Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

Form­al Board Paper 5

8 Septem­ber 2023

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For Dis­cus­sion

Title: Man­aging for Vis­it­ors in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park.

Pre­pared by: Mur­ray Fer­guson, Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place and Grant Moir, CEO

Pur­pose

This paper seeks the views of the Board on poten­tial options around man­aging for vis­it­ors in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. Officers are seek­ing a steer on the options that the Board would like staff to do fur­ther work on, to help with the pre­par­a­tion of the Act­ive Cairngorms Action Plan which will be brought back to the Board in Novem­ber 2023.

This paper builds on the cur­rent vis­it­or man­age­ment work in the Nation­al Park and the policies and actions as set out in the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan.

The Park Author­ity has pre­pared a Man­aging for Vis­it­ors Plan for each of the last three years with input from part­ners. The Plan is oper­a­tion­al in nature and pro­motes coordin­a­tion of the rel­ev­ant work across the Park. The arrange­ments are under­pinned by a reg­u­lar meet­ing of part­ners through a Man­aging for Vis­it­ors Group, chaired by Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity, Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place, or by Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices and Act­ive Travel.

Recom­mend­a­tions

The Board is asked to:

a) Note the wide range of work cur­rently under­way to man­age vis­it­or pressure.

b) Note the timetable for the Act­ive Cairngorms Action Plan.

c) Con­sider the dif­fer­ent options set out in the paper and agree a steer for staff on which ones to invest­ig­ate further.

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Stra­tegic policy consideration

1. Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP) 2023 — 2027: The NPPP, which was approved by Min­is­ters in August 2022, is the over­arch­ing man­age­ment plan for the Park the Nation­al Park. The Act­ive Cairngorms Action Plan, which is due to be con­sidered by the Board in Novem­ber, will replace the annu­al Man­aging for Vis­it­ors Plan and the former Out­door Access Strategy and integ­rate plans for sim­il­ar themes in one place — includ­ing out­door access, volun­teer­ing and the deploy­ment of Rangers across the Park. See Appendix 1 for rel­ev­ant object­ives in the NPPP.

2. Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Cor­por­ate Plan: The Cor­por­ate Plan sets out the con­tri­bu­tion that the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity will make over the next four years to the imple­ment­a­tion of that Plan, using our grant-in-aid from the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment and oth­er fund­ing sources.

3. Out­door access and oth­er legis­la­tion: The Land Reform (Scot­land) Act 2003 sets out the rights of access that every­one has and which apply to almost all land in Scot­land. The Scot­tish Out­door Access Code sets out the way in which people are required to behave respons­ibly. The Park Author­ity con­venes a Loc­al Out­door Access For­um to provide advice on all out­door access issues. There are sev­er­al oth­er rel­ev­ant pieces of import­ant legis­la­tion that affect the man­age­ment for vis­it­ors includ­ing legis­la­tion relat­ing to lit­ter, fires, park­ing, etc (See Appendix 2).

4. Nation­al Vis­it­or Man­age­ment arrange­ments: Dur­ing the Cov­id pan­dem­ic a new set of arrange­ments was put in place to coordin­ate the sus­tain­able man­age­ment of vis­it­ors at a nation­al level, coordin­ated by Vis­itScot­land. Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity officers sit on all the rel­ev­ant groups and sub­groups and feed in inform­a­tion and ideas at a nation­al level. The Park Author­ity con­trib­utes reg­u­lar reports every two weeks on a Red / Amber / Green basis, as part of a nation­al sys­tem to mon­it­or of the degree to which we all have the resources in place to deal with vis­it­or pres­sures. This work is col­lated and reviewed by NatureScot.

5. Infra­struc­ture for Vis­it­ors: The Park Author­ity has pre­pared a Stra­tegic Tour­ism Infra­struc­ture Devel­op­ment Plan which has been sub­mit­ted to VisitScotland.

6. Sus­tain­able Tour­ism: A Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Action Plan has also been pre­pared and sub­mit­ted to Euro­parc to under­pin the status of the Park with the European Charter for Sus­tain­able Tour­ism in Pro­tec­ted Areas (one of only two such areas in UK). A Euro­parc veri­fi­er vis­ited the Park in May and their report is awaited. Assum­ing a

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pos­it­ive report is received, the Park Author­ity expects to be re-awar­ded the Charter in late Novem­ber 2023.

