CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper | 25^th Novem­ber 2022

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

FOR INFORM­A­TION

Title: CEO REPORT

Pre­pared by: GRANT MOIR, CHIEF EXECUTIVE

Pur­pose

1. To high­light to Board Mem­bers the main stra­tegic areas of work that are being dir­ec­ted by Man­age­ment Team. These are areas where sig­ni­fic­ant staff resources are being dir­ec­ted to deliv­er with part­ners the aspir­a­tions of the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan.

Nature

1. Cairngorms Nature: Mem­bers of the Cairngorms Nature beaver work­ing group, includ­ing Scot­tish Land and Estates, Spey Fish­er­ies Board and Nation­al Farm­ers Uni­on Scot­land, are work­ing closely with CNPA in reach­ing out to land man­agers and inter­ested parties in the Park to dis­cuss the oppor­tun­it­ies and con­cerns around beaver trans­lo­ca­tion. CNPAS over­all approach and work to date con­tin­ues to be highly regarded by stake­hold­ers. Recruit­ment will be under­way soon for a fixed term post focussed on engage­ment, sub­mit­ting an applic­a­tion, over­see­ing trans­lo­ca­tion and sup­port­ing land managers.

2. Wood­land Creation: There are cur­rently five large wood­land cre­ation schemes across the Park at vari­ous stages of design/​consultation/​seek­ing approv­al but no hec­tares have been form­ally approved since the last CEO report in Septem­ber. Two smal­ler schemes at an early stage of plan­ning have been brought for­ward for dis­cus­sion. We are also dis­cuss­ing two Long Term Forest Plans for exist­ing wood­lands with forest agents. Since Septem­ber Dav­id Heth­er­ing­ton has been pro­moted to Nature Net­works Man­ager and Fiona Holmes has replaced him as our new Wood­land Advisor.

3. Peat­land Restoration: Offers of grant have been made for nine pro­jects and as of 31^st Octo­ber, dig­gers were on the ground on sev­en loc­a­tions across the Park with addi­tion­al pro­jects sched­uled to start soon. We are on track to achieve our pro­gramme tar­get of bring­ing 905ha of peat­land under res­tor­a­tion by end March ​‘23. We have recruited two highly exper­i­enced Peat­land Officers over the sum­mer and are cur­rently recruit­ing a Train­ee Pro­ject Assist­ant. This post is part of our response to the skills short­age affect­ing peat­land res­tor­a­tion at all levels.

4. Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Project: Action plans with the busi­ness, vis­it­or and moun­tain bik­ing com­munit­ies are deliv­er­ing peer man­aged refuge areas and aware­ness rising to encour­age respons­ible enjoy­ment. A Deeside action plan has just been developed and deliv­ery con­tin­ues in Car­rbridge pro­mot­ing respons­ible enjoy­ment and pop­u­la­tion data col­lec­tion. Action plan­ning with mem­bers of the dog walk­ing com­munity in Badenoch and Strath­spey is in the early stages of devel­op­ment. Inform­a­tion on pop­u­la­tion genet­ics is cur­rently being ana­lysed and res­ults will be made pub­lic soon. Hab­it­at improve­ments con­tin­ue on a range of estates through­out the Park.

5. Moor­land Management: We have been work­ing to devel­op an action plan with the East Cairngorms Moor­land Part­ner­ship where we agree pro­jects which we can take for­ward togeth­er. Poten­tial pro­jects include col­lab­or­at­ive peat­land res­tor­a­tion, biod­iversity audits and the expan­sion of scrub. The Park Author­ity have also con­tin­ued to meet with moor­land man­agers and recently met with the SGA.

6. Deer Man­age­ment: The imple­ment­a­tion of the recom­mend­a­tions of the Deer Work­ing Group is now led by the Stra­tegic Deer Board which over­sees work on four work­streams which are i) devel­op­ing Legis­la­tion, ii) use of Reg­u­la­tion, iii) devel­op­ing Incent­ives and iv) pub­lic sec­tor Oper­a­tions. Grant Moir sits on the Stra­tegic Deer Board and chairs the devel­op­ing Incent­ives group. CNPA is also rep­res­en­ted on the Oper­a­tions group, where there is a par­tic­u­lar focus on work in the Nation­al Parks and includes the pre­par­a­tion of Stra­tegic Land Use Plans via Cairngorms 2030.

