kin­craig, Brae­mar and Bal­later. A num­ber of those com­munit­ies are act­ively scop­ing com­munity hous­ing pro­jects with the sup­port of CNPA and High­land Small Com­munit­ies Hous­ing Trust and are mak­ing use of the Scot­tish Government’s Rur­al Hous­ing Fund to pro­gress their plans.

g) A9 Dualling pro­ject: CNPA removed its objec­tion to the pro­pos­als at Kil­liecrankie where addi­tion­al sur­vey inform­a­tion had been col­lec­ted and His­tor­ic Envir­on­ment Scot­land were sat­is­fied. On the Dalraddy to Slo­chd sec­tion CNPA con­siders the pro­vi­sion for non-motor­ised users between Aviemore and Car­rbridge is insuf­fi­cient and has objec­ted. Trans­port Scot­land are cur­rently lead­ing a study to look at route options for new path provision.

h) Com­munity-led devel­op­ment: Staff con­tin­ue to sup­port com­munity led pro­ject devel­op­ment through­out the Park. The High­land Wild­life Park have been suc­cess­ful in their HLF bid but Am Fas­gah were not suc­cess­ful on this occa­sion. Staff con­tin­ue to sup­port Vol­un­tary Action Badenoch and Strath­spey and the Marr Area Part­ner­ship in their CDO roles and sup­por­ted recent Com­munity Action Plan­ning work in Kin­gussie. The Asso­ci­ation of Cairngorms Com­munit­ies, and their asso­ci­ated Plan­ning Rep­res­ent­at­ives Net­wor, met earli­er in March.

i) Badenoch Great Place Pro­ject: The most recent Pro­ject Board was held in early March. Pro­ject is now well estab­lished and mul­tiple pro­ject lines are being pro­gressed. Work on the Inter­pret­a­tion & Mar­ket­ing strategy is well under way as is the work to scope an Altern­at­ive Tour­ist Route for Badenoch. Arts com­pet­i­tion has star­ted and Gael­ic place names pro­ject due to start very soon. The Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund (formerly HLF) have agreed to some pro­gramme changes with­in the pro­ject as the prac­tic­al scope of deliv­ery has become clear.

j) Nat­ur­al and Cul­tur­al Her­it­age Fund: We are anti­cip­at­ing sup­port­ing at least two applic­a­tions with­in the Park for this fund man­aged by SNH, look­ing for 10 major pro­jects to be delivered by 2022. Applic­a­tion clos­ing date is mid-April.

k) Strength­en­ing Com­munit­ies Con­fer­ence, 27 to 28 May in Aviemore: We have arranged for con­tri­bu­tions to this nation­al con­fer­ence being organ­ised by HIE by Vol­un­tary Action Badenoch and Strath­spey and Badenoch Great Place Pro­ject. And plans are devel­op­ing for two sig­ni­fic­ant Fringe events for loc­al stake­hold­ers focused on key rur­al devel­op­ment issues in the Park: Involving young people, rur­al broad­band (R100 pro­ject), com­munity-led hous­ing deliv­ery and com­munity engage­ment in land management.

l) Digit­al con­nectiv­ity: Next meet­ing of Digit­al Con­nectiv­ity Steer­ing Group is planned for late May. Sem­inars to be organ­ised to pro­mote roll out of improved broad­band to

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper | 29^th March 2019

eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment sites near Grant­own – poten­tial for fur­ther such events in future.

Stake­hold­er Engagement:

a) There has been a range of stake­hold­er engage­ment meet­ings includ­ing meet­ings with Simon Skin­ner CEO NTS, Stu­art Younie CEO Moun­tain­eer­ing Scot­land, Simon Hodge CEO of Crown Estate Scot­land, Anne McColl Scot­tish Dir­ect­or of RSPB, Roger Knight Dir­ect­or Spey Fish­er­ies Board, Simon Hodg­son CEO of Forest and Land Scot­land, Jim Sav­age CEO Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil, Char­lotte Wright CEO HIE, Andrew Lock­er­bie BASI, Dir­ect­ors Glen­shee Ski Resort. b) The CEO and Con­ven­or have met with SCNP, SE Link Hill­tracks Group, THC Lead­er and Con­ven­or. The CEO and Con­ven­or also atten­ded the 5 Board mem­ber even­ings for poten­tial can­did­ates. c) The CEO has atten­ded EELG, HIE Tal­ent Attrac­tion Group, CoHI Chief Officers Group, CPP Groups, and Funicu­lar Response Group. d) There has been a num­ber of oth­er stake­hold­er events covered in oth­er parts of this report

