221025-Minutes-V1

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY UGH­DAR­RAS PAIRC NAISEANTA Α’ MHON­AIDH RUAIDH

Cairngorms Equal­ity Advis­ory Panel

25^th Octo­ber 2022

5:00pm — 6:30pm — Held virtually

Minutes

Present
Anita Howard	Bo
Heath­er Earnshaw	Kev­in Hutchens
Lili­ana Corrieri	Linda Bam­ford
Peter Kennedy	Stu­art Hall

Attend­ing
Colin Simpson	Fiona McIn­ally
Fiona McLean (Chair)	Heath­er Trench
Jenny Allen	Kate Christie
Kath­er­ine Willing

Apo­lo­gies
Becca Mayo	Lina Payne
Vanessa Alt­weck

1. Wel­come (17:00)

1. 1. Fiona wel­comed the group to the meeting.

2. Recap and Actions from pre­vi­ous Meet­ing on 30^th August 2022

1. 1. The actions from the pre­vi­ous meet­ing were reviewed and the minutes were agreed with some changes to be made pri­or to them being uploaded to the web­site. It was agreed the changes would be emailed to the equal­it­ies inbox.

3. Paper 1: Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Action Plan Heath­er — Trench and Fiona McInally

1. 1. Heath­er and Fiona intro­duced their paper and asked the pan­el to com­ment on the fol­low­ing questions:

• How can we work with busi­ness and com­munit­ies to ensure we reach under- rep­res­en­ted groups and identi­fy improve­ments which will bene­fit our approach to sus­tain­able tour­ism with­in the Nation­al Park?

• How do we ensure that the Nation­al Park is as access­ible as pos­sible for those who are on lower incomes and that the oppor­tun­it­ies avail­able to enjoy the Park are appro­pri­ate for the widest pos­sible range of visitors?

  1. 1. In response to how the speak­ers can work with busi­nesses and com­munit­ies to ensure that they reach under-rep­res­en­ted groups and identi­fy improve­ments which will bene­fit the approach to sus­tain­able tour­ism with­in the Nation­al Park the pan­el sug­ges­ted the following:
  • The pan­el sug­ges­ted that from pre­vi­ous meet­ings data sur­round­ing tour­ists from eth­nic minor­it­ies and the LGBT com­munit­ies was low or not cap­tured, there­fore, it might be help­ful to approach the equal­ity coun­cils in city areas who may be able to help identi­fy the barriers.
  • The pan­el sug­ges­ted that the speak­ers approach loc­al busi­nesses such as hos­tels, about intro­du­cing the LGBT High­land Marker.

  • The pan­el sug­ges­ted involving organ­isa­tions who sup­port diverse groups.

    1. 1. In response to how the speak­ers could ensure the nation­al park is access­ible for those on lower incomes and that oppor­tun­it­ies are avail­able to the widest range of vis­it­ors the pan­el sug­ges­ted the following:

  • The pan­el sug­ges­ted work­ing with the Tom Hunter Foundation.

  • The pan­el sug­ges­ted ensur­ing that not just the activ­ity itself is low cost but oth­er aspects such as the travel and equip­ment also need to be access­ible. Without this the pan­el sug­ges­ted vis­it­ors may be able to come to the park but they may not be able to par­ti­cip­ate in any activities.
  • The pan­el sug­ges­ted that the speak­ers should con­sider work­ing with the Fam­ily Hol­i­day Char­ity form­ally known as the Fam­ily Hol­i­day Asso­ci­ation to help provide low-cost hol­i­days and invite social care organ­isa­tions to an event to find out how they can part­ner with bene­vol­ent associations.
  • The pan­el explained that ask­ing vis­it­ors for dona­tions may be off-put­ting for many vis­it­ors on low incomes and it would have to be thought about care­fully as to how this was implemented.
  • The pan­el sug­ges­ted that to encour­age those from low-incomes to vis­it the park there needed to be resources on the CNPA web­site which are not cur­rently in existence.
    1. 1. The pan­el also sug­ges­ted that to ensure suc­cess­ful deliv­ery there needed to be involve­ment from a diverse range of stake­hold­ers who are respons­ible for spe­cif­ic action points. The pan­el explained that at present it is not clear who is doing what which means the plan lacks accountability.
    2. 1. The pan­el also sug­ges­ted that the paper lacked con­sid­er­a­tions regard­ing retain­ing staff the impacts of Brexit, visas, and housing.