NatureScot are cur­rently lead­ing on a Sec­tion 7 (vol­un­tary deer con­trol) Agree­ment for the South Grampi­ans DMG. This Agree­ment attempts to resolve issues around deer impacts on the Caen­lochan SAC.

People

1. Well­being Eco­nomy Pro­ject and Eco­nom­ic Steer­ing Group: WEAII Scot­land are con­tinu­ing to pro­gress the devel­op­ment stage of this work as part of Cairngorms 2030 Pro­gramme. WEAll Scot­land and CNPA staff facil­it­ated a bespoke sem­in­ar with Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship mem­bers. The team have also been deliv­er­ing work­shops to determ­ine ​“corner­stone indic­at­ors” through the Her­it­age Hori­zons Cairngorms 2030 Road­show Events in Nethy, Brae­mar, Bal­later and Blair Atholl. Work is con­tinu­ing towards devel­op­ment of the corner­stone and busi­ness indic­at­ors, and find­ings from the engage­ment events and online work­shops will be presen­ted to the Well­being Eco­nomy Work­ing Group and Eco­nom­ic Steer­ing Group in Decem­ber. This work is cru­cial in devel­op­ing the Well­being Eco­nomy Action Plan in 2023.

2. Volun­teer­ing and Health Walks: Volun­teer Rangers con­tin­ued to oper­ate across the Nation­al Park, and a recent call for addi­tion­al volun­teers has seen a fur­ther 30 added to the exist­ing pool of 30 volun­teer rangers. The Volun­teer Exper­i­ence Pro­gramme saw fur­ther events in the Autumn giv­ing a num­ber of refugees, asylum seekers and fam­il­ies con­nec­ted to char­it­ies a chance to enjoy the Park.

3. Out­door Access & Long Dis­tance Routes: Work is under way to sig­ni­fic­antly improve the sec­tion of the Spey­side Way through Anagach Woods to widen the range of people that can use the route and this should be com­pleted in Decem­ber. Fur­ther smal­ler repairs / main­ten­ance and fen­cing work is cur­rently being planned for oth­er sec­tions of the route. Near Brae­mar work has stopped tem­por­ar­ily on deliv­ery of a new path by Out­door Access Trust Scot­land while a new spe­cific­a­tion is drawn up to ensure final path is as access­ible as pos­sible by wide range of users.

4. Cli­mate Con­scious Com­munit­ies: A series of work­shops have been held with com­munit­ies, facil­it­ated by Keep Scot­land Beau­ti­ful. The in-per­son events were in Blair Atholl on 25^th Octo­ber and Bal­later and Brae­mar on 9^th & 10^th Novem­ber with a final online event on 17^th November.

5. Com­munity Engage­ment: Ongo­ing meet­ings have taken place, or are sched­uled with our key deliv­ery part­ners in deliv­ery Com­munity Action Plans with­in CNPA, in par­tic­u­lar Vol­un­tary Action Badenoch and Strath­spey and Marr Area Part­ner­ship. The CNPA and VABS are facil­it­at­ing a meet­ing of the Asso­ci­ation of Cairngorms Com­munit­ies, sched­uled for 30^th Novem­ber at the Lecht to look at the future of the Asso­ci­ation of Cairngorms Com­munit­ies across the Cairngorms and also con­sider implic­a­tions of the Cairngorms 2030 Programme.

Place

1. Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan — Plan­ning Guid­ance: We are wait­ing for Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment to approve of the LDP Hous­ing Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance which we hope will hap­pen before the end of the cal­en­dar year. Once in place this will com­plete the full suite of guid­ance for the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan.

2. Plan­ning Case­work: In Septem­ber the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee approved a large bat­tery stor­age scheme (49.9 MW) beside the Boat of Garten sub­sta­tion, a ski tow at Cairngorm Moun­tain and a pri­or approv­al applic­a­tion for forestry related tracks at Kin­rara. A Pro­pos­als of Applic­a­tion Notice for a dis­til­lery and ware­hous­ing south east of Spey Dam was also con­sidered. At the Novem­ber meet­ing, the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee respon­ded to two wind­farm pro­pos­als out­side the Nation­al Park and to a Pro­pos­al of Applic­a­tion Notice for hous­ing on the alloc­ated HI site at Bal­later. A plan­ning appeal against the Plan­ning Committee’s refus­al of an applic­a­tion for lodges asso­ci­ated with the Glen Clova Hotel was dis­missed by the Depart­ment for Plan­ning and Envir­on­ment­al Appeals (DPEA).

