CAIRNGORMS LOC­AL OUT­DOOR ACCESS FORUM

Wed­nes­day 23^rd June 2021 from 6.30pm – 8.00pm CNPA Lifes­ize meet­ing room

MEET­ING NOTES

Attend­ance

Who	Rep­res­ent­ing
Dav­id Clyne	CNPA
Pete Crane	CNPA
Mur­ray Ferguson	CNPA
Andy Ford	CNPA
John Gri­er­son	LOAF — Chair
Tre­vor Thorley	LOAF
Eilidh M Scobbie	LOAF
Neil Wilson	LOAF
Chris­toph­er Cassels	LOAF
Pete Wright	LOAF
Alisa Vil­le­g­as	LOAF
Anne- Mar­ie Nutall	LOAF
Guests
UWE Stone­man	RSPB
Gav­in Clarke	NatureScot
Johnath­an Kitching	Scot­tish Canoe Association
Apo­lo­gies
Paul Hib­bard	FLS

Item	Actions
Wel­come Chair JG wel­comed every­one to the meeting.
CNPA restruc­ture — Plan­ning and Place Mur­ray Fer­guson- Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place MF high­lighted to mem­bers that the CNPA recently went through a Restruc­tur­ing exer­cise mean­ing the Vis­it­or Ser­vices has moved from Con­ser­va­tion and Land Man­age­ment to Plan­ning to cre­ate a new Plan­ning and Place Team.
He high­lighted that the pan­dem­ic had presen­ted a num­ber of chal­lenges for the CNPA and this has meant more work in key areas such as Man­aging of Vis­it­ors and Plan­ning. This work included the devel­op­ment of area Vis­it­or Man­age­ment Plans and the ongo­ing devel­op­ment of area vis­it­or infra­struc­ture plans. US high­lighted that this work has been well received by part­ners and is work­ing well.
Man­aging of Vis­it­ors Pete Crane- Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices PC updated all on the part­ner­ship work to date and focused on four key areas: • Plan­ning and engage­ment • Mes­saging and com­munit­ies • People on the ground – includ­ing 5 FTE rangers, 9 sea­son­al staff and 4 kick start train­ees • Infra­struc­ture Improve­ments. LOAF mem­bers high­lighted they would like to see the man­aging for vis­it­or impacts data. CC repor­ted that the new Crown Estate Scot­land ranger would be start­ing in July.	API-AQSS to send mem­bers ranger reports.
Water­borne Access Adam Streeter Smith- Out­door Access Officer AQSS intro­duced this item high­light­ing that land man­agers in the Cairngorms have repor­ted an increase in the num­ber of people enjoy­ing the Parks lochs and rivers on paddle boards, inflat­able canoes and boats and in the water as ​“wild swim­mers”. This forms part of a wel­come nation­al trend, which encour­ages people to enjoy the out­doors and become more phys­ic­al activ­ity. Both out­comes of the Act­ive Cairngorms Strategy. How­ever fol­low­ing lock­down land man­agers are report­ing anec­dot­al evid­ence that increased levels of these activ­it­ies may be hav­ing an impact on sens­it­ive spe­cies such as Golden Eye and Osprey. Giv­en reports of this increased usage we think now is the time to con­sider if Park wide guid­ance should be developed to ensure people and nature can thrive togeth­er. In the dis­cus­sion that fol­lowed mem­bers were keen to highlight:
• The value of ​“blue health” (as in access to and on water) – it is vital that vis­it­ors and res­id­ents don’t lose con­nec­tions to blue spaces that help with well­being and that restric­tions, espe­cially for nearby res­id­ents, can cre­ate a lot of ill feel­ing. • Mem­bers ques­tion wheth­er this issue was more to do with pro­viders rather than indi­vidu­als: US high­lighted that in rela­tion to the increase in paddle board­ing on Loch Garten loc­al com­munit­ies voiced con­cerns about the per­ceived impact on the peace ad quiet of the loch. LOAF mem­bers sug­ges­ted the fol­low­ing key mes­sages to con­sider: • Take respons­ib­il­ity for your own actions. • Plan ahead; identi­fy altern­at­ive loc­a­tions for you activity/​parking/​camping/​etc in case of crowds. • Stay safe; fol­low the safety guid­ance from your sport gov­ern­ing body. • Assess the risks at the loc­a­tion of your activ­ity. • Respect the interests of oth­ers. • Respect wild­life and care for the envir­on­ment. Stop the spread of invas­ive plants and anim­als; whenev­er you leave the water, remem­ber to check, clean, dry. Check boats, equip­ment and cloth­ing after leav­ing the water for mud, aquat­ic anim­als, or plant mater­i­al. • Clean everything thor­oughly as soon as you can, pay­ing atten­tion to the inside of your boat and areas that are damp and hard to access. Use hot water if pos­sible. Dry drain water from every part of your boat and dry with a sponge or tow­el before leav­ing the site. Dry everything thor­oughly for as long as pos­sible before using else­where as some invas­ive plants and anim­als can sur­vive for two weeks in damp con­di­tions. • Tread lightly in the park; fol­low the gen­er­al guid­ance for park visitors.
Changes to Loc­al Access Guid­ance at Loch Kinord (Muir of Din­net Nation­al Nature Reserve) in Response to Increased Water Recre­ation Gav­in Clarke — Oper­a­tions Man­ager – NatureScot, Tay­side & Grampi­an GC intro­duced this paper high­light­ing that on Loch Kinord • There has been loc­al access guid­ance in place since 2009: • That as reserve man­agers they have seen an explo­sion in the num­ber of paddle boarders and oth­er water users
