Draft formal board minutes 140225

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 1 of 7

Draft minutes of the Form­al Board meet­ing Held at Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity office, Grant­own-on-Spey In per­son 14 Feb­ru­ary 2025 at 09.30am

Present in per­son Sandy Brem­ner (Con­vener) Elean­or Mack­in­tosh (Deputy Con­vener) Geva Black­ett Kenny Deans Dr Han­nah Grist John Kirk Lauren Mac­Cal­lum Steve Mickle­wright Derek Ross Chris Beat­tie Jack­ie Brier­ton Paul Gibb Rus­sell Jones Bill Lob­ban Dr Fiona McLean Duncan Miller Michael Williamson

In attend­ance Grant Moir, Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer Dav­id Camer­on, Deputy Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices Gav­in Miles, Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place Colin McLean Head of Land Man­age­ment Colin Simpson, Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices and Act­ive Travel Oliv­er Dav­ies, Head of Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engage­ment Alix Hark­ness, Clerk to the Board

Apo­lo­gies Dr Peter Cos­grove Ann Ross Andy Ford, Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 2 of 7

Wel­come and introduction

1. Sandy Brem­ner, the Board Con­vener, wel­comed every­one to the meet­ing. Apo­lo­gies were noted.

Mat­ters arising not covered elsewhere

1. There were not mat­ters arising.

Declar­a­tions of interest

1. There were no declar­a­tions of interest.

Sea­son­al fire man­age­ment bylaw (Paper 1)

1. The Con­vener made the fol­low­ing intro­duct­ory points giv­en the level of interest in the sub­ject: α) This Board has gone down the route of seek­ing a wild­fire bylaw very reluct­antly. A byelaw was being recom­men­ded for the first time in the Nation­al Park’s his­tory as a last resort. b) Giv­en the sig­ni­fic­ant and grow­ing threat to the pre­cious nat­ur­al her­it­age, to people’s homes, busi­nesses and – poten­tially – to people’s lives, it was a response to a minor­ity who have failed to act respons­ibly des­pite intens­ive pub­li­city, the efforts of rangers, Police and oth­er stake­hold­ers. c) The pro­posed fire man­age­ment byelaws have been dis­cussed at three pre­vi­ous board meet­ings — in Novem­ber 2023, June and Septem­ber 2024. d) The Park Author­ity had under­taken one of the biggest pub­lic con­sulta­tion exer­cises in its his­tory. e) The ori­gin­al com­munity calls for action were listened to, the Park Author­ity respon­ded quickly with a con­sulta­tion on the prin­ciple and the sub­stance of any byelaws. There has been wide­spread pub­lic sup­port. f) Sug­ges­tions and con­cerns raised by many stake­hold­ers were listened to care­fully. Every single Board mem­ber con­trib­uted to the pro­cess. Adapt­a­tions and refine­ments were made and sub­mis­sions on the detailed leg­al word­ing were con­sidered. g) The views of stake­hold­ers have been taken extremely ser­i­ously by the Board and Park Author­ity staff. This has been clearly demon­strated through­out the pro­cess. Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 3 of 7

h) On behalf of the Board, thank you to all the many organ­isa­tions, groups and indi­vidu­als who have con­trib­uted and helped us get to this stage today. i) Plea made for the pub­lic to con­tin­ue to engage with the Park Author­ity on all the many plans and pro­jects in the months and years to come.

1. Grant Moir, CEO intro­duced the paper which updates board mem­bers on the responses to the con­sulta­tion and includes a revised pro­pos­al for the word­ing of the byelaw. Fol­low­ing approv­al of a final word­ing by the Board, the pro­posed byelaw would be sub­mit­ted to Scot­tish Min­is­ters for approv­al. He made the fol­low­ing addi­tion­al points: α) The earli­est imple­ment­a­tion date of the byelaw could be 1 June 2025 depend­ing on Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment approv­al. b) As part of the budget for next fin­an­cial year (paper will come to the Board at their meet­ing on 28 March 2025), extra resources have been ring­fenced for this and for ranger train­ing to sup­port the imple­ment­a­tion of the bylaw. c) Small addi­tion to recom­mend­a­tion, the addi­tion of 3 words at point 3^d and 5 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, live­stock, build­ing, struc­ture, tree, shrub or veget­a­tion, and if an occu­pi­er has the writ­ten per­mis­sion of the landowner.

