210611CNPABdPaper2Annex1CPUpdateNarrative

COR­POR­ATE PLAN REPORTING

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY Form­al Board Paper 2 Annex | 11^th June 2021

Con­ser­va­tion and Land Management

Pri­or­ity I – Sup­port land­scape-scale con­ser­va­tion, spe­cific­ally the expan­sion of nat­ive and mont­ane wood­land, peat­land res­tor­a­tion, nat­ur­al flood man­age­ment and Caper­cail­lie management

Key Work Areas	Update
• Deliv­er peat­land res­tor­a­tion and wood­land expan­sion targets	PEAT­LANDS: Fol­low­ing delays due to Cov­id-19, six leg­acy pro­jects car­ried for­ward from 2019 star­ted in the late sum­mer of 2020 with two of these com­plet­ing by March 2021. We were unable to attract any suit­able con­tract­ors for oth­er leg­acy pro­jects or for new pro­jects, and there remains a sig­ni­fic­ant lack of con­tract­ors. Actu­al res­tor­a­tion man­age­ment totalled only a 131 hec­tares in 2020⁄21 against a tar­get of 1170 hec­tares. Since 2018 a total of 2172 hec­tares have been restored. Dis­cus­sions with Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment res­ul­ted in agree­ment for a three year cap­it­al fund­ing pack­age of £8.45m to deliv­er approx­im­ately 3,500 hec­tares of peat­land res­tor­a­tion. An expan­sion of the Peat­land ACTION team in the CNPA is under­way with a new Pro­gramme Man­ager and Pro­ject Officer in post. Recruit­ment for anoth­er Pro­ject Officer and a Peat­land GIS/​Data Officer has star­ted. A pro­gramme of works, cov­er­ing nearly 550 hec­tares is planned this year as well as final­ising the neces­sary admin­is­tra­tion to run­ning our own peat­land pro­gramme. Our peat­land intern fin­ished in April and mapped about 40% of the CNP, so fur­ther work is needed. We also require GIS expert­ise to help with using the imagery and data we will start col­lect­ing with our drone. (Both Emma and Steph­en are now licensed drone oper­at­ors). WOOD­LANDS: From 2017 until the last update giv­en in Decem­ber 2019, 2948 ha of wood­land has been created
• Devel­op and deliv­er Cairngorms Nature Strategy with wider partnership	through the Forestry Grant Scheme (FGS). Since then at least 342 ha of wood­land has been approved by Scot­tish Forestry for plant­ing, includ­ing a 275 ha nat­ive wood­land scheme at Bal­avil. How­ever, fur­ther wood­land expan­sion con­tin­ues to pro­gress in key areas through man­aging deer pop­u­la­tions, with an encour­aging 1451 ha of nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion in the High­land con­servancy approved since the last update. We are also in dis­cus­sion with nine oth­er private estates that are each look­ing to cre­ate at least 100 ha of new wood­land, in some cases much more than this. Two of these are part of the East Cairngorms Moor­land Part­ner­ship. This upsurge of interest in wood­land cre­ation may lead to around 9000ha of new wood­land over the 5 year peri­od of the Park Plan a sig­ni­fic­ant increase on the cur­rent tar­get. Uptake of the Wood­land Chal­lenge Fund in its first year (2019÷20) was low, with two suc­cess­ful applic­a­tions from Glen Ban­chor and Cor­riechul­lie. Since April, how­ever, there has been notice­ably great­er interest, with two applic­a­tions received to date and, fol­low­ing dis­cus­sions with landown­ers and agents, sev­er­al more likely dur­ing the cur­rent fin­an­cial year. The cur­rent Cairngorms Nature Action Plan (2019 – 2024) is approach­ing the half way mark this sum­mer. The Strategy Group con­tin­ues to meet quarterly to mon­it­or and over­see deliv­ery of the three main aims of land­scape-scale con­ser­va­tion, action for pri­or­ity spe­cies and involving people. The cur­rent plan main­tains com­mit­ments to the con­ser­va­tion of rare and endangered spe­cies, wood­land expan­sion, peat­land res­tor­a­tion, nature friendly farm­ing and fresh­wa­ter res­tor­a­tion and high­lights the import­ance involving and enga­ging people, advoc­at­ing the socio-eco­nom­ic bene­fits of nature and the con­tri­bu­tions made to biod­iversity by all types of land man­age­ment in the Park. At the mid-term report stage, deliv­ery of the Action Plan is pro­gress­ing very well over­all. 83% of tar­gets and actions are con­sidered as either com­plete or pro­gress­ing as expec­ted; 11% are delayed or requir­ing addi­tion­al effort, largely due to COV­ID-19 restric­tions dur­ing 2020⁄21; 4 % are con­sidered to be at sig­ni­fic­ant risk of not being delivered; and 2% are unre­por­ted. The three areas of work that are assessed as being at risk of tar­gets not being met or work not pro­gress­ing sat­is­fact­or­ily are: meet­ing the tar­get for peat­land res­tor­a­tion, expand­ing home range occu­pancy and breed­ing suc­cess of rap­tors, and meet­ing the tar­get for caper­cail­lie pop­u­la­tion status. Fund­ing for deliv­ery has been sig­ni­fic­antly boos­ted by the Biod­iversity Chal­lenge Fund. Works totalling over £200,000 have been coordin­ated by CNPA and part­ners e.g. cre­at­ing wader hab­it­at, fresh water peal mus­sels’ trans­lo­ca­tions, pine hov­er­fly breed­ing and aspen plant­ing. Fund­ing con­tin­ues to be avail­able from Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment, to be delivered within
• Deliv­er Caper­cail­lie Framework	one fin­an­cial year on cap­it­al pro­jects, with all landown­er agree­ments in place. As such, CNPA is in a good pos­i­tion to sup­port the devel­op­ment of new pro­jects, assum­ing the risks that fund­ing con­tin­ues in a sim­il­ar vein. The Cairngorms Nature BIG Week­end has again been delivered on line. There were over 1000 attendees to events on the web­site and webinars, 835 unique users on the web­site, 2267 page views in total and 141 fam­il­ies sign­ing up to engage with Cairngorms Nature in the future through the explorers packs and news­let­ter. Tak­ing for­wards the areas of work involving more people in con­ser­va­tion and nature in the Park, the oppor­tun­ity is there to pos­i­tion the BIG Week­end as a flag­ship for a wider pro­gramme of engage­ment. The Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject was awar­ded a fur­ther grant from Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund to deliv­er the find­ings of the devel­op­ment phase, com­pleted in March 2020. Total pro­ject funds are £2.9million, includ­ing fin­an­cial con­tri­bu­tions from CNPA, NatureScot, Forestry and Land Scot­land (FLS), Roy­al Soci­ety for the Pro­tec­tion of Birds (RSPB), Seafield Estates, Devel­op­ing Moun­tain Bik­ing in Scot­land and in-kind con­tri­bu­tions from volun­teers and sup­port­ing part­ners. Forest man­agers involved in the pro­ject draw in sig­ni­fic­ant amounts through the Forest Grant Scheme (FGS) and a pro­ject spe­cif­ic grants pro­gramme to fund smal­ler schemes where FGS cri­ter­ia are not met, involving and sup­port­ing a wider range of land man­agers. Pro­ject funds are alloc­ated to loc­al com­munit­ies via devolved alloc­a­tions of up to £100,000 per com­munity, through com­mis­sion­ing innov­ate genet­ics and social sci­ence research, land man­age­ment con­tracts and dir­ectly employ­ing game­keep­ers, eco­lo­gists and pro­ject staff — all deliv­er­ing caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion across the Nation­al Park from July 2020 until July 2023. Caper­cail­lie hab­it­ats are hybrid spaces where people and nature coex­ist. Involving people to secure wider own­er­ship of solu­tions and treat­ing con­ser­va­tion as a socio-eco­nom­ic issue as well as an eco­lo­gic­al one is now crit­ic­al to pre­vent extinc­tion in Scot­land. The pro­ject com­ple­ments the ongo­ing, eco­lo­gic­ally focussed work being done by agen­cies and organ­isa­tions with a people focussed approach, empower­ing com­munit­ies of place and interest to devel­op and take own­er­ship for their own ideas as to how they can play their part in caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion. The pro­ject will encom­pass five main strands of activ­ity across the Nation­al Park: improve and cre­ate 10,000ha of caper­cail­lie hab­it­at; raise aware­ness and under­stand­ing of the plight of caper­cail­lie and the ways people can get involved;

