CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper 2 10 Septem­ber 2021

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

FOR DIS­CUS­SION

Title: NATION­AL PARK PART­NER­SHIP PLAN 2017 – 2022 DELIV­ERY UPDATE FOR ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁

Pre­pared by: DAV­ID CAMER­ON, DIR­ECT­OR OF COR­POR­ATE SER­VICES VICKY WALK­ER, GOV­ERNANCE AND REPORT­ING MANAGER

Pur­pose

This paper presents an update on deliv­ery against the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2017 – 2022 out­lining pro­gress for the year ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁.

Recom­mend­a­tions

The Board is asked to:

a) Review the update on deliv­ery against the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2017 – 2022 set out in this paper. b) High­light any achieve­ments or excep­tions which, from a stra­tegic lead­er­ship per­spect­ive, Board mem­bers believe are of par­tic­u­lar sig­ni­fic­ance to the deliv­ery of the Authority’s stra­tegic objectives.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper 2 10 Septem­ber 2021

NATION­AL PARK PART­NER­SHIP PLAN 2017 – 2022 DELIVERY

UPDATE – FOR DISCUSSION

Stra­tegic Context

1. The Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP) for 2017 – 2022 is approved by Scot­tish Min­is­ters in 2017 as the man­age­ment plan for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. It sets out how all those with a respons­ib­il­ity for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park will co-ordin­ate their work to tackle the most import­ant issues. This cur­rent NPPP is the third such 5‑year plan coordin­at­ing work in the Cairngorms.

2. The Cairngorms NPPP provides stra­tegic dir­ec­tion for five key strategies and plans which sup­port its deliv­ery and are also sup­por­ted by close part­ner­ship work­ing with dif­fer­ent sec­tors: a) Act­ive Cairngorms: the out­door access strategy for the Nation­al Park; b) Cairngorms Nature: set­ting out the Nation­al Park’s con­ser­va­tion pri­or­it­ies; c) Eco­nom­ic Action Plan: sets out the eco­nom­ic pri­or­it­ies for the Nation­al Park; d) Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan: sets out the policies for land use plan­ning with­in the Nation­al Park; and e) Loc­al Devel­op­ment Strategy: sets out the pri­or­it­ies for pro­mot­ing Com­munity Led Loc­al Devel­op­ment (CLLD) to sup­port a sus­tain­able rur­al eco­nomy in the Nation­al Park.

Stra­tegic Policy Considerations

1. The Cairngorms NPPP: a) Sets out the vis­ion and over­arch­ing strategy for man­aging the Park; b) Guides the work of pub­lic bod­ies and all oth­er part­ners to deliv­er the aims of the Park; c) Provides the stra­tegic con­text for the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan; d) Sets out the region­al land use frame­work for the Park; e) Provides the stra­tegic con­text for man­aging the Park as a sus­tain­able tour­ism des­tin­a­tion; and f) Shows how the Park will con­trib­ute to the Scot­tish Government’s core pur­pose and nation­al outcomes.

Stra­tegic Risk Management

1. The Nation­al Park Author­ity is respons­ible for lead­ing vari­ous part­ner­ships and stake­hold­er groups with interests and respons­ib­il­it­ies for deliv­er­ing ser­vices with­in the Cairngorms, to ensure pri­or­it­ies estab­lished in the approved NPPP are achieved and that vari­ous stake­hold­ers each make their expec­ted contributions.

2. This update is for year ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁ and includes the impact on deliv­ery to the end of March 2021 of the cur­rent COV­ID-19 pan­dem­ic on deliv­ery dur­ing the pre­vi­ous year. The impact of COV­ID-19 on deliv­ery had been high­lighted to the board through­out 2020 – 21. The impact this is broadly in line with the anti­cip­ated effect of nation­al restric­tions on the deliv­ery of the NPPP through­out 2020 – 21.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper 2 10 Septem­ber 2021

Part­ner­ship

1. The table set out in appendix I shows the breadth of work that is ongo­ing in the Nation­al Park and also that the vast major­ity of the work is on tar­get. The fact that this has been achieved in a year in which Cov­id-19 was a huge factor is a cred­it to all the organ­isa­tions work­ing in the Nation­al Park.

