240913Paper3 Seasonal Fire Management Byelaw Sept2024

Form­al Board Paper 3 13 Septem­ber 2024 Page 1 of 2

For decision

Title: Sea­son­al Fire Man­age­ment Byelaw Pre­pared by: Grant Moir, Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer

Stra­tegic context

1. The Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan has two rel­ev­ant sec­tions provid­ing stra­tegic con­text for this work. a) A7 — Fire Man­age­ment: Devel­op and agree a Nation­al Park approach to camp­fires and bar­be­cues. b) Policy C4 (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.

2. The con­sulta­tion earli­er this year showed a large major­ity of respond­ents in favour of a fire man­age­ment byelaw and gave the Park Author­ity a strong man­date for change.

3. The Park Author­ity board agreed on 28 June 2024 to devel­op a sea­son­al fire man­age­ment byelaw from 01 April to 30 Septem­ber each year for form­al con­sulta­tion this Autumn.

4. The pre­vi­ous board paper can be found here.

Pur­pose

1. This paper sets out the word­ing for the sea­son­al fire man­age­ment byelaw that will be con­sul­ted on sub­ject to board approv­al for 12 weeks start­ing on 23 Septem­ber 2024. Fol­low­ing that con­sulta­tion mem­bers will be asked in Janu­ary 2025 to agree the final word­ing for sub­mis­sion to Scot­tish Min­is­ters for approval.

Recom­mend­a­tions The Board is asked to: a) Agree the word­ing of the fire man­age­ment byelaw for a 12-week stat­utory con­sulta­tion as per the Nation­al Park (Scot­land) Act 2000.

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Form­al Board Paper 3 13 Septem­ber 2024 Page 2 of 2

Stra­tegic policy consideration

1. There are a few issues to high­light with the word­ing set out in Annex 1.

2. Dates — The abil­ity of the Park Author­ity Board to change the dates that the byelaws cov­er is con­strained by the legis­la­tion. If the Board in the future wish to change the agreed dates, then it will need to go back out to con­sulta­tion and fol­low the estab­lished stat­utory process.

The evid­ence that the Park Author­ity has is that recre­ation­al fires are low in March and Octo­ber and so the dates of 01 April to 30 Septem­ber are the most appro­pri­ate for the byelaws. Oper­a­tion­ally sea­son­al staff do not nor­mally start until 01 April on the ground and so any move­ment of the date to earli­er would have a fin­an­cial cost to the Author­ity. The Park Author­ity will keep this under review, and it will form a part of our mon­it­or­ing of the byelaws and any form­al review in the future.

1. Form­al Out­door Groups — The pro­vi­sions of clauses 4(d) and 5© cov­er scout groups, out­door edu­ca­tion groups etc provided they are on private prop­erty and have the approv­al of the landowner.

2. Farm­ing — The pro­vi­sion of Clause four(d) cov­ers a farm­er burn­ing stubble in his fields or hav­ing a farm bon­fire on his own land or on someone else’s land with their permission.

3. Muir­burn — Clause four only cre­ates an offence where a per­son lights a fire, etc. without law­ful author­ity, any burn­ing in terms of a muir­burn licence would be excluded – the muir­burn licence being the law­ful authority.

Times­cale and next steps

1. If the Board approve the recom­mend­a­tion a form­al con­sulta­tion will start on 23 Septem­ber 2024 for 12 weeks.

2. Fol­low­ing the form­al con­sulta­tion, the Board will con­sider the feed­back and agree the final byelaw word­ing to be sub­mit­ted to Scot­tish Min­is­ters in Janu­ary 2025.

3. The earli­est imple­ment­a­tion date is likely to be 01 June 2025 for the byelaw to allow sig­nage, com­mu­nic­a­tions and Scot­tish Min­is­ters approv­al to be factored in.