Pri­or­ity 2 — Ensure deer man­age­ment is focused on deliv­er­ing pub­lic interest pri­or­it­ies spe­cific­ally the expan­sion of nat­ive wood­lands and peat­land restoration

Key Work Areas	Update
• Sup­port pop­u­la­tion mod­el­ling and herb­i­vore impact assessments	Com­pre­hens­ive Hab­it­ats Impacts Assess­ments (HIA) imple­men­ted for Dwarf Shrub Heath hab­it­ats across CNP. Com­pre­hens­ive HIA for Blanket Bog hab­it­ats imple­men­ted across all Deer Man­age­ment groups (DMGs) with­in CNP. Data will also advise pri­or­it­ies for Peat­land Action pro­jects. DMGs. Com­pre­hens­ive update of HIA assess­ment across West Grampi­an DMG (WGDMG) under­taken in 2021. Sup­port­ing pop­u­la­tion mod­el devel­op­ment, based on reg­u­lar counts, across West Grampi­an DMG and South Deeside North Angus DMG (SDNA DMG). Cairngorms Spey­side DMG pop­u­la­tion man­age­ment based on hab­it­at per­form­ance. Upper Deeside and Don­side DMG ini­ti­at­ing annu­al counts to advise ongo­ing pop­u­la­tion mod­el­ling. South Grampi­an DMG (SGDMG) focused on pop­u­la­tion man­age­ment to address issues on Caen­lochan SAC in part­ner­ship with NatureScot. Work­ing with DMGs to ensure cull plans for 2020⁄21 are delivered des­pite chal­lenges asso­ci­ated with severe down­turn in ven­ison mar­ket due to COV­ID 19. Move­ment towards devel­op­ment of Stra­tegic Land Man­age­ment Plan (SLMP) (incl. deer) agreed with WGDMG, with steer­ing group and inde­pend­ent chair­man appoin­ted, work­ing with Strath Caulaidh Ltd. Memor­andum of Under­stand­ing agreed with SGDMG and SDNA DMG in sup­port of devel­op­ment of SLMP as part of CNPA Her­it­age Hori­zons bid. Report on deer num­bers and asso­ci­ated hab­it­at impacts across CNP work­ing with Strath Caulaidh Ltd received, dis­cussed at CNPA Board and published.
• Work closely with Deer Man­age­ment Groups (DMGs) to deliv­er pub­lic interest priorities	Deer Work­ing Group report sub­mit­ted to SG and SG have pub­lished their response includ­ing accept­ance of actions dir­ectly asso­ci­ated with CNP. Work­ing with NatureScot, South Deeside North Angus DMG and South Grampi­an DMG regard­ing cull plan­ning to address Caen­lochan SAC impacts. New DMG plans expec­ted to reflect Cli­mate Change Emer­gency and Biod­iversity Loss

