CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

DRAFT MINUTES OF THE FORM­AL BOARD MEETING

held via LifeS­ize Video Con­fer­en­cing on Fri­day 12TH March 2021 at 11.15

PRESENT (by video con­fer­en­cing unless stated otherwise)

• Xan­der McDade (Con­vener)
• Car­o­lyn Cad­dick (Deputy Convener)
• Peter Argyle
• Deirdre Fal­con­er
• Pippa Had­ley
• Janet Hunter
• John Kirk
• John Lath­am — by telephone
• Douglas McAdam
• Elean­or Mackintosh
• Wil­lie McKenna
• Ian McLar­en
• Dr Fiona McLean
• Wil­li­am Munro
• Anne Rae Macdonald
• Dr Gaen­er Rodger
• Derek Ross
• Judith Webb

In Attend­ance:

• Grant Moir, Chief Executive
• Dav­id Camer­on, Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Services
• Pete May­hew, Dir­ect­or of Con­ser­va­tion and Vis­it­or Services
• Mur­ray Fer­guson, Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Rur­al Development
• Pete Crane, Head of Vis­it­or Services
• Oliv­er Dav­ies, Head of Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engagement
• Vicky Walk­er, Office Ser­vices Manager
• Heath­er Trench, Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Officer – agenda item 4 only.
• Lynn Ander­son, Cairngorms Trust Admin and Sup­port Officer

Apo­lo­gies: Geva Black­ett. Noted John Lath­am is exper­i­en­cing tech­nic­al dif­fi­culties and will re-join the meet­ing when possible.

Wel­come and Introduction

1. Xan­der McDade, the Con­vener, wel­comed every­one to the meeting.

Minutes of last meet­ing held – for approval

1. The minutes of the last meet­ing held on 27^th Novem­ber, 2020 were agreed with no amendments.

2. The minutes of the last meet­ing held on 22^nd Janu­ary, 2021 were agreed with no amend­ments. How­ever it was noted by some Mem­bers present that there had been an expect­a­tion that, fol­low­ing the dis­cus­sion around the pro­vi­sion of a per­man­ent Ranger ser­vice, addi­tion­al inform­a­tion would be brought to the Board on how this will oper­ate in the form of a form­al report for review rather than inform­a­tion embed­ded in the budget paper.

Mat­ters Arising Not Covered Elsewhere

1. The Con­vener provided an update on the Action Points from the pre­vi­ous minutes:

   a) Novem­ber Minutes – Action Point at Para 14 (i) – Closed — CEO to enquire into fen­cing in Glen­more area with FLS b) Novem­ber Minutes – Action Point at Para 14 (ii) – Closed – Con­vener note cir­cu­lated to staff for breadth of work and achieve­ments dur­ing lockdown

2. Action Point Arising: None

Declar­a­tions of Interest

1. The Con­vener invited declar­a­tions of interest.

2. Pippa Had­ley and Fiona McLean noted as a point of trans­par­ency their role on the board of Badenoch Great Place Project

3. Elean­or Mack­in­tosh – noted as a point of trans­par­ency her role on the board of the Tomin­toul and Glen­liv­et Part­ner­ship which will come up in discussions.

4. Janet Hunter — noted as a point of trans­par­ency her role on the boards of Cat­er­an Coun­try and Out­door Access Trust for Scotland.

5. Douglas McAdam – noted as a point of trans­par­ency his role on the Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject Board.

CEO Report and Con­vener Update (Paper 1)