Com­mu­nic­a­tions:

a) Cairngorms Nature Cam­paign: The Cairngorms Nature BIG Week­end events pro­gramme will be launched by I April with over 60 events planned for 10 — 13 May across the Park. The Con­ser­va­tion update cov­ers the launch of CNAP. b) Make It Yours Cam­paign: Some 290 vis­it­or facing staff across the Nation­al Park have par­ti­cip­ated in this train­ing pro­gramme that shares why the Cairngorms is des­ig­nated a Nation­al Park, its spe­cial qual­it­ies and, using the vis­it­or sur­vey data, looks at the exper­i­ences and inform­a­tion people are likely to want. c) Part­ner Vis­it­or Inform­a­tion Centres: Loc­al Inform­a­tion Centres (LIC) — fol­low­ing a reduc­tion in sup­port for inform­a­tion centres by Vis­it Scot­land and Loc­al Author­it­ies CNPA has agreed to sup­port ten part­ner loc­al inform­a­tion centres with; pro­mo­tion, inform­a­tion, inter­pret­a­tion and know­ledge shar­ing. d) Cor­por­ate Com­mu­nic­a­tions: The Cairngorms Forest Strategy and Cairngorms Nature Action Plan 2018 – 2024, fol­low­ing pub­lic con­sulta­tion, have been pub­lished on the CNPA Web­site and the pro­posed Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan, fol­low­ing con­sulta­tion on the Main Issues Report, has been pre­pared for con­sulta­tion until 5^th April. Dur­ing 2018, our digit­al com­mu­nic­a­tions activ­it­ies res­ul­ted in 240,268 web­site ses­sions and 33,072 social media fol­low­ers with a com­bined reach of 3.9 million.

e) CNPA Board Elec­tions: A media cam­paign and pub­lic meet­ings held in each ward has res­ul­ted in 25 can­did­ates being nom­in­ated for the CNPA Board elec­tions – the most the CNPA has ever had. Ongo­ing pro­mo­tion to encour­age res­id­ents to vote will con­tin­ue until High­land Coun­cil announce the win­ners for Wards 1,2 & 5 on 21 March and for Ward 3 on 28 March (delayed by one week due to an error regard­ing the vot­ing papers issued by High­land Coun­cil). Ward 4 was uncontested.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper | 29^th March 2019

f) EURO­PARC Con­fer­ence 2018: The EURO­PARC con­fer­ence report has been pre­pared and sent to the EURO­PARC Fed­er­a­tion to share with their mem­bers and pub­lish on their web­site. The Youth Mani­festo, launched at the con­fer­ence, has led to the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity devel­op­ing a Youth pro­ject to take for­ward the recom­mend­a­tions presen­ted in the EURO­PARC Youth Manifesto.

Organ­isa­tion­al Development:

a) Office Exten­sion Pro­ject: Staff are set­tling well in the new space, though we are review­ing snag­ging issues reg­u­larly. Staff will have the second form­al oppor­tun­ity at the Staff Con­sultat­ive For­um at the end of March to raise and dis­cuss the ​“high­lights” and ​“shad­ows” asso­ci­ated with work­ing in the exten­sion and impacts on the gen­er­al work­ing space. With regards the old build­ing, archi­tects have been appoin­ted to review and redesign the meet­ing and inform­al space. b) Staff­ing update: Since Decem­ber, the fol­low­ing recruit­ment has taken place: i. Stephanie Wade, Plan­ning Officer (Devel­op­ment Man­age­ment) joined the Author­ity on 1^st Feb­ru­ary. Stephanie has a per­man­ent con­tract. ii. Sarah Hen­shall, Con­ser­va­tion Officer also joined the Author­ity on 1^st Feb­ru­ary. Sarah has a per­man­ent con­tract. iii. Emma Wilson was appoin­ted to the Plan­ning Man­ager (Devel­op­ment Man­age­ment) post, and Dan Har­ris was appoin­ted to the Plan­ning Man­ager (For­ward Plan­ning and Ser­vice Improve­ment) post. These appoint­ments were made fol­low­ing a com­pet­it­ive intern­al recruit­ment pro­cess, and both officers moved from their cur­rent Plan­ning Officer posts into the man­age­ment posts on 1^st March. iv. We are cur­rently recruit­ing two Plan­ning Officers to replace Emma and Dan. c) Youth Employ­ment: : On-going com­mit­ment to sup­port­ing Youth Employ­ment, as fol­lows: i. We are cur­rently recruit­ing a 3‑month intern­ship, the pur­pose of which is to col­late accur­ate inform­a­tion on where there are cur­rently hill tracks across the Nation­al Park. It is hoped that the intern­ship will com­mence in May. ii. We have sup­por­ted employ­ab­il­ity events as follows: -

1. In Decem­ber the HR team atten­ded a busi­ness break­fast at Grant­own Gram­mar to explore oppor­tun­it­ies for loc­al busi­nesses to work with and sup­port youth employment.
2. In March the HR team did work­shops with S5 and S6 stu­dents at Kin­gussie High School on inter­view skills. These involved mock inter­views, con­fid­ence skills and employ­ab­il­ity advice.
3. In March a team of staff sup­por­ted Inverness Roy­al Academy’s youth employ­ment pro­gramme for S2 stu­dents. This involved work­shop style present­a­tions on career paths and employ­ab­il­ity advice. iii. We are sup­port­ing UHI with two work place­ments as fol­lows: — I. A B.Sc. (Hons) Geo­graphy stu­dent will spend 4 weeks in April work­ing with staff in the fol­low­ing teams: — Con­ser­va­tion, HLF

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper | 29^th March 2019

pro­ject, Peat­land pro­ject, Land Man­age­ment advisers, Out­door Access and Planning

1. A B.Sc. (Hons) Envir­on­ment­al Sci­ence stu­dent will spend 2 weeks in Octo­ber doing a sim­il­ar but con­trac­ted ver­sion of the above place­ment. d) Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy 2: We have now com­pleted pro­cure­ment and com­menced design and imple­ment­a­tion of a digit­al cus­tom­er rela­tion­ship man­age­ment sys­tem (CRM) through which we aim to sig­ni­fic­antly enhance our organ­isa­tion­al man­age­ment inform­a­tion on our vari­ous con­tacts with key stake­hold­ers and improve our engage­ment with them. We aim for the sys­tem to go live by the end of May 2019. e) Shared Ser­vices: Shared ser­vices as fol­lows: i. Con­tin­ued work to provide HR sup­port the Scot­tish Land Com­mis­sion has included the devel­op­ment of new policies, recruit­ment of two new staff and the devel­op­ment, staff con­sulta­tion and sub­mis­sion of the ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀ pay remit. ii. We have also sup­por­ted SNH by provid­ing a mem­ber of staff on a short-term second­ment to sup­port their pen­sion data cleanse exer­cise. f) UKNP: Cairngorms NPA con­tin­ues to lead on the estab­lish­ment of a nation­al char­ity to sup­port the work of Nation­al Park Part­ner­ships in seek­ing cor­por­ate sup­port for the activ­it­ies with­in Nation­al Parks. Con­tact with the Char­it­ies Com­mis­sion for Eng­land and Wales at the begin­ning of March sug­ges­ted that the pro­cess is close to secur­ing approv­al char­ity regis­tra­tion for the entity, with some minor amend­ments needed to the pro­posed char­it­able objects. g) LEAD­ER: The Feb­ru­ary meet­ing of the Cairngorms Trust as the Loc­al Action Group Cairngorms LEAD­ER con­firmed sup­port for five fur­ther applic­a­tions, bring­ing the Cairngorms alloc­a­tion more than fully com­mit­ted. The Trust­ees have ranked the pro­jects and fund­ing will be offered to three of these five pro­jects with the remain­ing two to be poten­tially fun­ded either through under­spends on exist­ing pro­jects, if any are iden­ti­fied, or through an applic­a­tion for addi­tion­al alloc­a­tions from cent­ral funds should under­spends from oth­er LEAD­ER LAG areas be clawed back. This lat­ter pos­sib­il­ity is unlikely to be known until July / August 2019.