Pri­or­ity 3 — Sup­port sus­tain­able moor­land man­age­ment to deliv­er great­er hab­it­at diversity and good man­age­ment practice

Key Work Areas	Update
• Deliv­er with estates the work pro­gramme of the East Cairngorms Moor­land Part­ner­ship (ECMP)	Work Pro­gramme cov­er­ing 9 indi­vidu­al ECMP pro­ject top­ics con­tin­ues. Wader tran­sect mon­it­or­ing con­tinu­ing for a fourth year in spring 2021. Hab­it­at improve­ments for waders have been or will be imple­men­ted on all ECMP estates dur­ing 2020 and 2021, fun­ded by Biod­iversity Chal­lenge Fund 2, Peesie Pro­ject, or the estates them­selves. Peat­land Res­tor­a­tion pro­jects com­pleted dur­ing Autumn 2020 on Bal­mor­al, Inver­cauld, Mar. Pro­jects planned for 2021 on Mar Lodge with addi­tion­al poten­tial pro­jects iden­ti­fied on Glen­liv­et & Mar. New pro­jects being developed for Glenavon & Del­nadamph. Scrub expan­sion pro­jects for Delndamph and Mar Lodge to be car­ried out in 2021.New nat­ive wood­land pro­pos­als for Bal­mor­al, Inver­cauld and Glenavon are being con­sidered. Col­lab­or­at­ive rap­tor mon­it­or­ing involving estate staff, Rap­tor Study Groups and con­sult­ants con­tinu­ing for third year in 2021, includ­ing early sea­son vant­age obser­va­tion sur­veys. The dis­cov­ery of a poisoned golden eagle on Inver­cauld estate in Spring 2021 has res­ul­ted in that estate leav­ing the ECMP. Dis­cus­sion around inter­pret­a­tion and imple­ment­a­tion of muir­burn maps is on-going in rela­tion to poten­tial licen­cing and defin­i­tion of peat­land. ECMP con­trib­ut­ing to Muir­burn Code work­ing group. Imple­ment­a­tion of moun­tain hare mon­it­or­ing con­tin­ues with res­ults con­trib­uted to GWCT nation­al data­set. * Enga­ging People: ECMP cov­er­age in Bal­later-based inter­pret­a­tion facil­ity due to be com­pleted early sum­mer 2021.
• Estab­lish a Cairngorms Upland Advis­ory Group	Cairngorms Uplands Advis­ory group (CUAG) last met on 4th May 2021. We had help­ful dis­cus­sions on deer man­age­ment, the Rur­al Land Use Part­ner­ship pro­cess, the upcom­ing Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan con­sulta­tion, cur­rent work to assess the poten­tial positive/​negative impacts of beaver should they ever move into the Nation­al Park and finally on the use of mid­dens and ​‘stink pits’.
• Elim­in­ate rap­tor per­se­cu­tion and devel­op wild­life tour­ism pro­ject around raptors	Work with Police Scot­land and NatureScot ongo­ing to try and reduce incid­ents of rap­tor crime in the Park. Plan to put sat tags (which will identi­fy pre­cise point of mor­tal­ity) on 3 eagle chicks sum­mer 2021. Ongo­ing dis­cus­sion re how best to take for­ward broad­er rap­tor work in the Park includ­ing improved mon­it­or­ing, con­ser­va­tion pro­jects and ways to shift the ​‘cul­ture’ around rap­tors in parts of the Park, includ­ing the devel­op­ment of rap­tor tour­ism projects.

Vis­it­or Experience

Pri­or­ity I — Con­tin­ue to ensure vis­it­or infra­struc­ture meets the expect­a­tions of vis­it­ors to the Nation­al Park and help deliv­er a sus­tain­able tour­ism economy

