240605 LOAF meeting notes

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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Loc­al Out­door Access For­um Held online and at Grant­own on Spey office on 5 June 2024 Present: Ben Dol­phin (BD) LOAF Colin Cad­den (CC) LOAF Eilidh Scob­bie (ES) LOAF Gav­in Miles (GM) Park Author­ity LOAF John Gri­er­son (JG) LOAF (Chair) Mark John­ston (MJ) LOAF Patsy Richards (PR) LOAF Sara Den­ner (notes) Park Author­ity Tre­vor Thorn­ley (TT) LOAF Vicky Hilton (VH) Park Author­ity Online: Hil­ary Quick (HQ) LOAF

Apo­lo­gies: Adam Streeter-Smith (AQSS) Pete Wright Colin Simpson Lauren McCallum

Wel­come and intro­duc­tions JG- wel­comed group and intro­duced new mem­bers and made apo­lo­gies. Ailsa Vil­le­g­as has retired from the For­um and was thanked for her con­tri­bu­tion and time.

Mem­bers expressed thanks for site vis­it and agreed going for­ward would like to repeat annu­ally, fol­lowed by an in-per­son meet­ing. AQSS

Minutes of last meet­ing on 21 Feb­ru­ary 2024 Dis­cussed Action • JG- Minutes of the last meet­ing approved. • Pre­vi­ous actions dis­cussed. One action car­ried for­ward (ASSS to send MJ a NatureScot cli­mate report) AQSS • Gav­in Miles was intro­duced as Mur­ray Ferguson’s replacement.

Verbal update on-Fire Man­age­ment con­sulta­tion Action • GM- Provided update to group. There were approx­im­ately 1200 responses, with 80% in favour of byelaw, split between 44% year Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 2 of 3 round bylaw and 32% high fire risk byelaw. Responses received from landown­ers, res­id­ents and vis­it­ors. Paper going to Board end of the month (28 June) with recom­mend­a­tion for byelaw, Board need to agree in prin­ciple, then new paper pre­pared for Septem­ber. Lots of details to go through, and if approved in Septem­ber, it is likely to be 2026 before byelaw can be intro­duced. Con­firmed that a byelaw would apply Park wide but does not apply for people hav­ing a fire on their own land.

Paper 1 Guid­ance on the man­age­ment of water borne access Dis­cussed Action • VH- Intro­duced Paper. Water sports becom­ing more pop­u­lar so more issues being seen at places such as Loch Kin­nord, Loch Pity­oul­ish and Loch Vaa. Advice has been form­al­ised for land man­agers. Group dis­cussed zon­ing and how to min­im­ise dis­turb­ance of wildlife.

Paper 2 Dis­cus­sion paper- Spey Access and Egress Points Dis­cussed Action • VH Intro­duced Paper and reques­ted feed­back. • MJ- Con­cerned about wild­life dis­turb­ance (eg sand mar­tin nests) and poten­tial impacts in increase of num­bers of users if access is bet­ter. • PR- Quer­ied if there is a dis­tinc­tion between private and com­mer­cial groups, and pos­sib­il­ity of intro­du­cing need for a license. Sug­ges­ted a ​‘Park and Ride’ scheme or cheap tax­is could be use­ful. • Group dis­cussed logist­ic dif­fi­culties for water users such as car­ry­ing equip­ment long dis­tances and find­ing some­where for users to change. • Park­ing issues dis­cussed, par­tic­u­larly Old Bridge Inn.

Paper 3 Stat­utory Duties update paper Dis­cussed Action • VH intro­duced Paper and reques­ted feed­back. • Gen­er­al feel­ing was that LOAF mem­bers are happy with level of report­ing detail as presen­ted in the paper. How­ever, would like to be more aware of live cases. Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 3 of 3 • Action to share sum­mary case work log pri­or to meet­ings and give verbal updates on 1 or 2 cases. AQSS • PR raised query regard­ing pro­jects that Park fund­ing. Dis­cus­sion amongst mem­bers that would be nice to know what planned in com­munit­ies. Action to share an annu­al update of pro­posed access / infra­struc­ture pro­jects at the spring meet­ing. AQSS • Point raised about report­ing back to com­munit­ies – it was noted that is not a role for mem­bers, mat­ters dis­cussed at LOAF meet­ings often con­fid­en­tial, and the role of LOAF mem­bers is as a group (not as indi­vidu­als) to advise Park Authority.

Paper 4 Update and for­ward look Dis­cussed Action • VH presen­ted paper. Updates to paper: Ο Plan­ning per­mis­sion has been received for Brae­mar to Kei­loch path and work has started.

AOCB • BD- Quer­ied if Park Author­ity was aware of a recent Gov­ern­ment pro­pos­al to chan­ging defin­i­tion of E‑bikes. VH con­firmed they were and had respon­ded to the consultation.

Date of next meet­ing- Wed 13 Nov 18:30 – 20:30 (online)

Meet­ing closed at 8.17pm