3. Hous­ing Deliv­ery: CNPA are con­tinu­ing to sup­port Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship and a num­ber of social enter­prises with hous­ing deliv­ery pro­jects. A pro­ject at the Colquhon­nie Hotel in Strath­don is being developed by the devel­op­ment trust and own­er with advice from the Com­munit­ies Hous­ing Trust. Three com­munity hous­ing pro­jects have won grants from the most recent Cairngorms Trust’s Cairngorms Com­munity Led Vis­ion Fund to sup­port com­munity hous­ing projects.

4. Man­aging for Vis­it­ors: The Man­aging for Vis­it­ors Group, chaired by CNPA and involving landown­ers and man­agers from across the Park, con­tin­ued to meet fort­nightly until the end of Octo­ber. Meet­ings are con­tinu­ing on a monthly basis over the winter. Over­all, feed­back from part­ners about key hot­spots sites remains rel­at­ively pos­it­ive with staff and infra­struc­ture largely able to cope with the vis­it­or num­bers and pres­sures but with some not­able excep­tions, coin­cid­ing with hol­i­day week­ends and fine weath­er coin­cided with the weekend.

5. Ranger Ser­vices: CNPA sea­son­al rangers con­tin­ued until the end of the sum­mer sea­son (30 Octo­ber) with five per­man­ent rangers now con­tinu­ing over the winter. Their pres­ence on the ground has con­tin­ued to be a valu­able con­tri­bu­tion to advising vis­it­ors on appro­pri­ate beha­viour and min­im­ising vis­it­or pres­sures and com­ple­ments the com­mu­nic­a­tions activ­ity on rais­ing aware­ness of the Scot­tish Out­door Access Code. All Rangers Ser­vices in the Park were asked to feed into the end of sea­son review. The pro­posed joint event bring­ing togeth­er all the rangers in the Park, pro­posed for Septem­ber was can­celled due to it fall­ing with­in the peri­od of nation­al mourn­ing but a smal­ler scale event was held at the end of the season.

6. Act­ive Travel Sig­ni­fic­ant activ­ity has con­tin­ued on the Sus­tain­able Trans­port & Act­ive Travel ele­ments of Cairngorms 2030 Pro­gramme with engage­ment ses­sions being held in vir­tu­ally all the main com­munit­ies across the Park. Con­tract­ors work­ing on the Act­ive com­munit­ies: Aviemore and Badenoch & Strath­spey pro­jects have reached the draft report stage after which more detailed feas­ib­il­ity work will be under­taken on pre­ferred options. Con­sulta­tion has fin­ished on the Act­ive com­munit­ies: Blair Atholl & Kil­liecrankie pro­ject which will see draft pro­pos­als shortly while the Upper Deeside Act­ive and Sus­tain­able Travel pro­ject is still at the con­sulta­tion stage with events in Bal­later and Brae­mar held in mid-November.

7. Stra­tegic Tour­ism Infra­struc­ture Plan: The Stra­tegic Tour­ism Infra­struc­ture Plan is presen­ted at the Novem­ber Board meet­ing for approv­al along­side a report on the Vis­it­or Infra­struc­ture Improve­ment Pro­gramme. CNPA is work­ing with con­sult­ants to review the ini­tial find­ings from the Cairngorm and Glen­more Trans­port Study as part of the Cairngorms 2030 Pro­gramme while advising Forest and Land Scot­land and the High­land Coun­cil on way for­wards with the stalled loch­side park­ing project.

8. Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Action Plan: The Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Action Plan has been presen­ted and dis­cussed via the Equal­it­ies Advis­ory Pan­el, the Cairngorms Tour­ism Part­ner­ship and indi­vidu­al meet­ings have taken place with Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship, VABS and oth­er stake­hold­ers to ensure the action plan reflects the Cairngorms Nation­al Park as whole and meets the require­ments for our European Charter resub­mis­sion. The plan is presen­ted at the CNPA Board in Novem­ber for approv­al and onward sub­mis­sion to Euro­parc and a vis­it by an inter­na­tion­al team of veri­fi­ers is expec­ted in Spring 2023.

