CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper 4 11^th June 2021

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

FOR INFORM­A­TION

Title: CAIRNGORMS GREEN RECOV­ERY PLAN UPDATE

Pre­pared by: MUR­RAY FER­GUSON, DIR­ECT­OR OF PLAN­NING AND PLACE

Pur­pose

1. The CNPA Board approved the Green Recov­ery Plan in June 2020. This paper has been pro­duced to update the Board on the cur­rent pos­i­tion and plans ahead.

2. The recov­ery from Cov­id will con­tin­ue to be chal­len­ging. This paper illus­trates the breadth of activ­ity the CNPA has been deliv­er­ing since the last update, provided to Board in Decem­ber 2020.

Recom­mend­a­tion

That the Board:

a) Note the pro­gress being made on deliv­ery of the Green Recov­ery Plan.

Cairngorms Recov­ery Plan

The Plan con­tains a num­ber of spe­cif­ic sec­tions. Each sec­tion has been updated with rel­ev­ant inform­a­tion on the work that has been under­taken since the last update, provided to Board in Decem­ber 2020.

Action

Update

Cairngorms Recov­ery Fund to be developed

Cairngorms Recov­ery Fund was launched on 20 August 2020. The Fund com­prised £100k from CNPA and 30k from The Cairngorms Trust. The Board agreed four Guid­ing Prin­ciples for the Fund — Green solu­tions, Well­being and Eco­nom­ic growth, Employ­ment and the Long-term aims of Cairngorms Nation­al Park. The Fund was widely pro­moted and 27 applic­a­tions were received for a total level of sup­port of £263k. The applic­a­tions were assessed against a set of eval­u­ation cri­ter­ia and decisions to fund 13 pro­jects were made by a Pan­el involving extern­al part­ners includ­ing busi­ness and com­munity groups.

Full list of pro­jects that have been awar­ded funding:

• Aboyne & Upper Deeside Rotary Club: Lit­ter Pick­ing Upper Deeside
• Dal­whin­nie Com­munity Coun­cil: Ben Alder Road Carpark
• Blair Atholl & Area Tour­ism Asso­ci­ation: Blair Atholl Com­munity and Busi­ness Devel­op­ment project
• Dee Dis­trict Sal­mon Fish­ery Board: Glen Muick Wood­land Connectivity
• Spey Catch­ment Ini­ti­at­ive: River Tru­im Ripari­an Planting
• Caber­feidh Hori­zons: Build­ing on Our Strengths
• Boat of Garten Com­munity Hall: COV­ID 19 recov­ery & Green Events
• Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship: Build­ing a sus­tain­able wel­come for camper vans
• Glen­shee & Strath­ardle Tour­ist Asso­ci­ation: Glen­shee Vis­it­or Centre
• Castle Roy Trust SCIO: Castle Roy’s Cov­id Crisis

• Grow­biz Scot­land: Sup­port­ing Cre­at­ive Enter­prise in the Cairngorms

• RSPB: Rare Inver­teb­rates in the Cairngorms

• Brae­mar Com­munity Ltd: Tom­richton Com­munity Wood

For ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁ the Green Recov­ery Fund was re-launched using the same Prin­ciples with a budget of £300k, com­pris­ing 250k for CNPA and 50k from Cairngorms Trust. 37 applic­a­tions were received, request­ing a total of £533,000 from the Fund. (i.e. Fund was over­sub­scribed 1.8 times). There was good geo­graph­ic spread of applic­a­tions with interest from many com­munity bod­ies, busi­ness asso­ci­ations and indi­vidu­al busi­nesses. Sev­er­al small applic­a­tions to encour­age com­munity groups to buy lit­ter-pick­ing equip­ment have already been approved, totalling less than £3k. The Pan­el mak­ing final decisions on the Fund (which is chaired by CNPA Board mem­ber Wil­lie Mun­ro) is meet­ing on 2 June. An update on the suc­cess­ful applic­a­tions will be provided at the Board meeting.