Future Dates for Diary

a) Cairngorms Nature Big Week­end — 10 – 13 May 2019. It would be great for board mem­bers to attend events across the weekend.

Grant Moir March 2019 grantmoir@​cairngorms.​co.​uk

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper | 29^th March 2019

Board Con­vener Report – For Information

Since my last update I have met with a num­ber of extern­al stake­hold­ers includ­ing the Lead­ers of three of our Loc­al Author­ity part­ners, the Wood­land Trust, the Scot­tish Cam­paign for Nation­al Parks and the Chair of the Cairngorm Busi­ness Part­ner­ship. These were all pro­duct­ive meet­ings and we will con­tin­ue to seek to build even stronger rela­tion­ships with all our stake­hold­ers, in par­tic­u­lar our com­munit­ies. This brings me on to our dir­ect Board elec­tions pro­cess, which has seen a fant­ast­ic level of engage­ment from our communities.

A record 25 can­did­ates stand­ing for elec­tion, 22 of them in wards 1, 2 & 3! Whilst we will need to improve engage­ment in wards 4 & 5 ahead of the next elec­tions, this level of interest in our Nation­al Park and its future is some­thing to be wel­comed and cel­eb­rated. A con­sid­er­able amount of work was done by our seni­or staff, and in par­tic­u­lar our Com­mu­nic­a­tions Team, in pro­mot­ing these elec­tions. I would like to thank all those involved, includ­ing Board mem­bers, in the pub­li­city of the elec­tions. By the time this report is issued, the res­ults will have been declared for wards 1, 2 & 5, and Elean­or Mack­in­tosh will have been form­ally declared elec­ted in ward 4. The dir­ect elec­tions are import­ant, as it gives the com­munit­ies we serve a key oppor­tun­ity to influ­ence who will have a say on the future of the Nation­al Park and I’m sure we will be look­ing at more ways to grow on this engage­ment going forward.

Over the past month or so I have also atten­ded some of the draft LDP con­sulta­tion ses­sions with oth­er mem­bers. The Brae­mar event that I atten­ded was par­tic­u­larly busy, with a lot of loc­al people pos­it­ively enga­ging in the pro­cess. My thanks to Board mem­bers who made it along to sup­port our Plan­ning Team at these events, and I would urge all Board mem­bers to encour­age any­one they know who may be inter­ested in the issues raised in the draft LDP to respond before the Fri­day 5^th April deadline.

Finally, at the most recent CoHI meet­ing in Orkney, there were a num­ber of rel­ev­ant top­ics to the Park dis­cussed, includ­ing the Nation­al Trans­port Strategy Review and what the Shared Prosper­ity Fund will look like post Brexit. In rela­tion to the trans­port dis­cus­sion I raised the issue of poor rur­al trans­port net­works and the knock-on effect that is hav­ing on rur­al depop­u­la­tion of young people, and the wider eco­nomy as a res­ult. These con­cerns were shared by part­ners around the table includ­ing High­land Coun­cil & UHI and this was form­ally noted as an out­come. I also expressed a view that areas such as the Nation­al Park could lose out under any future Shared Prosper­ity Fund if decisions weren’t taken loc­ally, and this too was noted as an out­come. Going for­ward a num­ber of our part­ners have expressed an interest in present­ing a paper at a future CoHI about the issues facing young people in the High­lands & Islands and I have put a bid in for our Youth Mani­festo to be con­sidered as part of any future presentation.

