240913Paper2 NPPP Annual Update

For dis­cus­sion

Title: Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan Annu­al Update Pre­pared by: Gav­in Miles, Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place

Pur­pose

1. This paper sum­mar­ises the mon­it­or­ing frame­work for the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan and iden­ti­fies some of the key areas where indic­at­ors show pro­gress or where officers expect pro­gress to be demon­strated in future after the second year of deliv­ery of the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan.

Recom­mend­a­tions

1. The Board is asked to: a) Note the pro­gress sum­mar­ised in the paper and asso­ci­ated Annex 1.

Stra­tegic context

1. The Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan iden­ti­fies the long term object­ives for the Nation­al Park that will sup­port the deliv­ery of the three long term out­comes for 2045 under the sec­tions of Nature, People and Place. Each long-term object­ive has an indic­at­or iden­ti­fied to help assess pro­gress to the long-term object­ives and out­comes. This paper sum­mar­ises the data avail­able for the indic­at­ors by August 2024, after two years of deliv­ery cur­rent Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan and iden­ti­fies the areas of sig­ni­fic­ant pro­gress or of sig­ni­fic­ant challenge.

2. The indic­at­ors are made up of a range of data, some of which is col­lec­ted annu­ally or more fre­quently, some of which is only reviewed every few years, and some of which requires new work to identi­fy in future. They are inten­ded to be most effect­ive over the full life of the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan and in show­ing pro­gress or identi­fy­ing prob­lems towards the out­comes for 2045. Some are effect­ive indic­at­ors at this early point in the deliv­ery of the Part­ner­ship Plan. Oth­ers require more time to be effect­ive so can be sup­ple­men­ted with oth­er data or examples of work.

3. In early 2024, The Cairngorms Nation­al park Author­ity was awar­ded £10.7 mil­lion by the Her­it­age Lot­tery Fund to deliv­er Cairngorms 2030, a multi part­ner pro­gramme that will inspire people and com­munit­ies in the Nation­al Park to take action and

tackle the cli­mate and nature crisis. That pro­gramme is at an early stage, but kick starts and accel­er­ates action that the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan could not do itself. The Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme is repor­ted reg­u­larly to the Park Author­ity Per­form­ance Committee.

Stra­tegic policy consideration

1. Deliv­ery of the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan is at the core of the Board’s role and this annu­al report provides a mile­stone from which to assess pro­gress and identi­fy any areas where change is required and will sup­ple­ment oth­er reports on work giv­en through the reg­u­lar Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer (CEO) updates to Board. At year two of deliv­ery this report does not identi­fy any areas of sig­ni­fic­ant con­cern, but the mon­it­or­ing frame­work sum­mar­ised here is one of the tools used to identi­fy any and to sup­port the Board’s stra­tegic overview.

Implic­a­tions

1. There are no sig­ni­fic­ant new implic­a­tions in terms of deliv­ery, stra­tegic policy or resources at this point in time. Nev­er­the­less, it is worth high­light­ing that much of the work repor­ted relies on the con­tri­bu­tion of pub­lic sec­tor fund­ing to sup­port activ­ity or stim­u­late oth­er invest­ment and that pub­lic sec­tor fin­ances are expec­ted to be con­strained in future years. It is too early to know in what areas or to what extent Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan deliv­ery will be affected but clearly, con­strained pub­lic spend­ing is likely to lead to slower pro­gress in areas that rely heav­ily on it.

Sum­mary of pro­gress to August 2024

1. The fol­low­ing three sec­tions sum­mar­ise pro­gress under the Nature, People and Place themes in the first year of deliv­ery of the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan.

Nature

1. The long-term out­come for People is a car­bon neg­at­ive and biod­iversity rich Nation­al Park with bet­ter func­tion­ing, bet­ter con­nec­ted and more resi­li­ent ecosystems.

