CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Paper 3 Annex 3 6^th Decem­ber 2019

Cairngorms Nation­al Park

Eco­nom­ic Action Plan 2019 — 2022

1. Intro­duc­tion

The Cairngorms Nation­al Park cov­ers 6% of Scot­land and is the UK’s most import­ant place for wild­life and the con­ser­va­tion of nature. It is home to around 18,000 people who live in towns, vil­lages and dis­persed rur­al com­munit­ies. The Nation­al Park’s out­stand­ing nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age attracts around 1.9 mil­lion vis­it­ors each year, under­pin­ning many jobs.

There is increas­ing interest in Scot­land in the concept of ​“nat­ur­al cap­it­al” which describes the stocks of nat­ur­al assets on which our lives depend and which aims to high­light the con­nec­tions between nat­ur­al resources and eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment. If ever there was a place where these con­nec­tions are both obvi­ous and import­ant then it must be in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park.

Our long-term Vis­ion for the area is set out in the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan:

“An out­stand­ing Nation­al Park, enjoyed and val­ued by every­one, where nature and people thrive together”

The word ​“thrive” comes from an old Norse word mean­ing to flour­ish and prosper and is a good word to sum­mar­ise our approach: grow­ing the eco­nomy and the nat­ur­al cap­it­al of the Park sus­tain­ably and in an inclus­ive way.

This Action Plan is a plan for all the rel­ev­ant organ­isa­tions in the area, in the pub­lic, private and third sec­tors. We want to ensure that we work well togeth­er to deliv­er the strategy set out in the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan and to focus our efforts on pri­or­ity issues in the years ahead.

2. Stra­tegic Context

Nation­al Context

The Nation­al Per­form­ance Frame­work and Scot­tish Eco­nom­ic Strategy set out the Government’s vis­ion for sus­tain­able and inclus­ive eco­nom­ic growth:

Scot­land is to be a lead­er in the tech­no­lo­gic­al and social innov­a­tions of the future. There are plans to har­ness that innov­a­tion to boost pro­ductiv­ity and busi­ness com­pet­it­ive­ness, improve lives for the bet­ter across all of Scot­land, and to export our solu­tions, goods and ser­vices to the rest of the world. Com­pet­it­ive, innov­at­ive busi­nesses focused on best prac­tice, lead­er­ship and man­age­ment are vital to deliv­er­ing this vis­ion. They sup­port sus­tain­able jobs, incomes and our qual­ity of life. The Gov­ern­ment is com­mit­ted to work in part­ner­ship with busi­ness to deliv­er the kind of eco­nomy that we want.

In Octo­ber 2018 Scotland’s Eco­nom­ic Action Plan was launched, high­light­ing, amongst oth­er things, the import­ance of the rur­al eco­nomy, where 20% of Scot­tish pop­u­la­tion live, and mak­ing com­mit­ments to:

• sup­port the devel­op­ment of a diverse and healthy rur­al eco­nomy through the growth of tra­di­tion­al and non-tra­di­tion­al sectors
• invest in our infra­struc­ture to deliv­er hous­ing, improved access to ser­vices and con­nectiv­ity enabling improved sus­tain­able and inclus­ive eco­nom­ic growth
• deliv­er a rur­al skills action plan to ensure that rur­al enter­prises have access to a highly-skilled workforce

In Septem­ber 2018 the Nation­al Coun­cil of Rur­al Advisers recom­men­ded in their final report that “…a vibrant, sus­tain­able and inclus­ive rur­al eco­nomy can only be achieved by recog­nising its stra­tegic import­ance – and effect­ively main­stream­ing it with­in all policy and decision-mak­ing pro­cesses.” The Coun­cil fur­ther recom­men­ded the estab­lish­ment of a Rur­al Eco­nom­ic Frame­work, aligned to the Nation­al Per­form­ance Frame­work to enable a new approach and deliv­ery mod­el for rur­al policy, devel­op­ment sup­port and invest­ment. A new Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment Rur­al Eco­nomy Action Group met for the first time in Octo­ber 2019, chaired by Car­ol Tan­nahill, the Scot­tish Government’s Chief Social Policy Adviser.

The declar­a­tion by Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment in April 2019 of the glob­al cli­mate emer­gency and the recent roy­al assent for the Cli­mate Change (Emis­sions Reduc­tion Tar­gets) (Scot­land) Act 2019 also provide an over­arch­ing theme for the devel­op­ment of a sus­tain­able eco­nomy in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park.