Key Work Areas	Update
• Fin­ish Spey­side Way exten­sion, the Moun­tains and the People Pro­gramme and start Deeside Way extension	Spey­side Way Exten­sion – The Spey­side Way exten­sion has been con­struc­ted and is being well used. The New­ton­more ​‘sculp­ture’ start/​finish loc­a­tion is installed with a form­al open­ing being planned for Sept 2021. Path sig­nage is being installed with fur­ther improve­ments at Tromie and Insh. Grant­own and Kin­craig com­munit­ies are seek­ing fund­ing for improve­ments in their com­munit­ies. Cairngorms Busi­ness Asso­ci­ation and MoraySpey­side have secured fund­ing to pro­mote the route going for­ward. Deeside Way – Brae­mar to Inver­cauld Bridge plan­ning con­sent approved with fund­ing being invest­ig­ated. Moun­tains & People — The 5 year pro­ject was com­pleted in Jan 2021, delayed by Cov­id, but upgrad­ing 51.8 km of moun­tain path in Cairngorms out of a five year tar­get of 53 km. Fur­ther work with Out­door Access Trust for Scot­land (OATS) is ongo­ing to agree how we best sup­port the main­ten­ance of these paths and the volun­teers that the pro­ject trained in path maintenance.
• Deliv­er Tour­ism Action Plan and devel­op and deliv­er with part­ners a Vis­it­or Giv­ing scheme	Tour­ism Action Plan – Cairngorms Tour­ism Part­ner­ship (CTP) has met sev­er­al times to mon­it­or deliv­ery of the Action Plan which under­pins the Park’s status with the European Charter for Sus­tain­able Tour­ism in Pro­tec­ted Areas. CNPA led on a mid-term review of the Action Plan, which was con­sidered by CNPA Board in March 2021. We are in dis­cus­sions with Euro­parc about extend­ing the cur­rent five year arrange­ment until 2022 so that devel­op­ment of the next Action Plan fol­lows on from approv­al of the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan. A Tour­ism Emer­gency Response Group has met reg­u­larly, along with a Man­age­ment for Vis­it­ors Group to plan and man­age for Cov­id related work. Vol­un­tary Giv­ing – CNPA Board agreed the prin­ciples of this work June 2018 & Cairngorms Trust launched the arrange­ments in May 2019. The Trust is now work­ing with a range of busi­nesses across the Park and a Part­ner­ship Group is in place (chaired by Bri­an Woods with Pete Crane rep­res­ent­ing CNPA) to advise on devel­op­ment of the scheme and the pro­jects to be fun­ded. Rur­al Tour­ism Infra­struc­ture Fund (RTIF) — CNPA suc­cess­fully secured fund­ing for two pro­jects on Nation­al Nature Reserves at Glen­more (mul­ti­use tar­mac path) and Muir of Din­net (car park­ing, toi­let upgrade and sewage dis­pos­al) with both pro­jects now com­plete. Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil has secured fund­ing for improve­ments to Glen­shee pub­lic toi­lets (Sum­mer 2021) and CNPA has bid for Stra­tegic Tour­ism Infra­struc­ture Devel­op­ment Plan fund­ing to devel­op detailed,
• Pro­gress with deliv­ery of Cairngorm/​Glenmore Strategy	approved and cos­ted plans for improv­ing vis­it­or infra­struc­ture at key vis­it­or des­tin­a­tions around the Nation­al Park. Expres­sion of Interest are also being invited for CNPA cap­it­al fund­ing as part of the vis­it­or infra­struc­ture improve­ment pro­gramme that fits with the approved vis­it­or man­age­ment plans. High­land Coun­cil and CNPA have fun­ded fur­ther road­side improve­ments from Beach Car Park along Loch Mor­lich with improve­ments sched­uled for sum­mer 2021. The Cairngorm Moun­tain Mas­ter­plan has been launched and repair work on the funicu­lar rail­way is under­way. CairnGorm Moun­tain has been gran­ted plan­ning con­sent for a camper­van site at Coire Ciste and is plan­ning improve­ments to vis­it­or inter­pret­a­tion at the moun­tain. The great­er num­ber of vis­it­ors using of Glen­more and Cairngorm post COVID19 lock­down indic­ates the need for part­ners to review the cur­rent Cairngorm and Glen­more Strategy and agree a clear part­ner­ship action plan going forward.

Pri­or­ity 2 — Increase phys­ic­al activ­ity in both res­id­ents and vis­it­ors and sup­port deliv­ery of Scotland’s Nat­ur­al Health Service

Key Work Areas	Update
• Devel­op and deliv­er Act­ive Cairngorms with Act­ive Aviemore and Health Walks as flag­ship projects	Act­ive Aviemore – High­land Coun­cil, Hitrans, Sus­trans, NHS High­land are devel­op­ing an act­ive travel link to the new Aviemore Hos­pit­al and Trans­port Scot­land are design­ing a Non-Motor­ised User (NMU) link from Aviemore to Car­rbridge. The main multi use infra­struc­ture in Aviemore will form part of the Her­it­age Hori­zons bid. Dul­nain Bridge & Kin­gussie com­munit­ies have secured Sus­trans fund­ing to improve act­ive travel — the former for detailed designs for an NMU link to Grant­own-on-Spey. Lag­gan com­munity has secured funds for stage one design. Act­ive travel is a sig­ni­fic­ant part of the Her­it­age Hori­zons Lot­tery Bid and if suc­cess­ful will sup­port the deliv­ery of act­ive travel in many more com­munit­ies. Sus­trans are sup­port­ing a 3 year act­ive travel post in the Nation­al Park to take for­ward this work. 16 Health Walk groups with­in the Nation­al Park are slowly start­ing to re-open Health Walks as we come out of Lockdown
• Expand and deliv­er volun­teer­ing pro­gramme and spe­cific­ally Volun­teer Rangers	38 Volun­teer Rangers have now been trained and are sup­port­ing the work of part­ners cross CNP as part of our ongo­ing pro­ject sup­por­ted by Cairngorms LEAD­ER. After being ​‘on hold’ due to Cov­id the volun­teers star­ted to return to the role in May 2021.

Pri­or­ity 3 — Cre­ate a ​‘Park for All’ by encour­aging people from all back­grounds to come and recre­ate, learn in or vis­it the Nation­al Park

Key Work Areas	Update
• Con­tin­ue to sup­port and pro­mote the John Muir Award and Juni­or Ranger programme	In 2020 a total of 972 John Muir Awards were com­pleted, con­sid­er­ably down on nor­mal due to Cov­id-19 restric­tions. There are cur­rently in May 2021 2278 people registered as under­tak­ing a John Muir Award. Activ­ity is slowly get­ting back to nor­mal as restric­tions ease. There has been no Juni­or Ranger activ­ity in 2020 or to date in 2021, it is hoped to restart some activ­ity later this year.
• Work with Inclus­ive Cairngorms and part­ners to reduce bar­ri­ers and encour­age participation.	CNPA Equal­ity Advis­ory Pan­el has met 6 times since its incep­tion in Octo­ber 2021 and has received and input to a range of CNPA pro­grammes and is engaged in sup­port­ing the devel­op­ment of Equal­ity Out­comes for the next 3 years. The CNPA has com­mit­ted to the Back­bone Sym­posi­um which aims at improv­ing rep­res­ent­a­tion of BAME groups with­in the sec­tor. Events are planned in June and Septem­ber with a view to devel­op­ing an action plan across the sec­tor. Back­bone are being sup­por­ted to work with some 100 Syr­i­an refugees based in and around Inverness encour­aging them to vis­it and enjoy the Nation­al Park while learn­ing how to repeat and share these exper­i­ences with oth­ers but this work is now on hold with COV­ID 19.

