CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

MINUTES OF THE CON­FID­EN­TIAL BOARD MEETING held by telephone/​video con­fer­ence on Fri­day 10^th Septem­ber 2021 at 12noon.

PRESENT (By video con­fer­en­cing unless stated otherwise)

• Xan­der McDade (Con­vener)
• Geva Black­ett
• Peter Argyle
• Deirdre Fal­con­er
• Pippa Had­ley
• Janet Hunter
• John Kirk
• John Lath­am
• Douglas McAdam
• Elean­or Mackintosh
• Wil­lie McKenna
• Ian McLar­en until 1.20pm
• 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
• Mur­ray Fer­guson, Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning & Place
• Dr Peter May­hew, Dir­ect­or of Nature & Cli­mate Change
• Andy Ford, Head of Conservation
• Dan Har­ris, Devel­op­ment Plan­ning Manager
• Gav­in Miles, Head of Stra­tegic Planning

Apo­lo­gies

• Car­o­lyn Caddick

NPPP 2022 – 2027 Draft for Con­sulta­tion (Paper 5)

1. Grant Moir, CEO intro­duced paper 5 which presents the draft NPPP 2022 – 2027 for Consultation.

2. Oliv­er Dav­ies, Head of Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engage­ment provided an update on the inform­al con­sulta­tions suc­cess on reach­ing the hard to reach communities:

   • a) tar­geted quarter of a mil­lion people so far reached.
   • b) Toolkit of cam­paign materials.
   • c) 400 total responses.
   • d) Head­lines 92% broadly agreed themes and 80% that loc­al com­munit­ies have import­ant part to play.
   • e) Oth­er main head­lines com­ing through are sup­port for the major themes of wood­land expan­sion peat­land res­tor­a­tion, pro­tect­ing interests and jobs.

3. Gav­in Miles, Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning provided the fol­low­ing points regard­ing the evid­ence base back up Stra­tegic Envir­on­ment­al Assess­ment and car­bon baseline work:

   • a) inform­a­tion on snow on cairngorm and deer report in eas­ily sum­mar­ised form
   • b) Res­id­ents and vis­it­ors (stay­ing in NP) car­bon foot­print would be considered
   • c) Import­ant to note it’s a com­plic­ated pic­ture, agree big num­bers and its complicated.

4. Head of Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engage­ment gave a an out­line of the plan from 23^rd Septem­ber 2021:

   • a) Engage­ment activ­it­ies will switch from inform­al to formal
   • b) Work­ing with an agency to make as much con­tent digit­al, as easy to nav­ig­ate as pos­sible, with images and case stud­ies and com­ments from inform­al phase, while con­firm­ing mater­i­al will not only be digital.
   • c) To tackle non digit­al audi­ence: plans are for phone and hard­copy options and free­post address and posters in com­munity notice­boards and cof­fee shops, while open for fur­ther suggestions.
   • d) Inter­views offered with minor­ity groups and com­munity coun­cils to dis­cuss NPPP.

