240614Paper3PerfCtteeAccessReport

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 3 14 June 2024

Page 1 of 5

For inform­a­tion Title: Deliv­ery of stat­utory duties as con­ferred by the Land Reform (Scot­land) Act 2003 Pre­pared by: Colin Simpson, Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices and Act­ive Travel Adam Streeter-Smith, Recre­ation and Access Manager

Stra­tegic con­text Part one of the Land Reform (Scot­land) Act 2003 (“the LRA” or ​“the Act”) estab­lishes stat­utory rights of respons­ible access on and over most land, includ­ing inland water. Part 1 of the Act sets out the stat­utory duties, respons­ib­il­it­ies and powers of nation­al park author­it­ies in rela­tion to the pro­vi­sion and pro­mo­tion of the right of access, Part 1 of the Act also places emphas­is on the loc­al man­age­ment of access which is the respons­ib­il­ity of the Nation­al Park Author­ity as the recog­nised Access Authority.

In addi­tion, the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan includes under C8 — Access­ible path and cycle net­work, the object­ive ​“Improve path, cycle and out­door access net­works to give out­stand­ing oppor­tun­it­ies to exper­i­ence the nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age of the Nation­al Park to the widest range of people, while min­im­ising dis­turb­ance to vul­ner­able spe­cies, hab­it­ats and sites.” Achiev­ing this object­ive requires the deliv­ery of the Park Authority’s stat­utory access duties to com­ple­ment oth­er activ­ity such as infra­struc­ture invest­ment and promotion.

Pur­pose This paper is presen­ted in order to update mem­bers on deliv­ery of the Park Author­it­ies stat­utory duties under the Land Reform (Scot­land) Act 2003. While activ­ity is delivered by officers with some report­ing to the Loc­al Out­door Access For­um, as a stat­utory func­tion it is also con­sidered appro­pri­ate that there is an ele­ment of Board over­sight and scru­tiny of related casework.

Recom­mend­a­tions The Com­mit­tee is asked to:

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 3 14 June 2024

Page 2 of 5

a) Note the sum­mary of access case­work under­taken by the Access & Infra­struc­ture Team. b) Con­sider find­ings, trends and oth­er rel­ev­ant issues arising.

Stake­hold­er engagement

1. The Land Reform (Scot­land) Act 2003 required the Park Author­ity to estab­lish a Loc­al Out­door Access For­um to provide advice and sup­port to the author­ity. The LOAF which nor­mally meets three times per annum con­tains a range of mem­bers drawn from user groups, land man­agers and part­ner organ­isa­tions who can reflect the interests of these parties. The LOAF is updated annu­ally on access casework.

Stra­tegic risk management

1. No sig­ni­fic­ant stra­tegic risks have been iden­ti­fied as a res­ult of the access case­work described.

Implic­a­tions

1. There is a risk of repu­ta­tion­al dam­age if cases are not resolved par­tic­u­larly if these cases are high pro­file. While most cases are resolved through dir­ect engage­ment with the parties con­cerned, there is the poten­tial for some cases to require fur­ther leg­al action to resolve them and this adds an ele­ment of fin­an­cial risk through leg­al costs.

Back­ground

1. Part one of the Land Reform (Scot­land) Act 2003 (“the LRA” or ​“the Act”) sets out the stat­utory duties, respons­ib­il­it­ies and powers of nation­al park author­it­ies in rela­tion to the pro­vi­sion and pro­mo­tion of the right of access.

Under part one of the LRA the Park Author­ity has four spe­cif­ic duties: a) Sec­tion 10: The Scot­tish Out­door Access Code (“the Code”)- There is a duty imposed on the Park Author­ity, by sec­tion 10(7) (a) of the Act, to pub­li­cise the Code. b) Sec­tion 13: Duty to uphold access rights- Sec­tion 13(1) of the Act places a duty on the Park Author­ity to uphold access rights which entails assert­ing, pro­tect­ing, keep­ing open and free from obstruc­tion any route, water­way or oth­er means by which access may reas­on­ably be exercised.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 3 14 June 2024

Page 3 of 5

C) Sec­tions 17, 18 and 20: Core paths plan- The Park Author­ity has a duty, to draw up, pub­lish and review a plan for a sys­tem of core paths suf­fi­cient to provide reas­on­able pub­lic access through­out their areas. d) Sec­tion 25: Loc­al access for­um- Sec­tion 25 of the Act places a duty on the Park Author­ity to estab­lish a loc­al access for­um con­sist­ing of per­sons, and bod­ies rep­res­ent­ing the interests of such per­sons, with an interest in pub­lic access on and over land includ­ing the exer­cise of access rights, rights of way, core paths plans and the use of core paths, and own­ers, or bod­ies rep­res­ent­at­ive of own­ers, of land in respect of which access rights are exercisable.