1. Grant Moir, Chief Exec­ut­ive, intro­duced Paper I which high­lights the main stra­tegic work streams that are being dir­ec­ted by Man­age­ment Team. The CEO explained that these are areas where sig­ni­fic­ant staff resources are being dir­ec­ted to deliv­er Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan Pri­or­it­ies. The CEO high­lighted the fol­low­ing areas:

   a) A piece of work has just star­ted work­ing in part­ner­ship with the oth­er UK parks called ​“Net Zero with Nature”. This work involves seek­ing private invest­ment for green fin­ance to help nature recov­ery work and cli­mate change. This work is at a rel­at­ively early stage how­ever there is a lot of work ongo­ing espe­cially on the lead up to COP 26. b) Social Media and engage­ment: there has been some good growth in this over the past year, in both the amount of people using it but also the vis­it­or engage­ment rate has been high. One thing to be noted is the web­site access­ib­il­ity audit planned for the com­ing months, dis­cus­sions on which have taken place with the Equal­it­ies Advis­ory Pan­el. This will be a good piece of work look­ing at the web­site and mak­ing it fit for the future. c) There is a lot of work by people behind the scenes look­ing at vis­it­or infra­struc­ture and mak­ing sure we have the right things hap­pen­ing at a loc­al and a nation­al level. The vis­it­or man­age­ment sum­mit takes place on 19^th March where all the groups meet and report. Fol­low­ing this sum­mit, fur­ther inform­a­tion will come out of that meet­ing which will be cir­cu­lated to the Board.

2. The Board con­sidered the detail in the Paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the following:

   a) A Mem­ber asked for it to be noted that Tomin­toul & Glen­liv­et Land­scape Part­ner­ship had received a good accol­ade from the Her­it­age Lot­tery Fund for a short film they had pro­duced, very quickly, in recog­ni­tion of their achieve­ments for the last 5 years and the Nation­al Park. The Her­it­age Lot­tery Fund were so impressed with the film they have cir­cu­lated the film to all their staff and Board Mem­bers. The film had been made by a loc­al res­id­ent. b) A Mem­ber had recently atten­ded a meet­ing of the Loc­al Out­door Access For­um and asked for reas­sur­ance that should the Nation­al Park take any sort of action that could ulti­mately end up in court or decide to go down the route of bye- laws, would this come back to the Park Board for decision? The CEO con­firmed that the Author­ity were not look­ing at intro­du­cing bye-laws, how­ever any type of action of this nature would have to be con­sul­ted on, approved by the Board and ulti­mately go to Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment for approv­al. c) A Mem­ber men­tioned a let­ter that had been received by Board Mem­bers and had been pub­lished in a loc­al news­pa­per and asked wheth­er the Park Board were going to respond. The Con­vener explained that a let­ter had been draf­ted how­ever as this per­tains to an indi­vidu­al, it was not appro­pri­ate to dis­cuss this in a pub­lic envir­on­ment for reas­ons of GDPR. d) A Mem­ber com­men­ted on the work being done on peat­land res­tor­a­tion. Hav­ing recently atten­ded a ses­sion with rep­res­ent­at­ives of the Heath­er Trust who men­tioned that the major­ity of con­tract­ors car­ry­ing out this work came from down south, the Mem­ber wondered what avail­ab­il­ity is there of loc­al con­tract­ors and if there is a short­age should we be doing some­thing to address this? The CEO com­men­ted that the Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Rur­al Devel­op­ment and Steph­en Corcor­an, the recently appoin­ted Peat­land Action Pro­gramme Man­ager, were due to have a dis­cus­sion with HIE, Skills Devel­op­ment Scot­land and Nature Scot on skills and con­tract­or issues. It is recog­nised that it is import­ant to have a good con­tract­or base with­in High­land and Islands as peat­land res­tor­a­tion will involve long term work. This meet­ing is sched­uled for 16^th April. The Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Rur­al Devel­op­ment is a mem­ber of the Eco­nom­ic Steer­ing group who are due to meet on 22^nd March, Nature Scot are attend­ing this meet­ing to talk about their work around green jobs. e) A Mem­ber expressed con­cern that, with the eas­ing of restric­tions, there will inev­it­ably be an influx of vis­it­ors into the Park and they wondered what spe­cific­ally will be done to stop vis­it­ors wan­der­ing about in the Caper­cail­lie sens­it­ive areas iden­ti­fied in Car­rbridge. The CEO explained that there is a spe­cif­ic ranger post with­in the Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie pro­ject, inform­a­tion notices will be dis­played and the newly appoin­ted sea­son­al rangers will also help with this. The expect­a­tion is, it will be a very busy sum­mer with vis­it­ors into the Park and the aim is to edu­cate people and get as much inform­a­tion as pos­sible out to people in advance. f) A Mem­ber asked wheth­er a list of sea­son­al rangers would be cir­cu­lated to the Board. The CEO con­firmed this would be done in due course. g) A Mem­ber asked when the non-motor­ised A9 link from Car­rbridge to Aviemore would begin. The CEO explained that there was still work ongo­ing to identi­fy the final route but that this is linked to that part of the A9 is due to be done. h) A Mem­ber thought it good to see in para­graph 34 that there are 4 sub-head­ings under youth employ­ment and hoped that in time there would be even more employ­ment oppor­tun­it­ies for young people in the Park Author­ity. i) A Mem­ber was pleased to see men­tion in para­graph 2 of moun­tain bikers begin­ning to identi­fy ways to improve con­di­tions for Caper­cail­lie. This showed that there is a will­ing­ness to change beha­viour and raise aware­ness. j) A Mem­ber asked for fur­ther inform­a­tion on Ranger ser­vices in the Angus Glens. The CEO explained that there are ongo­ing dis­cus­sions with 2 estates and Scot­tish Land & Estates about a sea­son­al ranger pos­i­tion in that area. The Author­ity makes a con­tri­bu­tion to Angus Alive and it needs to be made clear what cov­er­age there will be from our con­tri­bu­tion and what Forest and Land Scot­land will cov­er and identi­fy any gaps.

