Paper 1 CEO report

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Form­al Board Paper 1 28 March 2025 Page 1 of 13

For inform­a­tion

Title: CEO Report and Con­vener Update Pre­pared by: Grant Moir, Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer

Pur­pose To high­light to Board Mem­bers the main stra­tegic areas of work that are being dir­ec­ted by Man­age­ment Team. These are areas where sig­ni­fic­ant staff resources are being dir­ec­ted to deliv­er with part­ners the aspir­a­tions of the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan.

Nature and Cli­mate Change

1. Peat­land res­tor­a­tion –1886 hec­tares (ha) has been brought under res­tor­a­tion in ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ on 17 pro­jects across the Nation­al Park. Fur­ther work, still be accoun­ted for, will bring the total to an estim­ated 2100ha. This sig­ni­fic­antly exceeds tar­get and rep­res­ents a con­sid­er­able achieve­ment. Cur­rently there are 15 pro­jects under con­sid­er­a­tion for ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ totalling approx­im­ately 1700ha. The pro­gramme is cur­rently exceed­ing tar­gets in the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP).
2. Cairngorms Agri­cul­tur­al Advis­ory Group (CAAG) – The most recent meet­ing of the group took place on Monday 24 Feb­ru­ary where Mal­colm Smith was intro­duced as the new Agri­cul­tur­al Adviser. The group wel­comed the oppor­tun­it­ies to improve com­mu­nic­a­tions with farm­ers and crofters across the whole Nation­al Park and dis­cussed pri­or­ity areas of work for 2025. Oth­er top­ics for dis­cus­sion included the draft fire man­age­ment plan and res­ults of the flood­bank sur­vey. The next meet­ing will be in June.
3. Deer man­age­ment – Both com­munity lar­ders fun­ded through Cairngorms 20230 (C2030) have been oper­a­tion­al since mid-Janu­ary. By the end of Feb­ru­ary, they had delivered over 700kg of ven­ison to com­munity kit­chens, food banks and schools across Perth and Kinross, Strath­spey, Spey­side, Aber­deen­shire and Angus. The pro­ject attrac­ted wide media cov­er­age and will reach a UK audi­ence through BBC Coun­try­file. 12 estates have qual­i­fied for ven­ison sub­sidy with­in the West Grampi­ans Deer Man­age­ment Group (DMG) and we expect to con­firm fund­ing by the end of March.
4. Beaver – A full time Beaver Assist­ant has been recruited, sup­port­ing deliv­ery of the man­age­ment and mit­ig­a­tion plan and landown­er engage­ment. The Park Author­ity, part­ners, farm­ers from Strath­spey and mem­bers of the Beaver Mon­it­or­ing and Mit­ig­a­tion Group vis­ited Tay­side to see and hear from farm­ers who have been liv­ing along­side beavers for many years. The group saw how beavers were

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5. 6. 7. affect­ing erosion caused by dynam­ic, mod­i­fied rivers and where they could be accom­mod­ated and man­aged. Waders — With fund­ing and sup­port from the Park Author­ity, Spey­side Waders and Wet­land Ini­ti­at­ive and Roy­al Soci­ety for the Pro­tec­tion of Birds (RSPB) are run­ning the 2025 Cairngorms Wader Sur­vey. Over 70 volun­teers are help­ing mon­it­or cur­lew, snipe, lap­wing, oyster­catch­er and red­shank on farms in Badenoch, Strath­spey, Glen­liv­et, Tomin­toul and parts of Perth­shire. 2025 marks 25 years since this five yearly mon­it­or­ing began. Flood embank­ment sur­vey — A con­di­tion assess­ment of 87km of embank­ments on the River Spey and selec­ted trib­u­tar­ies, from the Spey Dam to Grant­own-on-Spey has iden­ti­fied 84% of embank­ments in good con­di­tion, with breaches in a com­bined length of 1.1km, and 0.87km at high risk of future erosion. The sur­vey high­lights factors that affect the integ­rity of embank­ments, where they are at highest risk of breach­ing, and some of the mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures avail­able. Whilst ori­gin­ally com­mis­sioned to under­pin com­mit­ments in the beaver man­age­ment and mit­ig­a­tion plan, there are clear oppor­tun­it­ies to use this inform­a­tion to sup­port a whole river approach to improv­ing resi­li­ence to cli­mate change impacts. Fire Man­age­ment – The Integ­rated Wild­fire Man­age­ment Plan is cur­rently out for pub­lic con­sulta­tion and the sea­son­al fire man­age­ment byelaw has been sub­mit­ted to Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment for confirmation.