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

   • a) Cla­ri­fic­a­tion sought around put­ting out for con­sulta­tion. What if some­thing new becomes a real issue dur­ing the con­sulta­tion? Do we have to go back out to con­sulta­tion? Can we include some­thing we haven’t con­sul­ted on? CEO advised that if for example a big issue arose in Janu­ary next year, as long as we have the dis­cus­sion in pub­lic at the right meet­ing then it can be included in NPPP. We wouldn’t have to go back out to con­sulta­tion for it to be included.
   • b) In the con­duct of the NPPP devel­op­ment pro­cess can officers ensure that the board has a clear aware­ness of organ­isa­tions, groups and indi­vidu­als who have been con­sul­ted, togeth­er with inform­a­tion on the points raised in dis­cus­sions, in order that mem­bers are able to help identi­fy any poten­tial gaps in engage­ment and under­stand the views put for­ward by con­sul­tees? The CEO con­firmed that sig­ni­fic­ant stake­hold­er con­sulta­tion has taken place and more is planned. The inform­a­tion on the range of con­tacts made by the Author­ity and those who had respon­ded who have not sight anonym­ity will be made avail­able to the board as the pro­cess evolves.
   • c) Query around the object­ive for wood­land expan­sion without fen­cing, what evid­ence makes the case there shouldn’t be any fen­cing? The object­ive is for a major­ity without fen­cing. Fen­cing does give land own­ers secur­ity and com­fort around wood­land expan­sion and fund­ing avail­able but there are oppor­tun­it­ies to increase nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion which has added benefits.
   • d) Com­ment made that using deer dens­ity tar­get was too blunt a tool. Deer sec­tor wants to focus impacts and there is con­cern about put­ting dens­ity tar­gets into the Plan. CEO advised that there are 35k red deer in NP and that over the next 25 years the pro­pos­al is to reduce this to around 20k red deer. There is a close link to the pro­pos­als in the plan and nation­al policy dir­ec­tion as set out in deer review. This reduc­tion in deer num­bers will help peat­land res­tor­a­tion, wood­land expan­sion etc. and we need to get the right balance.
   • e) Regard­ing gamebird man­age­ment and muir­burn: as evid­ence is lack­ing the Author­ity should gath­er evid­ence first of any impact of game birds; and also ensure muir­burn is con­duc­ted to best prac­tice and not neces­sar­ily to reduce muirburn.
   • f) Plea made to ensure we see sup­port for cur­rent eco­nomy and cur­rent role of land man­agers, talk­ing about new oppor­tun­it­ies not at expenses of exist­ing people’s job.
   • g) CEO com­men­ted that eco­lo­gic­al res­tor­a­tion doesn’t mean leav­ing alone and not doing some­thing in that place. There is good evid­ence around eco­lo­gic­al res­tor­a­tions and jobs e.g. Glenfeshie.
   • h) Eco­lo­gic­al works cost big money which many land own­ers can­not afford. Worry about water being left on the hill through peat­land res­tor­a­tion. On river man­age­ment we need to look at trees cleared from river banks, import­ant to farm­ers and to be kept well main­tained in future. Must have trees that next gen­er­a­tion can have; firebreaks should be put in; plant­ing in agri­cul­ture land should not hap­pen and we need to safe­guard arable and agri­cul­tur­al land in NP. Need to take loc­al people along with you in order for it to work. CEO advised that on peat­land works one of the main points is that restored peat­land stores more water pre­vent­ing flood­ing etc. On jobs there is a big oppor­tun­ity going for­ward to make sure that loc­al people bene­fit from this work in the Park.
   • i) Ques­tion asked about wheth­er the CNPA need to fol­low Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment policy for example on red grouse, which was con­firmed as the case. CEO reminded mem­bers that the Author­ity are a NDPB of Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment and that we will be work­ing to help imple­ment the Grouse Man­age­ment Review.
   • j) Plea made for Cairngorms Con­nect and ECMP to mon­it­or the same spe­cies so we can see what thrives where?
   • k) Com­ment made that wood­land expan­sion was a long term vis­ion of SG, could it be explained why are we going bey­ond where Gov­ern­ment is going for the nation as a whole? Board Con­vener explained that the NP has lower aver­age wood­land cov­er than Scot­land as a whole. CEO advised that Forestry Strategy was approved by the Board 2 years ago; we have a good evid­ence base; and we are help­ing deliv­er the nation­al tar­gets. We have prag­mat­ic plan that brings coher­ence to this agenda.
   • l) Com­ment made that it was about strik­ing the right bal­ance and listen­ing to all views. Need to be upfront and hon­est, with evid­ence about all ele­ments of NPPP.