3. The Board noted the paper.

4. Action Point Arising:

   i. CEO to cir­cu­late inform­a­tion on Sea­son­al Rangers

Budget – For Decision (Paper 2)

1. Dav­id Camer­on, Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices intro­duced Paper 2 which sets out the Authority’s fin­an­cial pos­i­tion and budget for the ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂ fin­an­cial year. The paper presents the pro­posed fin­an­cial alloc­a­tions for ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂ for core income and expendit­ure, togeth­er with inten­ded oper­a­tion­al plan investment.

2. The paper seeks Board endorse­ment of the budget and Oper­a­tion­al Plan for the year ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂ as an appro­pri­ate deploy­ment of resources to work towards deliv­ery of the Authority’s adop­ted Cor­por­ate Plan objectives.

3. The Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices high­lighted the increase in budget for the year ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂ as set out in table one of the paper. This budget increase has come about through dis­cus­sions and suc­cess­ful bids to Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment. Table 2 sets out the sig­ni­fic­ant changes in oper­a­tion deliv­ery for the year ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂.

4. The Board con­sidered the detail in the Paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the following:

   a) A Board Mem­ber thanked the Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices for the very detailed paper. They men­tioned that in the past they would nor­mally see a resource plan in terms of staff­ing num­bers and they wondered when this would be avail­able. The Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate ser­vices explained this was in hand and updates would be provided to the Board and appro­pri­ate Com­mit­tee when avail­able. b) The Board Mem­ber wondered if we track the level of inward invest­ment and where it goes. The Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices explained that we do try to keep a track of this although if this does not come into our own accounts and instead into a partner’s accounts it can be dif­fi­cult. c) A Board Mem­ber asked for clar­ity around the use of the word endorse and if there are changes in the budget does this come back to the Board or to Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment for approv­al? The Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices explained that although there are ongo­ing dis­cus­sions with our spon­sor depart­ment around the budget through­out the year this is the Park Authority’s budget to approve with any major changes in budget going back to the Board for approv­al. The Board Mem­ber wondered if rather than the using the word endorse the planned resource alloc­a­tion the word approve or agree should be used instead. d) A Board Mem­ber thought this a very import­ant paper and very good news for the Park in very chal­len­ging times. e) Sev­er­al Board Mem­bers thought it strange that they were being asked to agree the estab­lish­ment of a per­man­ent ranger ser­vice in a budget paper, should this not have been a stand-alone paper? The Con­vener sum­mar­ised that there had been both form­al and inform­al dis­cus­sions on this sub­ject and there was now more inform­a­tion provided in the budget paper on the pro­posed struc­ture. While not­ing some Mem­bers would have pre­ferred a form­al, sep­ar­ate paper this format allowed a resourcing decision on ranger ser­vices as an integ­ral and neces­sary part of over­all budget con­sid­er­a­tions. f) A Mem­ber asked what hap­pens to the peat­land res­tor­a­tion money if it is not spent and the impact this might have on the Park. The CEO explained that the Park is in dis­cus­sion with Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment look­ing at multi-year budgets. There is a 10 year com­mit­ment for this fund­ing across Scot­land. There is no ques­tion of SG claw­ing back the money it’s more about pro­gram­ming the piece of work to allow for delays. The Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices explained that the fund­ing alloc­a­tion for the year ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂ is not just about cash spend and as long as the funds are com­mit­ted this will score against this alloc­a­tion. If there is any slip­page the earli­er the dis­cus­sion can begin with SG about man­aging the flow of activ­ity and resourcing across years the bet­ter. g) The Mem­ber also asked for cla­ri­fic­a­tion around the biod­iversity fund which not only talks about cre­at­ing jobs but also train­ing and skills devel­op­ment. Is this only for volun­teers? There was a con­cern that any skills devel­op­ment should not dis­ad­vant­age those people who were not in a pos­i­tion to volun­teer. The CEO explained that the biod­iversity fund­ing is for a set of pro­jects work­ing with part­ners through Cairngorms Nature. The Dir­ect­or of Con­ser­va­tion and Vis­it­or Exper­i­ence explained that there is a whole host of dif­fer­ent jobs attached to this fund­ing and there will be lots of oppor­tun­ity for young people wheth­er they come from a volun­teer­ing back­ground or through appren­tice­ship: there are mul­tiple routes into this. h) A Mem­ber asked, if the Board feel they need more inform­a­tion on the pro­posed 4 per­man­ent rangers, what impact would this have on the ranger pro­vi­sion for this sea­son? The CEO explained any delay would have a huge impact. The volume of work planned for the com­ing year simply could not hap­pen. The imple­ment­a­tion of the ranger posts is an incred­ibly import­ant piece of the jig­saw, it would also mean a delay in the whole staff re-struc­ture. Part­ners were incred­ibly sup­port­ive of a per­man­ent ranger ser­vice with­in the Park. This mixed mod­el now pro­posed is best for the Nation­al Park going for­ward. Mem­bers were being asked to approve the ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂ budget for ranger pro­vi­sion as part of the budget paper hence there was no stand-alone paper, how­ever sup­ple­ment­ary inform­a­tion has been giv­en in the annexes attached to the budget paper. i) A Board Mem­ber asked about the pos­sib­il­ity of bring­ing fur­ther inform­a­tion about the per­man­ent ranger pro­vi­sion to the Board later in the month. The Mem­ber expressed a hope that, with the announce­ment of the expan­sion of ranger pro­vi­sion by Perth & Kinross Coun­cil and High­land Coun­cil, dis­cus­sions would take place about how the dif­fer­ent ranger ser­vices across the Park would work col­lab­or­at­ively. j) The Con­vener con­firmed that it would be help­ful for Board Mem­bers to have a more stra­tegic under­stand­ing to see how this will work on the ground and how the ranger ser­vices will oper­ate. The Con­vener explained that the ranger pro­vi­sion in Perth & Kinross will be very, very stretched. The Deputy Con­vener con­firmed the sea­son­al rangers appoin­ted in High­land will not be work­ing in the Nation­al Park how­ever they felt dis­cus­sions should be had so that we are seen to be approach this in an aligned man­ner. The Author­ity should be seen as a lead­er in this. The CEO con­firmed the co-ordin­a­tion of the work of rangers in the Park was already under­way and is also hap­pen­ing at a nation­al level. k) A Board Mem­ber sug­ges­ted that for the next busi­ness meet­ing of the Board an agenda item should be added seek­ing clar­ity on some of the wider work being done on stra­tegic con­tent of object­ives for ranger ser­vices. The Con­vener con­firmed fur­ther inform­a­tion would be sent to the Board on the oper­a­tion of the ranger service.

