CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Con­fid­en­tial Form­al Board Paper 6^th March 2020

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

FOR DECISION

Title: A9 DALRADDY SLO­CHD INQUIRY – CNPA

OBJEC­TION — CONFIDENTIAL

Pre­pared by: GRANT MOIR, CEO

Pur­pose

This paper sets out a pro­pos­al from Trans­port Scot­land to provide a non-motor­ised user route between Aviemore and Car­rbridge and officers’ recom­mend­a­tion that with that com­mit­ment from Trans­port Scot­land, the CNPA should remove its objec­tion to the A9 Dalraddy to Slo­chd sec­tion of the A9 dualling programme.

Recom­mend­a­tions

The Board is asked to:

a) Agree to remove the CNPA’s objec­tion to the A9 Dalraddy to Slo­chd project.

Back­ground

1. The CNPA objec­ted to the A9 Dalraddy to Slo­chd dualling pro­ject on 8 Octo­ber 2018 for the fol­low­ing reasons:

“The CNPA’s view is that for the sec­tion of the A9 dualling pro­pos­al and spe­cific­ally the NMU routes pro­posed between north Aviemore to the junc­tion north of Carrbridge:

a) Do not meet the A9 Scheme object­ive of facil­it­at­ing act­ive travel with­in the cor­ridor; b) Do not com­ply with Trans­port Scotland’s Non-Motor­ised User Access Strategy that sought ​“oppor­tun­it­ies to provide more dir­ect NMU routes between Aviemore and Car­rbridge” and ​“to improve NMU links between the A9 cor­ridor, train sta­tion and vil­lage centre at Car­rbridge”; c) Do not meet wider Nation­al Policy object­ives to improve act­ive travel and reduce travel by private cars; and d) Will not pro­mote the eco­nom­ic and tour­ism bene­fits of cyc­ling and walk­ing close to Aviemore, the largest set­tle­ment in the Park, and a hub for all forms of tour­ism activ­ity with more than a mil­lion vis­it­ors to its vicin­ity each year, with Car­rbridge 10 miles to the north and its tour­ist attrac­tions includ­ing Land­mark Forest Adven­ture Park [which itself has sig­ni­fic­antly more than 150,000 vis­it­ors each year]. Our view is that the pro­posed scheme fails to deliv­er against the aims c and d of the Nation­al Park set out in the Nation­al Parks [Scot­land] Act 2000.”

1. A report­er from the Dir­ect­or­ate for Plan­ning and Envir­on­ment­al Appeals (DPEA) was appoin­ted by Scot­tish Min­is­ters to con­sider the unre­solved objec­tions to the pro­ject. The CNPA has con­tin­ued to pur­sue its objec­tion and has been pre­par­ing to par­ti­cip­ate in an inquiry ses­sion related to its objection.

2. Fol­low­ing objec­tions from the CNPA, High­land Coun­cil and a num­ber of com­munity coun­cils and indi­vidu­als to the A9 Dalraddy to Slo­chd pro­ject, Trans­port Scot­land led a fur­ther study invest­ig­at­ing the cre­ation of an NMU route between Aviemore and Car­rbridge sep­ar­ate from the A9 pro­ject. This work had poten­tial to resolve the CNPA’s objec­tion to the A9 pro­ject but Trans­port Scot­land were unable to com­mit to resourcing the route’s delivery.

Trans­port Scotland’s new proposal

1. Fol­low­ing a meet­ing between CNPA and Trans­port Scotland’s CEO’s on 25 Feb­ru­ary, Trans­port Scot­land have made a fur­ther pro­pos­al to sup­port deliv­ery of such a route. Officers con­sider this offer provides secur­ity that Trans­port Scot­land will fully sup­port and resource the deliv­ery of the route. Under such cir­cum­stances we con­sider that the CNPA can remove its objec­tion to the A9 dualling Dalraddy to Slo­chd pro­ject as our primary reas­on for objec­tion can be addressed out­side the scheme itself. A copy of the let­ter from Trans­port Scot­land to CNPA set­ting out the offer is attached as Annex 1.

2. The pro­pos­al will resource a sig­ni­fic­ant pos­it­ive enhance­ment of act­ive travel infra­struc­ture in the Nation­al Park that will be import­ant for com­munit­ies and vis­it­ors in future.

Next Steps

1. If the board agree the recom­mend­a­tion in the paper, officers will write to Trans­port Scot­land accept­ing their offer and to the DPEA to noti­fy the report­er that the CNPA has with­drawn its objec­tion and the reas­ons for doing so.

Grant Moir 6 March 2020 grantmoir@​cairngorms.​co.​uk