The Cairngorms Nation­al Park context

The Cairngorms Nation­al Park is the largest Park in the UK and was des­ig­nated in Septem­ber 2003 with four aims set out in the Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000:

1. To con­serve and enhance the nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age of the area
2. To pro­mote sus­tain­able use of the nat­ur­al resources of the area
3. To pro­mote under­stand­ing and enjoy­ment (includ­ing enjoy­ment in the form of recre­ation) of the spe­cial qual­it­ies of the area by the public
4. To pro­mote sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic and social devel­op­ment of the area’s communities

These four aims are to be delivered by all rel­ev­ant organ­isa­tions work­ing togeth­er. The pur­pose of the Nation­al Park Author­ity (CNPA) is “…to ensure that the Nation­al Park aims are col­lect­ively achieved… in a coordin­ated way”. The legis­la­tion also makes it clear that if it appears to CNPA that there is con­flict between the first aim and any of the oth­er aims then the Author­ity must “…give great­er weight…” to the first aim.

This integ­rated approach to deliv­ery of the four aims is encap­su­lated in the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan and in the sub­si­di­ary action plans as shown in the dia­gram below.

(Dia­gram of Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan)

There are sev­er­al oth­er ini­ti­at­ives with­in the Nation­al Park that are tak­ing for­wards work streams that are dir­ectly rel­ev­ant to the eco­nomy of the area:

• The Cairngorms Tour­ism Action Plan sets out actions required to deliv­er the Park’s status under the European Charter for Sus­tain­able Tour­ism – deliv­ery is over­seen by the Cairngorms Tour­ism Partnership.
• The Cairngorms Forest Strategy to encour­age forest and wood­land expan­sion, increase employ­ab­il­ity in the forestry sec­tor and encour­age innov­a­tion in the use and mar­ket­ing of nat­ive forest products.
• The vari­ous Com­munity Plan­ning pro­cesses that take place with­in each loc­al author­ity area, in line with nation­al require­ments, and their asso­ci­ated Loc­al Out­come Improve­ment Plans.
• The City Region Deals that are being imple­men­ted (e.g. Inverness City Region; in Aber­deen Aber­deen­shire and the Tay Cit­ies) and that are in devel­op­ment (e.g. in Moray)

(Map 1: Region­al Context)

The Nation­al Park is already covered by the vari­ous Eco­nom­ic Strategies which have been developed, based on the five loc­al author­ity bound­ar­ies, each of which is sup­por­ted by a range of eco­nom­ic part­ner­ships and for­ums. For example, the Moray Eco­nom­ic Strategy sets out the vis­on and high level actions to deliv­er a suc­cess­ful and vibrant eco­nomy over a 10 year peri­od 2019 to 2029, coordin­ated by the Moray Eco­nom­ic Part­ner­ship. Oppor­tun­ity North East is the prin­cip­al pub­lic – private part­ner­ship focus­sing on eco­nom­ic growth in Aber­deen­shire and Moray (for the food and drink sector).

From an organ­isa­tion­al per­spect­ive, High­lands and Island Enter­prise (HIE), Scot­tish Enter­prise (SE) and Skills Devel­op­ment Scot­land (SDS) all have oper­at­ing plans to deliv­er the Scot­tish Government’s eco­nom­ic pri­or­it­ies and Scotland’s Eco­nom­ic Strategy in their areas. And each of the five loc­al author­it­ies in the Park have spe­cif­ic eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment func­tions and powers.

The suc­cess­ful deliv­ery of all these plans and strategies is depend­ent on the work under­taken by the busi­nesses, land man­agers, com­munit­ies, char­it­ies and oth­er parts of the pub­lic sec­tor – all work­ing well togeth­er in mutu­al sup­port and cooperation.

3. The Eco­nom­ic Strategy for the Park

The strategy for pro­mot­ing a sus­tain­able eco­nomy in the Park is set out with­in the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2017 – 2022 which has been signed off by Scot­tish Min­is­ters and is avail­able at https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​w​o​r​k​i​n​g​-​p​a​r​t​n​e​r​s​h​i​p​/​n​a​t​i​o​n​a​l​-​p​a​r​k​-​p​a​r​t​n​e​r​s​h​i​p​-plan.