Vis­it­or Ser­vices and Act­ive Travel

1. Paths and long-dis­tance routes – Spey­side Way: a) Dir­ec­tion­al sig­nage – The works to update the dir­ec­tion­al sig­nage (fin­ger­posts and way­mark­ers) between Aviemore and the Park bound­ary (bey­ond Crom­dale) is mostly com­plete. The main post install­a­tion has been done, and final snag­ging works are being wrapped up. Key improve­ments have been the sig­nage through Nethy bridge and Boat of Garten, where met­al lamp­post signs have been used in place of posts, mak­ing this much clear­er. b) Gates — Crom­dale to Mains of Dalvey at the Park bound­ary. We have secured a con­tract­or to remove the out­dated ​“ram­bler” style gates that are so dif­fi­cult to access, espe­cially on a bike and impossible on a horse. The ini­tial con­tract is due to com­mence in mid-April, start­ing at Crom­dale to Mains of Dalvey at the Park bound­ary. We hope to remove all the ram­bler gates and replace (only where required) with self-clos­ing ped­es­tri­an gates made to the prop­er spe­cific­a­tions to accom­mod­ate bikes and horses.

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1. Ranger ser­vices – Sea­son­al rangers for 2025 have recently been recruited with three full time rangers cov­er­ing Deeside, two full time in Angus, and five full time and two Part time rangers cov­er­ing Badenoch and Strath­spey. The lat­ter is designed to give extra cov­er over week­ends when this area can see par­tic­u­lar pres­sures. Of the 12 sea­son­al rangers five are return­ing from last year and sev­en are new to the ser­vice with most com­men­cing work from 17 March so as to be fully oper­a­tion­al by the East­er holidays.
2. Vis­it­or infra­struc­ture – Walk­ers car­park at the Linn of Quoi­ch — With the recent renov­a­tion of the nearby Pic­nic Lodge and the East Quoi­ch foot­path (grant assisted by the Vis­it­or Infra­struc­ture Improve­ment pro­gramme ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅) Nation­al Trust Scot­land (NTS) Mar Lodge Estate anti­cip­ated con­ges­tion at the car park. Plan­ning per­mis­sion to nearly double the size of the car park­ing facil­ity (from approx­im­ately 16 to 30 cars) has been gran­ted and addi­tion­al funds have been secured from the Park Author­ity to com­plete the works by the end of March 2025.
3. Volun­teer­ing and health walks – A volun­teer recruit­ment exer­cise is under way to con­tin­ue increas­ing the num­ber of volun­teer rangers towards the 2030 tar­get of
4. Appoint­ments will be made in early April with volun­teer induc­tion and train­ing planned for later in the month.
5. Act­ive and sus­tain­able trans­port – Fol­low­ing the trans­fer of the lead role in devel­op­ing the Dul­nain Bridge to Grant­own-on-Spey act­ive travel route from the com­munity to the Park Author­ity a small piece of work has been under­taken by spe­cial­ist con­tract­ors to identi­fy the work still required before stat­utory per­mis­sions can be sought and con­struc­tion costs iden­ti­fied. Fol­low­ing this an applic­a­tion for fund­ing to com­plete this work has been made to Trans­port Scotland’s Act­ive Travel Infra­struc­ture Fund.

