CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper 4 • 12 June 2020

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

FOR DIS­CUS­SION

Title: NATION­AL PARK PART­NER­SHIP PLAN 2017 – 2022 DELIV­ERY UPDATE FOR ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀

Pre­pared by: GRANT MOIR, CEO

Pur­pose

This paper presents an update on deliv­ery against the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2017 – 2022 for the year ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀.

Recom­mend­a­tions

The Board is asked to:

a) Review the update on deliv­ery against the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2017 – 2022 set out in this paper. b) High­light any achieve­ments or excep­tions which, from a stra­tegic lead­er­ship per­spect­ive, Board mem­bers believe are of par­tic­u­lar sig­ni­fic­ance to the deliv­ery of the Authority’s stra­tegic objectives.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper 4 • 12 June 2020

NATION­AL PARK PART­NER­SHIP PLAN 2017 – 2022 DELIV­ERY UPDATE – FOR DISCUSSION

Stra­tegic Context

1. The Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP) for 2017 – 2022 is approved by Scot­tish Min­is­ters in 2017 as the man­age­ment plan for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. It sets out how all those with a respons­ib­il­ity for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park will co-ordin­ate their work to tackle the most import­ant issues. This cur­rent NPPP is the third such 5‑year plan coordin­at­ing work in the Cairngorms.

2. The Cairngorms NPPP provides stra­tegic dir­ec­tion for five key strategies and plans which sup­port its deliv­ery and are also sup­por­ted by close part­ner­ship work­ing with dif­fer­ent sectors:

   a) Act­ive Cairngorms: the out­door access strategy for the Nation­al Park; b) Cairngorms Nature: set­ting out the Nation­al Park’s con­ser­va­tion pri­or­it­ies; c) Eco­nom­ic Action Plan: sets out the eco­nom­ic pri­or­it­ies for the Nation­al Park; d) Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan: sets out the policies for land use plan­ning with­in the Nation­al Park; and e) Loc­al Devel­op­ment Strategy: sets out the pri­or­it­ies for pro­mot­ing Com­munity Led Loc­al Devel­op­ment (CLLD) to sup­port a sus­tain­able rur­al eco­nomy in the Nation­al Park.

Stra­tegic Policy Considerations

1. The Cairngorms NPPP:

   a) Sets out the vis­ion and over­arch­ing strategy for man­aging the Park; b) Guides the work of pub­lic bod­ies and all oth­er part­ners to deliv­er the aims of the Park; c) Provides the stra­tegic con­text for the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan; d) Sets out the region­al land use frame­work for the Park; e) Provides the stra­tegic con­text for man­aging the Park as a sus­tain­able tour­ism des­tin­a­tion; and f) Shows how the Park will con­trib­ute to the Scot­tish Government’s core pur­pose and nation­al outcomes.

Stra­tegic Risk Management

1. The Nation­al Park Author­ity is respons­ible for lead­ing vari­ous part­ner­ships and stake­hold­er groups with interests and respons­ib­il­it­ies for deliv­er­ing ser­vices with­in the Cairngorms, to ensure pri­or­it­ies estab­lished in the approved NPPP are achieved and that vari­ous stake­hold­ers each make their expec­ted contributions.

2. This update is for year ¹⁹⁄₂₀ and so does not take account of the cur­rent COV­ID emer­gency. The CNPA will be look­ing at the impacts on the deliv­ery of the NPPP in due course and will con­sider this in more detail at the Sept/​Dec board meet­ing. There is no doubt that deliv­ery in ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁ will be affected by the cur­rent issues being faced by the country.

Part­ner­ship

1. The table set out in appendix I has been dis­cussed with key pub­lic sec­tor part­ners to ensure that it cap­tures deliv­ery across the Park.

2. The table shows the breadth of work that is ongo­ing in the Nation­al Park and also that the vast major­ity of the work is on tar­get. Again this is before the impact of COV­ID and this will need to be reas­sessed later in the year to see the impact on NPPP deliv­ery in the Park.

Suc­cess Measures

1. The 5‑year out­comes set out with­in the NPPP approved by Scot­tish Min­is­ters estab­lish the suc­cess meas­ures against which deliv­ery of the NPPP will be assessed.

2. Mile­stones have been estab­lished to identi­fy, where appro­pri­ate, inter­im out­puts or points expec­ted in the work toward suc­cess­ful deliv­ery of these out­comes. While the out­comes will be stat­ic over the peri­od of the Cairngorms NPPP, mile­stones will be reviewed by the Author­ity and part­ners and may be mod­i­fied and adap­ted to fit with chan­ging circumstances.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper 4 • 12 June 2020

Sup­port­ing Inform­a­tion: Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan ²⁰¹⁷⁄₂₀₂₂ Deliv­ery Update

1. A sum­mary of the Authority’s NPPP deliv­ery and mon­it­or­ing inform­a­tion is presen­ted in Annex 1. More inform­a­tion on the high­lights and issues arising over the course of ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀, the first year of deliv­ery of the NPPP, is presen­ted in the fol­low­ing sec­tions of this paper.