The Part­ner­ship Plan iden­ti­fies nine Pri­or­it­ies, across three Long-term Out­comes: Con­ser­va­tion, Vis­it­or Exper­i­ence and Rur­al Devel­op­ment. The Long-term Out­come for Rur­al Devel­op­ment is: ​“A sus­tain­able eco­nomy sup­port­ing thriv­ing busi­nesses and com­munit­ies” and the spe­cif­ic chal­lenges to be addressed in achiev­ing this are set out below.

THE RUR­AL DEVEL­OP­MENT CHALLENGES

Deliv­er­ing hous­ing that meets the needs of communities:

• Increas­ing the sup­ply of afford­able hous­ing, and ensur­ing that it remains afford­able in the long-term.
• Help­ing to reduce the pro­por­tion of second homes by mak­ing sure that when new hous­ing is built more of it is access­ible to and tar­geted at people work­ing in the Nation­al Park.
• Secur­ing an appro­pri­ate level of pub­lic fund­ing and mak­ing the most effect­ive use of it to deliv­er afford­able hous­ing and infra­struc­ture to meet loc­al needs.
• Help­ing com­munit­ies make the most of the right to buy land in order to secure loc­al hous­ing solutions.
• Meet­ing the bulk of hous­ing needs by the exist­ing lar­ger sites in the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan and, in the future, enabling com­munit­ies to grow in a more small-scale ​‘organ­ic’ way.

Com­munity-led Devel­op­ment and Regeneration

• Identi­fy­ing those com­munit­ies most in need of sup­port and build­ing their capa­city to get the most out of oppor­tun­it­ies to shape their places
• Mak­ing resources avail­able to sup­port com­munity aspirations
• Giv­ing com­munit­ies con­trol over assets and help­ing them max­im­ise their returns
• Increas­ing com­munity resilience
• Strength­en­ing loc­al demo­cracy and participation
• Sup­port­ing and encour­aging a part­ner­ship approach between and with­in communities

Strength­en­ing and diver­si­fy­ing the economy:

• Strength­en­ing the tour­ism sec­tor – a sus­tain­able approach – vis­it­ors stay­ing longer and spend­ing more
• Encour­aging start-ups and busi­ness diversification
• Improv­ing access to hous­ing for workers
• Improv­ing digit­al com­mu­nic­a­tions – espe­cially in remoter areas

A sum­mary of the eco­nom­ic strategy that is set out in the Part­ner­ship Plan to address these chal­lenges is provided at Annex A.

(Infograph­ic: The Cairngorms Eco­nomy: Facts and Figures)

4. Review of stra­tegic context

The rel­ev­ant stra­tegic factors that have been taken into account in pre­par­ing this Action Plan are sum­mar­ised below.

Glob­al Cli­mate Emer­gency and Loss of Biodiversity

There is very sig­ni­fic­antly increased pub­lic aware­ness and polit­ic­al atten­tion being giv­en to these import­ant issues due to the recent reports by the Com­mit­tee on Cli­mate Change and Inter-gov­ern­ment­al Sci­ence-Policy Plat­form on Biod­iversity and Eco­sys­tem Ser­vices. The Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment have declared a cli­mate emer­gency and are com­mit­ted to net zero emis­sions by 2045. The First Min­is­ter said in May 2019 on biod­iversity ‘…that the dif­fi­culties, com­plex­it­ies and chal­lenges are not to be under­es­tim­ated but that we all want Scot­land to be lead­ing the way’. The need to tackle cli­mate change and biod­iversity loss will have implic­a­tions for the Nation­al Park and spe­cific­ally land use, man­aging increased flood risk, hous­ing, trans­port and tour­ism. We need to ensure that growth in the Park eco­nomy is sus­tain­able and helps to meet the tar­get of net zero emis­sions and the biod­iversity tar­gets. The col­la­tion of evid­ence to influ­ence the next Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan will take place over the next year but, giv­en the urgency of cli­mate risks, some sig­ni­fic­ant actions require to be taken now.