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Form­al Board Paper 3 Annex 1 13 Septem­ber 2024 Page 1 of 4

Annex 1 Fire man­age­ment byelaw

Gen­er­al

1. The Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity, con­sti­tuted under the Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000 and the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Des­ig­na­tion, Trans­ition­al and Con­sequen­tial Pro­vi­sions (Scot­land) Order 2003, and hav­ing its prin­cip­al offices at 14 The Square, Grant­own-on-Spey, Moray, PH26 3HG (“the Author­ity”), in exer­cise of the powers con­ferred upon it by Para­graph eight of Sched­ule Two to the Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000 hereby makes the fol­low­ing byelaws:

Cita­tion and applic­a­tion a) These byelaws may be cited as The Cairngorms Nation­al Park Fire Man­age­ment Byelaws 2025. b) These byelaws shall apply between the dates of 01 April and 30 Septem­ber in each cal­en­dar year (both dates inclus­ive) with­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park (“the Nation­al Park”).

Defin­i­tions and interpretations

1. In these byelaws, the fol­low­ing words, phrases and expres­sions are prin­ted in bold wherever they appear, and they have the inter­pret­a­tion and mean­ing hereby assigned to them, respect­ively: a) ​“Avoid­able dam­age” means any dam­age res­ult­ing from fire where that fire that has not been prop­erly planned, con­trolled and / or man­aged in recog­ni­tion of the loc­al ground ter­rain, veget­a­tion, access­ib­il­ity and weath­er con­di­tions between the time of igni­tion to when the fire is fully extin­guished. b) ​“Bar­be­cue” means an appli­ance or rack on which food is cooked out of doors over an open fire and shall include a dis­pos­able bar­be­cue, wheth­er man­u­fac­tured as such or oth­er­wise. It shall not include a gas bar­be­cue. c) ​“Bothy” means a build­ing of no more than two storeys which: i. Does not have any form of mains elec­tri­city, piped fuel sup­ply and piped mains water sup­ply. ii. Is 100 metres or more from the nearest pub­lic road (with­in the mean­ing of Sec­tion 151 of the Roads (Scot­land) Act 1984). iii. Is 100 metres or more from the nearest hab­it­able building.

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Form­al Board Paper 3 Annex 1 13 Septem­ber 2024 Page 2 of 4

d) ​“Cur­til­age” means land which is used for the com­fort­able enjoy­ment of a build­ing and which serves the pur­pose of that build­ing in some neces­sary or reas­on­ably use­ful way. e) ​“Dwell­ing­house” means a res­id­en­tial prop­erty, includ­ing a build­ing con­tain­ing one or more flats, or a flat con­tained with­in such a build­ing. f) ​“Fire­place” means a struc­ture (includ­ing wood burn­ing stove) that is designed to con­tain a fire and is made of brick, stone, met­al or any oth­er mater­i­al. g) ​“Land man­ager” means: i. A landown­er, ten­ant or part­ner law­fully author­ised by or on behalf of such landown­er or ten­ant to man­age land with­in the Nation­al Park; and ii. in the case of a landown­er, ten­ant or oth­er per­son that is a body cor­por­ate or unin­cor­por­ated body, any indi­vidu­al who has the power to con­trol the affairs of that body, by whatever means. h) ​“Landown­er” means the own­er of any land or build­ing with­in or con­nec­ted to the Nation­al Park. i) ​“Licensed” means hold­ing a val­id licence issued under the Cara­van Sites and Con­trol of Devel­op­ment Act 1960. j) ​“Occu­pi­er” means any per­son who is occupy­ing a dwell­ing­house or prop­erty with the con­sent of the landown­er. k) ​“Part­ner” means a sport­ing part­ner engaged in the man­age­ment of any land with­in the Nation­al Park. l) ​“Prop­erty” includes both land and built infra­struc­ture. m) ​“SFRS” means the Scot­tish Fire and Res­cue Ser­vice (SFRS), estab­lished in terms of the Fire (Scot­land) Act 2005 and its stat­utory suc­cessors. n) ​“Ten­ant” means the ten­ant of any land with­in the Nation­al Park leased or let to such ten­ant under a lease of one year or more.