Con­ser­va­tion

Sig­ni­fic­ant High­lights ¹⁹⁄₂₀

1. Wood­land expan­sion and peat­land res­tor­a­tion con­tin­ues across the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. Since 2017, 3000ha of wood­land expan­sion and 1800 ha of peat­land res­tor­a­tion has been achieved. Wood­land is at the NPPP tar­get while peat­land is slightly lower than planned but nev­er­the­less very sig­ni­fic­ant in a nation­al context.

2. The Stage 2 bid for the Caper­cail­lie pro­ject was sub­mit­ted to NLHF in March 2020. Over the last 2 years, the pro­ject received £500,000 to invest­ig­ate and devel­op plans for 5 main strands of work: hab­it­at improve­ment; improv­ing mon­it­or­ing; genet­ic diversity of Caper­cail­lie; rais­ing aware­ness; a com­munity-led approach to Caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion in Car­rbridge. These now form the basis of the deliv­ery phase applic­a­tion, totalling a fur­ther £2.5 mil­lion for work until 2023. We will hear the out­come in June 2020.

3. CNPA invited by NLHF to put in a bid to the Her­it­age Hori­zons Fund for Feb 2021. A pro­ject team has been set up to devel­op the bid with part­ners. Three key themes are being developed – Act­ive Travel; Land Use and Com­munit­ies; Park for All

4. Biod­iversity Chal­lenge Fund applic­a­tions with­in the Park were suc­cess­ful from a range of organ­isa­tions and land man­agers. Pro­jects are focussed on deliv­ery of the Cairngorms Nature Action Plan. Work includes river res­tor­a­tion and ripari­an plant­ing, aspen plant­ing and pro­tec­tion, man­age­ment for farm­land waders and action for Cairngorms Nature pri­or­ity spe­cies includ­ing fresh water pearl mus­sel and pine hoverfly.

5. The Cli­mate Change Con­fer­ence (March 2020) attrac­ted 180 del­eg­ates and was well atten­ded by all key stake­hold­ers (includ­ing the Cab­in­et Sec­ret­ary). It provided a good start point for net zero ambi­tions for the next NPPP, which will take a long term out­look to 2045.

Vis­it­or Experience

Sig­ni­fic­ant High­lights ¹⁹⁄₂₀

1. RTIF fund­ing from Vis­itSco­tand secured for con­struc­tion Glen­more mul­ti­use path and for improve­ments to Muir of Din­net Nation­al Nature Reserve car park. Muir of Din­net work com­plete with Glen­more now sched­uled for autumn 2020.

2. Increase in the num­ber of volun­teer rangers to 38 trained, and sup­port­ing the work of pro­fes­sion­al rangers and com­munit­ies in their work provid­ing qual­ity vis­it­or exper­i­ences at key coun­tryside sites

3. Estab­lish­ment of the Cairngorms Youth Action Team to devel­op bet­ter ways to engage with and sup­port young people liv­ing & work­ing in and around the Nation­al Park.

4. Shared Stor­ies – A Year in the Cairngorms Pro­ject came to an end in Novem­ber 2019 after a very suc­cess­ful year of encour­aging people to cel­eb­rate and share what the love about Cairngorms.

5. Vis­it­or Sur­vey; the forth, five yearly, Park wide vis­it­or sur­vey was com­pleted March 2020 with inform­a­tion to be shared sum­mer 2020. This work will com­bine with cur­rent smal­ler loc­al & nation­al sur­veys to give excel­lent inform­a­tion in the likely changes in vis­it­or beha­viour and need post Corona virus.

Rur­al Development

Sig­ni­fic­ant High­lights ¹⁹⁄₂₀

1. The Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan was sub­mit­ted to Report­ers in Autumn 2019. There was a sig­ni­fic­ant pub­lic con­sulta­tion and the mater­i­als developed for this were very pos­it­ively received.

2. Eco­nom­ic Action Plan was adop­ted by CNPA Board in Decem­ber 2019. The first meet­ings of the group to help deliv­er this plan have taken place and much of the work will be part of the recov­ery from COVID.

3. A num­ber of Com­munity Hous­ing Pro­jects were pro­gressed across the Nation­al Park, with feas­ib­il­ity stud­ies fun­ded by the Rur­al Hous­ing Fund com­pleted for Brae­mar and Tomintoul.

4. Badenoch Great Place con­tin­ued to devel­op pro­jects and ran the suc­cess­ful Badenoch Fest­iv­al of cul­ture and her­it­age in Septem­ber 2019. This was a great suc­cess and will be repeated in 2021.

5. Cairngorms LEAD­ER fully com­mit­ted its fund­ing dur­ing ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀ with an addi­tion­al 3% in fund­ing alloc­ated secured from unused funds in oth­er areas – total pro­gramme alloc­a­tion now £3.043m with added £1.8m match funding.