A num­ber of fund­ing applic­a­tions had been sub­mit­ted to Sus­trans in early 2024 seek­ing fund­ing for the Cairngorms 2030 Act­ive Com­munit­ies work. Budget con­straints in fin­an­cial year ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ meant no awards were made but we were recently informed that the applic­a­tions for Aviemore North, Boat of Garten, Car­rbridge and Nethy Bridge and New­ton­more could be sup­por­ted by Trans­port Scot­land in ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆. Fur­ther engage­ment would be required in Car­rbridge before any pro­ject was developed fur­ther but work to revis­it the anti­cip­ated costs for oth­er loc­a­tions has been under­taken in light of the infla­tion­ary increases since the ori­gin­al prices were obtained in 2023. A final response from Trans­port Scot­land on what can be fun­ded is expec­ted in April.

Fol­low­ing pro­cure­ment exer­cises con­tracts have been let for beha­viour change activ­it­ies includ­ing work dir­ectly with schools and to con­tin­ue the devel­op­ment of

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the first three cycle hubs in com­munit­ies in the Park – Glen­more, Grant­own-on- Spey and Ballater.

Plan­ning and Rur­al Development

1. Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (LDP) — Work con­tin­ues on build­ing the evid­ence base for the next LDP, with the Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme being approved at the Board meet­ing in Novem­ber 2024, ongo­ing engage­ment on top­ic papers, and staff attend­ing pub­lic engage­ment ses­sions and loc­al events. Con­sulta­tion has taken place on top­ic papers cov­er­ing Heat­ing and Cool­ing, Sus­tain­able Trans­port, Waste, Energy and Edu­ca­tion (Have Your Say Today — Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan — Com­mon­place). Officers have sup­por­ted Vol­un­tary Action in Badenoch and Strath­spey (VABS) to under­take con­sulta­tion events on the Strath­don, Kin­gussie and Dul­nain Bridge Com­munity Action Plans, and the feed­back from these events will inform the new LDP. A ​‘gami­fic­a­tion’ event, designed to encour­age par­ti­cip­a­tion with under-rep­res­en­ted groups on pri­or­it­ies for the next LDP, was held in late Feb­ru­ary. Officers worked with the Cairngorms 2030 team and the Uni­ver­sity of Edin­burgh to cre­ate the game. The game play and dis­cus­sion has been recor­ded for ana­lys­is by the Uni­ver­sity, and feed­back on the day was pos­it­ive. An updated Deliv­ery Pro­gramme, which mon­it­ors pro­gress in deliv­er­ing the cur­rent LDP, is also presen­ted to this Board meet­ing for approv­al under sep­ar­ate cover.
2. Plan­ning case­work – The Plan­ning Com­mit­tee has met three times since the last form­al Board meet­ing on 22 Novem­ber 2024. The Com­mit­tee has approved plan­ning applic­a­tions for the repair and upgrade of an exist­ing track at Bal­avil Estate, three houses at the Dal­faber devel­op­ment in Aviemore, and amended pro­pos­als for afford­able hous­ing pro­vi­sion at the ongo­ing devel­op­ment at Sta­tion Road in New­ton­more. It has also approved an update to the Park Authority’s Enforce­ment Charter and the Authority’s response to a UK Gov­ern­ment con­sulta­tion on pro­pos­als for reform­ing the elec­tri­city infra­struc­ture con­sent­ing pro­cesses in Scot­land. After call­ing-in a plan­ning applic­a­tion due to an out­stand­ing flood risk objec­tion from Scot­tish Envir­on­ment Pro­tec­tion Agency (SEPA), Scot­tish Min­is­ters gran­ted plan­ning per­mis­sion for 21 homes at Sta­tion Yard, Nethy Bridge in line with the decision that Plan­ning Com­mit­tee made in August 2023. The Park Author­ity has recently called-in plan­ning applic­a­tions for a tele­coms mast at Glenavon Estate, Upper Dee River flood­plain res­tor­a­tion pro­pos­als, an exten­sion and alter­a­tions to the Aber­nethy Trust centre at Nethy Bridge, and 35 homes near Lyn­stock Park in Nethy Bridge. These applic­a­tions will be repor­ted to Plan­ning Com­mit­tee for determ­in­a­tion in due course.
3. Vis­it­or and res­id­ent sur­veys — The first tranche of vis­it­or sur­veys (between May and Septem­ber 2024) saw a total of 848 people take part face-to-face in over 30 high foot­fall loc­a­tions across the Nation­al Park, plus an addi­tion­al 588 online. This