9. Tour­ism and Busi­ness: The recent quarterly for the Cairngorms Busi­ness Baro­met­er were presen­ted at their annu­al con­fer­ence in Novem­ber. Levels of occu­pancy repor­ted for the peri­od were in line with the norm for the Quarter but slightly lower than those recor­ded dur­ing Q3 2021. How­ever, look­ing to the future, expect­a­tions for cus­tom­er num­bers and turnover for the next 12 months are some­what less pos­it­ive than the norm. Over­all levels of con­fid­ence are some­what lower than the quarter aver­age and decreased on those recor­ded 12 months ago while con­fid­ence for the long term (next 2 years) is at its low­est level since 2012. CNPA staff gave an over­view of the Cairngorms 2030 Pro­gramme at the con­fer­ence and all the present­a­tions and the full Busi­ness Baro­met­er reports are avail­able at the link below https://​www​.cairngorm​scham​ber​.com/​m​e​m​b​e​r​n​e​w​s​.html

Stake­hold­er Engagement

1. Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan: NPPP4 was launched offi­cially by Lor­na Slater MSP, Min­is­ter for Green Skills, Cir­cu­lar Eco­nomy and Biod­iversity, on 23 August at Boat of Garten Com­munity Hall. The event was atten­ded by more than 100 part­ners, key stake­hold­ers and com­munity rep­res­ent­at­ives, and fea­tured a key­note address from Ms Slater and spot­lights on each of the Nature, People and Place sec­tions of the plan. The event was BSL inter­preted and cap­tioned. Along­side the pub­lic­a­tion of the plan itself, we pro­duced a 16-page ​‘Park Plan at a glance’ doc­u­ment which was mailed to over 12,000 house­holds across the Park, sum­mar­ising key themes in the plan and how res­id­ents’ feed­back had helped shaped the final outcome.

2. LGBT Youth Charter: We are work­ing in part­ner­ship with LGBT Youth Scot­land on their LGBT Charter, a pro­gramme that enables organ­isa­tions to pro­act­ively include LGBTI people in every aspect of their work. The pro­gramme kicked off with online train­ing for CNPA staff (includ­ing testi­mo­ni­als from LGBTI young people), and was fol­lowed up by an in-per­son, facil­it­ated ses­sion to inform an organ­isa­tion-wide action plan over the next 12 months. This will include a ded­ic­ated com­mu­nic­a­tions cam­paign cel­eb­rat­ing the LGBTI com­munity with­in the Park and rais­ing aware­ness of the chal­lenges they face.

3. Green Space Dark Skies: GSDS was an innov­at­ive, low-impact light­ing pro­ject illu­min­at­ing nation­al parks across the UK. At the heart of the pro­ject were up to 20,000 ​‘Lumen­at­ors’ – people from all walks of life, each car­ry­ing a GPS-enabled light so organ­isers could cre­ate unique pat­terns in the land­scape. A GSDS event took place at Loch Insh in late sum­mer fea­tur­ing storyteller Merryn Glover, musi­cian Wil­lie Camp­bell and visu­al artist Claire Mac­Don­ald. The event spe­cific­ally tar­geted people who do not usu­ally get to exper­i­ence the Cairngorms. This included a group of Ukrain­i­an cit­izens who had a chance to explore the loch by boat, and guests from Equal Adven­ture, a com­munity interest com­pany which spe­cial­ises in offer­ing water sports for dis­abled people. A Coun­try­file spe­cial on the pro­ject aired recently and can be seen at https://​www​.bbc​.co​.uk/​p​r​o​g​r​a​m​m​e​s​/​m​0​0​1drlr

