For inform­a­tion

Title: Cairngorm and Glen­more Strategy 2016

Pre­pared by: Colin Simpson, Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices and Act­ive Travel

Stra­tegic context

The Cairngorm and Glen­more area sees the highest con­cen­tra­tion of vis­it­ors in the Nation­al Park while also being home to many pro­tec­ted sites and as a res­ult the area sees some of the greatest vis­it­or pres­sures. The area is also largely owned / man­aged by pub­lic sec­tor organ­isa­tions and so to help coordin­ate man­age­ment of the area, a num­ber of part­ners pro­duced a Cairngorm & Glen­more strategy in 2016. More recently the new Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan includes com­mit­ments to real­ise the bene­fits of tour­ism while also ensur­ing pres­sures are eased and the Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme includes plans to design­ing a new sus­tain­able mod­el of trans­port for Glen­more to reduce reli­ance on private vehicles. In addi­tion, the Cairngorms Con­nect part­ners now coordin­ate land man­age­ment and con­ser­va­tion activ­ity across most of the area much more effect­ively than was the case in 2016.

Pur­pose

This paper is presen­ted in order to update mem­bers on deliv­ery of the actions con­tained in the 2016 strategy and to con­sider the role the Park Author­ity should take to lead on coordin­ated deliv­ery of actions in the Cairngorm and Glen­more area in future.

Recom­mend­a­tions

The Com­mit­tee is asked to:

a) Note the pro­gress that has been made in deliv­er­ing actions con­tained in the 2016 Cairngorm and Glen­more strategy as well as those where there has been lim­ited pro­gress. b) Con­sider the approach pro­posed to a short-term action plan.

Stake­hold­er engagement

1. Stake­hold­er engage­ment has con­tin­ued since the strategy was agreed but with a hiatus over the pan­dem­ic peri­od. More recently, the devel­op­ment phase of Cairngorms 2030 saw a num­ber of pub­lic events to gath­er the views of stakeholders

includ­ing res­id­ents and busi­nesses in Glen­more. Forestry and Land Scot­land also hos­ted a pre­season stake­hold­er event in April 2024 spe­cific­ally to con­sider tour­ism issues with the Park Author­ity attend­ing and present­ing. The Park Author­ity also engages with Aviemore and Vicin­ity Com­munity Coun­cil and the Aviemore and Glen­more Com­munity Trust.

Stra­tegic risk management

1. No dir­ect stra­tegic risks to the Park Author­ity have been iden­ti­fied as a res­ult of the work described in this report. How­ever, there are poten­tially sig­ni­fic­ant envir­on­ment­al risks to the area and repu­ta­tion­al risks to the Park Author­ity if the Cairngorm and Glen­more area is not prop­erly managed.

Back­ground to the 2016 Cairngorm and Glen­more Strategy

1. A num­ber of pub­lic bod­ies formed a part­ner­ship in 2014 to col­lab­or­ate on the long- term man­age­ment of the Cairngorm and Glen­more area in recog­ni­tion of the import­ance of this sig­ni­fic­ant area of pub­licly owned land that, along with neigh­bour­ing Rothiemurchus attrac­ted 40% of all vis­it­ors to the Nation­al Park. The pur­pose of the Part­ner­ship was to col­lab­or­ate in the stra­tegic man­age­ment of these land hold­ings in order to deliv­er: a) An excep­tion­ally high-qual­ity nat­ur­al envir­on­ment. b) A world-class vis­it­or exper­i­ence. c) An eco­nom­ic asset con­trib­ut­ing to the eco­nomy of the Nation­al Park and Scot­land. d) Engaged busi­ness and com­munity stake­hold­ers. e) Effi­cient and effect­ive pub­lic ser­vice delivery.

A strategy to coordin­ate deliv­ery of activ­ity in this area was approved in 2016.

Cur­rent situation

1. Since the 2016 strategy was approved, a num­ber of sig­ni­fic­ant changes have taken place includ­ing the UK’s depar­ture from the EU, the Cov­id pan­dem­ic, changes in oper­at­ors at Cairngorm Moun­tain and the Glen­more camp­site, the form­a­tion of Cairngorm Con­nect and work delivered through the Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie pro­ject. These changes mean cir­cum­stances are vastly dif­fer­ent to when the strategy was agreed. In recog­ni­tion of this, the pub­lic sec­tor part­ners have met on a num­ber of

occa­sions since mid-2023 to con­sider what pro­gress has been made and what is required for the future man­age­ment of the area.

1. A sum­mary of pro­gress incor­por­at­ing a Red Amber Green (RAG) rat­ing as a meas­ure of pro­gress with each action from the 2016 strategy is included in the table at Annex 1.

Future pro­pos­als

1. In recog­ni­tion of the changes above and fur­ther anti­cip­ated changes – most not­ably the asset trans­fer of the Glen­more Vis­it­or Centre to the Aviemore and Glen­more Com­munity Trust in Novem­ber 2024 and medi­um-term plans for a Glen­more Trans­port Plan included in the Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme, part­ners agreed that some fur­ther con­sid­er­a­tion should be giv­en to the need for a new strategy or plan.