[Note: CNPA response to cli­mate emer­gency is being con­sidered in Board paper on 6 Decem­ber 2019]

Brexit

Depend­ing on what hap­pens with the UK Government’s pro­pos­als to leave the European Uni­on there are likely to be sig­ni­fic­ant implic­a­tions for the rur­al eco­nomy. There are already signs of adverse impacts on the labour mar­ket, caus­ing par­tic­u­lar con­cern in the tour­ism sec­tor, and which appear likely to con­tin­ue under most Brexit scen­ari­os. The Fed­er­a­tion of Small Busi­nesses estim­ates that 41% of busi­nesses in the High­lands and Islands employ EU cit­izens com­pared to an aver­age of 25% across Scot­land. The most recent quarterly sur­vey of busi­ness con­fid­ence under­taken by the Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship (to June 2019) recor­ded levels below aver­age and high­lighted tour­ism trends and staff­ing levels as the main chal­lenges of doing busi­ness. The High­land Coun­cil high­lighted con­cerns about upland farm­ing if WTO rules are imple­men­ted. EU fund­ing has sup­por­ted busi­ness, com­munit­ies and infra­struc­ture pro­jects in recent dec­ades, for example through the Cairngorms Lead­er pro­gramme. Although there are likely to be some replace­ment schemes, there is little clar­ity on how future fund­ing pro­grammes will be developed. The poten­tial loss of com­munity-led loc­al devel­op­ment fund­ing and changes to agri­cul­tur­al sup­port mech­an­isms are a sig­ni­fic­ant risk to the rur­al eco­nomy going forward.

Enter­prise Review and Region­al Eco­nom­ic Partnerships

The city/​region growth deals have provided fund­ing for long-term eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment in the loc­al author­ity areas over­lap­ping the Nation­al Park. The deals are lead­ing to sig­ni­fic­ant infra­struc­ture invest­ment and stronger mar­ket­ing of the regions as places to do busi­ness. The Cairngorms Nation­al Park sup­ports the mar­ket­ab­il­ity of the wider regions by provid­ing unri­valled land­scapes and recre­ation­al oppor­tun­it­ies. Fol­low­ing the Enter­prise Review, the Stra­tegic Plan for the Enter­prise and Skills Board was pub­lished in Octo­ber 2018, giv­ing new stra­tegic dir­ec­tion to the enter­prise and skills agen­cies — Scot­tish Enter­prise, High­lands and Islands Enter­prise, Skills Devel­op­ment Scot­land and the Scot­tish Fund­ing Coun­cil. Scot­tish Enter­prise launched its new Stra­tegic Frame­work 2019 – 22 in May 2019 with a focus on col­lab­or­a­tion and an ambi­tion to ​“build vibrant eco­nom­ic com­munit­ies across Scot­land, spread­ing wealth and well-being”. Skills Devel­op­ment Scot­land recently pro­duced a Skills Action Plan for Rur­al Scot­land 2019 – 2021. And in Septem­ber 2019 the Scot­tish Coun­cil for Devel­op­ment and Industry’s Rur­al Com­mis­sion pro­duced a report with 42 recom­mend­a­tions about People, Place and Productivity.

Infra­struc­ture Improvements

We have made very sig­ni­fic­ant pro­gress in deliv­er­ing on the cap­it­al invest­ment pri­or­it­ies set out in the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan and an update on pro­gress and plans is presen­ted in the Action Plan below.

With regards to digit­al con­nectiv­ity, the avail­ab­il­ity of broad­band ser­vices and mobile cov­er­age on 3G and 4G net­works has improved sig­ni­fic­antly since 2015, espe­cially in the main set­tle­ments. By Janu­ary 2019 86.4% of premises had access to fibre broad­band at speeds of over 24Mbs. Look­ing ahead, the Scot­tish Government’s R100 pro­gramme will sig­ni­fic­antly extend super­fast broad­band to provide access to all homes and busi­nesses that have not yet been con­nec­ted. This invest­ment in the most rur­al areas of the Park will be wel­come and must be sus­tained. Most com­munit­ies in the Nation­al Park, and much of the trans­port net­work, is now covered by either 3G or 4G mobile data ser­vices and there are plans in place to address par­tic­u­lar gaps.

A Place for Investment

There are increas­ingly pos­it­ive signs that the Park is seen as good place to invest. Sig­ni­fic­ant private sec­tor invest­ment is under way in Brae­mar with the refur­bished Fife Arms hotel open since Decem­ber 2018; the renov­a­tion of the Inver­cauld Hotel is cur­rently under way. In Strath­spey, sig­ni­fic­ant new tour­ism facil­it­ies have been developed at Grant­own East and a new dis­til­lery is under con­struc­tion along­side the pro­posed steam rail­way exten­sion to Grantown.