Com­mu­nic­a­tions

1. Act­ive Cairngorms: our sum­mer paid-for man­aging for vis­it­ors cam­paign came to an end on 4 Septem­ber after a peri­od of two months. The cam­paign spe­cific­ally tar­geted audi­ences we don’t reach through our stand­ard chan­nels and was mostly driv­en through Face­book and Ins­tagram. In total the cam­paign reached 1.8 mil­lion people and 12.4 mil­lion impres­sions (almost double the ori­gin­al estim­ate), with Face­book per­form­ing well with audi­ences over 45 and Ins­tagram spe­cial­ising in reach­ing young­er demo­graph­ics. Ads on park­ing, dog walk­ing and camp­ing per­formed best, with those for lit­ter­ing and out­door toi­let­ing per­form­ing less well. Images without people per­formed bet­ter than those which included them, back­ing up vis­it­or research con­duc­ted as part of the Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject. Along­side our paid-for work, we also pro­duced a series of posts and videos for our owned chan­nels, with these reach­ing around 170,000 people across Face­book, Ins­tagram and Twit­ter. Find­ings from the pro­ject will inform our long-term approach to vis­it­or inform­a­tion and beha­viour change cam­paigns (both in terms of ad place­ment and con­tent / design).

2. Cairngorms Nature: Spe­cies work came to the fore dur­ing the peri­od, with press and social media activ­ity tak­ing place for the release of the nation­al caper­cail­lie sur­vey res­ults at the end of Septem­ber (in part­ner­ship with NatureScot, RSPB Scot­land and Forestry and Land Scot­land) and wader sur­vey res­ults (in part­ner­ship with ECMP mem­bers). Suc­cess­ful breed­ing pro­grammes for the crit­ic­ally endangered pine hov­er­fly and Scot­tish wild­cats – both in part­ner­ship with RZSS – were announced, whilst the Park Authority’s role in rein­tro­du­cing beavers to the area was also covered. Pre­par­a­tions are also under­way for the Cairngorms Nature Fest­iv­al in May.

3. Web­site and social media: A series of stake­hold­er work­shops have taken place to inform the devel­op­ment of a new Cairngorms Nation­al Park web­site, includ­ing with mem­bers of our Equal­it­ies Advis­ory Pan­el, loc­al busi­nesses, res­id­ents and part­ners. Fur­ther work­shops are planned with land man­agers and Cairngorms Nature team mem­bers over com­ing months, and this activ­ity will be sup­por­ted by more detailed sur­veys of web users on the exist­ing site. Find­ings from this work will be com­bined with a tech­nic­al ana­lys­is of our cur­rent digit­al estate, with our agency part­ners pro­du­cing a detailed tech­nic­al spec and suite of user jour­neys for pub­lic tender in the spring.

Across social media we have shared a num­ber of new Cairngorms Voices blog and photo story pieces, cel­eb­rat­ing the people who live, vis­it and work in the Nation­al Park. These include a [cel­eb­ra­tion of the Spey­side Way](link to cel­eb­ra­tion) by Shaun Pat­ter­son, a piece about [volun­teers main­tain­ing paths across the Park](link to volun­teers) by Becky Wilson, and a photo story from artist Rachael Hors­burgh on a [folk­lore map of Glen­more Forest](link to folk­lore map).

1. Pub­lic­a­tions: Decem­ber will see the launch of a new 12-page magazine for res­id­ents in the Nation­al Park. The magazine will be pub­lished three times a year and will share easy-to-digest stor­ies on what is tak­ing place in com­munit­ies across the Nation­al Park, as well as key nature and con­ser­va­tion activ­ity being under­taken as part of NPPP4. Prin­ted on 100% recycled paper using veget­able-based inks, we will bal­ance any car­bon impacts by cre­at­ing nat­ive Scots pine, birch, row­an, wil­low and aspen wood­land in the Nation­al Park.

Organ­isa­tion­al Development

1. Busi­ness Con­tinu­ity Plan­ning (BCP). We have recently con­duc­ted the first 3‑month review of the tri­al Hybrid Approach, which com­menced on 1^st June. Res­ults sug­gest that staff have adap­ted well to the hybrid work­ing envir­on­ment. There is a notice­able increase in num­bers attend­ing the office, and the major­ity of staff are con­tent with the work­ing arrange­ments and office configuration.