2. A num­ber of the ele­ments in the 2016 strategy related to col­lab­or­a­tion around con­ser­va­tion activ­ity and this ele­ment is now effect­ively being delivered through Cairngorms Con­nect. There is how­ever a clear need for some col­lab­or­at­ive actions to be agreed around the vis­it­or exper­i­ence theme in par­tic­u­lar. How­ever, part­ners are already work­ing on a range of vis­it­or man­age­ment actions related to park­ing and vis­it­or infra­struc­ture that con­tin­ue to require to be delivered and their impacts to be assessed. The change in own­er­ship and oper­a­tion of the vis­it­or centre and café gives the com­munity the chance to have a stronger voice in vis­it­or man­age­ment in future, but it will take time for them to estab­lish their busi­ness and oper­a­tion­al improvements.

3. It is officers’ view that the area would cur­rently bene­fit from main­tain­ing the deliv­ery focus of part­ners on actions already iden­ti­fied and some fur­ther assess­ment of their effect­ive­ness, not at this stage any new or replace­ment strategy. Once the cur­rent pro­pos­als have been delivered and the com­munity trust has had a chance to oper­ate the vis­it­or centre, it may be appro­pri­ate for the part­ners to con­sider a longer term strategy for future pres­sures or changes in approach, but at this point in time we con­sider that part­ners already have a pack­age of actions to improve or main­tain the vis­it­or exper­i­ence that they should con­tin­ue to imple­ment. The Cairngorm and Glen­more area remains one where mon­it­or­ing of vis­it­or num­bers and beha­viour is act­ive and where any unex­pec­ted changes should be iden­ti­fied quickly, so if it appears that the cur­rent actions require a more com­pre­hens­ive review, a revised strategy or action plan could be pre­pared quickly.

Annex 1: Pro­gress towards 2016 objectives

Long term Dir­ec­tion	Short Term Steps	Times­cale (yrs)	Pro­gress	Com­ments
Con­ser­va­tion		1 – 2	3 – 5	5 – 10	(RAG)
• Expand wood­land and remove non- nat­ive tree spe­cies as part of a con­nec­ted vis­ion with neigh­bours • Restore mont­ane wood­land and nat­ur­al tree lines • Pro­tect core areas of undis­turbed hab­it­at for caper­cail­lie • Safe­guard the plat­eau hab­it­ats and spe­cies by act­ively man­aging recre­ation pres­sures • Ensure man­age­ment changes safe­guard the fea­tures asso­ci­ated with the area’s inter­na­tion­al and nation­al status as Natura sites, Nation­al Scen­ic Area and Wild Land Area • Ensure enhance­ments with­in the ski area are imple­men­ted to high qual­ity stand­ards appro­pri­ate to the sens­it­ive environment	Col­lab­or­ate with neigh­bours to expand nat­ive wood­land and con­tin­ue non-nat­ive removal	✅	✅	✅	✅	Forestry & Land Scot­land (FLS) work to remove non nat­ive trees via felling large scale remov­al of non-nat­ive plant­a­tion at Rothiemurchus and with­in parts of Glen­more as per the FLS Strath­spey Land Man­age­ment Plan com­plete. Ongo­ing non-nat­ive regen­er­a­tion remov­al from large areas of FLS open ground and nat­ive wood­lands being fun­ded through Cairngorms Con­nect. Nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion sur­vey of FLS open ground com­pleted in 2022⁄23. Deer man­age­ment has allowed expan­sion of nat­ive wood­land towards a nat­ur­al tree line with con­sid­er­able suc­cess in areas like Ryvoan. Ongo­ing peri­od­ic remov­al of non nat­ive plants with­in Cairngorm estate.
	Imple­ment the caper­cail­lie frame­work actions includ­ing review of recre­ation man­age­ment and iden­ti­fic­a­tion of core areas of undis­turbed habitat	✅			✅	Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject work with user groups to reduce dis­turb­ance. New man­age­ment arrange­ments in place and concept of ​“quiet areas for nature” being developed
	Expand mont­ane wood­land estab­lish­ment with­in and around the ski area		✅		🟡	Cairngorm Moun­tain (Scot­land) Ltd (CMSL) have an ongo­ing pro­gramme of tree plant­ing between 2500 to 5000 trees per year. Look­ing at expand­ing this with spey fish­er­ies board in 1 – 3 yr peri­od to mit­ig­ate rising temps in upper catchments.
	Devel­op action plan to enhance the ski area by improv­ing stor­age and remov­al of dis­used items		✅		🟡	Large scale remov­al of dis­used infra­struc­ture has taken place. Oper­a­tion­al stor­age remains challenging.
	Devel­op agreed best prac­tice stand­ards for devel­op­ment and enhance­ment works in the ski area		✅		🟡	Guided by Cairngorm Mas­ter­plan. Sup­port­ing doc­u­ments agreed 2018. Asso­ci­ated C.E.M.P. in rel­ev­ant plan­ning apps.