Rur­al Development

Pri­or­ity I — Sup­port deliv­ery of hous­ing for loc­al needs through an effi­cient and effect­ive plan­ning service

Key Work Areas	Update
• Devel­op and imple­ment Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2020	Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 adop­ted by CNPA Board on 26 March 2021.
• Sup­port com­munity-led hous­ing in the Nation­al Park	5 com­munit­ies are act­ively look­ing to devel­op com­munity led hous­ing pro­jects. Dul­nain Bridge – Have secured fund­ing through High­land Coun­cil to assess the feas­ib­il­ity of pro­ject and devel­op asso­ci­ated busi­ness plan as well as fund­ing from the Scot­tish Rur­al Hous­ing Fund and the sup­port of Seafield Estate. Con­sultancy work to be under­taken by High­lands Small Com­munit­ies Hous­ing Trust (HSCHT) Brae­mar ‑Pro­ject to build 15 afford­able houses for rent has pro­gressed sig­ni­fic­antly. Main applic­a­tion to the Rur­al Hous­ing Fund was sub­mit­ted in Feb­ru­ary 2020. Brae­mar Com­munity Lim­ited has also secured loan fund­ing from CAF Ven­ture­some which now enables the pro­ject to go out to tender for the design stage. Land acquis­i­tion is also pro­gress­ing with Heads of Terms for option agreed.
• Con­clude Tomintoul/​Glenlivet Land­scape Part­ner­ship, devel­op new focus area in Badenoch and help deliv­er Great Place Scheme	Bal­later – Work­ing group estab­lished and were plan­ning to update hous­ing needs demands sur­vey while invest­ig­at­ing poten­tial sites and options avail­able. Work has been delayed by COVID19. Boat of Garten – Have iden­ti­fied a site for 2 x 2 bed bun­ga­lows and HSCHT under­taken feas­ib­il­ity study. Plan­ning applic­a­tion for plan­ning per­mis­sion in prin­ciple called in by CNPA in May 2021. Tomin­toul – Fund­ing has been secured by Tomin­toul & Glen­liv­et Devel­op­ment Trust (TGDT) from Scot­tish Land Fund to buy the Old School site. Main applic­a­tion to the Rur­al Hous­ing Fund for con­struc­tion of 12 prop­er­ties has been sub­mit­ted and CNPA Plan­ning Com­mit­tee approved plan­ning applic­a­tion for 12 houses sub­ject to con­di­tions and pay­ment of a developer con­tri­bu­tion for demand-respons­ive trans­port. The Tomin­toul and Glen­liv­et Land­scape Part­ner­ship pro­ject com­pleted in Feb­ru­ary 2021, with the final report sub­mit­ted to the Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund in May 2021. The leg­acy pro­jects are now under­way. Badenoch Great Place Scheme. The Badenoch Great Place Pro­ject was set up with the vis­ion that by the end of the pro­ject, Badenoch would be renowned as a place with­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park with a strong char­ac­ter and iden­tity based on its dis­tinct­ive cul­tur­al her­it­age. It is hoped to encour­age people to come to the area, stay a while and learn more about this less well known part of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. The pro­ject is now enter­ing its final stages and along­side deliv­er­ing a range of events and activ­it­ies to pro­mote and cel­eb­rate the her­it­age of the area, much work has been ongo­ing behind the scenes to devel­op a tour­ism offer­ing that draws on the tan­gible and intan­gible her­it­age of the area and presents it in mod­ern and innov­at­ive ways. This will be show­cased through the Badenoch Story­lands App which is due to go live in mid June 21. It will be an ​“Area Des­tin­a­tion” App, show­cas­ing the her­it­age of the area and bring­ing it alive for vis­it­ors in mod­ern innov­at­ive ways. As well as an inter­act­ive map, the App will have the series of sug­ges­ted walk­ing, cyc­ling and driv­ing routes, aug­men­ted by vir­tu­al real­ity mod­els, storytelling and more gen­er­al vis­it­or inform­a­tion. Much of 2020 was spent devel­op­ing the con­tent that will pop­u­late the App and a pro­ject web­site www​.badenoch​story​lands​.com which launched in 2020. The last few months will see the many strands brought togeth­er through a vari­ety of engage­ment and skills build­ing activ­it­ies and ground­work plan­ning for the future. The Pro­ject will cul­min­ate in Septem­ber with the Badenoch Her­it­age Fest­iv­al 2021 and Con­fer­ence which will show­case the interest, pas­sion and excite­ment that has been gen­er­ated over the

Pri­or­ity 2 — Sup­port com­munit­ies, spe­cific­ally focus­sing on the most fra­gile, to deliv­er their agen­das for change