Fund­ing from Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment has allowed the CNPA, work­ing with part­ners, to bring in around £14 mil­lion of addi­tion­al fund­ing over the last five years to help deliv­er pro­jects cov­er­ing out­door access, nature con­ser­va­tion, health, tour­ism infra­struc­ture and devel­op­ing our loc­al com­munit­ies. For example, there are four sig­ni­fic­ant pro­jects under­way fun­ded by Nation­al Her­it­age Lot­tery Fund – the Moun­tains and the People, Caper­cail­lie, Tomintoul/​Glenlivet Land­scape Part­ner­ship and the Badenoch Great Place Pro­jects. In 2019 the Cairngorms Con­nect pro­ject has seen the start of a multi-mil­lion pound invest­ment in nature con­ser­va­tion and re-wild­ing on four estates in the west of the Park. The CNPA was also suc­cess­ful in secur­ing funds via Peat­land Action totalling £2.1 mil­lion and is work­ing closely with Scot­tish Forestry on wood­land expansion.

LEAD­ER fund­ing in the region of £4 mil­lion has been dis­trib­uted to a vari­ety of com­munity-led pro­jects dur­ing this time allow­ing com­munity groups to devel­op and deliv­er pri­or­ity actions for their own com­munit­ies. 32 pro­jects were approved cov­er­ing 13 dif­fer­ent com­munit­ies, with a fur­ther 14 pro­jects cov­er­ing the entire Park or regions of it. There has also been invest­ment of £1.6 mil­lion in farm diver­si­fic­a­tion and enter­prise ini­ti­ated by and sup­por­ted through the LEAD­ER pro­cess since 2015. Mean­while, we are see­ing a grow­ing trend for com­munity-led organ­isa­tions and social enter­prises with­in the Park to devel­op and take con­trol of assets to act as a basis for their future development.

The Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship have been suc­cess­ful in devel­op­ing new invest­ment streams for the Snow Roads Scen­ic Route (from Scot­tish Enter­prise Des­tin­a­tion Devel­op­ment Fund) to build busi­ness col­lab­or­a­tion and new digit­al products and, more recently, for mar­ket­ing (from the Vis­itScot­land Growth Fund). CNPA has secured Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment fund­ing through the Rur­al Tour­ism Infra­struc­ture Fund (via Vis­itScot­land) for two sig­ni­fic­ant pro­jects on Nation­al Natures Reserves at Din­net and Glen­more, provid­ing enhanced park­ing, toi­lets, paths and sign­posts; all to alle­vi­ate tour­ism pressure.

All of this invest­ment has benefited the vis­it­or eco­nomy. The num­ber of vis­its has grown from 1.3m vis­it­ors in 2003 to 1.9m in 2018 – that is a 4.7% increase on 2017. The most recent res­ults from the STEAM Tour­ism impacts study are avail­able at https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​w​p​-​c​o​n​t​e​n​t​/​u​p​l​o​a​d​s​/​2​0​1​9​/​0​8​/​C​N​P​-​2​0​1​8​-​N​a​r​r​a​t​i​v​e.pdf

As we move for­wards, invest­ment in the nat­ur­al cap­it­al of the Park – and people’s abil­ity to enjoy it sus­tain­ably – will be pri­or­it­ised. This will be done through con­serving peat­lands, fur­ther pro­mo­tion of wood­land expan­sion, land­scape-scale con­ser­va­tion and invest­ment in sus­tain­able tour­ism infra­struc­ture, etc. Such pro­grammes will be a key part of pre­par­a­tions for the next Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan.

Pre­dicted changes in population

There is a sig­ni­fic­ant aware­ness across Scot­land of the import­ance of main­tain­ing and enhan­cing the work­ing age pop­u­la­tion in rur­al areas. There are nation­al stat­ist­ic­al pro­jec­tions of a gradu­ally age­ing pop­u­la­tion in the Cairngorms and else­where. These pro­jec­tions have been taken into account in devel­op­ing the alloc­a­tion of land for built devel­op­ment with­in the Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2020. This Plan has alloc­ated land to accom­mod­ate an increase in pop­u­la­tion by 7% over the peri­od to 2030. The Euro­parc Youth Mani­festo, which was sig­ni­fic­antly developed by young people from Cairngorms and which was launched in Aviemore in Septem­ber 2018 and, high­lighted the pri­or­it­ies for young people liv­ing and work­ing in Pro­tec­ted areas.