   • m) Clar­ity sought on who ulti­mately has the final say? Board Con­vener con­firmed that the Board will con­sider responses from con­sulta­tion before the final draft NPPP for min­is­ters is prepared.
   • n) Praise for the con­sulta­tion from a member.
   • o) Com­ment made to endorse the draft giv­en urgency of situ­ation. The CNPA need to demon­strate lead­er­ship. Great to see Equal­it­ies Advis­ory Pan­el com­ments have been taken on board in the draft.
   • p) Com­ment made that it was good to see hous­ing issues in the plan. Those who work and live in NP should not be dis­ad­vant­aged by vir­tue of the fact it is a NP. Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning advised that relat­ing to hous­ing, intend to use num­ber of things such as short term lets and licens­ing as one way of deal­ing with these issues.
   • q) Regard­ing the plan hier­archy: is the Forest Strategy cor­rectly named? CEO explained that the term forest strategy is used across Scotland.
   • r) With regards to the increase of the use of pub­lic trans­port & bikes on pub­lic trans­port: how are we going to have these dis­cus­sions with oper­at­ors etc.?
   • s) Com­ment made that there were already too many visitors
   • t) CEO asked about ensur­ing a gloss­ary of terms. CEO agreed to this.
   • u) Impressed with what was planned for the con­sulta­tion to reach some audi­ences we haven’t reached so far. It is clearly marked as draft as it doesn’t have all the answers. It is a coher­ent, evid­ence based, robust draft. We will con­sider the views that come back and ulti­mately decide as a board what goes ahead into the final plan. CEO agreed we want to try and get views from people not heard from before.
   • v) Com­ment made that there had not really been any sig­ni­fic­ant changes to nar­rat­ive to last time the Board dis­cussed it, choices of impacts have been added. Acknow­ledge work by staff.
   • w) Com­ment made that it was good that ques­tions are lim­ited so people do not get bam­boozled. Should have ques­tion ask­ing – ​‘do you agree with long term vis­ion proposed?’
   • x) With ref­er­ence to Al look­ing to go to net zero by 2045, sug­ges­tion made to make it clear an estim­ate what our cur­rent foot­print is, show what the pos­i­tion is today and this is what we are look­ing to get to.
   • y) How does this tie in with A15, export­ing car­bon cred­its out­with the Park, huge issue and very com­plex. Need to make sure we have a clear pos­i­tion around this.
   • z) Com­ment made that they didn’t feel suf­fi­cient data on gamebird releases was avail­able and don’t think it’s appro­pri­ate for it to be included.
   • aa) C8 iden­ti­fied max 15% of all hous­ing stock. Need to have a defin­i­tion of short term lets. High level region­al land use frame­work but no men­tion of food & drink and the con­tri­bu­tion it makes.
   • bb) CEO explained that the evid­ence papers will provide the baseline data for the Park. It is import­ant that we include gamebirds and that we do look at what a sus­tain­able mod­el looks like. Food pro­duc­tion has been added to A8. The CEO restated this is the draft for con­sulta­tion not the final plan. Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning advised on the num­bers of second homes and hol­i­day lets in the NP.
   • cc) Com­ment made that if the fig­ures are in evid­ence paper then that’s fine. We are being asked to endorse this tar­gets. A5 sug­gests we will licens­ing gamebirds? CEO advised that they would look at the powers that NPA may have around this but what we are look­ing at is what the sus­tain­able man­age­ment is of gamebirds looks like.
   • dd) Ques­tion raised around the pro­cess who advises SG? CEO advised that all con­sulta­tion responses would be col­lated and a con­sulta­tion report pro­duced. The board will then con­sider it and sub­mit a final draft to min­is­ters for approv­al. Scot­tish Min­is­ters advised by civil ser­vants and also the CNPA.
   • ee) The Board Con­vener encour­aged Board mem­bers to engage with­in their own networks/​communities to respond to this, long term future dir­ec­tion of the NP.
   • ff) Board Con­vener advised that he would seek to engage with new min­ster to ensure they are aware of the pro­cess we are going through.
   • gg) Com­ment made by a num­ber of mem­bers that they were reas­sured by the pro­cess and happy to be get­ting oppor­tun­ity to dis­cuss this again when con­sulta­tion ends.
   • hh) Con­firmed that the record­ing of this dis­cus­sion will be put into pub­lic domain on 23^rd Septem­ber 2021.

6. The Board Con­vener pro­posed a motion to approve the NPPP for con­sulta­tion. This was seconded by Judith Webb. The Board agreed:

   • a) To con­sult on the draft Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2022 – 2027 (Annex 3).
   • b) That the con­sulta­tion lasts from 23^rd Septem­ber to 17^th Decem­ber 2021

7. Action Point Arising: None.

The meet­ing con­cluded at 13.45.