Busi­ness

Seni­or Respons­ible Officer – Mur­ray Ferguson

Action	Update
Sup­port the Cairngorms Tour­ism Emer­gency Response Group	The Group has met at least monthly through­out the Winter /​Spring as a sub-group of the Cairngorms Tour­ism Part­ner­ship, chaired by CNPA Board mem­ber Janet Hunter. There has been good rep­res­ent­a­tion by part­ners from key private and pub­lic sec­tor bod­ies with­in and around the Park. Key top­ics dis­cussed included deploy­ment of busi­ness sup­port; research on busi­ness con­fid­ence and vis­it­or aspir­a­tions; the #Cairngorm­s­To­geth­er cam­paign; integ­ra­tion of tour­ism, com­munity and man­age­ment for vis­it­ors, input to nation­al tour­ism dis­cus­sions, etc. The Board con­sidered a form­al paper on deliv­ery of the Tour­ism Action Plan in March 2021.
Attend Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment Rur­al Eco­nomy Stake­hold­er Group	Attend­ance ongo­ing through­out COV­ID response peri­od. Pro­gress has been pos­it­ive in secur­ing pos­it­ive policy out­look toward some form of Com­munity-led Loc­al Devel­op­ment (CLLD) replace­ment to the EU fun­ded LEAD­ER Pro­gramme. Dis­cus­sions con­tin­ue about the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment and UK Government’s policy approach to the ​“Shared Prosper­ity Fund” which is inten­ded to replace EU fund­ing fol­low­ing EU Exit
CNPA to sup­port Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship through grant funding.	CBP, along with oth­er des­tin­a­tion organ­isa­tions (e.g. Vis­it­Ab­er­deen­shire and MoraySpey­side, etc.) have done exem­plary work over a very chal­len­ging peri­od. CNPA provided addi­tion­al sup­port to CBP to encour­age sus­tained mem­ber­ship and to focus on busi­ness sur­viv­al, recov­ery and mar­ket­ing. In addi­tion, CBP suc­cess­fully bid for Green Recov­ery Fund to work on motor-home inform­a­tion. In Janu­ary 2021 CNPA sup­por­ted CBPs bid to HIE for three year des­tin­a­tion devel­op­ment fund­ing and this has now been approved. Two jobs are being advert­ised at present and CBP are present­ing plans to the Cairngorms Tour­ism Part­ner­ship meet­ing in June.
Vis­it­or & res­id­ent mar­ket­ing to be developed at appro­pri­ate time as lock­down meas­ures ease	Mar­ket­ing sup­port and com­mu­nic­a­tions has been developed with CBP and coordin­ated through CTERG (see above) using the #Cairngorm­s­To­geth­er campaign.
Devel­op Grow­biz ​‘Smart Vil­lages’ to enhance digit­al con­nectiv­ity and busi­ness resi­li­ence post Covid.	The devel­op­ment of three Smart Vil­lages was sup­por­ted through Grow­biz in Bal­later, Brae­mar, Grant­own and sim­il­ar work was under­taken at Park-wide scale focus­sing on the cre­at­ive sec­tor. The work was integ­rated with the Grow­biz work-streams on enter­prise sup­port and ment­or­ing and has been dis­cussed at Eco­nom­ic Steer­ing Group and Digit­al Steer­ing Group.
Deliv­er a com­pre­hens­ive plan­ning ser­vice to enable recovery	The Plan­ning Ser­vice has con­tin­ued through­out the peri­od with revised pro­ced­ures in place for hold­ing meet­ings online, (includ­ing par­ti­cip­a­tion by object­ors and com­munit­ies) and to cov­er for the chal­lenges in con­duct­ing site vis­its. Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan was approved in March and is being rolled out with meet­ings and train­ing ses­sions for com­munit­ies. Sig­ni­fic­ant case­work has been pro­gressed includ­ing at Cairngorm Moun­tain (motor homes) and Tomin­toul (afford­able hous­ing) The Developers For­um took place in April to fol­low on from Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan approval.
Seek resources to research, invest­ig­ate and plan for how we build resi­li­ence, sus­tain­ab­il­ity and diver­si­fic­a­tion into Cairngorms eco­nomy and com­munit­ies as part of the next iter­a­tion of the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan	Taken for­wards through dis­cus­sions about Her­it­age Hori­zons pro­ject and pre­par­a­tions for next Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan. Sev­er­al Green Recov­ery Fund pro­jects have pro­moted new invest­ment in the Park – for example, Skills Devel­op­ment Scot­land are provid­ing addi­tion­al sup­port to Grow­biz to under­take skills deploy­ment work­shops with­in the Cairngorms NP.