Stra­tegic risk management

1. The pre­par­a­tion of the Act­ive Cairngorms Action Plan is under way and officers are work­ing with the range of part­ner­ship groups (includ­ing the Loc­al Out­door Access For­um, Man­aging for Vis­it­ors Group and the Cairngorms Tour­ism Part­ner­ship) to devel­op a new suite of actions to achieve tar­gets in the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan. The Park Author­ity is tak­ing account of all the feed­back received as part of the pre­par­a­tion of the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan in 2021 and the feed­back received recently through oth­er con­sulta­tion pro­cesses. A range of assess­ments are also being under­taken includ­ing Equal­ity Impact Assess­ment and Stra­tegic Envir­on­ment­al Impact Assess­ment. The Action Plan will be con­sidered for approv­al by the Park Author­ity Board in late November.

2. Over­all, the arrange­ments we have in place for man­aging for vis­it­ors in the Nation­al Park are work­ing well. The vast major­ity of vis­it­ors enjoy the Park respons­ibly and the feed­back about their vis­its is gen­er­ally very pos­it­ive. Rela­tion­ships between key part­ner agen­cies and with land man­agers are good and there are many exem­plars of pos­it­ive pro­ject deliv­ery and ini­ti­at­ives in place. Data about incid­ents of poor or anti-social beha­viour are col­lated by Rangers across the Park and fed into Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment as described above as part of a nation­al sys­tem using stand­ard met­rics. (See Appendix 3). Some spe­cif­ic out­door access issues are also dis­cussed with the Loc­al Out­door Access For­um who provide advice to help find prac­tic­al solutions.

3. Des­pite the suc­cess of this approach over­all, there are some recur­ring prob­lems and there have been sig­ni­fic­ant calls for a change in approach in cer­tain loc­a­tions (espe­cially in the Cairngorm and Glen­more area) and on cer­tain issues. There are a num­ber of stra­tegic issues that are worthy of fur­ther con­sid­er­a­tion as we pre­pare to final­ise the Act­ive Cairngorms Action Plan. Each issue is con­sidered in turn and an indic­a­tion giv­en of the pro­posed way for­wards in order to pro­mote discussion.

Engage­ment with vis­it­ors and enforcement

1. We now have over 45 FTE Rangers out in the Park who oper­ate through a unique part­ner­ship, coordin­ated by the Park Author­ity whereby some Rangers are employed dir­ectly by the Park Author­ity while oth­ers are grant-aided by the Author­ity or are stand-alone ser­vices. There are 14 dif­fer­ent Ranger employ­ers in Park but all

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Rangers wear the Cairngorm Nation­al Park brand on their cloth­ing and identi­fy as part of a fam­ily of Rangers who are work­ing togeth­er to help people enjoy their vis­it and to look after the Nation­al Park. Joint train­ing, sup­port and inter­ac­tion with the nation­al sys­tem for Rangers is coordin­ated by Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority.

1. We have received very pos­it­ive feed­back about the work of Rangers from vis­it­ors, loc­al com­munit­ies and land man­agers. Fur­ther­more, this part­ner­ship arrange­ment for Ranger ser­vices is seen as an example of best prac­tice in the man­age­ment of vis­it­ors in pro­tec­ted areas which has attrac­ted atten­tion from else­where in the UK and internationally.

2. By and large, the work of Rangers (and our approach to the man­age­ment for vis­it­ors gen­er­ally) is all about pos­it­ive engage­ment – our Rangers chat to vis­it­ors, encour­aging and guid­ing them to behave well using a range of tech­niques and mater­i­als. This is highly skilled and, at times, sens­it­ive work.

3. To sup­port this approach, a num­ber of com­mu­nic­a­tions cam­paigns and ini­ti­at­ives have been pre­pared, in part­ner­ship with nation­al organ­isa­tions (e.g. Ram­blers Asso­ci­ation) and loc­al groups (e.g. Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship). Strong efforts have been made to engage with new audi­ences see CEO Report for examples.

