Cairngorms Loc­al Out­door Access Forum

Paper 3 — Recre­ation Access and Infra­struc­ture Man­ager Report

Adam Streeter-Smith, Recre­ation Access and Infra­struc­ture Man­ager 10 June 2026

Pur­pose

This paper provides an update on the main areas of work both under­taken and planned. LOAF Mem­bers are invited to dis­cuss the items presented

1. Stat­utory Duties

Case­work

• Access rights across her­it­age rail­way line Query received if access rights exist across her­it­age rail­way lines, promp­ted by the clos­ure of a private level cross­ing near Aviemore over the Strath­spey steam rail­way line. Fol­low­ing dis­cus­sions new ped­es­tri­an cross­ing of line to be estab­lished to allow ped­es­tri­an cross­ing at this point to be per­mit­ted again.
• Peat­land res­tor­a­tion sites diver­sions Query from our peat­land team regard­ing if pub­lic could be asked to avoid res­tor­a­tion sites for first year or two as recre­ation­al pres­sure was dam­aging repaired hab­it­at. Access team con­cluded that this was accept­able (sim­il­ar to avoid­ing dis­turb­ing sens­it­ive spe­cies, same prin­ciple would apply to sens­it­ive hab­it­ats). A sign is being developed.

2. Devel­op­ment and Man­age­ment of core paths, paths and wider vis­it­or infrastructure

Spey­side Way

Repla­cing ram­bler gates between Grant­own and Nethy Bridge- work will begin this sum­mer to remove the out­dated ram­bler gates on this sec­tion of the Spey­side Way. They will be replaced with self-clos­ing gates, mak­ing the route more access­ible for cyc­lists and horse riders. It has been agreed with key landown­ers that some stock gates can be left open and only closed when mov­ing livestock.

Car­rbridge Path

The Park Author­ity has agreed the route align­ment link­ing Carr Road to the play­ing field, provid­ing a safer off-road altern­at­ive and is work­ing on the out­line design for plan­ning permission.

All­t­more Bridge

Work­ing with Nethy Bridge com­munity the Park Author­ity has com­pleted the replace­ment of the bridge which gives access to the school and woodland.

Path Pro­mo­tion

Leaf­lets — New ​‘Paths around Tomin­toul’ leaf­let pro­duced and prin­ted. Nethy Bridge leaf­let and Brae­mar leaf­let being updated next.

Access­ible Paths

Toolkit on access­ible paths has been final­ised, (sum­mary of path cri­ter­ia, how to assess and audit poten­tial access­ible paths). Train­ing being provided to groups at the Com­munity Path Group gath­er­ing on 13 June.

Access­ible paths fund for com­munity groups has been put in place, with an ini­tial £16,000 alloc­ated, grants of £300-£2,000 avail­able to make access­ib­il­ity improve­ments to exist­ing paths.

Camper­vans

Resources being pro­duced to sup­port respons­ible camper­van park­ing; new camper­van leaf­let, webpage and online facil­it­ies map.

Snow Roads Installations

A con­tract has been let to repair the gabi­on bas­kets steps at Still. This will include cov­er­ing the exist­ing steps with slabs.

Design and spe­cific­a­tions are being developed to upgrade the path at The Watch­ers to make the site more accessible.