Com­munit­ies

Seni­or Respons­ible Officer – Mur­ray Ferguson

Action	Update
CNPA to sup­port Vol­un­tary Action Badenoch and Strath­spey (VABS), Marr Area Part­ner­ship (MAP) & Tomin­toul and Glen­liv­et Devel­op­ment Trust through Grant in Aid funding	Enhanced dir­ect sup­port has been provided. Reg­u­lar meet­ings took place with net­work of Com­munity Liais­on Officers over autumn and winter. Assist­ance was provided in secur­ing and deploy­ing addi­tion­al funds though loc­al-author­ity led schemes. VABS and MAP staff are dir­ectly involved in mak­ing decisions about deploy­ment of Green Recov­ery Fund.
Devel­op a new approach to com­munity engage­ment (e.g. citizen’s assembly) at Nation­al Park level to build on the work under­taken through Cov­id response.	This work is a sig­ni­fic­ant part of the Her­it­age Hori­zons bid and out­come will be known by late June. New approaches to com­munity engage­ment are being con­sidered for con­sulta­tion on the NP Part­ner­ship Plan.
Cairngorms Dark Skies Obser­vat­ory Project	Crown Estate Scot­land decided not to take for­ward the applic­a­tion for fund­ing with NatureScot. Tomin­toul and Glen­liv­et Devel­op­ment Trust and Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship are pro­mot­ing the Dark Skies Park. There are rel­ev­ant Green Recov­ery Fund pro­jects pro­pos­als await­ing assess­ment (see above).
Request fund­ing from Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment for LEAD­ER net­work to sup­port com­munity and busi­ness devel­op­ment. Poten­tial to update LDS as part of pre­par­ing for next NPPP	Attend­ance ongo­ing through­out COV­ID response peri­od. Pro­gress has been pos­it­ive in secur­ing pos­it­ive policy out­look toward some form of Com­munity Led Loc­al Devel­op­ment (CLLD) replace­ment to the EU fun­ded LEAD­ER Pro­gramme, with Options Paper now in cir­cu­la­tion for com­ment, sup­por­ted by £3 mil­lion to con­sider and tri­al future CLLD approaches. Remain­ing and con­sid­er­able depend­en­cies on the over­all Scot­tish budget pos­i­tion and UK Government’s policy devel­op­ment around the ​“Shared Prosper­ity Fund” which is inten­ded to replace EU fund­ing fol­low­ing EU Exit