4. The Park Author­ity Ranger team is used flex­ibly across the Park to sup­port the work of land man­agers in line with the Man­age­ment Vis­it­or Plan which iden­ti­fies key hot­spots. How­ever, a small num­ber or vis­it­ors (and fre­quently at the same loc­a­tions) do not fol­low the guid­ance that is giv­en or the leg­al para­met­ers around lit­ter­ing, fires, park­ing, etc. When such prob­lems do arise, a range of meas­ures are employed:

a) Ded­ic­ated enforce­ment officers are called in – for example, Police Scot­land deal with threats, viol­ence or sig­ni­fic­ant crime; Scot­tish Fire and Res­cue Ser­vice extin­guish fires and The High­land Coun­cil at Glen­more deal with illeg­al or dan­ger­ous parking.

b) The Park Author­ity (in part­ner­ship with FLS and the THC) has paid for a guar­an­teed Police pres­ence at Glen­more at peak week­ends and later in the evenings.

c) As part of their work, Rangers now routinely col­lect evid­ence and pass on con­cerns about issues and poten­tial offences being com­mit­ted to Police Scotland.

d) We have recently developed a new approach whereby people who are thought to be leav­ing dirty camp­sites or sig­ni­fic­ant lit­ter­ing, etc receive an inform­al warning

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let­ter from Police Scot­land which is sent to the registered keep­er of the rel­ev­ant vehicle.

1. Pro­sec­utors in Scot­land have a range of options for deal­ing with repor­ted offend­ing, includ­ing tak­ing no action, issu­ing warn­ing let­ters, fin­an­cial pen­al­ties, as well as com­men­cing court proceedings.

2. The Rangers with­in the Nation­al Park do not cur­rently have any enforce­ment powers. This is dif­fer­ent to some oth­er areas as set out below:

a) Staff in Loch Lomond & the Trossachs Nation­al Park already have powers in issu­ing Fixed Pen­alty Notices for lit­ter­ing offences under an amend­ment to the 1990 Envir­on­ment­al Pro­tec­tion Act but can­not enforce bylaws in a sim­il­ar way – these require reports to Pro­cur­at­ors Fiscal.

b) In Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil the Sea­son­al Access Coun­tryside Rangers (but not the per­man­ent Rangers) do have powers to issue Fixed Pen­alty Notices in rela­tion to lit­ter­ing and dog fouling.

1. Increas­ingly, the light touch approach to enforce­ment in the Cairngorms is caus­ing some com­munity con­cern. Atten­tion has been drawn to the fact that Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment has, for example, developed new offences in rela­tion to lit­ter­ing and high­er pen­al­ties (via the new Nation­al Lit­ter and Fly-tip­ping Strategy which was launched by Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment in June 2023) but these do require to be enforced. The con­sulta­tion on the future of Nation­al Parks may also pro­pose Fixed Pen­alty Notices to byelaws mak­ing them con­sid­er­ably easi­er to enforce.

2. Any pro­pos­al to look at new enforce­ment powers for Rangers will need to take account of the change in nature of the role of the Rangers, the train­ing needed and the costs of man­aging the enforce­ment process.

3. The pro­posed way for­wards is:

a) Con­tin­ued very strong emphas­is by all Rangers and front-line staff on pos­it­ive engage­ment with vis­it­ors, pos­it­ive com­mu­nic­a­tions cam­paigns and edu­cat­ing vis­it­ors on how to look after the Nation­al Park.

b) Part­ner­ships with key bod­ies on cam­paigns to pro­mote and amp­li­fy respons­ible beha­viour in an innov­at­ive and enga­ging way at both loc­al and nation­al level.

c) Look at poten­tial for Park Author­ity Rangers to be trained to issue Fixed Pen­alty Notices in sup­port of any man­age­ment rules or byelaws and for lit­ter­ing, etc.

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Man­age­ment of wild­fire risk

1. The chan­ging cli­mate will make wild­fire risk con­sid­er­ably high­er in the future. This year there has already been a num­ber of incid­ents in the Nation­al Park and there have been large wild­fires just out­side the Park at Dav­i­ot and Can­nich. The Park Author­ity has also received expres­sions of com­munity con­cern on this issue (see Glen­more sec­tion below).

2. The Park Author­ity has already com­mit­ted in the NPPP to estab­lish an Integ­rated Wild­fire Man­age­ment Plan (IWMP) for the Park. Pre­par­a­tion of this plan will be led by the Land Man­age­ment team with­in Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity and work has star­ted recently. The pur­pose of the IWMP is to increase the abil­ity of land man­agers across the Park to:

a) min­im­ise the risk of wild­fires starting.

b) respond effect­ively to wild­fires that do start.

c) reduce the impact of any wild­fires in the landscape.

1. The devel­op­ment of the IWMP was dis­cussed at the Cairngorms Upland Advis­ory Group on 30 August. The IWMP will also have to take into account the chan­ging legis­la­tion around muir­burn licen­cing in Scotland.

2. Park Author­ity officers were invited to the recent Fire Sum­mit hos­ted by Kate For­bes MSP in July 2023 to give an over­view of this work.