Xan­der McDade Board Convener

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper | 29^th March 2019

Extern­al Engage­ments (1^st Decem­ber 2018 – 15^th March 2019)

In addi­tion to sched­uled Board meet­ings and intern­al meet­ings, I have atten­ded the fol­low­ing extern­al engage­ments in my capa­city as Con­vener of the Board since our last Board meeting.

Date	Engage­ment	Ven­ue
13⁄12	Dir­ectly Elec­ted Board Mem­ber Pub­lic meeting	Tomin­toul Dis­cov­ery Centre
17⁄12	Dir­ectly Elec­ted Board Mem­ber Pub­lic meeting	The Hub, Aviemore
21⁄12	Aviemore Com­munity Event	Aviemore
14⁄1	Wood­land Trust Scot­land meet­ing with Elean­or Garty, and Peter Lowe, along with Will Boyd Wallis	Pit­lo­chry
15⁄1	Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil meet­ing with Cllr Gif­ford and Jim Savage	Aber­deen
31⁄1	Moray Coun­cil meet­ing with Gra­ham Leadbitter	CNPA Office, Grantown
7⁄2	Vis­it­or Giv­ing meet­ing with Cairngorms Busi­ness Partnership	CNPA Office, Ballater
7⁄2	Brae­mar Draft LDP Con­sulta­tion Event with Geva Blackett	Brae­mar Vil­lage Hall
14⁄2	Strath­spey Rail­way meet­ing with John Yule and Bert Nich­olson, Basil Dun­lop, Andrew McCracken	CNPA Office, Grantown
21⁄2	Cairngorms Nature Par­lia­ment­ary Recep­tion with Geva Black­ett, Judith Webb & Doug McAdam.	Scot­tish Par­lia­ment, Edinburgh
21⁄2	Blair Atholl LDP Con­sulta­tion Event with Judith Webb	Blair Atholl Vil­lage Hall
4⁄3	CoHI Con­fer­ence	Kirk­wall, Orkney
13⁄3	SCNP meet­ing with John Thom­son and oth­er members	Pit­lo­chry
15⁄3	High­land Coun­cil meet­ing with Bill Lob­ban and Mar­garet Dav­id­son along with Grant Moir	High­land Coun­cil, Inverness

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper | 29^th March 2019

Board Updates

Gaen­er Rodger

New CNPA Board mem­ber, Gaen­er Rodger, atten­ded A ​‘Braw’ Burns Bash, a Burns Night cel­eb­ra­tion for the Year of Young People (YOΥΡ) 2018 with the YOYP 2018 High­land Ambas­sad­ors. This event was to cel­eb­rate all the hard work and con­tri­bu­tions from young people and their sup­port­ers that has made YOYP 2018 such a huge suc­cess. It was an even­ing of live music, ceilidh dan­cing, food and fun. The inspir­a­tion­al Stefan Hog­gan, retired para-ath­lete, swim­ming coach and motiv­a­tion­al speak­er hos­ted the even­ing. Deputy First Min­is­ter, John Swin­ney, also came along to thank Scotland’s young people for tak­ing part in such an icon­ic year, which included the launch of the EURO­PARC Youth Manifesto.

Gaen­er Rodger, atten­ded the ​‘Envir­on­ment­al Volun­teer­ing in the Cairngorms’ event in Car­rbridge on 23^rd Feb­ru­ary. It was a fant­ast­ic oppor­tun­ity to meet some of the cur­rent volun­teers and many part­ners that offer volun­teer­ing oppor­tun­it­ies across the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. Wheth­er you are inter­ested in mon­it­or­ing the flora and fauna of the NP, main­tain­ing some of our X kilo­met­ers of moun­tain paths or lead­ing walks and activ­it­ies, there is some­thing for every­one. Any­one that is inter­ested can view the latest oppor­tun­it­ies at https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​c​a​r​i​n​g​-​f​u​t​u​r​e​/​v​o​l​u​n​t​e​e​r​s​/​o​p​p​o​r​t​u​n​i​ties/