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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data has been ana­lysed but as we are con­tinu­ing to gath­er data over the com­ing months it will not be pub­lished for a few months yet.

The first ever res­id­ent and work­er sur­vey of the Nation­al Park took place over a six-month peri­od between July 2024 and Janu­ary 2025. Inde­pend­ent mar­ket research com­pany M.E.L Research (who have pre­vi­ously worked with the Peak Dis­trict Nation­al Park) were com­mis­sioned to deliv­er both this and the vis­it­or sur­vey, and a total of 1,357 responses were received from every com­munity in the Nation­al Park. Res­ults will be pub­lished in full on our web­site over the com­ing weeks and high­lights will appear in the spring edi­tion of Cairn magazine. Like the vis­it­or sur­vey, we intend to repeat the exer­cise every few years to track pro­gress / changes over time.

Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engagement

1. Com­munity and stake­hold­er engage­ment – Plan­ning is under­way to bring togeth­er an event in late April for all loc­al com­munity coun­cils, updat­ing on the work under­taken since the last meet­ing in March 2024. The gath­er­ing will also provide a plat­form for com­munit­ies across the Nation­al Park to share high­lights from their work over the past 12 months and to explore poten­tial col­lab­or­a­tion opportunities.

Cairngorms 2030 engage­ment is ongo­ing with the sched­ule for the year ahead cur­rently being developed, tak­ing into account both geo­graph­ic­al require­ments, learn­ings from last year (where we engaged nearly 1,000 people) and the needs of all C2030 projects.

1. Cor­por­ate com­mu­nic­a­tions – It has been a busy start to the year, with the team field­ing media inquir­ies and liais­ing with part­ners on the illeg­al releases of lynx and fer­al pigs. An early PR high­light has been the Cairngorms 2030 deer lar­der launch, which attrac­ted sig­ni­fic­ant cov­er­age in nation­al news­pa­pers, digit­al out­lets and on tele­vi­sion and radio bul­let­ins. There is more to come on that front, includ­ing fea­tures on Land­ward, Radio 4’s Food Pro­gramme, and an upcom­ing Coun­try­file Cairngorms spe­cial which will fea­ture oth­er farm­ing angles as well as a focus on our caper­cail­lie work.

Oth­er key activ­ity over the peri­od includes find­ings from the River Spey flood­bank sur­vey and the integ­rated fire man­age­ment plan con­sulta­tion. There have also been a range of staff voices in our loc­al news­pa­per columns, from ranger Pete Short on winter wild­life watch­ing, to Jos Mil­ner on the import­ance of aspen. Upcom­ing stor­ies include the res­ults of our res­id­ent and work­er sur­vey and a focus on Green Health Week in May.

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1. Web­site and social media – The web­site pro­ject is com­ing to the end of its first phase, with a beta site due to go live at the start of April. The beta site will sit along­side our exist­ing web­site for a peri­od of just over a month to gath­er user feed­back and to stress test the new site, before the old site is switched off early in the summer.

New con­tent is being added daily, and the team are work­ing hard with col­leagues across the organ­isa­tion to cre­ate, review, edit and con­sol­id­ate thou­sands of pages of con­tent. Fur­ther user research has been under­taken with res­id­ents and vis­it­ors, with a par­tic­u­lar focus on access­ib­il­ity and users with addi­tion­al needs, ensur­ing that the site meets and exceeds access­ib­il­ity standards.