5. In con­clu­sion the Con­vener com­men­ted that the Author­ity has seen a sig­ni­fic­ant uplift in fund­ing in what has been a very dif­fi­cult year, this is quite an achieve­ment and is a real cred­it to the staff involved and the Con­vener thanked them for their hard work.

6. The Board:

   a) Endorsed the planned resource alloc­a­tion as appro­pri­ate budget plans for deploy­ment of avail­able fin­ance to secure cor­por­ate object­ives over ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂ b) Agreed the estab­lish­ment of a Cairngorms NPA per­man­ent ranger ser­vice as set out in this paper as part of a mixed mod­el of employed and grant sup­por­ted ranger ser­vices for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. c) Con­sidered wheth­er the pro­posed deploy­ment of resources poses any per­ceived risks to the achieve­ment of the Cor­por­ate Plan object­ives by 2022 and agreed any risks posed for sub­sequent mit­ig­a­tion action by the Chief Exec­ut­ive and Man­age­ment Team. d) Agreed any spe­cif­ic aspects of budget alloc­a­tion and deploy­ment that mer­it atten­tion by the Board or its Com­mit­tee in con­duct­ing Mem­bers’ assur­ance and scru­tiny role dur­ing ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂.

7. Action Points Arising:

   i. Some addi­tion­al inform­a­tion will be brought to the Board, with­in the next couple of weeks, about the oper­a­tion of the ranger ser­vice and how this will con­trib­ute to our out­comes. ii. The end of sea­son review will include our part­ners that we work with, private, pub­lic and third sec­tor and that will include a wider more hol­ist­ic review of ranger ser­vices and if there are changes to be made we will have resource avail­able in next year’s budget to do that.

COP26 and our approach to Net Zero (Paper 3)

1. Olly Dav­ies, Head of Com­mu­nic­a­tions, intro­duced Paper 3 which provides an update on the UN Cli­mate Change Con­fer­ence (COP 26) in Glas­gow, as well as a dis­cus­sion around a CNPA pres­ence at the event. The paper sought to agree tar­gets for the Author­ity and Nation­al Park to achieve net zero emissions.

2. The Head of Com­mu­nic­a­tion explained there are 2 aspects to this paper: a for inform­a­tion update on CNPA’s role in the COP con­fer­ence; the second is to fol­low on from the 6^th Decem­ber, 2019 decision where the Board agreed to estab­lish real­ist­ic times­cales for the Author­ity to achieve zero dir­ect emis­sions as an organ­isa­tion. Due to the impacts of Cov­id-19 this fol­low up had been delayed, but the decision sought today is the res­ult of that process.

3. Table I on page 3 out­lines the total car­bon emis­sions per year since ²⁰⁰⁷⁄₀₈, cur­rently they are roughly half of what they were in the peak peri­od ²⁰¹⁰⁄₁₁ although it is noted the impacts of Cov­id-19 will have an effect on this.