Key Work Areas	Update
• Sup­port com­munity organ­isa­tions to deliv­er pro­jects that help deliv­er NPPP	Vol­un­tary Action Badenoch & Strath­spey (VABS) — Have con­tin­ued to be at the fore­front of the com­munity response to COV­ID in Badenoch and Strath­spey, sup­por­ted by the CNPA’s Rur­al Devel­op­ment and Com­munit­ies Man­ager. They secured and admin­istered over £100k of COV­ID sup­port fund­ing for area and provided sig­ni­fic­ant sup­port to a myri­ad of com­munity-led groups and organ­isa­tions. They are now refo­cus­ing on their core work of sup­port­ing a huge range of com­munity groups with gov­ernance, fin­ance and pro­ject sup­port whilst also being a key part­ner in the Badenoch Great Places Pro­ject, sit­ting on the Board, Team and employ­ing the Pro­ject Officer. VABS & CNPA now look­ing at how to restart & refresh the pro­gramme of Com­munity Action Plan­ning which has been in abey­ance since COV­ID star­ted. Marr Area Part­ner­ship (MAP) – Has con­tin­ued to provide a vital COV­ID com­munity sup­port net­work on Deeside work­ing closely with Aber­deen­shire coun­cil to meet loc­al needs includ­ing man­aging an Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil sup­port fund for the Marr area com­munit­ies. Aber­deen­shire coun­cil is with­draw­ing its (sub­stan­tial) fund­ing to all its area part­ner­ships over the next 3 years. MAP are con­sid­er­ing its future remit and role in the con­text of this. Tomin­toul and Glen­liv­et Devel­op­ment Trust – The Trust was the lead COV­ID com­munity response focal point in the area, run­ning a com­munity response line, oper­at­ing a com­munity lar­der and sup­port­ing those in need. Hav­ing been forced to close both its income gen­er­at­ing busi­nesses (hostel and Dis­cov­ery Centre) they were suc­cess­ful in obtain­ing sup­port grants that have car­ried them through the lock­down peri­ods. They are now focused on reopen­ing and get­ting both busi­nesses up and run­ning again. Hav­ing secured fund­ing from the Scot­tish Land Fund they took own­er­ship of the Old School site in late 2020, and demol­ished the old build­ings in early 2021. After a suc­cess­ful bid to the Rur­al Hous­ing Fund they have been able to engage a con­tract­or on a design and build and have just secured plan­ning per­mis­sion approv­al for the site. Build work is expec­ted to com­mence on 12 afford­able homes this sum­mer (8 for rent, 4 to sell).
• Suc­cess­fully con­clude LEAD­ER pro­gramme and con­sider future fund­ing for Com­munity Led Loc­al Development	The Cairngorms Trust now has approved 39 pro­jects in the pro­gramme to date, with a total value of now stand­ing at £3.991 mil­lion at 30 April 2021 and LEAD­ER grants totalling £2.452 mil­lion with­in that total. Some £1.276 mil­lion of the pro­ject value sup­ports Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment and Farm Diver­si­fic­a­tion pro­jects. The Trust has now fully com­mit­ted all pro­ject fund­ing alloc­a­tions, with a small num­ber of pro­jects still open and com­ing to a con­clu­sion by the revised dead­line for Pro­gramme clos­ure of Decem­ber 2021. The Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices has played a lead role on behalf of the LEAD­ER Net­work on the future of

Pri­or­ity 3 — Work closely with the busi­ness com­munity and part­ners to sup­port a sus­tain­able Park economy

Key Work Areas	Update
• Review and help deliv­er Eco­nom­ic Strategy for the Park with partners	Com­munity Led Loc­al Devel­op­ment (CLLD), rep­res­ent­ing the net­work through­out 2020⁄21 on Scot­tish Min­is­ters’ Rur­al Eco­nomy Work­ing Group. An options paper on the future of CLLD has now been cir­cu­lated, with £3 mil­lion avail­able nation­ally in the cur­rent year to take for­ward work on determ­in­ing the future shape of CLLD in Scot­land. The CNPA approved Eco­nom­ic Action Plan for the Nation­al Park in Decem­ber 2019 and approved a Green Recov­ery Plan for the Nation­al Park in response to the impacts of COVID19 on the eco­nomy in June 2020. The CNPA ran a Green Recov­ery Fund in 2020 and is in the pro­cess of assess­ing applic­a­tions for its 2021 Green Recov­ery Fund in May 2021. The Grow­biz busi­ness enter­prise sup­port pro­gramme has been delivered suc­cess­fully and had fur­ther fund­ing con­firmed until the end of Octo­ber 2021. The pro­gramme has three strands: 1:1 Busi­ness Sup­port (over 140 busi­nesses sup­por­ted last year in 232 1:1 ses­sions, totalling over 400 hours — 63 of these ses­sions were with new or pre-start-up busi­nesses.), Women’s Enter­prise Net­work and a Busi­ness Ment­or­ing Train­ing Pro­gramme. The Smart Vil­lage pro­ject has also con­cluded: Braemar’s new com­munity portal is now live while Grant­own cre­ated new aer­i­al video­graphy foot­age to enhance their web­site. The Cairngorms Eco­nom­ic Steer­ing Group met in May with spe­cial meet­ing with Centre for Loc­al Eco­nom­ic Strategies and Well­being Eco­nomy Alli­ance to look at Com­munity Wealth Build­ing in anti­cip­a­tion a suc­cess­ful Her­it­age Hori­zons bid out­come in June.
• Ensure impacts of A9 dualling are under­stood and addressed where appro­pri­ate by the Park Authority	The CNPA with­drew an objec­tion to the A9 Dalraddy to Slo­chd sec­tion in March 2020, fol­low­ing a com­mit­ment from Trans­port Scot­land to fund the devel­op­ment of an altern­at­ive non-motor­ised user route to link Aviemore and Car­rbridge. Plan­ning for that pro­ject is being led by Trans­port Scot­land with the sup­port of CNPA and High­land Council.