2. The Staff Gath­er­ing took place in Octo­ber with almost 100% turnout. Feed­back has been very pos­it­ive, and the event achieved its object­ives of giv­ing staff an oppor­tun­ity to meet one anoth­er, and new col­leagues, as well as find­ing out more about the Her­it­age Hori­zons 2030 Pro­gramme, the Brand­ing Pro­ject and the NPPP4

Staff­ing update:

1. Since 1^st Septem­ber, staff­ing updates to the end of Novem­ber are as fol­lows: a) Staff who left the organ­isa­tion were: i. Kasia Stringer-Ladd, HH Com­mu­nic­a­tions & Engage­ment Officer ii. The Sea­son­al Rangers; Fiona Brewis, Blair John­ston, Danny O’Brien, Sott Hast­ings, Craig Fraser, Tony Seive­wright, Gil­lian Gib­son iii. The Train­ee Rangers; Joe Mcil­wraith, Kirsty Men­zies, Sam Philips and Tom Frer­diks­son iv. Nina Caudrey, Plan­ning Officer (Devel­op­ment Plan­ning and Envir­on­ment­al Advice), v. Naomi Kaye, Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject Coordin­at­or b) Staff who joined the organ­isa­tion, fol­low­ing a com­pet­it­ive extern­al recruit­ment pro­cess were:- i. Sara Den­ner, Recep­tion­ist & Admin Assist­ant ii. Ewan Camp­bell, Peat­land Action Pro­ject Officer iii. Simon Thomas, Peat­land Action Pro­ject Officer iv. Brenna Jessie, Digit­al Con­tent Man­ager v. Adam Fraser, Mon­it­or­ing Eco­lo­gist vi. Kar­en Ald­ridge, Plan­ning Eco­lo­gic­al Adviser c) Intern­al staff appoint­ments, fol­low­ing a com­pet­it­ive intern­al recruit­ment pro­cess were: i. Dav­id Heth­er­ing­ton was appoin­ted to the Nature Net­works Man­ager ii. Fiona Holmes was appoin­ted to the Wood­land Adviser post, iii. Lewis Pâté was appoin­ted to the farm­land con­ser­va­tion officer post iv. Jenny Allen was appoin­ted to the Cairngorms 2030 Pro­gramme Manager

Euro­parc Conference

1. The Con­vener and Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place atten­ded Euro­parc Con­fer­ence in France in Octo­ber focus­sing on cli­mate and nature issues. It was good to see Scotland’s strong pro­file in this import­ant European net­work. Good con­tacts were made and dis­cus­sions took place about a range of issues includ­ing an inter­na­tion­al per­spect­ive on the planned work on Scot­land on future nation­al parks, work­ing with young people and our col­lab­or­at­ive work with oth­er pro­tec­ted areas at UK level.

Youth Employ­ment:

1. Kath­er­ine Will­ing and Calum Guy, both of whom joined the organ­isa­tion as gradu­ate trainees/​interns atten­ded the Young Scot­land Pro­gramme, along with 30 oth­er del­eg­ates from across Scot­land. This was a res­id­en­tial, week-long course aimed at enhan­cing com­mu­nic­a­tions skills, inspir­ing con­fid­ence and broad­en­ing the intel­lec­tu­al hori­zons of people in the early years of their career. Both gained tre­mend­ous bene­fits form this opportunity.

2. In addi­tion to Alfie Ford (Grant­own Gram­mar School), who is on a Work Exper­i­ence place­ment with the Park Author­ity one after­noon a week dur­ing term time with the IT team, Liam Beats (Nairn Academy) is on a Work Exper­i­ence place­ment with the Autumn Sea­son Ranger team.

Equal­it­ies:.

1. 88% of Park Author­ity staff have now atten­ded the Equal­it­ies train­ing delivered by JRS KnowHow. A mop-up ses­sion in Decem­ber should cap­ture those who missed the oppor­tun­ity. JRS KnowHow will be deliv­er­ing an in-per­son ses­sion for Board mem­bers in the New Year.

2. Cairngorms Trust: The Trust Board has made fund­ing decisions to award around £120,000 of fund­ing made avail­able by the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment in the ²⁰²²⁄₂₃ round of fund­ing aimed at test­ing approaches to Com­munity Led Loc­al Devel­op­ment in replace­ment of LEAD­ER. A con­tract has been estab­lished with a loc­al busi­ness to sup­port the e‑bike act­ive trans­port pro­ject, with the busi­ness main­tain­ing the e‑bikes and sup­port­ing the deliv­ery and col­lec­tion of e‑bikes to and from cli­ents who have free use of them for a peri­od in order to sup­port health needs and / or tri­al life style changes toward more sus­tain­able transport.