• In April they under­took a mini con­sulta­tion with key stake­hold­ers on options for man­age­ment: • From May the loc­al advice was to avoid areas of the loch how­ever they felt that this wasn’t work­ing; • Advice from spe­cial­ists high­lighted that 4 or more people on the loch could dis­turb the birds present: • They acknow­ledge that most users were attempt­ing to be respons­ible but that the cumu­lat­ive effect is the issue: • Due to declines in bird counts they have decided to go ahead with the advice to avoid using the loch until the end of August: • This advice will be reviewed after the end of August. • Sev­er­al com­mer­cial pro­viders have stated they won’t use the loch. JK high­lighted that the SCA would prefer a zon­a­tion approach. He also high­lighted that the moves to provide new park­ing and remove exist­ing park­ing sites will make access to the loch for canoeists and kayakers very dif­fi­cult. He also high­lighted that there is very little in the way of flat water in Aber­deen­shire there­fore it was vital that water borne access can take place on the loch. GC replied that the loch is too small to zone and there isn’t an appet­ite for the use of buoys. In the dis­cus­sion that fol­lowed mem­bers high­lighted: • More work needed to be done to edu­cate the pub­lic on access to the loch: • More work needed to done to under­stand why the loch is so pop­u­lar — is it over­spill from oth­er sites? • That we don’t widen health inequal­it­ies by pre­vent­ing nearby res­id­ents from enjoy­ing the loch; • The need to change the word­ing on the tem­por­ary advis­ory signs. US stated he would be inter­ested to hear what sort of data re dis­turb­ance LOAF are look­ing for. Gath­er­ing data is resource intens­ive. Goldeneye, breed in holes in trees, so gath­er­ing data can be intrus­ive. It is also almost impossible to con­struct a stat­ist­ic­ally sig­ni­fic­ant caus­al cor­rel­a­tion between breed­ing suc­cess and dis­turb­ance because sample size is small (single fig­ures — there are only 200 breed­ing pairs in the UK) and there are prob­ably many oth­er factors to exclude, such as weath­er, food avail­ab­il­ity. Would the LOAF accept related stud­ies about oth­er spe­cies in dif­fer­ent areas around dis­turb­ance impact? The LOAF agreed in prin­ciple that as an emer­gency meas­ure it was not unreas­on­able to ask the pub­lic to avoid using the loch.	AP2- DC to arrange a debrief with GC in Septem­ber and chart a way forward.
How­ever it was agreed that such meas­ures should be sub­ject to a thor­ough in depth review and that revised guid­ance should be developed for 2022.
CNPA Advice on Bar­be­cues in the Coun­tryside Adam Streeter Smith- Out­door Access Officer AQSS intro­duced this item high­light­ing that land man­agers have raised con­cerns about the use of dis­pos­able barbeques and fire pits, namely that: a. They con­tin­ue to be used dur­ing peri­ods of high fire risk; b. Smoke from these devices lead to fire alerts and on- site invest­ig­a­tions; c. Irre­spons­ible barbe­que light­ing leaves scorch marks on the ground; d. They are often used to host a fire after cook­ing has taken place. In response to this the CNPA has developed a pos­i­tion on the use of bar­be­cues and fire pits that will guide advice over the sum­mer and bey­ond. LOAF mem­bers agree that the advice and pos­i­tion was appropriate.
Pub­lic Access in and Around Car­rbridge Adam Streeter Smith- Out­door Access Officer AQSS intro­duced this item high­light­ing that the Car­rbridge Caper­cail­lie Group have erec­ted tem­por­ary sea­son­al signs at a num­ber of loc­a­tions in Car­rbridge in part­ner­ship with the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity (CNPA), Police Scot­land and land man­agers. The signs request that dog own­ers keep their dogs on a lead in sens­it­ive areas of nearby wood­land. Some res­id­ents have ques­tioned the valid­ity of these signs. In addi­tion to this there has also been a num­ber of quer­ies from the pub­lic regard­ing gates in the wood­lands around Car­rbridge that are either locked, inop­er­able due to veget­a­tion growth and/​or locked with side gates or stiles. In response to a num­ber of ques­tions that have been asked, the CNPA has draf­ted a state­ment of cla­ri­fic­a­tion as the des­ig­nated body respons­ible for imple­ment­a­tion of the Land Reform (Scot­land) Act 2003 to mem­bers of the public.
In the dis­cus­sion that fol­lowed mem­bers sup­por­ted the use of such signs on caper sens­it­ive sites and the response to deal­ing with gates. Mem­bers did high­light that in con­sid­er­ing advice due con­sid­er­a­tion should be giv­en the likely range of user’s needs.
AOCB • Next meet­ing to be before end of August re Park Plan • Update on Car­ribridge to Aviemore cycle path was requested	AP3- PC to update mem­bers on Car­rbridge to Aviemore cycle path