Cor­por­ate Services

Pri­or­ity I — Imple­ment the Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy and embed the organ­isa­tion­al and cul­tur­al improve­ments to make the CNPA the best small pub­lic body in Scotland

Key Work Areas	Update
• Imple­ment, review and refresh Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy as part of con­tinu­al improve­ment work.	Over the last 12 months, the OD strategy has focussed on sup­port­ing staff through the pan­dem­ic. Going for­ward, an OD pro­gramme Board has now been estab­lished: To coordin­ate final imple­ment­a­tion of cur­rent Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy and the migra­tion of the organ­isa­tion from busi­ness con­tinu­ity oper­a­tions to ​“new nor­mal” oper­a­tions; To coordin­ate the devel­op­ment of revised Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy dur­ing 2022⁄23 on the back of the staff sur­vey in Autumn 2021; To coordin­ate the deliv­ery of the Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy and the work asso­ci­ated with the archi­tec­ture needed for the organ­isa­tion to deliv­er (IT, data man­age­ment etc.) Best Com­pan­ies sur­vey has been con­trac­ted for Octo­ber 2021 in keep­ing with our 2 yearly cycle for this exer­cise, which will feed in to evolving future ODS. CNPA was recog­nised this year as one of the Top 10 Flex­ible Organ­isa­tions in Scotland.
• Sup­port effect­ive staff con­sulta­tion processes	Staff Con­sultat­ive For­um (SCF) con­tin­ues to work effect­ively, with sup­port of 2 board mem­bers and good engage­ment with the trade uni­on. The SCF involved engage­ment with staff around: — the Busi­ness Con­tinu­ity Plan and guid­ance around staff access­ing the office; Lock­down Sur­vey res­ults and future work­ing; the Man­age­ment Restruc­ture and the Vol­un­tary Exit Scheme; 2021⁄22 pay award. Over the course of the COVID19 busi­ness con­tinu­ity arrange­ments, we have also suc­cess­fully deployed a num­ber of staff drop-in ses­sions, sup­port­ing effect­ive two-way com­mu­nic­a­tions with all staff on the evol­u­tion of the Authority’s oper­a­tions and our under­pin­ning policy approaches.

Pri­or­ity 2 — Ensure that the office exten­sion, exist­ing accom­mod­a­tion and ICT facil­it­ies are ​‘fit for pur­pose’ and help to deliv­er the ODS

Key Work Areas	Update
• Com­plete exten­sion project	Exten­sion com­pleted on budget in August 2018, and staff have now settled well in the build­ing. Rent­al for the exten­sion has now com­menced on basis of expec­ted values.
• Imple­ment GIS Strategy	We have agreed and ini­ti­ated a col­lab­or­a­tion with Loch Lomond and the Trossachs GIS Team to drive for­ward the GIS Strategy with­in Cairngorms NPA over the course of 2021⁄22. Cairngorms NPA will sup­port addi­tion­al staff resource in the LLT­NPA team, giv­en the Author­ity access to the full team resources, togeth­er with the exist­ing exper­i­ence and skills of the team, rather than a reli­ance on a single GIS post with­in the organ­isa­tion. This pro­ject will tie in with the GIS focus
• Imple­ment cyber secur­ity frame­work and wider IT development	devel­op­ing in the Cairngorms Peat­land Pro­gramme team, men­tioned pre­vi­ously in this update. Cyber Secur­ity Plus Accred­it­a­tion has now been achieved and fol­low up work is ongo­ing. Fol­low­ing delays over the peri­od of the COV­ID Busi­ness Con­tinu­ity Plan peri­od, we are now in the pro­cess of estab­lish­ing our updated IT and Digit­al Strategy togeth­er with an under­pin­ning action plan. This work ties closely into the future evol­u­tion of the Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy updated above.

Pri­or­ity 3 — Deliv­er ongo­ing ser­vice improve­ment, includ­ing appro­pri­ate shared ser­vice devel­op­ment and oper­a­tion, to the Author­ity, oth­er pub­lic bod­ies and the com­munity and char­it­able organ­isa­tions we support

Key Work Areas	Update
• Deliv­er cor­por­ate sup­port to Scot­tish Land Com­mis­sion (SLC), and char­it­able and com­munity organisations.	The author­ity has agreed to SLC’s request to extent the shared ser­vice arrange­ments provided by Cairngorms NPA for a fur­ther two years. We con­tin­ue to sup­port their pay remit sub­mis­sions and wider organ­isa­tion­al devel­op­ment; staff con­sulta­tion and HR advis­ory require­ments. The Author­ity con­tin­ues to play a role sup­port­ing a wide range of char­it­able and com­munity organ­isa­tions form­ally, through mem­ber­ship of Boards, Com­mit­tees and groups, and inform­ally through pro­vi­sion of advice and grant support.
• Provide accom­mod­a­tion and facil­it­ies sup­port to NPPP deliv­ery partners	While there has been a gen­er­al sus­pen­sion of office and facil­it­ies use over the COV­ID BCP peri­od, the Author­ity has deployed pool cars and oth­er facil­it­ies in sup­port of com­munity responses to the pan­dem­ic. In plan­ning around the reopen­ing of our offices, we are con­scious that many organ­isa­tions are rethink­ing their staff deploy­ment and office needs, as are we. We will be involved in dis­cus­sions with the aim of facil­it­at­ing part­ners and their staff con­tinu­ing to play their pri­or­ity roles in NPPP deliv­ery, mak­ing flex­ible use of the Authority’s facil­it­ies where possible.

Pri­or­ity 4 — Pro­mote and sup­port the highest stand­ards of gov­ernance and man­age­ment, includ­ing equal­it­ies actions, with­in the Author­ity, oth­er pub­lic bod­ies and the com­munity and char­it­able organ­isa­tions we support