Fire

1. It shall be an offence under these byelaws for any per­son without law­ful author­ity to light a fire in the Nation­al Park, or place or throw or let fall a lighted match, fire­work or any oth­er thing so as to be likely to cause a fire, unless the fire is wholly con­tained: a) With­in the cur­til­age of a private dwell­ing­house and is under the con­trol of the landown­er, ten­ant or occu­pi­er of the dwell­ing­house so as to safe­guard against dam­age or danger to any per­son, wild­life, build­ing, struc­ture, tree, shrub or veget­a­tion. b) In a fire­place in a bothy so as to safe­guard against dam­age or danger to any per­son, wild­life, build­ing, struc­ture, tree, shrub or vegetation.

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Form­al Board Paper 3 Annex 1 13 Septem­ber 2024 Page 3 of 4

c) In a licensed cara­van site so as to safe­guard against dam­age or danger to any per­son, wild­life, build­ing, struc­ture, tree, shrub or veget­a­tion, has per­mis­sion from the own­er of the site and is not tak­ing place dur­ing a time of high fire risk, as determ­ined by SFRS. d) With­in private prop­erty, is under the con­trol of the landown­er, ten­ant or occu­pi­er of the prop­erty so as to safe­guard against dam­age or danger to any per­son, wild­life, build­ing, struc­ture, tree, shrub or veget­a­tion, has the con­sent of the landown­er and is not tak­ing place dur­ing a time of high fire risk, as determ­ined by SFRS.

1. These byelaws shall not pre­vent the use of a camp­ing stove man­u­fac­tured as a camp­ing stove or cook­er, provided it is used in such a man­ner as not to cause danger of, or dam­age by, fire.

Bar­be­cues

1. It shall be an offence under these byelaws for any per­son without law­ful author­ity to light or use a bar­be­cue any­where in the Nation­al Park, unless the bar­be­cue is wholly con­tained: a) With­in the cur­til­age of a private dwell­ing­house and is under the con­trol of the landown­er ten­ant or occu­pi­er of the dwell­ing­house so as to safe­guard against dam­age or danger to any per­son, wild­life, build­ing, struc­ture, tree, shrub or veget­a­tion. b) In a licensed cara­van site so as to safe­guard against dam­age or danger to any per­son, wild­life, build­ing, struc­ture, tree, shrub or veget­a­tion, has per­mis­sion from the own­er of the site and is not tak­ing place dur­ing a time of high fire risk, as determ­ined by SFRS. c) With­in private prop­erty, is under the con­trol of the landown­er, ten­ant or occu­pi­er of the prop­erty so as to safe­guard against dam­age or danger to any per­son, wild­life, build­ing, struc­ture, tree, shrub or veget­a­tion, has the con­sent of the landown­er, and is not tak­ing place dur­ing a time of high fire risk, as determ­ined by SFRS.

2. These byelaws shall not pre­vent the use of a gas bar­be­cue, provided it is used in such a man­ner as not to cause danger of, or dam­age by, fire.

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Form­al Board Paper 3 Annex 1 13 Septem­ber 2024 Page 4 of 4

Pro­vi­sion of details

1. It shall be an offence under these byelaws for any per­son to refuse to provide their full name and address to any per­son author­ised in writ­ing by the Author­ity who has reas­on­able grounds for believ­ing that such per­son has com­mit­ted an offence under these byelaws.

Pen­al­ties and offences

1. No per­son shall obstruct any per­son author­ised in writ­ing by the Author­ity in the exe­cu­tion of their duties in rela­tion to these byelaws.

2. Any per­son who con­tra­venes any of the fore­go­ing byelaws shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on sum­mary con­vic­tion to a fine not exceed­ing Level two on the Stand­ard Scale in respect of each offence.