Land Man­age­ment, Cli­mate Change and Conservation

Seni­or Respons­ible Officer – Pete Mayhew

Action	Update
Sup­port wood­land expan­sion & peat­land res­tor­a­tion work in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park	Wood­land work is on tar­get with 1000ha of wood­land expan­sion being delivered each year Uptake of the Wood­land Chal­lenge Fund in its second year (2020÷21) was sig­ni­fic­antly great­er than in the first year, when there were just two suc­cess­ful applic­a­tions. In Year 2 there were sev­en suc­cess­ful applic­a­tions for pro­jects that var­ied in scale from 1.4 ha to 135 ha. A 3 year peat­land pro­gramme for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park has been agreed with Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment to increase capa­city and ensure over 1000ha per annum is delivered. The Pro­gramme Man­ager is tying up all admin­is­tra­tion for the leg­acy pro­jects that we are tak­ing over the fund­ing from NatureScot. New staff are cur­rently being recruited to CNPA. CNPA has coordin­ated meet­ings on the need for con­sid­er­able fur­ther work on skills devel­op­ment with HIE, NatureScot and Skills Devel­op­ment Scotland.
Biod­iversity Chal­lenge Fund delivery.	Deliv­ery under­way and on track. Works include sup­port for the Rare Inver­teb­rates Cairngorms pro­ject, wader hab­it­at improve­ment in the East­ern Cairngorms Moor­land Pro­gramme, fresh water pearl mus­sel rein­force­ment, aspen plant­ing and pine hov­er­fly translocation.
Catch­ment Man­age­ment & river res­tor­a­tion delivery	Ripari­an plant­ing under­way on the rivers Tru­im and Muick. Plans being developed with land man­agers and com­munity bod­ies for re-nat­ur­al­isa­tion of the Slug­gan burn, sur­face water man­age­ment in Kin­gussie (Gyn­ack burn and con­flu­ence of the Calder/​Spey), Milton burn, exten­sion of the Alt Lorgy re-nat­ur­al­isa­tion, remov­al of embank­ments on the Dee flood­plain at Mar Lodge and plans for link­ing upstream man­age­ment in the S.Esk catch­ment with the down­stream com­munit­ies of Brechin and Kirriemuir.
Stage 2 of Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject sub­mit­ted to NLHF	Applic­a­tion was sub­mit­ted suc­cess­fully for deliv­ery phase and pro­ject is now under­way to 1. Improve and cre­ate more hab­it­at for caper­cail­lie. 2. Help com­munit­ies to cre­ate and deliv­er their own com­munity-led actions for caper­cail­lie. 3. Raise aware­ness of the plight of caper­cail­lie and how people can help. 4. Research the genet­ic diversity of caper­cail­lie in the Nation­al Park to help inform action. 5. Strengthen cur­rent caper­cail­lie mon­it­or­ing to enable more informed decisions.
Devel­op­ing Her­it­age Hori­zons bid to NLHF	Bid was sub­mit­ted and await­ing out­come in late June 2021.
Request fund­ing from Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment for LEAD­ER net­work to sup­port com­munity and busi­ness devel­op­ment. Poten­tial to update LDS as part of pre­par­ing for next NPPP	Attend­ance ongo­ing through­out COV­ID response peri­od. Pro­gress has been pos­it­ive in secur­ing pos­it­ive policy out­look toward some form of Com­munity Led Loc­al Devel­op­ment (CLLD) replace­ment to the EU fun­ded LEAD­ER Pro­gramme, with Options Paper now in cir­cu­la­tion for com­ment, sup­por­ted by £3 mil­lion to con­sider and tri­al future CLLD approaches. Remain­ing and con­sid­er­able depend­en­cies on the over­all Scot­tish budget pos­i­tion and UK Government’s policy devel­op­ment around the ​“Shared Prosper­ity Fund” which is inten­ded to replace EU fund­ing fol­low­ing EU Exit
Cap­it­al­ise on the increase in phys­ic­al activ­ity, engage­ment with nature, increase in loc­al food net­works & volun­teer­ing that has been seen in lock­down to encour­age long-term beha­viour change that bene­fits cli­mate change, biod­iversity, loc­al economy	This work is sig­ni­fic­ant part of the Her­it­age Hori­zons bid and out­come will be known in late June. Cairngorms Nature Big week­end pro­moted these messages.
Rur­al Trans­port in Cairngorms and Kilkenny (TICK)	The ​‘Act­ive Cairngorms E‑bike’ pro­ject (ACE) is now run­ning with 18 e‑bike loans with loc­al res­id­ents to mid-May. Pro­cure­ment of elec­tric minibus for B&S Com­munity Trans­port Com­pany is now under­way with a vehicle expec­ted to be on the roads this sum­mer. The Cairngorms Trust are work­ing with HITRANS to install an inform­a­tion hub in Aviemore which will provide real-time pub­lic trans­port inform­a­tion as well as Act­ive Travel options for res­id­ents and vis­it­ors. Kilkenny LEAD­ER Part­ner­ship have invited Cairngorms Trust rep­res­ent­at­ives to the Septem­ber ​“Integ­rated Rur­al & Urb­an Trans­port Evol­u­tion” Con­fer­ence (iROUTE 2) to present on this pro­ject. The TICK pro­ject will run to end of Novem­ber 2021 with the vari­ous strands of the pro­ject being either com­pleted or feed­ing dir­ectly into future work from that point forwards.
Spaces for People	Spe­cif­ic pro­ject not taken for­wards at this time. This work is sig­ni­fic­ant part of the Her­it­age Hori­zons bid and out­come will be known in late June.

Vis­it­or Management

Seni­or Respons­ible Officer – Pete May­hew (to April 2021) and Mur­ray Fer­guson (post April 2021)

Action	Update
Devel­op an eas­ing of lock­down vis­it­or man­age­ment plan for the Cairngorms	Vis­it­or Man­age­ment Plans were developed with assist­ance for the Man­aging for Vis­it­ors Group which has met reg­u­larly through­out the peri­od — there are spe­cif­ic plans for West­ern Cairngorms, Deeside and Angus Glens https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​w​o​r​k​i​n​g​-​t​o​g​e​t​h​e​r​/​t​o​u​r​i​s​m​-​b​u​s​i​n​e​s​s​/​m​a​n​a​g​i​n​g​-​f​o​r​-​v​i​s​i​tors/
Devel­op eas­ing of lock­down com­mu­nic­a­tions strategy as part of wider vis­it­or man­age­ment plan	Com­mu­nic­a­tions strategy was put in place and sig­ni­fic­ant activ­ity has been delivered through­out the peri­od. CNPA con­tin­ues to pro­mote respons­ible oppor­tun­it­ies to safely enjoy the Nation­al Park shap­ing the emphas­is on cur­rent Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment guid­ance and using the over­all ​‘strap line’, developed with Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship, of #Cairngorms Togeth­er. CNPA has par­ti­cip­ated in the nation­al Vis­it­or Man­age­ment ini­ti­at­ive coordin­ated by VisitScotland.
Sup­port vis­it­or man­age­ment through the devel­op­ment of CNPA sea­son­al ranger ser­vice & exist­ing ranger ser­vices through grant support	Recruit­ment of CNPA rangers is now com­plete — five ‑time rangers in post (includ­ing one FTE post des­ig­nated to sup­port the Caper­caille Pro­ject), and nine sea­son­al rangers. Four young people have also joined the team as part of the nation­al Kick­start pro­gramme where they will learn and exper­i­ence ​‘first hand’ the skills required to be a coun­tryside ranger. Through­out the sum­mer the team provide sev­en day cov­er­age includ­ing week­ends and week­end even­ings. Between April and mid-May they have been on 328 patrols and spoken with 2,362 vis­it­ors, with the vast major­ity keen to learn more about the area and what they can do respons­ibly. Sadly dur­ing this peri­od they have also col­lec­ted 219 bin bags of lit­ter. Nature Scot­land, RSPB, Forestry & Land Scot­land, NTS and Bal­mor­al Estate have all increased their sum­mer sea­son­al staff. The grow­ing ​“fam­ily” of Cairngorms Rangers com­mu­nic­ate via mobile phone mes­sage groups to share exper­i­ence and any requirements.