4. The Board con­sidered the detail in the Paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the following:

   a) A Board Mem­ber wondered if the second recom­mend­a­tion is too tight a times­cale giv­en that it is out with our con­trol? The Head of Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engage­ment agreed 2030 is an ambi­tious tar­get how­ever, the eyes of the world will be on Scot­land for COP 26 and Scot­land should take a lead on tack­ling the cli­mate emer­gency, and as the UK’s largest Nation­al Park it was felt we should be ambi­tious, yet as real­ist­ic as we could be. b) A Mem­ber com­men­ted on net zero emis­sions, their under­stand­ing is that this is a mix­ture of redu­cing dir­ect emis­sions and off-set­ting some emis­sions. It seems we have a good idea of what our dir­ect emis­sions are but we don’t have an idea on how to off-set some of our emis­sions to achieve a net zero. The Mem­ber asked when will we have a bet­ter idea of how we can do that so we can have a true meas­ure of when we reach net zero? c) A Board Mem­ber com­men­ted that they could not see how the Author­ity could ever achieve net zero, the CEO explained that Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment have giv­en the com­mit­ment of net zero emis­sions by 2045 and we have oblig­a­tions to work towards that. The nation­al cli­mate change plan was updated in Decem­ber and the work in the Park con­trib­utes to that. It is some­thing all pub­lic bod­ies will have to deliv­er on. d) A Mem­ber asked in terms of tar­get 3 how this would be meas­ured to get a true reflec­tion. The Head of Com­mu­nic­a­tions explained there is a piece of con­sultancy work being car­ried out by a com­pany called Small World, about estab­lish­ing a frame­work for meas­ur­ing over­all cli­mate emis­sions across Nation­al Parks and we are explor­ing how this will fit with­in a Cairngorms Nation­al Park con­text. e) A Board Mem­ber asked, in terms of tar­get 3, is the inten­tion, once the baseline has been estab­lished, to look at sev­er­al path­ways to get to the end res­ult. The Head of Com­mu­nic­a­tions explained that route map­ping struc­ture is part of the Small World model.

5. The Board:

   a) Approved a com­mit­ment for the Park Author­ity to achieve net zero emis­sions by 2025 at the latest. b) Approved a com­mit­ment for the Park Author­ity to achieve zero dir­ect emis­sions by 2030 c) Approved a com­mit­ment for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park to achieve net zero emis­sions by 2045 at the latest and to review that times­cale in light of planned car­bon budget work in ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂ and include in NPPP.

Cairngorms Tour­ism Action Plan – Mid-term Review (Paper 4)

1. Mur­ray Fer­guson, Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Rur­al Devel­op­ment and Pete Crane, Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices intro­duced Paper 4 which reviews pro­gress with the deliv­ery of the Cairngorms Tour­ism Action Plan and seeks to agree pri­or­it­ies in the years ahead.

2. This paper is being brought to the Board for 3 broad reas­ons: a com­mit­ment to bring an annu­al paper as part of our accred­ited sus­tain­able tour­ism des­tin­a­tion under Euro­parc; it’s a good chance to get this inform­a­tion out into the pub­lic domain; and there is a very good Cairngorms Tour­ism Part­ner­ship struc­ture and it is import­ant there is a good con­nec­tion between that and the Board.

3. The Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Rur­al Devel­op­ment high­lighted the fol­low­ing key areas:

   a) Annex I high­lights all the part­ner­ship work going on; b) Annex 2 sum­mar­ises the pro­posed high level changes to the Cairngorms Tour­ism Action Plan; with c) Annex 3 sum­mar­ising at high level the final vis­it­or man­age­ment work.

4. The Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Rur­al Devel­op­ment high­lighted the fol­low­ing key areas:

   a) Cairngorms Tour­ism Emer­gency Response Group – formed in March 2020 which ini­tially met weekly redu­cing to monthly. He thanked Board Mem­ber Janet Hunter for all the work done in chair­ing the Cairngorms Tour­ism Emer­gency Response Group. b) #Cairngorms Togeth­er Ini­ti­at­ive – developed to encour­age the return of vis­it­ors while keep­ing loc­al com­munit­ies and those vis­it­ors safe. c) Man­age­ment for Vis­it­ors Group – which is all work­ing col­lab­or­at­ively with our part­ners to take people with us. d) All this part­ner­ship work has received interest at both nation­al and inter­na­tion­al level.