Suc­cess Measures

1. The 5‑year out­comes set out with­in the NPPP approved by Scot­tish Min­is­ters estab­lish the suc­cess meas­ures against which deliv­ery of the NPPP will be assessed.

2. Mile­stones have been estab­lished to identi­fy, where appro­pri­ate, inter­im out­puts or points expec­ted in the work toward suc­cess­ful deliv­ery of these out­comes. While the out­comes will be stat­ic over the peri­od of the Cairngorms NPPP, mile­stones will be reviewed by the Author­ity and part­ners and may be mod­i­fied and adap­ted to fit with chan­ging circumstances.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper 2 10 Septem­ber 2021 Sup­port­ing Information:

Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan ²⁰¹⁷⁄₂₀₂₂ Deliv­ery Update

1. A sum­mary of the Authority’s NPPP deliv­ery and mon­it­or­ing inform­a­tion is presen­ted in Annex I. More inform­a­tion on the high­lights and issues arising over the course of ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁, is presen­ted in the fol­low­ing sec­tions of this paper.

Impact of Covid-19

1. The impact of Cov­id-19 has impacted across every area of the NPPP, although over­all the NPPP is broadly on track to deliv­er its out­comes by 2022. The indic­at­ors which have been most affected are high­lighted fur­ther in this paper. This has been due to a range of factors; inab­il­ity to com­plete work on site due to restric­tions, avail­ab­il­ity of con­tract­ors or delays in sup­ply chains.

Con­ser­va­tion

Sig­ni­fic­ant High­lights And Points Of Note ²⁰⁄₂₁

1. CNPA was suc­cess­ful in its bid to the Her­it­age Hori­zons Fund and attrac­ted £12.5 mil­lion in Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Funds to the Park, plus sig­ni­fic­ant addi­tion­al match fund­ing from a wide range of part­ners. Much of the focus of work dur­ing 2020 – 21 focussed on devel­op­ing and sub­mit­ting this bid along­side key partners.

2. Wood­land expan­sion remains likely to exceed its tar­get with early indic­a­tions, based on draft wood­land cre­ation pro­pos­als on vari­ous estates across the CNP, sug­gests a tar­get of 1000 ha/​yr will be eas­ily achieved.

3. Dur­ing 2020 – 21 only 131ha of peat­land res­tor­a­tion man­age­ment was achieved largely due to Cov­id restric­tions and inab­il­ity to access sites. The pos­i­tion at the end of ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁ is high­lighted as a ​“red” deliv­ery risk at that point. The Pro­ject team have 955ha of peat­land res­tor­a­tion at vari­ous stages of devel­op­ment that could be delivered dur­ing 2021 – 22, togeth­er with a sig­ni­fic­ant increase in cap­it­al fund­ing over a multi-year peri­od which is now alloc­ated to the Author­ity for dir­ect man­age­ment of fund­ing awards sup­port­ing Peat­land res­tor­a­tion in the Cairngorms to ²⁰²³⁄₂₄.

4. Report on deer num­bers and hab­it­at impacts across CNP indic­ates that aver­age deer dens­it­ies across the Park are around 11 deer/​km2. This rep­res­ents a sig­ni­fic­ant reduc­tion over the last 20 years. Planned work on low ground deer counts has fallen behind ori­gin­ally expec­ted sched­ule and is now high­lighted as a ​“red” risk in deliv­ery status.

5. The deliv­ery on wild­life crime is also flagged as at red status in line with pre­vi­ous updates to the Board on ongo­ing incidents.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper 2 10 Septem­ber 2021

Vis­it­or Experience

Sig­ni­fic­ant High­lights And Points Of Note ²⁰⁄₂₁

1. The CNPA has taken for­ward the devel­op­ment of a per­man­ent Ranger Ser­vice sup­ple­men­ted by sea­son­al rangers (5 per­man­ent rangers & 9 sea­son­al staff), and increas­ing grant in aid to part­ner ranger ser­vices by ten percent.