Cap­it­al Investment

Seni­or Respons­ible Officer – Dav­id Cameron

Title	Update
Shovel Ready (can hap­pen in f/​y 2020⁄21)
Glen­more NMU path exten­sion to enhance RTIF funding.	Path now com­plete and pro­ject learn­ing review due to take place shortly
Deeside Way Exten­sion – Brae­mar to Inver­cauld Bridge	Fund­ing has not been secured to build this sec­tion of new path to date. There is some poten­tial to take for­wards under Tour­ism Recov­ery Pro­gramme (Path­way to net Zero) and costs have been sub­mit­ted to Scot­tish Enter­prise for evaluation.
East­ern Cairngorms Moor­land Pro­ject wil­low and juni­per exclosures	Fen­cing of Del­nadamph juni­per exclos­ure is under­way at the moment. Mar Lodge exclos­ures will be car­ried out later this year with peat­land res­tor­a­tion project.
Com­munity Con­ser­va­tion Grant Scheme	Rel­ev­ant pro­jects were fun­ded through Green Recov­ery Fund
Medi­um Term (can poten­tially hap­pen in 2021⁄22)
Cairngorms Nature Big Weekend	For second year the pro­gramme was vir­tu­al on the Cairngorms Nature BIG Week­end and was a great suc­cess. Roy­al Zoolo­gic­al Soci­ety for Scot­land hos­ted webin­ar on Wild­cats and the Sav­ing Wild­cats pro­ject, talk­ing about the cap­tive breed­ing work being car­ried out at the High­land Wild­life Park. Scot­tish Envir­on­ment Link hos­ted webin­ar on ​“We need Nature, Nature Needs Us”, atten­ded by over 100 people. All of this year’s con­tent is still on the events web­site www​.cairngorm​snature​big​week​end​.com
Spey­side Way – Boat to Aviemore resur­fa­cing & traffic lights on Kin­gussie Bridge	Grant offer issued for Spey­side Way main­ten­ance by Out­door Access Trust Scot­land. Road improve­ments and traffic lights under con­sid­er­a­tion for Cap­it­al spend in 2021
Dul­nain to Grant­own NMU	Plans in devel­op­ment with landown­ers and com­munity bodies
Strath­spey Ripari­an Plant­ing – river Truim	Plans in devel­op­ment with landown­ers and com­munity bodies
Strath­spey River Restoration	Integ­rated into Her­it­age Hori­zons pro­ject, out­come expec­ted late June
Nethy/​Spey Con­flu­ence Project	No pro­gress to report
Aviemore Street Fur­niture and Inter­pret­a­tion project	See TICK pro­ject above
Motorhome dis­charge facil­it­ies at pub­lic toilets	Under con­sid­er­a­tion for cap­it­al spend programme
Badenoch vis­it­or inform­a­tion enhancement	Under con­sid­er­a­tion for cap­it­al spend programme
Longer Term (2022÷23 onwards)
Rails to Grantown	No pro­gress to report
Cairngorm Moun­tain masterplan	Mas­ter­plan for Cairngorm Estate (man­aged by HIE) expec­ted to be launched in June 2021.
High­land Folk Park enhancements	No pro­gress to report

Con­clu­sion

1. There has been a sig­ni­fic­ant amount of work under­taken to deliv­er the Green Recov­ery Plan. Many of the prin­ciples of the Green Recov­ery Plan will also be incor­por­ated into the work as we look to devel­op for the next Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2022 – 2027.

2. CNPA will con­tin­ue to mon­it­or the work that we are under­tak­ing under the Green Recov­ery Plan and will provide an update on deliv­ery incor­por­ated with future reports on the Cor­por­ate Plan.

Mur­ray Fer­guson murrayferguson@​cairngorms.​co.​uk I June 2021