5. The Board con­sidered the detail in the Paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the following:

   a) The Deputy Con­vener com­men­ted on how much col­lab­or­at­ive work is going on in the Park and echoed the Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Rur­al Devel­op­ment in thank­ing Janet Hunter. b) A Board Mem­ber asked how com­ple­tion of the ​“Snow Roads Scen­ic Route” and cre­at­ing some­thing sim­il­ar along the A9, fits in our jour­ney to Net zero. The Board Mem­ber also wondered wheth­er it might be pos­sible to organ­ise some kind of con­fer­ence, chaired by the Park involving part­ners and loc­al author­it­ies to share all the good work that is going on. The Board Mem­ber sug­ges­ted that per­haps the con­clu­sions from today’s dis­cus­sions could be cir­cu­lated to the Loc­al Author­it­ies. The Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Rur­al Depart­ment con­firmed they were happy to think about this and would make sure the loc­al author­it­ies are involved in the end of year review. c) The Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices acknow­ledged that people will drive to the Cairngorms hope­fully in sus­tain­able trans­port how­ever the whole design and pro­mo­tion of the pro­ject is to slow people down, so that they spend more time in the East side of the Park. d) A Board Mem­ber asked wheth­er there is an oppor­tun­ity to devel­op a bespoke pack­age for busi­nesses and vis­it­or facing people across the Park to ensure con­sist­ent mes­saging across the Park. The Head of Vis­it­or ser­vices men­tioned the Make It Yours face to face train­ing and shar­ing the exper­i­ence with part­ners which was hap­pen­ing pre Cov­id and can con­tin­ue via Zoom calls. How­ever a short video is cur­rently being pulled togeth­er which will give our part­ners more of an insight as to why people come to the Park, what they want to do and share the exper­i­ences of where they want to go. e) A Board Mem­ber wanted to remind Mem­bers that the Park has been sup­port­ing sus­tain­able tour­ism for more than 15 years and this com­mit­ment to sus­tain­ab­il­ity is some­thing the Park has been lead­ing on for a long time. Over the past year the Park has been way ahead in deal­ing with the issues than were going to be faced and this approach has received atten­tion both nation­ally and inter­na­tion­ally. f) A Board Mem­ber com­men­ted, from an equal­it­ies point of view, we need to be aware of the bar­ri­ers that might stop people vis­it­ing the Park. The Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Rur­al Devel­op­ment had atten­ded the last meet­ing of the Equal­it­ies For­um and it was flagged up at that meet­ing that it would be good to have a spe­cif­ic meet­ing about tour­ism issues. There is also an oppor­tun­ity to talk to the busi­ness com­munity about what improve­ments could be made.

6. The Board con­firmed they were happy to:

   a) Note the pro­gress with the pro­gramme of work that has been under­taken by part­ners to date which is deliv­er­ing both the Tour­ism Action Plan and key actions in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Plan Part­ner­ship 2017 – 22 b) Agree the changes in the Tour­ism Action Plan which have been con­sidered by the Cairngorms Tour­ism Partnership.

Major Pro­jects (Paper 5)

1. Grant Moir, Chief Exec­ut­ive intro­duced Paper 5 which is an update to Mem­bers on the major pro­jects in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park where the CNPA is the account­able body or is a major fund­ing partner.

2. The CEO also asked Mem­bers to note the lever­age rates achieved with part­ners which has helps to deliv­er on the Cor­por­ate Plan and NPPP. The CEO explained that the report gives inform­a­tion on 5 of the biggest pro­jects in the Park.

3. The Board con­sidered the detailed in the Paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the following:

   a) A Mem­ber com­men­ted that the amount of money levered into the park is phe­nom­en­al and has enabled us to do some great work. b) A Mem­ber thanked the CEO for the paper, it was very inform­at­ive and just what was needed.

4. Board Mem­bers present were happy to note the paper.

AOCB

1. The CEO informed the Board Mem­bers of the death of Ian Find­lay the Chief Officer of ​“Paths for All”. Form­al con­dol­ences were passed on to friends and fam­ily and all those that work at Paths for All.

2. The CEO informed Board Mem­bers of the death of Joe Port­er a great col­lect­or of Cairngorms mem­or­ab­il­ia. Form­al con­dol­ences were passed on to friends and family.

3. Motion to move to con­fid­en­tial ses­sion for reas­on of com­mer­cially sens­it­ive inform­a­tion to approve minutes of 12^th Feb­ru­ary, 2021

4. Pro­posed by the Con­vener, seconded by the Deputy-Convener.

5. The pub­lic part of this meet­ing con­cluded at 14.15