3. Wild­fire risk is mit­ig­ated through a num­ber of cur­rent approaches:

a) Pro­mo­tion of the Scot­tish Out­door Access Code (SOAC)– Edu­ca­tion, Sig­nage, Leaf­lets and Communications.

b) Estate Fire Man­age­ment Plans and staff training.

c) Ranger Ser­vices across the Park (see sum­mary of num­ber of fires extin­guished in Appendix 3)

d) Wild­fire Groups – oper­a­tion­al in vari­ous parts of the Nation­al Park

1. There are a num­ber of options that could be con­sidered to reduce fire risk fur­ther in the Nation­al Park.

a) Change to SOAC – There may be an oppor­tun­ity through the Land Reform Scot­land Bill to look at amend­ing access rights to exclude fires/BBQ’s out­side of private cur­til­ages. The cur­rent text on fires in SOAC is in Appendix 4.

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b) Fire Man­age­ment Byelaws – Look at an option to stop open fires and BBQs out­side of private cur­til­ages in the Nation­al Park. There is poten­tial to look at this as part of Integ­rated Wild­fire Man­age­ment Plan or to under­take the work in par­al­lel. If this route is taken sig­ni­fic­ant resource would be required to enforce the bylaws. A sum­mary of issues relat­ing to fire man­age­ment byelaws is set out in Appendix 5.

c) Train­ing Ranger Ser­vices in fire man­age­ment – Poten­tial to look at train­ing and provid­ing equip­ment for NPA Rangers (and oth­ers) to provide sup­port to SFRS if a wild­fire starts in the NP.

d) Encour­age loc­al author­it­ies to lead on emer­gency and resi­li­ence plan­ning for wild­fires (as cur­rently hap­pens for flood­ing) with pri­or­ity giv­en to the Cairngorm and Glen­more area.

e) Review sig­nage and com­mu­nic­a­tion about fire risk as part of nation­al approach and pri­or­it­ise the devel­op­ment of con­sist­ent sig­nage across the Park.

Man­aging vis­it­ors and the dis­turb­ance to wildlife

1. In the NPPP there is an action to ​‘con­sider all poten­tial mech­an­isms to reduce dis­turb­ance on key spe­cies and recre­ation­al impacts on high ground.’

2. It is import­ant to note that we already give sig­ni­fic­ant atten­tion to min­im­ising the dis­turb­ance of wild­life in deal­ing with plan­ning applic­a­tions and des­ig­nat­ing fea­tures such as core paths.

3. The Park Author­ity and part­ners have already under­taken sig­ni­fic­ant work, most recently through the Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject to devel­op com­munity-led approaches to redu­cing recre­ation­al dis­turb­ance. This has worked espe­cially well with the com­munity of moun­tain-bikers and work has just begun with the dog-walk­ing com­munity. The ​“Lek it Be” cam­paign (pro­mot­ing the approach of not going look­ing for caper­cail­lie from March to August) was developed with mem­bers of the bird­watch­ing, pho­to­graphy and wild­life-guid­ing com­munity and has been very successful.

4. NatureScot has worked with Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authroity and the Loc­al Out­door Access For­um to devel­op man­age­ment rules, restrict­ing water­craft and swim­ming at the lochs at the Muir of Din­net Nation­al Nature Reserve. Sig­ni­fic­ant improve­ments in breed­ing suc­cess of Goldeneye were repor­ted in 2023 – the best breed­ing return in more than a decade.

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1. How­ever, more needs to be done to lim­it and reduce recre­ation­al dis­turb­ance in key areas of the Park. In part this approach is neces­sary due to the require­ments of par­tic­u­lar spe­cies (e.g. Caper­cail­lie — see sep­ar­ate Board paper) and in part by obser­va­tions of beha­viour in par­tic­u­lar areas (e.g. around smalls lochs and areas of fresh­wa­ter or regard­ing dogs and the effects on ground-nest­ing birds).

2. To be clear, the work required is not about restrict­ing peoples’ out­door access rights but more work is being under­taken to identi­fy parts of the Park where spe­cial approaches will be taken to reduce dis­turb­ance, either through infra­struc­ture pro­jects or beha­viour-change ini­ti­at­ives (e.g. sig­nage, patrolling of Rangers, etc).