2. Improve­ments to vis­it­or infra­struc­ture with the Glen­more path now com­plete with four ​‘slow road’ cross­ing points. Plans were approved for Camper­van facil­ity at Coire Cas Car Park. Sus­trans is now act­ively pro­mot­ing NCN7 as ​‘loc­al exper­i­ence’ along sec­tions of the route with­in west­ern Cairngorms. New Loc­al Inform­a­tion Centre open at Glen­liv­et Moun­tain Bike Centre

3. Volun­teer­ing Pro­ject has trained 38 Volun­teer rangers with most re-enga­ging post Cov­id-19 with poten­tial for a wider range of work sup­port­ing CNPA rangers.

4. The Juni­or Ranger, health walks and John Muir Award pro­grammes have been affected by Cov­id restric­tions and seen their status move from green to amber since the pre­vi­ous year. There was a sig­ni­fic­ant drop in activ­ity across these three pro­grammes how­ever all are planned to recom­mence back to full capa­city dur­ing Autumn 2021 and we anti­cip­ate engage­ment being back at pre-Cov­id levels for the lat­ter half of 2021 – 22.

5. COVID19 has sig­ni­fic­antly impacted on the deliv­ery of plans for park wide vis­it­or-giv­ing. The Cairngorms Trust recog­nises the need of busi­nesses to rebuild and that par­ti­cip­a­tion for many may not be a pri­or­ity, while for some involve­ment in a vol­un­tary giv­ing scheme is seen as a pos­it­ive pos­i­tion­ing of their busi­ness devel­op­ment. Des­pite COV­ID inter­rup­tions, the Trust has raised dona­tions in the order of £5,000 to £10,000 in the year.

Rur­al Development

Sig­ni­fic­ant High­lights And Points Of Note ²⁰⁄₂₁

1. The Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan was approved in March 2021 and includes a num­ber of meas­ures to sup­port afford­able hous­ing includ­ing a require­ment for 45% afford­able hous­ing in new devel­op­ment in Aviemore, Bal­later, Brae­mar and Blair Atholl, and 25% in oth­er communities.

2. Cairngorms Green Recov­ery Plan was approved in June 2020. The Eco­nom­ic Steer­ing Group has met reg­u­larly to focus on eco­nom­ic recov­ery dur­ing and post-Cov­id. 2 rounds of Green Recov­ery Fund developed and delivered fund­ing across the park.

3. There has been con­tin­ued sup­port for com­munity groups in long term plan­ning dur­ing 2020 – 21. VABS, MAP and TGDT con­tinu­ing to provide excel­lent ser­vice to com­munity-led pro­jects in their respect­ive areas. These are reviewed annu­ally. TGDT are devel­op­ing new oppor­tun­it­ies in Glen­liv­et area & Lag­gan Forest to improve out­door facil­it­ies at Wolftrax.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper 2 10 Septem­ber 2021

1. Badenoch Great Place Pro­ject pro­ject due to com­plete Octo­ber 2021. Area des­tin­a­tion with asso­ci­ated mar­ket­ing tools and vis­it­or products developed (Badenoch: The Story­lands). Nation­al level pro­mo­tion & travel trade engage­ment underway.

2. The set­ting up of Cov­id response groups in each com­munity in the Nation­al Park was a huge suc­cess dur­ing 2020 – 21 with a fant­ast­ic volun­teer response to pandemic.

3. A spe­cif­ic action in the NPPP to sup­port the Asso­ci­ation of Cairngorms Com­munit­ies (AoCC) is also now flagged as at red risk of deliv­ery with key per­son­nel step­ping down from roles with that entity and COVID19 related inter­rup­tion to its oper­a­tions over an exten­ded peri­od of time.