Rebecca Badger

Two events were held in Car­rbridge dur­ing Feb­ru­ary to pro­mote the Caper­cail­lie pro­ject. | atten­ded both of them. They were well atten­ded by both people from Car­rbridge and people from oth­er com­munit­ies in the Nation­al Park. Frank Law (ex Kin­veachy Head Game­keep­er, Car­rbridge res­id­ent and mem­ber of the Car­rbridge Caper­cail­lie Work­ing Group) gave an inspir­ing present­a­tion describ­ing the caper­cail­lie her­it­age of Car­rbridge, the cur­rent state of the pop­u­la­tion, the way it is mon­itored and the import­ance of the vil­lage and sur­round­ing wood­lands for the bird. Car­o­lyn Robertson (Pro­ject Man­ager, Caper­cail­lie pro­ject) described the pro­ject prin­ciples, the pro­ject fund­ing, the basis for the pilot pro­ject that is cur­rently under­way and how the com­munity is cent­ral to the suc­cess of the pro­ject. After the present­a­tions people were invited to cir­cu­late to dis­cuss dif­fer­ent aspects of the pro­ject, to provide insight for example about how they use the wood­lands around the vil­lage, and their views on sig­nage, to share stor­ies about caper­cail­lie, and to find out how they can help the pro­ject. All in all there was a real buzz about the events, as a mem­ber of the loc­al work­ing group I was respons­ible for col­lect­ing stor­ies from people about caper­cail­lie and it was great to hear the amus­ing anec­dotes and the pas­sion and enthu­si­asm from attendees for the long term sur­viv­al of this spe­cies. As a Car­rbridge res­id­ent, I will con­tin­ue to be a mem­ber of the loc­al work­ing group for this excit­ing pro­ject which is break­ing new ground with its com­munity-led approach towards conservation.

I atten­ded the Volun­teer Cairngorms event, also in Car­rbridge at the end of Feb­ru­ary. This too was an inspir­ing event full of volun­teer­ing enthu­si­asts. Around 20 organ­isa­tions had stands to pro­mote a huge range of volun­teer­ing with oppor­tun­it­ies ran­ging from craft­ing, to build­ing foot­paths and from mon­it­or­ing wild­life to lead­ing health walks. Pete Crane and Mike Woolv­in gave inspir­ing present­a­tions and attendees were able to cir­cu­late to dif­fer­ent stands, with cof­fee and cake to dis­cuss volun­teer­ing oppor­tun­it­ies in the Nation­al Park. I

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper | 29^th March 2019

would estim­ate at least 50 people atten­ded this event which provided me with anoth­er insight to the enthu­si­asm that exists among the park com­munit­ies and vis­it­ors for so much of the work that the CNPA is involved in.

Wil­lie Mun­ro, Douglas McAdam and Fiona McLean

On Wed­nes­day 13^th March Doug McAdam and I were at a Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment Induc­tion and Net­work­ing Ses­sion for new Min­is­teri­al appointees. There was a chance to chat and com­pare notes with people who have been appoin­ted to vari­ous boards. Kate For­bes MSP in her Min­is­teri­al role rather than con­stitu­ency role did a very good present­a­tion and ques­tion and answer ses­sion. Her key themes were around ambi­tion, col­lab­or­a­tion, innov­a­tion, integ­ra­tion, pre­ven­tion and empower­ment. She spoke about appet­ite for risk and the use of data and digit­al solutions.

On Thursday 14^th March Fiona Mclean and I were at the Scot­tish Tour­ism Alli­ance Con­fer­ence at SECC Glas­gow. Fiona His­lop MSP gave a Min­is­teri­al address. Her key mes­sages were about doing things dif­fer­ently, future proof­ing tour­ism in Scot­land, qual­ity and a world class exper­i­ence. She also spoke about the impact of vis­it­or num­bers and oth­er attrac­tions in the area fol­low­ing the open­ing of the V&A. There was also a lot of dis­cus­sion about the oppor­tun­it­ies that going digit­al presents for mar­ket­ing and effi­ciency in vari­ous tour­ism busi­ness activities.