In March we suc­cess­fully merged our leg­acy Cairngorms Nature Face­book page with our exist­ing Nation­al Park Face­book page, bring­ing our total audi­ence to 82,000 across Face­book, Ins­tagram, Twit­ter, Linked­In and Bluesky (up from 66,000 pre-mer­ger). Our net growth over the peri­od – over and above account mer­ging was 5,530.

Between 22 Novem­ber and 11 March, we received over 4.2 mil­lion impres­sions (up 78% on the pre­vi­ous year), 197,048 engage­ments (up 181%), 918,542 video views (up 166.9%). It is import­ant to note that these res­ults have been a com­bin­a­tion of paid for and organ­ic con­tent, albeit the former was sig­ni­fic­antly impacted by a Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment budget freeze post-Octo­ber 2024.

High­lights from the peri­od include the first of two short films telling the story of the deer lar­der pro­ject (part of Cairngorms 2030), which has almost 100,000 views on Face­book, the plat­form where we have our highest res­id­ent pop­u­la­tion. Anoth­er short film fea­tured young people involved in Fèis Spè, talk­ing about the import­ance of Fèis Week in help­ing them con­nect to their cul­tur­al her­it­age and to one anoth­er. We’ve also shared con­tent ​‘day in the life’ con­tent with our sea­son­al rangers from last year, sup­por­ted advert­ising for the Cairngorms Trust Park for All grant and shared sea­son­al nature updates and blogs on everything from beavers to waders to woodlands.

Our com­munity man­age­ment strategy – respond­ing to as many com­ments on our posts as pos­sible – con­tin­ues to reap rewards and has been suc­cess­ful in gen­er­at­ing pos­it­ive com­ments and inter­ac­tions, and provid­ing the oppor­tun­ity to address mis­in­form­a­tion; how­ever, there have been sig­ni­fic­ant capa­city implic­a­tions as a res­ult of this.

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1. Brand­ing and pub­lic­a­tions – The spring edi­tion of Cairn magazine is due to hit door­steps from 07 April. The lead story in this issue is the deer lar­der pro­ject, along­side a snap­shot of our res­id­ent and work­er sur­vey res­ults, an inter­view with Grow­Biz part­ner busi­ness Cairngorm Vets, and the usu­al mix of com­munity, nature and Cairngorms 2030 stories.

We are pre­par­ing to refresh a num­ber of inter­pret­a­tion pan­els around the Nation­al Park from the start of April when budget allows, while plan­ning is also under­way for new pro­jects includ­ing the Sky Hide star­gaz­ing spot at Tomin­toul. Sev­er­al new pub­lic­a­tions are also in the works, includ­ing leaf­lets on the Cairngorms 2030 green pre­scrip­tion pro­ject, which will be made avail­able in GP surgeries.

Mid-March also brought news from Bòrd na Gàidh­lig that our draft third edi­tion of the Park Authority’s Gael­ic Lan­guage Plan had been approved. The fin­ished plan will be pub­lished on our web­site over the com­ing weeks, with a pack­age of work includ­ing prin­ted and online mater­i­als, train­ing and part­ner­ship work­ing all gear­ing up from this spring.

Organ­isa­tion­al Development

1. Staff­ing update — Since Novem­ber, the fol­low­ing staff changes took place: a) Staff leav­ing the organ­isa­tion: i. Ewan Camp­bell left his role of Peat­land Action Pro­ject Officer, to move to anoth­er organ­isa­tion. ii. Fi Thom­son left the C2030: Com­munity Engage­ment Coordin­at­or post, for per­son­al reas­ons. b) Staff join­ing the organ­isa­tion: i. Mal­colm Smith joined as Agri­cul­tur­al Adviser. This was a vari­ation of the role vacated by Lewis Pâté. ii. Lucy Topali­an joined as Green Health Link Work­er. This is a mater­nity cov­er post for Louise Emslie. iii. Jen­nifer Ross joined as recep­tion and Admin Assist­ant, repla­cing Mar­ie Smith. Lacquarn Rose and Lauren Neil joined as Gradu­ate Plan­ners, filling his­tor­ic vacan­cies. iv. 10 Sea­son­al Rangers were appoin­ted, along­side the two exist­ing rangers — the full Sea­son­al Ranger com­ple­ment is as fol­lows: Emily Als­ford (re-appoin­ted); Rhona Garry (reappoin­ted); Camer­on Fox-Clarke, Car­ol-Ann Glass; Chloe Hark­ness; Fiona Fri­el; Jade Len­nox; Jayne Brown