2. At the second year of deliv­ery of long term and land­scape-scale actions that will help reach the long-term out­come and object­ives for Nature, here has been steady pro­gress in the main pro­grammes of work that sup­port the Nation­al Park become net zero, with wood­land cre­ation and peat­land res­tor­a­tion each exceed­ing the areas needed to meet 2045 tar­gets. Work is well under­way on some of the longer-term

mon­it­or­ing pro­jects around the Cairngorms Nature Index and identi­fy­ing Nature Net­works and new land­scape-scale pro­jects have been estab­lished in the Angus Glens and around the Dee Resi­li­ence Strategy to link estab­lished pro­jects such as Cairngorms Con­nect and the Spey Catch­ment. Work to reduce the like­li­hood of and poten­tial dam­age of wild­fires is being pro­gressed through devel­op­ment on an Integ­rated Wild­fire Man­age­ment Plan and explor­a­tion of byelaws to lim­it recre­ation­al fires.

1. High­lights under the Nature theme over the past year include: a) 2658 hec­tares of wood­land cre­ation in the Nation­al Park was approved, of which 1211 hec­tares will be through nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion. This exceeds the rate needed to meet the 2045 tar­get. b) 1145 hec­tares of peat­land was brought under res­tor­a­tion, con­tinu­ing to exceed the rate needed to meet 2035 tar­get. c) The first-year deer cull­ing tar­gets with­in the Caen­lochan Sec­tion sev­en agree­ment to reduce deer num­bers for hab­it­at man­age­ment were exceeded dur­ing the first of three years of focussed activ­ity. d) Work to devel­op an Integ­rated Wild­fire Man­age­ment Plan and to explore byelaws to con­trol fires was star­ted. e) Around 60 farms across the Nation­al Park are now deliv­er­ing Nature Friendly Farm­ing Pro­jects to deliv­er Cairngorms Nature Action Plan object­ives. f) Almost £3.5 mil­lion has been secured by river catch­ment part­ner­ships to sup­port river res­tor­a­tion. g) The area of the Nation­al Park man­aged prin­cip­ally for eco­sys­tem res­tor­a­tion has increased from 23% to 27%. h) Beaver rein­tro­duc­tion pro­gramme suc­cess­fully started.

People

1. The long-term out­come for People is a well­being eco­nomy that works for all the people of the Cairngorms.

2. There has been good pro­gress under the people theme, with the Green Health refer­rals scheme now estab­lished, tak­ing refer­ral and embed­ded in med­ic­al prac­tices in Badenoch and Strath­spey. The Cairngorms Busi­ness Partnership’s Busi­ness Baro­met­er for the final quarter of 2023 indic­ates that many more busi­ness in the Nation­al Park pay at least the real liv­ing wage that are accred­ited as offi­cial Real Liv­ing Wage employ­ers. Hos­pit­al­ity skills train­ing in Deeside con­tin­ued and the Mac­Don­ald Aviemore High­land Resort are invest­ig­at­ing a hos­pit­al­ity academy on

part of their site. The ​‘Your Future Here’ skills train­ing and employ­ment event held on 12 Septem­ber 2024 coordin­ated by Coun­tryside Learn­ing Scot­land brings togeth­er mul­tiple train­ing and edu­ca­tion organ­isa­tions with employ­ers and is tar­geted at people start­ing their careers or chan­ging careers in sec­tors that are rel­ev­ant to Nation­al Park. The num­ber of assets in com­munity own­er­ship or man­age­ment has increased sub­stan­tially since the baseline estab­lished in 2021.