Deliv­ery of Housing

There are sig­ni­fic­ant issues with deliv­er­ab­il­ity of hous­ing on some alloc­ated sites – sev­er­al sites have had been alloc­ated in the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan for many years and have repeatedly been gran­ted plan­ning per­mis­sion but no houses have been built. Across the Park house prices have ris­en stead­ily and remain high­er than the nation­al aver­age. Many busi­ness, espe­cially around Aviemore and in Brae­mar, are exper­i­en­cing prob­lems hous­ing key staff and see this as adversely affect­ing their abil­ity to serve cus­tom­ers and a bar­ri­er to growth. More hous­ing is being bought as second and hol­i­day accom­mod­a­tion – Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment research estim­ated in Septem­ber 2019 that short-term lets had tripled across Scot­land between 2016 and 2019. In the Cairngorms there are signs of increas­ing com­munity con­cern about the social impact of short-term lets. The pro­posed Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2020 will, once approved, increase the pro­por­tion of afford­able hous­ing from 25% to 45% in some com­munit­ies but fur­ther meas­ures will be required to make hous­ing more avail­able to people who live and work in the Park.

Ski Centres

A sig­ni­fic­ant review of uplift facil­it­ies at Cairngorm Moun­tain by High­lands and Islands Enter­prise in 2018 iden­ti­fied a pro­gramme of recom­mend­a­tions for uplift improve­ments and oth­er facil­it­ies. How­ever, the clos­ure of the funicu­lar rail­way at Cairngorm Moun­tain for ground invest­ig­a­tions since late 2018 has cre­ated con­sid­er­able uncer­tainty about the facil­ity. There is need for a con­cer­ted effort to ensure a viable and sus­tain­able way for­ward is found. CNPA led the devel­op­ment of the Cairngorm and Glen­more Strategy (2016) and a set of prin­ciples to help guide devel­op­ment at Cairngorm. A new mas­ter­plan for the site is shortly to be pre­pared, led by HIE, and will be wel­come step for­wards. At both the Lecht and Glen­shee there is a need to con­tin­ue to invest in recre­ation­al facil­it­ies and energy sup­ply, while diver­si­fy­ing the activ­ity offer­ing, in order to under­pin their role in the region­al eco­nom­ies and for visitors.

Towns and Villages

The town and vil­lages of the Nation­al Park are very import­ant and are val­ued by loc­als as ser­vice centres, and by vis­it­ors for the num­ber and char­ac­ter of small, inde­pend­ent shops. Research in 2017 by Fed­er­a­tion of Small Busi­nesses on Scotland’s entre­pren­eur­i­al towns high­lighted that New­ton­more was the second most entre­pren­eur­i­al town in the Scot­land with Kin­gussie in 15^th place. How­ever, like oth­er parts of Scot­land the retail sec­tor is suf­fer­ing chal­lenges and there are a num­ber of vacant units on most of the smal­ler towns and vil­lages; recent bank clos­ures have added to this issue. The invest­ment from the Town Centre Fund in ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀ is most wel­come. A fur­ther con­cen­trated effort is needed, in con­junc­tion with loc­al busi­ness asso­ci­ations and com­munity groups, to encour­age loc­al spend­ing and vis­it­or foot­fall in high streets, invest­ment in town centres and the coordin­ated devel­op­ment of pub­lic invest­ment and facilities.

Avail­ab­il­ity and use of data

We have good data about some aspects of the Park (e.g. tour­ism data) and we col­lect spe­cif­ic inform­a­tion about busi­ness atti­tudes (e.g. CBP Busi­ness Baro­met­er). How­ever, it con­tin­ues to be chal­len­ging to access, col­late and ana­lyse socio-eco­nom­ic data in a way that is mean­ing­ful at the Nation­al Park scale. There are sev­er­al reas­ons for this: data is fre­quently col­lec­ted for dif­fer­ent spa­tial units over­lap­ping the Nation­al Park, typ­ic­ally loc­al author­ity bound­ar­ies; and some spe­cif­ic stud­ies do not high­light the Nation­al Park as a geo­graph­ic unit. These issues are com­poun­ded by the fact that in rur­al areas the stat­ist­ic­al data avail­able does not always illus­trate well the real life chal­lenges that people face. Dur­ing the con­sulta­tion on the Plan a num­ber of use­ful sug­ges­tions were made for addi­tion­al sources of data and research that could be used to devel­op policy and to chart pro­gress. This area of work does require great­er atten­tion in future, espe­cially as we start to pre­pare for the next Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan. In the mean­time, a good evid­ence base has been col­lated for the pre­par­a­tion of the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2020, cov­er­ing top­ics from Hous­ing to Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment, and is avail­able at https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​a​u​t​h​o​r​i​t​y​/​p​u​b​l​i​c​a​t​i​o​n​/459/.