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c) i. (2024 Train­ee Ranger); Sarah Stevens (reappoin­ted); Caitlin Fox ; Milly Revill-Hay­ward; Criag Fraser (reappoin­ted). Staff appoint­ments fol­low­ing a robust intern­al recruit­ment pro­cess: Tom Fre­driks­son joined the Peat­land Team as Peat­land Action Assist­ant, repla­cing Joel who moved to the Peat­land Action Pro­ject Officer post. Pre­vi­ously, Tom was one of the Park Authority’s Sea­son­al Rangers. He joined the Author­ity in 2022 as a Train­ee Ranger and there­after worked every sea­son as a Sea­son­al Ranger. ii. Mar­ie Smith was appoin­ted to the C2030 Admin Assist­ant post, repla­cing Dot Har­ris who moved to the Plan­ning Assist­ant post. Pre­vi­ously Mar­ie was the Recep­tion and Admin Assist­ant. iii. Pete Short was appoin­ted to The Beaver Assist­ant role. This is a new role to sup­port the Beaver Pro­ject. Pre­vi­ously, Pete was a Coun­tryside Ranger iv. Emily Als­ford was appoin­ted to the Coun­tryside Ranger post, back­filling Pete Short. Pre­vi­ously Emily was a Sea­son­al Ranger d) Roles appoin­ted for future start dates: i. Two Peat­land Action Pro­ject Officers, both start­ing in June. ii. A Fin­an­cial Account­ant, start­ing in June, who will replace Danie Ral­ph who is retir­ing at the end of April. e) Live extern­al recruit­ment: i. Eco­lo­gic­al Advice Officer, repla­cing Kar­en Ald­ridge ii. Peat­land Sci­ence and Mon­it­or­ing Officer — new post iii. Com­munity Engage­ment Coordin­at­or — to replace Fi Thomson-

1. Youth employ­ment — a) Beth Ogilvy joined the Park Author­ity on a short-term Intern­ship as Access and Infra­struc­ture GIS Intern. The Park Author­ity then recruited a new role of GIS Officer — Peat­land Action. Beth applied for the role and was suc­cess­fully appoin­ted to this core post. It’s really pos­it­ive that we can take on an intern and grown them such that they are able to apply for and be appoin­ted to core roles. b) We recently atten­ded Alford Academy Careers Fair, which was run in con­junc­tion with Devel­op­ing the Young Work­force (DYW) North East. This was an oppor­tun­ity to meet both young people and par­ents and chat about the vari­ous careers avail­able in the Park Author­ity and the path­ways into

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them. This is always a well-sup­por­ted event both by employ­ers and those attend­ing. c) We also atten­ded Grant­own Gram­mar Sub­ject Choices Fair, which was run in con­junc­tion with DYW Inverness and High­lands. The event gave young people at the school an oppor­tun­ity to speak and ask ques­tions to mem­bers of the Park Author­ity, oth­er loc­al busi­ness, and fur­ther edu­ca­tion pro­viders about poten­tial career paths they may be inter­ested in. The event was designed to help young people at the school make an informed decision about which sub­jects to choose. The event was well atten­ded, and we spoke to many young people through­out the morning