3. The pro­posed way for­wards is:

a) Devel­op the leg­acy plan for Caper­cail­lie pro­ject and devel­op fur­ther the com­munity-based, vol­un­tary approach to redu­cing recre­ation­al disturbance.

b) Identi­fy, as part of the Act­ive Cairngorms Action Plan, a series of ​“quiet areas for nature” which will be used to fur­ther devel­op the range of infra­struc­ture and beha­vi­our­al ini­ti­at­ives to reduce dis­turb­ance on key spe­cies and hab­it­ats. Mon­it­or closely and, if approaches are not work­ing, look at altern­at­ive approaches.

c) Devel­op a suite of resources and train­ing con­tent regard­ing recre­ation­al dis­turb­ance of spe­cies and hab­it­ats to be delivered with partners.

d) Increase pro­mo­tion of envir­on­ment­ally robust routes includ­ing the extens­ive core paths net­work, the Spey­side Way and oth­er stra­tegic routes.

Glen­more

1. The Glen­more area is by far the busiest area of the Park and is also in pub­lic own­er­ship, man­aged by Forest and Land Scot­land. The main issues are around car park­ing, beha­viour on the beach asso­ci­ated with camp­ing, fires and camper­vans. The chal­lenge of man­aging these issues has raised ques­tions about the level of staff­ing resource in place to address these issues and respons­ive­ness to issues bey­ond nor­mal work­ing hours.

2. In June 2023, fol­low­ing a pub­lic meet­ing to dis­cuss increased com­munity-led man­age­ment of the area, the Aviemore and Glen­more Com­munity Trust and the Aviemore and Vicin­ity Com­munity Coun­cil wrote to Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity call­ing for new bylaws to control:

a) the light­ing of any fire includ­ing any char­coal barbe­que with­in the forest areas of Glen­more includ­ing on the beach and fore­shore of Loch Morlich.

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b) All camp­ing on the beach and fore­shore of Loch Mor­lich, and in par­tic­u­lar with­in 100 metres of the Loch oth­er than on a des­ig­nated campsite.

1. Fire is a par­tic­u­lar issue in Glen­more and if a wild­fire was to start in this area we could lose some of our most pre­cious wood­land. Loch Mor­lich is a key vis­it­or man­age­ment hot spot and fires are a con­tinu­al issue in the area. Even after been spoken to by Rangers and all fires being extin­guished, many fires are lit again later in the even­ing. Con­cern has also been expressed about safety issues for res­id­ents and vis­it­ors in the area.

2. Regard­ing trans­port and traffic man­age­ment, a pro­ject in the Cairngorms 2030 Pro­gramme is look­ing at the trans­port solu­tions for the area in the medi­um to long term with the emphas­is on redu­cing cars. In the mean­time, Forest and Land Scot­land have developed a Parking/​Traffic Plan and have made arrange­ments for addi­tion­al tem­por­ary capa­city at the Hay­field and invest­ig­at­ing poten­tial for a new path on road­side by Loch Mor­lich. A new, hourly bus ser­vice, ​“The Aviemore Adven­turer”, which can carry bikes was intro­duced in May to Cairngorm Moun­tain. And the High­land Coun­cil are con­sult­ing on speed and park­ing restric­tions; and dis­cus­sions are under way about integ­rated man­age­ment of roads and car­parks in the area.

3. There are a num­ber of options that could be considered:

a) CNPA will review the Cairngorm and Glen­more Strategy (from 2016) with a view to com­ple­tion by June 2024.

b) Con­tin­ued dis­cus­sion with FLS to:

  i. Increase staff capacity to manage Glenmore Forest Park and get the level of provision of staffing and facilities better aligned with demand and resource capacity - for example, one option proposed is of 24 hour warden for Loch Morlich beach from 1 May to 30 September each year

  ii. Keep under review the need for site specific bylaws in relation to camping and fires.

c) Emphas­is giv­en to traffic and park­ing man­age­ment to ensure that park­ing pro­vi­sion is appro­pri­ate, well-man­aged and reduce cars in the area over time:

  i. In short/medium term – put in place traffic restrictions, encourage more public transport, encourage THC and FLS to reach agreement re management of parking and enforcement and a rationalise permissions for campervans in only selected areas. All this work will help alleviate camping pressure at Loch Morlich beach.

  ii. In medium / long term – implement the Cairngorms 2030 project to significantly reduce car-based travel to Glenmore.

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d) Fires: see the pro­pos­als above regard­ing Integ­rated Wild­fire Man­age­ment Plan and bylaws.

Vis­it­or Infrastructure

1. Many issues con­cern­ing the man­age­ment for vis­it­ors can be resolved through pro­vi­sion of good infra­struc­ture. The Park Author­ity has an approved Plan which we will work with part­ners to implement.