2. Colin Simpson, Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices and Act­ive Travel presen­ted the paper.

3. The Board con­sidered the detail in the Paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the fol­low­ing: α) Com­ment made that the pro­posed looked good and provides landown­ers with the free­dom to con­tin­ue their work. b) With regards to motorhomes, was there an oppor­tun­ity here to pro­mote safe dis­tance park­ing between motorhomes of 6 meters apart? Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices and Act­ive Travel advised that the byelaw was about stop­ping people start­ing fires in first place. The Park Author­ity works closely with the Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship on pro­mot­ing respons­ible motor home usage. c) Com­ment made that it would be good to see the break­down in con­sulta­tion response, and if and how the per­spect­ives differed from vis­it­or and res­id­ent. Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 4 of 7

d) Com­ment made that the respond­ents to the con­sulta­tion who respon­ded and/​or went through the text with a fine-tooth comb, were all greatly val­ued. Sug­ges­tion made to post that on the web­site. Oliv­er Dav­ies, Head of Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engage­ment agreed to this. e) With regards to edu­ca­tion, would there be a nation­al aspect around mes­saging and in the nation­al vis­it­or coordin­a­tion group? Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices and Act­ive Travel con­firmed that to some extend there would be as part of the new fire man­age­ment guid­ance related to the Scot­tish Out­door Access Code. He added that mes­saging would also be car­ried out through the loc­al vis­it­or man­age­ment group. f) Amend­ment sug­ges­ted so it expressly states that where a landown­er, ten­ant or occu­pi­er is referred to being per­mit­ted to do some­thing, this also includes any per­son author­ised by them (eg an employ­ee). CEO advised that it does cov­er those who work for a landown­er etc. This would be made clear in the accom­pa­ny­ing land man­ager guid­ance. g) Under 2(f) ​‘Landown­er’ is defined as ‘…means the own­er of any land or build­ing with­in or con­nec­ted to the Nation­al Park.’ Could it be cla­ri­fied what ​‘con­nect to’ means? CEO cla­ri­fied that it is refer­ring to land that straddles the Cairngorms Nation­al Park bound­ary. h) Both clauses 3 and 4 state that it is okay to have a fire or bar­be­cue in cer­tain cir­cum­stances but in all cases, this is caveated with ​‘so as to safe­guard against dam­age or danger to any per­son, wild­life, build­ing, struc­ture, tree, shrub or veget­a­tion,’ Con­cern raised that this sets a very high bar for a landown­er, ten­ant or occu­pi­er. It could be argued that any bon­fire for example would cause some dam­age to veget­a­tion, even if it is just a bit of grass beneath it. Anoth­er example would be a stubble fire which is likely to cause dam­age to plants/​weeds (ie veget­a­tion) start­ing to come through the ground. Sug­ges­tion made to add the word ​‘mater­i­al’ before the words ​‘dam­age’ and ​‘danger’ would make a sig­ni­fic­ant dif­fer­ence. CEO advised that ​‘dam­age’ is defined in law, but this would be covered in the accom­pa­ny­ing guid­ance for land man­agers. i) Com­ment made that the Aviemore Com­munity Coun­cil remain opposed to the bylaw being a defined peri­od and would prefer it to be a year round bylaw. j) With ref­er­ence to 3^d and 5c2j sug­ges­tion made to insert and/​or ten­ant after landown­er to avoid the ten­ant hav­ing to ask the landown­er for per­mis­sion Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 5 of 7

each time an organ­ised group such as the scouts, want to camp and bar­be­cue. The CEO agreed to make this amend­ment sub­ject to leg­al advice on the word­ing. k) Resound­ing con­sensus that when the bylaw comes into effect it would need to be fol­lowed up with really strong com­mu­nic­a­tions and strong mes­sages.,. Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices and Act­ive Travel agreed and advised that he still saw edu­ca­tion as the biggest role rangers will have. At the region­al ranger gath­er­ings, which took on board the views of those who will be on the front line, they agreed the approach should still be advice, edu­ca­tion, encour­age­ment. Head of Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engage­ment added that we are pre­par­ing a com­pre­hens­ive com­mu­nic­a­tion plan and that it will be treated like a beha­viour change cam­paign. He added he was in talks with LLT­NP to take on their learn­ings also. 1) Plea made to make more use of the ambas­sad­or mod­el as used recently by the Ram­blers Asso­ci­ation. m) A mem­ber gave a scen­ario whereby a ten­ant gives a group per­mis­sion, but the landown­er does not want to grant that per­mis­sion, what would the leg­al implic­a­tions be? CEO advised he would seek clar­ity from law­yers. n) A mem­ber sug­ges­ted ask­ing for clar­ity on wheth­er both landown­er and ten­ant per­mis­sion would be required. ○) A mem­ber asked if the accom­pa­ny­ing guid­ance for land man­agers would be brought to a future Board meet­ing? CEO advised that the Board would see it in advance of it being pub­lished but it would not be a form­al board paper. p) Clar­ity sought on the optim­ist­ic timeline, should the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment ask for amend­ments would it then be brought back to the Board? CEO advised that should there be sig­ni­fic­ant changes reques­ted then it would come back to the Board.