1. Equal­it­ies – We recently hos­ted a staff engage­ment ses­sion to cel­eb­rate LGB­TQ+ His­tory month. We are also in the pro­cess of devel­op­ing a staff-led peer sup­port group for neurodi­verse staff. This will com­ple­ment the exist­ing Men­o­pause sup­port Group; the Carer’s Sup­port Group and the sup­port group for staff who are immune supressed. We have also recently been a guest speak­er at the Holyrood Insights Men­o­pause in the Office Conference
2. Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment — The newly adop­ted organ­isa­tion­al prin­ciples are becom­ing well embed­ded and are being used by staff in a vari­ety of con­texts, includ­ing the set­ting of job plans and the per­form­ance devel­op­ment con­ver­sa­tions; they are part of the pro­ba­tion eval­u­ation pro­cess; and are inform­ing per­form­ance man­age­ment pro­cesses. We are also explor­ing how we can enhance engage­ment with staff in bands D and E, and are devel­op­ing an action plan which will feed into the Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy.

Pro­cure­ment

1. Since August, when our new Pro­cure­ment Officer, Mikko Saari, joined the Park Author­ity, the ongo­ing improve­ment of pro­cesses and con­trols has pro­gressed well. Pro­gress against the agreed plan has been shared with the Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee, both at meet­ings of the Com­mit­tee and with the Chair and Vice Chair in the peri­od between meetings.

2. Mikko has guided the C2030 pro­ject teams through 23 indi­vidu­al pro­cure­ments, 13 of which are now com­plete. We are bene­fit­ing from shared ser­vice arrange­ments with Loch Lomond and the Trossachs Nation­al Park Author­ity and Scot­land Excel, from whom we receive advice and prac­tic­al support.

3. The pro­cure­ment pipeline for the Cairngorms 2030 pro­ject cur­rently com­prises 80 pro­jects with a total value of £23 mil­lion. Of these, 30 pro­jects are pro­cure­ments of

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Form­al Board Paper 1 28 March 2025 Page 10 of 13

a more com­plex nature that will be car­ried out using the Scot­tish Government’s pro­cure­ment routes two and three.

Grant Moir 13 March 2025 grantmoir@​cairngorms.​co.​uk

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Form­al Board Paper 1 28 March 2025 Page 11 of 13

Title: Convener’s update Pre­pared by: Sandy Brem­ner, Board Convener

Pur­pose To high­light to board mem­bers and Seni­or Man­age­ment Team (SMT) and staff of the meet­ings and events the Board Con­vener has been attend­ing since the last Form­al Board meeting.

1. Strath­don – Chaired a new group of Board mem­bers and seni­or staff, work­ing to help the Strath­don com­munity, which is facing mul­tiple chal­lenges, and agreed fol­low-up actions. This ini­ti­at­ive was launched fol­low­ing a request by a Board member.
2. Nethy Bridge – Fol­low­ing an approach from the Chair of Nethy Bridge Com­munity Coun­cil, worked with the Park Author­ity staff to address a long-stand­ing issue facing people in the area.
3. Busi­ness – Atten­ded the Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship annu­al con­fer­ence in Aviemore, enga­ging with busi­ness own­ers on a range of issues, from sup­port oppor­tun­it­ies to the devel­op­ment and use of Cairngorms Nation­al Park branding.
4. Tour­ism — Atten­ded the North East Tour­ism Con­fer­ence at P&J Live, Aber­deen, meet­ing a range of tour­ism and related busi­ness representatives.
5. Vis­it Aber­deen­shire – Meet­ing with the tour­ism organisation’s Chief Exec­ut­ive, dis­cuss­ing chal­lenges in the sec­tor and poten­tial implic­a­tions of a vis­it­or levy.
6. UK Nation­al Parks – Atten­ded Nation­al Parks UK’s Chairs and CEOs meet­ing. High­lighted the need to engage effect­ively across com­munit­ies and oth­er stake­hold­er groups on all the issues we face.
7. Bal­later – Met rep­res­ent­at­ives of Bal­later and Crath­ie Com­munity Coun­cil to dis­cuss pro­gress in ramp­ing up responses to com­munity con­cerns about flood and drought risks.
8. Spey Flood­banks – Atten­ded meet­ing at Boat of Garten with landown­ers and man­agers to dis­cuss sur­vey res­ults of the con­di­tion of River Spey flood­banks and met indi­vidu­al attendees to dis­cuss related issues.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Form­al Board Paper 1 28 March 2025 Page 12 of 13

