Cairngorms Loc­al Out­door Access Forum

Core Paths Plan Review – update and discussion

Update

1. Form­al consultation

The amended Core Paths Plan has been con­sul­ted on includ­ing landown­er noti­fic­a­tions and a 12-week pub­lic con­sulta­tion which closed on 21 August 2026.

The con­sulta­tion received 67 com­ments, of which 55 were treated as form­al rep­res­ent­a­tions. Twenty-five dif­fer­ent people sub­mit­ted rep­res­ent­a­tions. There were 24 objec­tions received, relat­ing to 13 paths.

Annex 1 sets out the objec­tions received on the amended Core Paths Plan and the access team’s ini­tial opin­ions on those objections.

2. Assess­ment of objections

Sec­tion 20A (2) of the Land Reform (Scot­land) Act 2003 allows for nego­ti­ation on an objec­tion which may or may not lead to the with­draw­al or an objec­tion. Sec­tion 20A (4) fur­ther states that the Park Author­ity may modi­fy the amended plan to secure a with­draw­al of an objec­tion. In doing so, the Author­ity must noti­fy and con­sult with such per­sons as they con­sider appro­pri­ate on the mod­i­fied amended plan.

Dis­cus­sions and nego­ti­ations are now under­way regard­ing the objec­tions, with modi­fic­a­tions to the Plan being pro­posed to resolve sev­er­al of these. Such modi­fic­a­tions will be sub­ject to a short con­sulta­tion with rel­ev­ant stake­hold­ers and appro­pri­ate landowners.

3. Next steps

• LOAF con­sulta­tion on modi­fic­a­tions (likely Nov / Dec / Jan 2026) see point 5.
• Next LOAF meet­ing (Feb­ru­ary 2027). LOAF to dis­cuss any out­stand­ing unre­solved objec­tions and give a form­al pos­i­tion on these.
• Core Paths Plan presen­ted to Nation­al Park Board (19 March 2027) to adopt, if no objec­tions, or sub­mit to Scot­tish Min­is­ters with out­stand­ing objections.

Dis­cus­sion

4. Review of objections

LOAF mem­bers are invited to com­ment on the access authority’s cur­rent pos­i­tion and any likely modi­fic­a­tions that are cur­rently being pro­posed (see annex 1).

Maps / images relat­ing to objec­tions will be shown dur­ing the meet­ing and fur­ther inform­a­tion can be provided dur­ing the dis­cus­sion session.

5. LOAF as a con­sul­tee on modifications

It is anti­cip­ated there will be modi­fic­a­tions made to the Plan. The LOAF will have a role as a con­sul­tee on these modi­fic­a­tions. The con­sulta­tion is expec­ted to be between Nov – Dec 2026.

The LOAF is reques­ted to con­firm how they would like to be con­sul­ted. Pos­sible options are: i) Mem­bers review modi­fic­a­tions indi­vidu­ally and send their views back to the Chair who will col­late into a single response ii) An addi­tion­al short online meet­ing is hos­ted to dis­cuss as a group and for­mu­late a response