2. The pro­posed way for­wards is:

a) Deliv­ery of Stra­tegic Tour­ism Infra­struc­ture Devel­op­ment Plan

b) Deliv­ery of act­ive travel pro­jects in the Cairngorms 2030 Programme

c) Con­tinu­ation of Park Author­ity Vis­it­or Infra­struc­ture Improve­ment Programme

Next Steps

1. The next steps are to engage with stake­hold­ers in developing:

a) Act­ive Cairngorms Action Plan and Integ­rated Wild­fire Man­age­ment Plan.

b) Estab­lish costs and resource implic­a­tions for options includ­ing timescales.

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Form­al Board Paper 5 Appendixes

8 Septem­ber 2023

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Appendix 1: Rel­ev­ant object­ives and policies from the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan

Object­ive A7 — Ensure that all man­aged burn­ing (muir­burn) fol­lows best prac­tice as defined by the muir­burn licens­ing scheme, sup­port­ing hab­it­at res­tor­a­tion and recov­ery. Tar­get A7 — Reduce wild­fire risk by devel­op­ing an integ­rated wild­fire man­age­ment plan for the Nation­al Park. Actions:

a) Devel­op an integ­rated wild­fire man­age­ment plan for the Nation­al Park, includ­ing stra­tegic firebreaks.

b) Devel­op and agree a Nation­al Park approach on camp­fires and barbecues.

Object­ive C5 — Work to sta­bil­ise vis­it­or num­bers in the peak sea­son, focus­ing growth on quieter months and on those areas that have the infra­struc­ture and capa­city to accom­mod­ate addi­tion­al visitors.

Object­ive C6 — Secure the Nation­al Park’s repu­ta­tion as an inter­na­tion­al exem­plar in sus­tain­able tour­ism and the man­age­ment of pro­tec­ted areas.

Object­ive C9 — Wel­come vis­it­ors and provide a high-qual­ity exper­i­ence while man­aging their impacts through provid­ing bet­ter infra­struc­ture and high-qual­ity ranger services.

Policy C4 Devel­op plans to help man­age vis­it­or pres­sure in key areas, including:

a) Ensur­ing high-qual­ity facil­it­ies and infra­struc­ture are designed to man­age the effects of vis­it­or pres­sures on the nat­ur­al her­it­age and communities.

b) Ensur­ing that the upgrad­ing or refur­bish­ment of vis­it­or hubs improves access­ib­il­ity for all poten­tial users and incor­por­ates dis­abled access toi­lets and Chan­ging Places facil­it­ies where possible.

c) Enhan­cing the pro­vi­sion of Ranger Ser­vices to deliv­er a warm vis­it­or wel­come and pro­mote respons­ible access.

d) Redu­cing fire risk by lim­it­ing or exclud­ing bar­be­cues and open fires in key areas of the Nation­al Park, such as in areas of wood­land and peatland.

e) Redu­cing impacts on sens­it­ive habitats.

f) Ensur­ing appro­pri­ate trans­port man­age­ment to facil­it­ate and enhance the vis­it­or experience.

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Form­al Board Paper 5 Appendixes

8 Septem­ber 2023

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Appendix 2: Sum­mary of aspects of the Legis­la­tion relat­ing to the Man­age­ment of Visitors

Issue	Offences
Fires	Sec­tion 56 of the Civic Gov­ern­ment (Scot­land) Act 1982 indic­ates that any per­son who lays or lights a fire in a pub­lic place so as to endanger any oth­er per­son, or to give reas­on­able cause for alarm or annoy­ance, or so as to endanger any prop­erty is guilty of an offence (a pub­lic place is any place to which the pub­lic have unres­tric­ted access). Spe­cif­ic offences also apply to fires which cause par­tic­u­lar types of dam­age, for example to trees. The offence of van­dal­ism (under sec­tion 52 of the Crim­in­al Law (Con­sol­id­a­tion) (Scot­land) Act 1995) applies to any per­son who, without reas­on­able excuse, wil­fully or reck­lessly des­troys or dam­ages any prop­erty belong­ing to anoth­er, and the com­mon law offence of mali­cious mis­chief also extends to inten­tion­al dam­age to grow­ing trees. Under the Tres­pass (Scot­land) Act 1865, it is an offence to light a fire on or near any private road, on enclosed or cul­tiv­ated land, or in or near any plant­a­tion, without the con­sent of the own­er or land manager.
Park­ing	Road Traffic Act 1988 (Sec­tion 34 and 22) ​“It is an offence to drive a motor vehicle without law­ful author­ity on: • and of any descrip­tion (not form­ing part of a road), or • a foot­path or bri­dle­way except in an emer­gency.” Sec­tion 34 makes an allow­ance for a motor vehicle to be driv­en off-road for no more than 15 yards solely in order to park the vehicle. How­ever, it spe­cific­ally notes that this excep­tion does not con­fer any right to park the vehicle on the land, and cla­ri­fies that this may con­sti­tute tres­pass if done