Vis­it­or Experience
• Move to a single integ­rated ranger ser­vice across Cairngorm and Glen­more with increased pres­ence on the ground • Enhance vis­it­or infra­struc­ture and facil­it­ies ensur­ing high qual­ity low impact devel­op­ment • Enhance the access net­work to make vis­it­or ori­ent­a­tion easi­er and reduce dis­turb­ance to sens­it­ive hab­it­ats • Make a sig­ni­fic­ant change in the way people access the area to increase the pro­por­tion of non-car access • Sup­port enhance­ment of the win­ter­s­ports exper­i­ence and year round activ­ity pro­vi­sion Con­tin­ue to oper­ate the effect­ive Vis­it­or Man­age­ment Plan asso­ci­ated with the funicular	Co-ordin­ate ranger ser­vices and review options for single ser­vice provision
	De-clut­ter sig­nage and co-ordin­ate bet­ter vis­it­or sig­nage and information
	Feas­ib­il­ity study for improved pub­lic trans­port and park and ride approach
	Improve effect­ive­ness of exist­ing car parks and reduce road­side parking
	Work with on-site busi­nesses to devel­op plans for enhance­ment of vis­it­or facil­it­ies at

Times­cale (yrs)	Pro­gress	Com­ments
1 – 2	3 – 5	5 – 10	(RAG)
✅			✅	New CNPA man­aged ser­vice to com­ple­ment site based ser­vices from 2020.
	✅		🟡	CMSL invest­ment on vis­it­or arrival and sig­nage at Cas Car park. FLS has replaced all Forestry Com­mis­sion Scot­land cor­por­ate sig­nage and updated all inform­a­tion pan­els. Little pro­gress on coordin­a­tion of signage.
	✅		🟡	Pre­lim­in­ary options apprais­al for Glen­more trans­port under­taken 2022⁄23 as part of Cairngorms 2030 work.
	✅		🟡	Some restric­tions on road­side park­ing now in place. Traffic orders / park­ing charges to be intro­duced winter 2023⁄24. Moves towards a more hol­ist­ic and bet­ter enforced approach to park­ing man­age­ment pro­gress­ing slowly
	✅			New camp­site oper­at­or in Glen­more, invest­ing in the site. Asset trans­fer of Glen­more vis­it­or centre. Minor improve­ments to FLS beach toi­lets spring 2023. New High­land Council

Rur­al Development
• Increase busi­ness col­lab­or­a­tion • Sup­port improve­ments to the year round tour­ism offer­ing • Improve the qual­ity of place and infra­struc­ture on which tour­ism and activ­ity busi­nesses depend • Improve co-ordin­a­tion of mar­ket­ing and pro­mo­tion • Con­tin­ue to devel­op the area’s repu­ta­tion as a centre of excel­lence for out­door learn­ing and sport	Cairngorm Moun­tain and Glenmore
	Cre­ate improved out­door learn­ing space and enhance volun­teer­ing opportunities
	Improve views at key loc­a­tions through select­ive tree felling and veget­a­tion management
	Col­lab­or­ate on cus­tom­er feed­back and mar­ket research across on-site businesses
	Invest in the qual­ity of pub­lic space to ensure a high qual­ity place
	Scot­tish Youth Hos­tels Asso­ci­ation (SYHA) and part­ners to review options to

Times­cale (yrs)	Pro­gress	Com­ments
1 – 2	3 – 5	5 – 10	(RAG)
✅			✅	pub­lic toi­lets at Glen­more opened autumn 2023.
			✅	Volun­teer Cairngorms pro­gramme being expan­ded but not spe­cif­ic to Cairngorm & Glen­more area. FLS host­ing volun­teers at the Glen­more vis­it­or centre
			✅	No sig­ni­fic­ant progress
	✅		🟡	Some indi­vidu­al organ­isa­tion research under­taken (CNPA led Nation­al Park Vis­it­or sur­vey), FLS vis­it­or research Any others?
	✅		🟡	Some major invest­ments of pub­lic money includ­ing road­side path and Utsis Bridge replacement
			🟥	Pro­pos­al con­sidered by the Glen­more Vis­it­or Improve­ment Plan but SYHA and part­ners chose not to pro­gress this

	renew the youth hostel facility
	Col­lab­or­ate with on- site busi­nesses to improve cross promotion
	Nat­ur­al Retreat­s¹ and part­ners to devel­op and deliv­er mas­ter­plan for Cairngorm Moun­tain¹ Nat­ur­al retreats no longer oper­at­or — now Cairngorm Moun­tain (Scot­land) Lim­itedNo or lim­ited pro­gress Some pro­gress and / or activ­ity con­tinu­ing Good pro­gress / activ­ity completed

Times­cale (yrs)	Pro­gress	Com­ments
1 – 2	3 – 5	5 – 10	(RAG)
			🟥
	✅		🟡	Pre-sea­son meet­ings have taken place in Glen­more. Engage­ment with Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship for wider pro­mo­tion and respons­ible vis­it­or messaging.
	✅		✅	Cairngorm Moun­tain Mas­ter­plan pro­duced 2021. Devel­op­ments under way.

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