5. The Eco­nom­ic Action Plan

Five pri­or­ity themes have been developed to struc­ture the Eco­nom­ic Action Plan and provide focus.

(Dia­gram: Pri­or­ity Themes deliv­er­ing the Long-term Out­come for Rur­al Development)

1. Build­ing on the Eco­nom­ic Strengths of the Park

(Table: Actions and Leads)

2. Sup­port­ing and Attract­ing Business

(Table: Actions and Leads)

3. Edu­ca­tion, Train­ing and Skills Development

(Table: Actions and Leads)

4. Infra­struc­ture and Cap­it­al Investment

(Table: Actions and Leads)

5. Com­munity and Enterprise

(Table: Actions and Leads)

6. Deliv­ery and monitoring

The arrange­ments for deliv­ery will be based on:

• Coordin­a­tion of activ­ity through the Cairngorms Eco­nom­ic Steer­ing Group includ­ing CNPA (chair), Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship, Fed­er­a­tion of Small Busi­nesses, loc­al author­it­ies, High­land and Islands Enter­prise, Scot­tish Enter­prise and Skills Devel­op­ment Scotland.
• Pre­par­a­tion of an annu­al review of deliv­ery (using high-level Red — Amber — Green assess­ment) asso­ci­ated with the Action Plan and con­sid­er­a­tion by the CNPA Board along with the rel­ev­ant part­ners. Tar­gets to be developed at the first meet­ing of the Cairngorms Eco­nom­ic Steer­ing Group.
• Enhanced CNPA engage­ment with the Busi­ness Asso­ci­ations across the Park and facil­it­a­tion of loc­al busi­ness net­work meetings
• Co-design with the Cairngorms Youth Action Group of spe­cif­ic pro­jects and ini­ti­at­ives that take for­wards all of the actions iden­ti­fied above in a way that addresses the con­cerns and interests of young people.
• Enhanced com­mu­nic­a­tions as part of CNPA Com­mu­nic­a­tions Plan about the many rur­al devel­op­ment suc­cess stor­ies in the Park and the inter­de­pend­ence of the eco­nomy and the Park’s nat­ur­al capital

Annex A: Sum­mary of the Eco­nom­ic Strategy as set out in the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2017 — 2022

1. The Pri­or­it­ies and Agen­das for Action

In order to address the Rur­al Devel­op­ment Chal­lenges iden­ti­fied in the Part­ner­ship Plan, ​“Agen­das for Action” were developed for each of the pri­or­ity areas of work includ­ing Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment and Hous­ing. Due to the integ­rated nature of the Part­ner­ship Plan, any activ­ity delivered relat­ing to the nine Pri­or­it­ies plays a role in sup­port­ing the eco­nomy of the Nation­al Park – for example, invest­ment in wood­land expan­sion increases bio­lo­gic­al diversity, enhances the land­scape for vis­it­ors and provides addi­tion­al recre­ation­al exper­i­ences and new eco­nom­ic oppor­tun­it­ies. All of the Pri­or­it­ies are there­fore import­ant to the deliv­ery a sus­tain­able eco­nomy of the Park; but the two most sig­ni­fic­ant Pri­or­it­ies to the eco­nomy of the Park are reprin­ted below.

ECO­NOM­IC DEVEL­OP­MENT: AGENDA FOR ACTION

Part­ners will deliv­er the cur­rent Eco­nom­ic Strategy for the Park to 2018 and then review, focus­sing on action plans for key busi­ness sectors:

a) Devel­op­ing sec­tor-spe­cif­ic plans to tackle invest­ment, enhance skills through stronger links with high­er and fur­ther edu­ca­tion, improve long-term resi­li­ence and increase aver­age wages, as well as build­ing busi­ness on the nat­ur­al cap­it­al of the Nation­al Park; b) Sup­port­ing Cairngorms Com­munity Broad­band* to deliv­er super­fast broad­band in the ​“hard­est to reach” parts of the Park; c) Con­tinu­ing to improve phys­ic­al infra­struc­ture, includ­ing access to afford­able hous­ing and digit­al con­nectiv­ity; d) Max­im­ising the oppor­tun­it­ies for busi­nesses, com­munit­ies and vis­it­ors from the A9 dualling pro­ject; e) Review implic­a­tions and options for the farm­ing sec­tor as changes in long-term sup­port become clear­er; f) Using the next Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (LDP) to identi­fy new sites for busi­ness use and expan­sion and the deliv­ery of the LDP to tar­get invest­ment that opens up those sites to business.”