Key Work Areas	Update
• Design and imple­ment effect­ive and effi­cient man­age­ment and con­trol systems.	Our intern­al and extern­al audit review pro­cesses con­tin­ue to con­firm the effect­ive­ness and effi­ciency of our man­age­ment and con­trol sys­tems. Fur­ther inform­a­tion on the work of audit over the course of the year can be found in the Audit and Risk Committee’s report to the Board, presen­ted on 28 May 2021. Over­all, we con­tin­ue to receive pos­it­ive feed­back from intern­al audit on our con­trol environment.
• Imple­ment Greening	Green­ing Policy adop­ted dur­ing Cli­mate change week in Octo­ber 2018. Youth Devel­op­ment Strategy adop­ted winter
Strategy and deliv­er Youth Devel­op­ment Strategy	2017, and imple­men­ted on an on-going basis: — IT appren­tice joined in August 2018, and pro­gressed excep­tion­ally well. The IT Appren­tice left at the end of August 2020 to pur­sue a degree course in IT at Aber­deen Uni­ver­sity, and a new 2‑year IT Appren­tice joined the Author­ity on 14th Septem­ber. We have sup­por­ted a Found­a­tion Appren­tice since Septem­ber for a one day/​week for the next year (dur­ing term-time), sup­port­ing our Busi­ness Admin­is­tra­tion Ser­vices. In addi­tion, we have sup­por­ted 2 Intern­ships over the last year (HR Intern and Gael­ic Intern­ships) on a min­im­um of 4‑month con­tract and have just recruited an admin intern through Inclu­sion Scot­land. We have recruited 4 Train­ee Rangers on the gov­ern­ment fun­ded Kick­start Scheme.

Com­mu­nic­a­tions

Pri­or­ity I — Deliv­er the Com­mu­nic­a­tion and Engage­ment Strategy and increase aware­ness, engage­ment and involve­ment with the Park

Key Work Areas	Update
• Digit­al Com­mu­nic­a­tions & Social Media	A Digit­al Com­mu­nic­a­tions strategy is being imple­men­ted to sup­port the Com­mu­nic­a­tions & Engage­ment Strategy, with spe­cif­ic tar­gets to increase aware­ness through digit­al com­mu­nic­a­tions by achiev­ing 400,000 web­site ses­sions and 50,000 social media fol­low­ers by 2022. At the end of 2020 we reached 328,579 web­site ses­sions, a 7% increase from 2019 and an 11% increase in over­all users (this des­pite the ongo­ing impact of Cov­id-19 on vis­it­a­tion to the Park area). Dur­ing 2020 our social media chan­nels reached 48,159 fol­low­ers, a 19% increase on the pre­vi­ous year with a com­bined reach of nearly 7.5 mil­lion, a 15% increase over 2019. More encour­aging still, user engage­ment (i.e. those that liked, shared or viewed con­tent) across all plat­forms rose by 98% to over 700,000.
• Cam­paigns: Cairngorms Nature, Act­ive Cairngorms & ​‘Make it Yours’	Cairngorms Nature: As in 2020, the Cairngorms Nature BIG Week­end has remained a largely online-only event in 2021, tak­ing place from 14 – 16 May 2021. How­ever, in addi­tion to the range of webinars, films, blogs and drop-in ses­sions, this year we are giv­ing away up to 200 Cairngorms Nature Explorer activ­ity packs. Crammed full of nature watch­ing ideas to do in your loc­al area, the pack also includes recycled pen­cils, note­pad, and a bug box to get nature dis­cov­er­ies under way. The Cairngorms Nature Art Com­pet­i­tion is also back by pop­u­lar demand, open to all primary aged chil­dren. We are also ven­tur­ing into the world of live webinars, with events hos­ted by SE LINK and Sav­ing Wild­cats. The event will reach people who may be unable to phys­ic­ally join in with the BIG Week­end, giv­ing them the oppor­tun­ity to immerse them­selves in our fant­ast­ic wild­life here in the Cairngorms. It will be inter­est­ing to see what take-up is like for events this year, with a cer­tain amount of ​‘digit­al fatigue’ – coupled with the eas­ing of lock­down restric­tions – potentially
Act­ive Cairngorms:	impact­ing on num­bers, but we remain hope­ful of a pos­it­ive out­come. All events will be avail­able at www​.cairngorm​snature​big​week​end​.com fol­low­ing the First Minister’s announce­ment of a phased approach to eas­ing lock­down restric­tions, we have been work­ing with part­ners at a loc­al and nation­al level to coordin­ate our approach to vis­it­or comms. We fed into two nation­al cam­paigns – led by Vis­itScot­land and NatureScot – that set the over­all frame­work for the East­er and sum­mer sea­son; have chaired a spe­cif­ic group on comms for motorhomes and camper­vans; and have fed into oth­er groups on wild­fires, lit­ter­ing and SOAC. Our plans have been guided by a com­bin­a­tion of the Scot­land-wide frame­work, les­sons learnt from last year includ­ing the #Cairngorm­s­To­geth­er frame­work, and feed­back from key stake­hold­ers. We are work­ing closely with col­leagues in CBP, Vis­it­Ab­er­deen­shire, FLS etc to devel­op a suite of resources that can be used by all part­ners to ensure con­sist­ency of mes­saging, includ­ing digit­ised com­munity path guides, traffic light sys­tem for attrac­tions / busi­nesses that are open, simple SOAC mes­saging, and guides to some of the less busy parts of the Park that still have capa­city to wel­come lar­ger num­bers of vis­it­ors. Due to Cov­id-19, ranger-led events and our health walks were can­celled, and the Wee Walks Week planned for Septem­ber 2020 was post­poned until Septem­ber 2021. Dur­ing lock­down CNPA pro­moted Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment health mes­sages and act­ively encour­age people to take their daily exer­cise. As restric­tions have begun to lift, the focus has shif­ted to pro­mot­ing respons­ible access through our media rela­tions, social media and the pro­duc­tion of edu­ca­tion­al resources includ­ing infograph­ics. We have also pro­moted our 17 com­munity path leaf­lets to encour­age res­id­ents to use the resources on their door­step and encour­age vis­it­ors to sup­port loc­al busi­nesses in the com­munit­ies. Our Inform­a­tion and advice on COVID19 page has been com­pletely updated to include up to date inform­a­tion on car parks, toi­lets and camp­ing services.
‘Make it Yours’ (MIY):	In the absence