1. Cul­ture – Atten­ded civic recep­tion mark­ing the thir­ti­eth anniversary of the Elphin­stone Insti­tute, pro­mot­ing Scots lan­guage and cul­ture, enga­ging with a range of stake­hold­ers on the Nation­al Park’s work on cul­tur­al heritage.
2. Game and Wild­life Con­ser­va­tion Trust (GWCT) – Met the Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer of the GWCT, dis­cuss­ing poten­tial for the spread of Envir­on­ment­al Farm­er Groups, col­lab­or­at­ing to deliv­er nature res­tor­a­tion and devel­op nature cap­it­al markets.
3. Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment — Met Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment offi­cials, dis­cuss­ing some of the wide range of pro­jects being delivered across the Nation­al Park.
4. Dee Catch­ment Part­ner­ship (DCP) – Met the Chair of the DCP, dis­cuss­ing the organisation’s devel­op­ing role in the Park Author­ity — con­vened Dee Resi­li­ence Group and plans to scale up pro­ject work.
5. Flood­ing – Addressed cere­mony to mark the open­ing of the River Dee sal­mon fish­ing sea­son, reit­er­at­ing the Park Authority’s com­mit­ment to help deliv­er land­scape-scale pro­jects to mit­ig­ate against floods and droughts.
6. Beavers – Atten­ded tour of beaver sites in the Tay catch­ment, organ­ised by the Park Author­ity in con­junc­tion with the Cairngorms Beaver Mon­it­or­ing and Mit­ig­a­tion Group. Briefed on sig­ni­fic­ant prob­lems faced by loc­al groups in secur­ing mit­ig­a­tion actions in their area, and under­lined the Nation­al Park’s com­mit­ment to work closely with land man­agers and act swiftly to help address issues in the Cairngorms.
7. Media — Pro­duced columns on the Park Author­ity work for region­al news­pa­pers and con­trib­uted to a series of nation­al news­pa­pers and web­sites on pro­ject announcements.
8. BBC — Met with award-win­ning Atten­bor­ough film maker Alistair Forther­gill, con­nect­ing him with the Park Author­ity staff on plans for a major new BBC wild­life series focused on Scotland.
9. Dee — Atten­ded meet­ings of the River Dee Resi­li­ence Strategy Group, con­vened by the Park Author­ity, sup­port­ing efforts to step up deliv­ery of mit­ig­a­tions against flood risks to homes, busi­ness and biodiversity.
10. Demen­tia – Atten­ded Cairngorms 2030 — fun­ded Out­door Demen­tia Resource Centre present­a­tion for people liv­ing with demen­tia and their carers and met fam­il­ies plan­ning to make use of the oppor­tun­it­ies at the Bad­aguish centre.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Form­al Board Paper 1 28 March 2025 Page 13 of 13

1. Aca­dem­ic – Presen­ted sem­in­ar at the Uni­ver­sity of Aberdeen’s Depart­ment of Polit­ics and Inter­na­tion­al Rela­tions on the Polit­ics of Con­ser­va­tion, focus­ing on efforts to deliv­er the goal of nature and people thriv­ing together.
2. Park Author­ity Liais­on – Atten­ded weekly liais­on meet­ings with the Park Author­ity Deputy Con­vener, CEO and Deputy CEO.
3. Nation­al Park Con­veners – Met reg­u­larly with Con­vener of the Loch Lomond and Trossachs Nation­al Park to dis­cuss issues of mutu­al interest.
4. All meet­ings were in addi­tion to indi­vidu­al meet­ings and dis­cus­sions with Board mem­bers on a wide range of subjects.

Sandy Brem­ner, 12 March 2025 Sandybremner@​cairngorms.​co.​uk