*The Cairngorms Com­munity Broad­band pro­ject has been sus­pen­ded and the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment now leads devel­op­ment of broad­band in rur­al areas through the Reach­ing 100 (R100) Programme.

HOUS­ING: AGENDA FOR ACTION

Part­ners will respond to the unique hous­ing chal­lenges and pres­sures with­in the Park by devel­op­ing a spe­cial approach that is based on:

a) Redu­cing the pro­por­tion of second homes in new devel­op­ments by ensur­ing the new hous­ing devel­op­ment is tar­geted at meet­ing loc­al needs as far as pos­sible; b) Max­im­ising the pro­por­tion of new hous­ing that is afford­able in per­petu­ity; c) Identi­fy­ing sites in the next Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan where the afford­able hous­ing con­tri­bu­tion will be more than the nor­mal nation­al max­im­um of 25% because of acute afford­ab­il­ity pres­sures and the short­age of sup­ply; d) Using the next Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan to man­age the nature of new open mar­ket hous­ing so it is bet­ter tar­geted towards loc­al needs (e.g. by seek­ing a great­er mix of house types and sizes, with an emphas­is towards smal­ler homes in new devel­op­ments); e) Apply­ing flex­ible plan­ning policies to pro­mote major­ity afford­able hous­ing devel­op­ments and encour­age the use of innov­at­ive deliv­ery mod­els to max­im­ise the num­ber of afford­able homes that are built; f) Tar­get­ing pub­lic sec­tor fund­ing towards the Nation­al Park and to sites with the greatest poten­tial for deliv­er­ing afford­able hous­ing; g) Sup­port­ing com­munit­ies to deliv­er com­munity-led hous­ing solu­tions, includ­ing by mak­ing the most of powers to buy land and tak­ing a more pro-act­ive role in man­age­ment where appro­pri­ate; h) Pro­mot­ing high stand­ards of sus­tain­able design and energy effi­ciency in new homes to ensure they are afford­able in terms of life­time run­ning costs.

2. Policy for Eco­nom­ic Development

The Part­ner­ship Plan has a com­pre­hens­ive policy frame­work that guides devel­op­ment and provides con­tinu­ity over the long-term. The policy relat­ing to eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment is reprin­ted below.

Policy 3.1 Eco­nom­ic Development

Grow the eco­nomy of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park by strength­en­ing exist­ing busi­ness sec­tors, sup­port­ing busi­ness start-ups and diver­si­fic­a­tion, and increas­ing the num­ber of work­ers employed in the Park through:

a) main­tain­ing the pop­u­la­tion of the Nation­al Park and main­tain­ing or grow­ing the pro­por­tion of the work­ing age pop­u­la­tion; b) sup­port­ing the diver­si­fic­a­tion of exist­ing land-based busi­nesses c) encour­aging growth of busi­ness sec­tors that draw on the spe­cial qual­it­ies of the Park such as sus­tain­able tour­ism and food and drink; d) broad­en­ing the eco­nom­ic base of the Park into sec­tors such as cre­at­ive indus­tries, renew­able energy, and mak­ing stronger links with high­er and fur­ther edu­ca­tion; e) increased pro­vi­sion for busi­ness land where there is an iden­ti­fied need and demand; and to sup­port the use of land for small busi­ness par­tic­u­larly with­in set­tle­ments f) slow­ing out­ward migra­tion of young people; to encour­age their return; and the inward migra­tion of work­ers to the Park to meet busi­ness and com­munity needs; g) pro­vi­sion of a hous­ing land sup­ply that sup­ports migra­tion of young people and work­ers to the park and main­tains vibrant com­munit­ies h) redu­cing the pro­por­tion of vacant and second homes to sup­port com­munity vibrancy by ensur­ing that new hous­ing devel­op­ment best meets loc­al needs i) max­im­ising the pro­por­tion of new hous­ing devel­op­ment that is afford­able in perpetuity.

3. Tar­gets and indic­at­ors for Rur­al Devel­op­ment in the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan

A simple set of tar­gets and indic­at­ors have been developed for all of the Pri­or­it­ies with­in the Part­ner­ship Plan. Arrange­ments are in place with part­ner organ­isa­tions to ensure they are mon­itored and delivered. Reg­u­lar reports are provided to the CNPA Board.

(Table: Rur­al Devel­op­ment: Theme, Tar­gets, Indicators)