CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper 5 9^th Septem­ber 2022

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

FOR DIS­CUS­SION

Title: NATION­AL PARK PART­NER­SHIP PLAN 2017 – 2022: REVIEW OF OUTCOMES

Pre­pared by: DAV­ID CAMER­ON, DEPUTY CHIEF EXECU­TUVE AND DIR­ECT­OR OF COR­POR­ATE SERVICES

Pur­pose This paper presents a review of the out­comes of the work to coordin­ate and deliv­er the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2017 – 2022.

Recom­mend­a­tions

The Board is asked to: a) Review the update on out­comes and achieve­ments against the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2017 – 2022 as 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 and may need par­tic­u­lar atten­tion in deliv­ery of the new Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan for 2022 to 2027.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper 5 9^th Septem­ber 2022

Stra­tegic Context

1) The Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP) for 2017 – 2022 was 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

3) 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

4) 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.

5) This update sets out the review of deliv­ery of the NPPP for 2017 to 2022 and the out­comes achieved. This review there­fore rep­res­ents the cul­min­a­tion of the Park Authority’s work in devel­op­ing part­ner­ships, coordin­at­ing NPPP deliv­ery and over­see­ing stra­tegic risk man­age­ment of the NPPP processes.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper 5 9^th Septem­ber 2022

Part­ner­ship

6) The table set out in Appendix I shows the breadth of work under­taken in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park in seek­ing to deliv­er the NPPP out­comes across a range of part­ner­ships and through a large num­ber of part­ner organisations.

Suc­cess Measures

7) The 5‑year out­comes set out with­in the NPPP approved by Scot­tish Min­is­ters estab­lish the suc­cess meas­ures against which deliv­ery of the NPPP has been assessed in this final review of outcomes.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper 5 9^th Septem­ber 2022

Sup­port­ing Information:

Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan ²⁰¹⁷⁄₂₀₂₂ Out­come Assessment

8) A sum­mary of the Authority’s assess­ment of the out­come of the 2017 to 2022 NPPP deliv­ery is presen­ted in Appendix I.

9) Key High­lights and excep­tions iden­ti­fied in report­ing on NPPP out­comes over the course of the last NPPP peri­od are presen­ted in the fol­low­ing sec­tions of this paper.

Impact of Covid-19

10) The impact of Cov­id-19 impacted across every area of the NPPP over the course of the peri­od, with sig­ni­fic­ant restric­tions in all organ­isa­tions’ oper­a­tions in place for large parts of 2020 and 2021. Des­pite these restric­tions, the great major­ity of the NPPP is assessed as either hav­ing been achieved or hav­ing had good pos­it­ive pro­gress made against agreed objectives.

11) The Park Author­ity itself led on a num­ber of dif­fer­ent areas of work dur­ing Cov­id includ­ing chair­ing the Tour­ism Emer­gency Response Group, The Man­aging for Vis­it­ors Group and the deliv­ery of the Green Recov­ery Plan that included sig­ni­fic­ant sup­port for busi­nesses and groups across the Park.

Deliv­ery

12) There has been sig­ni­fic­ant suc­cess across the part­ner­ship in deliv­er­ing the NPPP from 2017 – 2022. As with many of the issues that face the Cairngorms there is a need for ongo­ing focus on many of the areas high­lighted in this plan and they have been cap­tured in the new NPPP 2022 – 2027.

13) The sec­tion below tries to cap­ture where sig­ni­fic­ant pro­gress has been made and also areas where we need to con­tin­ue to make fur­ther efforts.

Con­ser­va­tion

Sig­ni­fic­ant Highlights

a) 5195ha of new wood­land were approved by Scot­tish forestry with­in the CNP dur­ing this Plan peri­od. This is above the plan tar­get of 5000ha. b) Tomin­toul and Glen­liv­et Land­scape Part­ner­ship was delivered. c) Cairngorms Nature Part­ner­ship has been deliv­er­ing sig­ni­fic­antly on the Nature Action Plan. d) Cairngorms Con­nect and East Cairngorms Moor­land Part­ner­ship have been mak­ing sig­ni­fic­ant pro­gress as land­scape-scale cooper­a­tion between landown­ers to deliv­er eco-sys­tem res­tor­a­tion. e) Cairngorms Upland Advis­ory Group has been estab­lished f) CNPA was suc­cess­ful its bid to the Her­it­age Hori­zons Fund and attrac­ted £12.5 mil­lion to the Cairngorms Nation­al Park.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper 5 9^th Septem­ber 2022

Excep­tions

a) Wild­life crime con­tin­ued to be a prom­in­ent fea­ture with­in the Cairngorms over the course of the last five year peri­od. b) Peat­land work whilst mak­ing sig­ni­fic­ant pro­gress has been below the tar­geted level over the 5 year period.

Vis­it­or Experience

Sig­ni­fic­ant Highlights

a) The Park Author­ity has taken for­ward the devel­op­ment of a per­man­ent CNPA Ranger Ser­vice sup­ple­men­ted by sea­son­al rangers, and increas­ing grant in aid to part­ner ranger ser­vices. b) Improve­ments to vis­it­or infra­struc­ture across the Nation­al Park with CNPA invest­ment in facil­it­ies (Linn of Dee, Glen­more, Din­net etc), nation­al invest­ment through RTIF and private sec­tor invest­ment. c) Secured agree­ment from Trans­port Scot­land for an NMU route from Aviemore to Car­rbridge. d) 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. e) Cairngorms Equal­it­ies Advis­ory For­um established.

Excep­tions

a) Approach to vis­it­or giv­ing has been affected by Cov­id-19 and there is a need to look at how this can be bolstered going forward.

Rur­al Development

Sig­ni­fic­ant Highlights

a) 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. b) The CNPA gran­ted detailed plan­ning per­mis­sion for 216 afford­able units dur­ing 2017 – 2022 and 175 afford­able units were com­pleted. c) Badenoch Great Place Scheme has been delivered. d) Com­munity Hous­ing pro­jects at Tomin­toul in is con­struc­tion and anoth­er at Brae­mar has gained plan­ning per­mis­sion. A num­ber of oth­er poten­tial com­munity hous­ing pro­jects are in feas­ib­il­ity stages. e) Com­munity Action Plan­ning still a sig­ni­fic­ant and ongo­ing bene­fit across the Nation­al Park.

Excep­tions

a) There is still sig­ni­fic­ant work to do to increase afford­able hous­ing pro­vi­sion in the park and this is high­lighted in the new NPPP.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper 5 9^th Septem­ber 2022

Con­clu­sion

14) There has been sig­ni­fic­ant deliv­ery of the NPPP over the past 5 years. There has been sig­ni­fic­ant moves to achiev­ing the long term out­comes and vis­ion for the Nation­al Park. There has been great work done across the Part­ner­ship from pub­lic, private and vol­un­tary organ­isa­tions and the new NPPP builds upon this sol­id foundation.