1. High­lights under the People theme over the past year include: a) Work on next Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan for Nation­al Park began. b) Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship Busi­ness Baro­met­er sur­vey for quarter four of 2023 indic­ated the 67% of respond­ing busi­nesses paid staff at least the real liv­ing wage. c) Coun­tryside Learn­ing Scot­land coordin­at­ing mul­tiple part­ners in a skills, train­ing and employ­ment event Your Future Here for 12 Septem­ber 2024. d) The num­ber of assets in com­munity own­er­ship or man­age­ment increased to 99 by end of March 2024, a 39% increase on the 2021 baseline. e) £460,000 of grant awards made by Cairngorms Trust from Scot­tish Government’s Com­munity-led Vis­ion find and oth­er sources. f) Green Health Refer­rals pro­gramme star­ted and received 24 refer­rals to March 2024, with all med­ic­al prac­tices in Badenoch and Strath­spey now involved. g) Volun­teer­ing work with third sec­tor saw 180 people from four groups includ­ing refugees and asylum seekers from Europe, Asia and Africa exper­i­ence the Nation­al Park in ²⁰²³⁄₂₄. h) Main­tained a total of 64 act­ive volun­teer rangers through recruit­ment of 25 fur­ther volun­teers over winter ²⁰²³⁄₂₄.

Place

1. The long-term out­come for Place is a place that people want to live in, work in and vis­it that works for all.

2. The past year has seen the full imple­ment­a­tion of the Nation­al Short Term Let Licens­ing scheme and the imple­ment­a­tion of High­land Council’s Short Term Let Con­trol Area. The deliv­ery of afford­able and mid-mar­ket rent hous­ing con­tin­ued at sites in Car­rbridge, Dul­nain Bridge and Kin­gussie via High­land Council’s afford­able hous­ing deliv­ery pro­gramme. The coordin­ated winter mar­ket­ing cam­paign with Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship aimed to encour­age a more even spread of vis­it­ors in the quit­ter win­ters months and appears to cor­rel­ate with an increase in vis­it­ors in those tar­get months. The Nation­al Park was also awar­ded the European Charter for

Sus­tain­able Tour­ism in Pro­tec­ted Areas again in Octo­ber 2023, estab­lish­ing the Park as an exem­plar for sus­tain­able tour­ism for the 4^th time since it first gained it in 2005.

1. High­lights under the Place theme over the past year include: a) Work on next Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan for Nation­al Park began. b) High­land Council’s Short term let con­trol area cov­er­ing Badenoch and Strath­spey came into effect in March 2024. c) High­land Council’s afford­able hous­ing deliv­ery pro­gramme con­tin­ued on sites in Kin­gussie, Kin­craig, Car­rbridge and Dul­nain Bridge. d) Vis­it­or num­bers estim­ated through Scot­tish Tour­ism Eco­nom­ic Activ­ity Mon­it­or (STEAM) sug­gest that a coordin­ated winter mar­ket­ing cam­paign delivered in part­ner­ship with Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship and part­ner busi­nesses suc­cess­fully increased num­bers of vis­it­ors dur­ing the quieter months of the year. e) Cairngorms Nation­al Park was rewar­ded the European Charter for Sus­tain­able Tour­ism in Pro­tec­ted Areas in Octo­ber 2023. f) Cairngorms 2030 act­ive travel pro­jects con­tin­ued to be invest­ig­ated in com­munit­ies. g) More than one kilo­metre of path improve­ments was under­taken on the Spey­side Way and Aviemore Orbit­al route north of Aviemore and con­tract was awar­ded to extend a path from Kei­loch towards Brae­mar. h) £200,000 of grant aid was provided to part­ners to deliv­er vis­it­or infra­struc­ture improve­ments includ­ing to pub­lic toi­lets and for motorhome waste facilities.

Next steps

1. All part­ners will con­tin­ue to deliv­er their work and coordin­ate their work through the rel­ev­ant part­ner­ships or oper­a­tion­al struc­tures they have in place to sup­port it. Mon­it­or­ing of the plan and col­la­tion of data to assess pro­gress will con­tin­ue as part of that. With two years of data now avail­able for many indic­at­ors, the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan micros­ite will start to build a dash­board to show pro­gress and sup­port tar­geted pro­mo­tion to the right audiences.

Gav­in Miles, Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place