Annex 1 – Sum­mary of objections

Amend­ment	Objec­tion	Raised by	Access Author­ity opin­ion	Status
ADD31 Birk­wood to Road, Braemar	Cre­ates a haz­ard as links to a road and doesn’t link to oth­er paths.	Land agent (Mar Estate)	Reject, route adds to net­work, links dir­ectly and indir­ectly to oth­er core paths and a park­ing area.
ADD30 Docharn link, Boat of Garten	Sup­port for link, but sug­ges­tions to remove core path dog-leg through Docharn House.	1. Landown­er of link (Seafield Estate) 2. Own­er of Docharn House (com­ment) 3. RSPB (com­ment)	Make modi­fic­a­tion to remove sec­tion of core path through Docharn House, prop­erty now being developed into res­id­en­tial home.	Resolved though modi­fic­a­tion – remove dog leg
ADD14 Caper­cail­lie trail, Boat of Garten	Not neces­sary for reas­on­able access, doesn’t meet cri­ter­ia, leased to com­munity group till 2037. Already a loop route and core path in wood. Would remove future option to close this route re- Caper disturbance	1. Landown­er (Seafield Estate) 2. RSPB	Reject, key recre­ation­al access route, close to com­munity and one of few wheel­chair access­ible routes in Park.
ADD32 Slo­chd XC route	Con­flicts with Sched­ule 1 spe­cies. Will add com­plex­ity to forest oper­a­tions. Breed­ing Caper­cail­lie pop­u­la­tion and is with two known leks less than 400m away from the pro­posed addi­tion­al route.	1. Landown­er (Seafield Estate) 2. RSPB	Make modi­fic­a­tion – remove from plan • On fur­ther con­sid­er­a­tion only provide addi­tion­al net­work bene­fit re addi­tion­al recre­ation on few days of year. Oth­er core paths, RoW and NCN pro­vi­sion in area. • Not loc­al to a com­munity • HRA con­sidered and decision was ​“no likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects but poten­tial minor resid­ual effects.” RSPB provided fur­ther data about Capercaillie	Resolved through modi­fic­a­tion – remove from Plan
ADD12 Laun­dry path, Dul­nain Bridge	Exist­ing core path net­work is adequate	Landown­er (Seafield Estate)	Reject, while is a net­work of paths in area, this forms key loop for recre­ation­al pur­poses from com­munity. One of the pro­moted com­munity paths.
ADD38 High Burn­side link, Aviemore	Impact on Sched­ule 1 spe­cies, access well served by core paths in the NNR Route requires work to ensure meets accept­able stand­ards of	Landown­er (Seafield Estate) NatureScot	Make modi­fic­a­tion to reroute as aspir­a­tion­al path closer to A9. • Link would provide route from north of Aviemore hous­ing to NNR and wider net­work of paths.
REA227, Aviemore orbital	health & safety. Pos­sible altern­at­ive routes Route crosses unfenced live­stock field, puts access users at risk	Landown­er (Seafield Estate)	• HRA con­sidered and decision was ​“no likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects but poten­tial minor resid­ual effects.” Reject, exist­ing core path is already in field, just re-align­ing route with gates and access points. No altern­at­ive route option along­side field.	Resolved with modi­fic­a­tion – landown­er agreed with fenced-in option
ADD2 Bellabeg shop to Lon­ach hall, Strathdon	Part of route is forest road in use for forestry oper­a­tions, cre­ates a health and safety risk to pub­lic dur­ing oper­a­tions / tim­ber haulage	Land agent (Gor­don Wood­lands Ltd)	Reject, this is a key path link­ing two set­tle­ments (Bellabeg and For­be­stown) to each oth­er and to loc­al facil­it­ies and to the vil­lage hall
ADD44 / ADD45 Spey­side Way, Ruthven bar­racks to Kingussie	Mak­ing objec­tion to encour­age con­struc­tion of off-road routes to com­plete path net­work with safe route away from road. Inclu­sion as	1. Mem­ber of pub­lic 2. KCDC (com­ment)	Reject, Spey­side way is long dis­tance route and key part of core path net­work. Already plans being developed to take ADD44 off-road. Unreal­ist­ic to take ADD45 off-road due to ground con­di­tions, but this stretch is straight, 40mph and has shared use signage.	Resolved – objec­tions with­drawn on pro­vi­sion of fur­ther info
REM245 Private level cross­ing, Dalnaspidal	core paths sug­gests ​‘paths’ are fin­ished. Object to remov­al of core path des­ig­na­tion from level cross­ing, since it is a recor­ded pub­lic right of way	Scot­Ways	Reject. Instruc­tion from Scot­tish Min­is­ters to remove core paths from private level crossing.
ADD13 Tul­loch to Glencairn	• Objec­tion to pro­mo­tion and ensu­ing great­er access, lead­ing to increased risk of irre­spons­ible use; live­stock wor­ry­ing, wild­life dis­turb­ance, wild­fires, increased camp­ing, • Very import­ant wild­life hab­it­ats / spe­cies, risk of dis­turb­ance • Ques­tion over own­er­ship and respons­ib­il­ity for road	7 x objec­tions from mem­bers of pub­lic NatureScot (com­ment) — advised to con­sider wild­life interests	Reject Action — Under­take fur­ther invest­ig­a­tions into poten­tial wild­life con­ser­va­tion impacts. • Miss­ing link for cyc­ling routes, takes cyc­lists off the B‑road and provides link from the NCN route to Nethy Bridge. • Access being taken already, core path status unlikely to cause an increase in recre­ation and sub­sequent per­ceived issues. Often used as an altern­at­ive to Ryvoan pass. • HRA con­sidered and decision was ​“no likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects but poten­tial minor resid­ual effects.”
New sug­ges­tion: Docharn N link	con­di­tion, risk of acci­dent due to vehicle use • Doesn’t link to oth­er routes, poten­tial that oth­er routes, cur­rently only used by loc­als might get busier • Risk of open­ing up one of the few remain­ing quiet places in the Park to the wider pub­lic Missed oppor­tun­ity to add link north­wards from Docharn towards Carr. An objec­tion on the grounds of omission.	Scot­Ways	Reject. Route is an exist­ing right of way and core path con­nects to right of way. Suf­fi­ciency of core paths in area con­nect­ing to Docharn to Carr.
New sug­ges­tion: Car­rbridge end of Burma road	Re-enters CNP west of Car­rbridge, addi­tion­al link required. An objec­tion on the grounds of omission.	Scot­Ways	Reject. Suf­fi­cient core paths and links to Rights of Way in area. Any addi­tion wouldn’t link to any oth­er core path.