This paper high­lights the deliv­ery of those stat­utory duties above for the peri­od April 2023 — March 2024

Pro­mo­tion of the Scot­tish Out­door Access Code

1. Dir­ect pub­lic engage­ment activ­it­ies pro­mot­ing respons­ible beha­viour and the Scot­tish Out­door Access Code (SOAC) are under­taken by Park Author­ity access and ranger staff. Details of this engage­ment are giv­en below for the peri­od April 23 to March 24. NB This describes form­al ded­ic­ated access activ­ity only, so does not include ranger patrolling and inform­al con­ver­sa­tions at oth­er com­munity events.

Activ­ity	No. of people	No. of ses­sions	Activ­it­ies
School groups	699	16	• Deliv­ery of SOAC edu­ca­tion pro­gramme in four primary and one high school
			• One-off out­door vis­its from schools
Pub­lic events	237	6	• Ranger ​“pop-up” events (stall in car park on busy day)
			• Two Deeside respons­ible access events in part­ner­ship with Police Scot­land, Scot­tish Fire & Res­cue, part­ner ranger ser­vices and land managers.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

CPD / Train­ing 166 9 • • • • Juni­or rangers 31 2 • Total num­ber of 1,133 Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 3 14 June 2024 Page 4 of 5 Teach­er train­ing to deliv­er SOAC edu­ca­tion resource Park Author­ity SOAC staff and volun­teer train­ing Part­ner ranger ser­vices train­ing SOAC work­shops at nation­al ranger event Respons­ible access and land man­age­ment top­ics dur­ing ses­sions people dir­ectly engaged with

1. Pub­lic­a­tions — The Park Author­ity con­tin­ues to pro­mote the code under the aus­pices of Tread Lightly in the Park, the list of tread lightly pub­lic­a­tions includes; a) Main gen­er­al leaf­let (10,000 leaf­lets) b) Fire and barbe­que leaf­let (10,000 leaf­lets) c) ​“High Fire Risk” mag­net­ic vehicle signs for all rangers’ vans and part­ner ranger ser­vice vehicles. d) Posters — suite of 5 poster signs e) Caper­cail­lie & dog on lead signs – dis­trib­uted to sev­en land man­agers. Duty to uphold access rights
2. The cur­rent record shows a rel­at­ive increase in Sec­tion 14 case­work (obstruc­tions to access rights e.g. locked gates) for the 12-month peri­od April 2023 to March 2024 versus pre­vi­ous year. Records for the review peri­od com­pare as fol­lows: α) ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ – 33 cases b) ²⁰²²⁄₂₃ – 28 cases
3. Of the above 33 cases recor­ded in ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ an addi­tion­al 2 cases were car­ried over from 2022/2023. Sev­en are cur­rently LIVE and there­fore OPEN mean­ing 26 cases have been CLOSED fol­low­ing invest­ig­a­tion and rel­ev­ant actions hav­ing been taken.
4. Of the 33 cases 20 were locked gates or oth­er such obstruc­tions that phys­ic­ally pre­ven­ted access. (2022÷23 – 17 gates).

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 3 14 June 2024

Page 5 of 5

Core paths plan

1. It is pro­posed that a review of the cur­rent Core Paths Plan, adop­ted in 2015, begins in 2025 with the likely adop­tion, sub­ject to objec­tions being resolved in early 2026.

Loc­al Out­door Access Forum

1. The Cairngorms Loc­al Out­door Access For­um (LOAF) will have been oper­a­tion­al for 19 years on the 31 March 2024 and has played a cru­cial role in help­ing the Park Author­ity shape and devel­op policies and plans, address access issues and advise on the sus­tain­able man­age­ment of out­door access. Mem­bers time and ded­ic­a­tion is highly val­ued by the Park Author­ity and by the Park Author­ity Board.

2. The LOAF met twice in 2023/2024 and covered top­ics as wide ran­ging as: a) Fire man­age­ment bylaw b) Out­door access case­work c) Act­ive Cairngorms action plan d) Caper­cail­lie conservation.

3. The LOAF oper­at­ing pro­ced­ures state there will be a max­im­um of 15 mem­bers includ­ing one Park Author­ity board mem­ber. Cur­rently there are 11 mem­bers and recruit­ment of new mem­bers is underway.

Con­clu­sions: Per­form­ance Overview

1. There are no mat­ters of stra­tegic sig­ni­fic­ance which mer­it escal­a­tion at this time in the opin­ion of seni­or man­agers lead­ing the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority’s deliv­ery of stat­utory duties. Case­work hand­ling capa­city and pro­ced­ures have proven resi­li­ent to fluc­tu­ations in num­bers and types of issues over­all although any sus­tained upward trend requires mon­it­or­ing in respect of staff capacity.

Colin Simpson Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices colinsimpson@​cairngorms.​co.​uk