4. Paper 2: Infra­struc­ture Plan — Colin Simpson

1. 1. Colin gave an over­view of the paper and reit­er­ated that some of what is dis­cussed will be men­tioned in the NPPP and there is a hope not to repeat this too much.

Colin reminded the pan­el that this is not about day-to-day ser­vices, it is about invest­ment in new activities.

1. 1. Colin asked the group the following:

Over­all Plan:

• How can we best ensure appro­pri­ate con­sid­er­a­tion of the oppor­tun­it­ies to remove or min­im­ise bar­ri­ers to access? Is this about hav­ing strong under­ly­ing prin­ciples in the plan or is it bet­ter to look at site-spe­cif­ic recom­mend­a­tions as pro­pos­als are developed?
• Are the options for fur­ther explor­a­tion giv­en in the draft text the most appro­pri­ate ones? Are there oth­ers we ought to include?

Indi­vidu­al site recommendations:

• Do you have any spe­cif­ic ideas around sign­post­ing of altern­at­ives? For example, is it more appro­pri­ate at a car park that only gives access to very rough / chal­len­ging ter­rain to sign­post altern­at­ives for those with mobil­ity dif­fi­culties rather than try­ing to improve the car park when the vis­it­or may not be able to access any­thing bey­ond it?

• Do you know of sim­il­ar pro­jects where best prac­tice has been achieved that we might use as examples to follow?

  1. 1. In response to how the speak­er can best ensure appro­pri­ate con­sid­er­a­tion of the oppor­tun­it­ies to remove or min­im­ise bar­ri­ers to access the pan­el sug­ges­ted the following:
  • The pan­el felt the plan was very per­son centred and focused. The pan­el sug­ges­ted look­ing at the five prin­ciples from the Just trans­ition Com­mis­sion for Scot­land (Advis­ory group) and sense check the paper against this.
  • The pan­el felt it would be help­ful to have access and buggy groups vis­it sites when dis­cuss­ing new infra­struc­ture to ensure it is access­ible and there are reg­u­lar path inspections.

  • The pan­el also felt it would be of bene­fit to have ​‘mys­tery shop­pers’ come to sites to see how they could inter­act with the infra­struc­ture and what improve­ments could be made. Colin explained this could not be enforced but the plan could address how this could be encouraged.

    1. 1. In response to spe­cif­ic ideas around sign­post­ing of altern­at­ives, the pan­el sug­ges­ted the following:

  • The pan­el felt the paper lacked inform­a­tion on inter­pret­a­tion, but this would need to be looked at on a site-by-site basis.

  • The pan­el felt from per­son­al exper­i­ence, sign­post­ing what con­di­tion the paths are and some altern­at­ives would be help­ful to avoid dis­ap­point­ment. How­ever, the pan­el did say its much bet­ter to provide inform­a­tion and then allow indi­vidu­als make the decision.
  • The pan­el also dis­cussed how although access­ib­il­ity it not bin­ary it may be help­ful to fol­low a path grad­ing sys­tem how­ever it was felt that there was not a suit­able sys­tem nation­wide sys­tem cur­rently in place. The pan­el felt that there would still

need to be some nar­rat­ive that accom­pan­ied any grad­ing sys­tem to ensure that all inform­a­tion needed was given.

5. AOB

1. 1. There were no AOBs raised.

Next Meet­ing 29^th Novem­ber 2022

END OF MEETING