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Lit­ter

without law­ful author­ity. Sec­tion 22 makes it an offence to park or leave a vehicle or its trail­er in a pos­i­tion likely to cause danger to oth­er road-users. Envir­on­ment­al Pro­tec­tion Act 1990 (Sec­tion 87) It is an offence to drop or depos­it and leave lit­ter in any pub­lic open place (a place in the open air where you can go without pay­ing). Note: The New Nation­al Lit­ter and Fly Tip­ping Strategy and Action Plan (June 2023) has pro­pos­als for new crimes and increased pen­al­ties https://www.gov.scot/publications/national-litter-flytipping-strategy/documents/

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Appendix 3: Sum­mary of met­rics for the Man­age­ment of Vis­it­ors, coordin­ated by NatureScot April to August 2023

	No. of people engaged with	No. neg­at­ive engage­ments	No. tents encountered	No. of overnight­ing camper­vans	No. of dogs on a lead (or under very close con­trol) encountered	No. of dogs off the lead (or not under very close con­trol) encountered	No. of live fires/​BBQs extin­guished	No. of old fire/​BBQ remains cleared	No. of bags of lit­ter col­lec­ted (black bin bags to the nearest 0.25)
CNPA
Ranger	7315	82	1454	1290	2502	300	117	457	571
data
CNP
Ranger	12328	27	841	1211	1552	579	81	64	141
Fam­ily
data
TOTAL	19,643	109	2,295	2,501	4,054	879	198	521	712

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Appendix 4 – Scot­tish Out­door Access Code: Fires

The Out­door Access Code says:

“Wherever pos­sible, use a stove rather than light an open fire. If you do wish to light an open fire, keep it small, under con­trol, and super­vised — fires that get out of con­trol can cause major dam­age, for which you might be liable. Nev­er light an open fire dur­ing pro­longed dry peri­ods or in areas such as forests, woods, farm­land or on peaty ground or near to build­ings or in cul­tur­al her­it­age sites where dam­age can be eas­ily caused. Heed all advice at times of high risk. Remove all traces of an open fire before you leave.”

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Appendix 5 – A sum­mary of issues relat­ing to fire man­age­ment byelaws

Legis­la­tion

Sched­ule 2 of the 2000 Act provides at para­graph 8(1) that the Nation­al Park Author­ity may make byelaws for the Park for the pur­poses of:

“(a) pro­tect­ing the nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age of the Nation­al Park, (b) pre­vent­ing dam­age to the land or any­thing in, on or under it, © secur­ing the public’s enjoy­ment of, and safety in, the Nation­al Park.”

In par­tic­u­lar, para­graph 8(2) provides that the Author­ity may make byelaws under sub­para­graph (1) ​“to reg­u­late or pro­hib­it the light­ing of fires”.

Poten­tial Type of Byelaw (not Park Author­ity position)

• A Park-wide byelaw to pro­hib­it the light­ing of fires or BBQ’s through­out the year except:

  • If the fire or BBQ is in a private cur­til­age and is under the con­trol of the own­ers / ten­ants of the property;
  • If the fire is set under licence as part of a muir­burn plan;
  • If the fire is in a fire­place con­nec­ted with a bothy;
  • If the fire/​bbq is in an offi­cial camp­ing and cara­van site.

Four poten­tial vari­ables that need consideration:

• Wheth­er fires should only be restric­ted for cer­tain times of the year e.g. only pro­hib­ited Feb­ru­ary to October.
• Wheth­er fires should be restric­ted only dur­ing high fire risk.
• Wheth­er fires with­in cur­til­ages should be covered at time of high fire risk as well?
• Wheth­er both­ies should be covered at times of high fire risk?

Enforce­ment

One of the most sig­ni­fic­ant issues is around how enforce­able a byelaw is — and what resources are needed for enforce­ment. From an enforce­ment per­spect­ive, the Authority

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would be entitled to seek to enforce the byelaws via its own prop­erly-author­ised employ­ees in the first instance, with any fail­ure to com­ply being repor­ted to Police Scotland.