1. The Board: α) Noted the mat­ters raised dur­ing the pub­lic con­sulta­tion and the pro­posed responses to these and, b) Agreed the CEO go back to the law­yers to check the pro­posed change to 3^d and 5c and cir­cu­late final word­ing to the board. c) Agreed the revised word­ing of the fire man­age­ment byelaw for sub­mis­sion to Scot­tish Min­is­ters for approv­al as per the Nation­al Park (Scot­land) Act 2000 Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 6 of 7

Draft Integ­rated Wild­fire Man­age­ment Plan (Paper 2)

1. Colin McLean, Head of Land Man­age­ment intro­duced the paper which presents a draft Integ­rated Wild­fire Man­age­ment Plan to go out for a form­al con­sulta­tion peri­od of six weeks dur­ing Feb­ru­ary and March 2025.

2. The Board con­sidered the detail in the Paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the fol­low­ing: α) Praise for a bril­liant piece of work that was really com­pre­hens­ive. b) Ques­tion posed around estates and the role of Nation­al Park Author­ity. Head of Land Man­age­ment advised that Cairngorms is very pre­pared for fire. There are many skilled, trained and well equipped people in the work­force who are cap­able of fight­ing fires. Many estates have fire plans in place, where they don’t the Park Author­ity can provide tem­plates fire plans. Anti­cip­ate using exist­ing mech­an­isms to devel­op an integ­rated fire man­age­ment net­work. c) Was there any fund­ing avail­able for landown­ers to cre­ate and main­tain fire breaks? Head of Land Man­age­ment advised that there was not any at present, at moment landown­ers fund most wild­fire mit­ig­a­tions them­selves, and this pro­tects their own land The Park Author­ity are aware of the fund­ing issue. CEO added that as part of the forest grant scheme, they now have to provide a fire plan for new plant­ing etc. d) Head of Land Man­age­ment happy to make con­tact with the Badenoch, Strath­spey and Nairn officer re the Com­munity Asset Register and build on the mod­el in Deeside. e) Com­ment made that it would be good to be able to register the large amounts of water car­ry­ing equip­ment in coun­tryside. Head of Land Man­age­ment advised that on the com­munity asset register is where that could be registered. f) Com­ment made about resi­li­ence, when know­ledge leaves when estate staff leave/​retire, how is that know­ledge kept and passed on and retained? Head of Land Man­age­ment con­firmed this was an issue with declin­ing muir­burn. Muir­burn trains people about fight­ing fires, the equip­ment used and ensures that equip­ment is ser­viced. We need to find innov­at­ive ways of address­ing that, eg an estate on Deeside will loan out staff to neigh­bour­ing estates who do muir­burn to ensure their staff are not los­ing those skills. Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 7 of 7

g) Sug­ges­tion made to bring this to the next meet­ing of the Cairngorm Agri­cul­tur­al Advis­ory Group. It was con­firmed that this would be on the agenda for the next meet­ing. h) Recog­ni­tion that this was a huge piece of work which bal­ances the byelaw. Con­cerned raised that Scot­tish Fire and Res­cue Ser­vice do not have an asset register set up here. Head of Land Man­age­ment advised that they are evolving, not had many wild­fires in this area of the Nation­al Park. i) CEO advised that the IWMP would be brought back to the Board meet­ing in June 2025 for final approval.

1. The Board approved the draft Integ­rated Wild­fire Man­age­ment Plan for wider consultation.

2. Action Point Arising: None

AOCB

1. None

Date of Next Meeting

1. The date of the next meet­ing is Fri­day 28 March 2025 in person.

2. The meet­ing con­cluded at 10.41