Pro­cess to get byelaws in place

Sched­ule 2 to the 2000 Act provides at para­graph 9 for the pro­ced­ure to be fol­lowed where the Park Author­ity pro­poses to make byelaws. Sec­tions 202 to 204 of the Loc­al Gov­ern­ment (Scot­land) Act 1973 will also apply in rela­tion to the pro­posed byelaws. These impose addi­tion­al require­ments in rela­tion to the adop­tion and revoc­a­tion of byelaws.

The fol­low­ing steps will be required in order to pro­mote and con­firm byelaws under the 2000 Act:

• The byelaws would have to be draf­ted by com­pet­ent leg­al pro­fes­sion­als. It will be import­ant for the draft­ing to be both detailed and precise.

• The Author­ity would then have to obtain approv­al from the CNPA Board to allow the pro­posed byelaws to be pub­li­cised – this pro­cess will align with Park Author­ity times­cales and fre­quency of rel­ev­ant Board meetings;

• The pro­posed byelaws must then be made avail­able for pub­lic inspec­tion for at least 12 weeks and pub­li­cised in such man­ner as the Park Author­ity thinks fit;

• The Park Author­ity must con­sult: every loc­al author­ity and com­munity coun­cil any part of whose area is with­in the area to which the pro­posed byelaws would apply (the ​“byelaw area”); such per­sons as appear to the Author­ity to be rep­res­ent­at­ive of the interests of those who live, work, carry on busi­ness or engage in recre­ation­al activ­it­ies in the byelaw area; and such oth­er per­sons as the Author­ity thinks fit;

• Account must be taken of any views or com­ments provided by the con­sul­tees dur­ing the con­sulta­tion peri­od. The Author­ity may con­sider that the byelaws should remain the same or should be mod­i­fied. It is estim­ated that con­sid­er­a­tion of the com­ments may take anoth­er month at the end of the con­sulta­tion peri­od, although that may be longer or short­er depend­ing on the num­ber of objec­tions and com­ments received and the nature thereof;

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• The Park Author­ity would then have to obtain author­ity to seek con­firm­a­tion of the byelaws from CNPA Board – this pro­cess will align with intern­al Author­ity times­cales and fre­quency of rel­ev­ant Board meetings;

• At least one month before applic­a­tion for con­firm­a­tion of the byelaws is made, notice of: the inten­tion to apply for con­firm­a­tion; the place where a copy of the byelaws may be inspec­ted; and of the author­ity to whom objec­tions may be noti­fied – i.e. the Scot­tish Min­is­ters – must be giv­en in a news­pa­per cir­cu­lat­ing in the byelaw area. A copy of the byelaws must also be depos­ited at the offices of the Author­ity and shall at all reas­on­able hours be open to pub­lic inspec­tion without pay­ment. A copy of the byelaws should be provided to any per­son upon request;

• With­in one month after pub­lic­a­tion of the notice, any per­son can sub­mit a writ­ten objec­tion to the Scot­tish Ministers;

• Before con­firm­ing the byelaws, the Scot­tish Min­is­ters must take into account any objec­tions received and may hold a loc­al inquiry or cause a loc­al inquiry to be held;

• The Scot­tish Min­is­ters may con­firm the byelaws with or without modi­fic­a­tion or may refuse to con­firm. They may fix the date on which the byelaws come into oper­a­tion. If no date is fixed, the byelaws will come into oper­a­tion one month after the date of con­firm­a­tion; and

• The Author­ity must, as soon as prac­tic­able after receiv­ing intim­a­tion of the con­firm­a­tion of the byelaws, give notice of: the con­firm­a­tion; the date on which the byelaws are to come into oper­a­tion; and the place where a copy of the byelaws as con­firmed may be inspec­ted, to be giv­en in a news­pa­per cir­cu­lat­ing in the byelaw area or in such oth­er man­ner as the Scot­tish Min­is­ters on the applic­a­tion of the Author­ity may determ­ine to be suf­fi­cient in the circumstances.

Estim­ated timescale

The estim­ated times­cale to under take the steps out­lined above totals 10 – 12 months, assum­ing that no inquiry is needed and that each stage moves seam­lessly into the next. Some of the times­cales rel­at­ive to each stage may be short­er or longer than estim­ated. For example, if a decision to pro­ceed is taken at the Novem­ber 2023 Park Author­ity Board meet­ing then the earli­est the byelaw would come into effect would be early in 2025.