Cairngorms National Park Economic Action Plan 2019-2022

MAN­AGE­MENT PLANS Cairngorms Nation­al Park Eco­nom­ic Action Plan 2019 – 2022

Con­tents

1. Intro­duc­tion 03
2. Stra­tegic Con­text 04 Nation­al con­text 04 Cairngorms Nation­al Park con­text 04
3. Eco­nom­ic Strategy for the Park 07 Rur­al Devel­op­ment Chal­lenges 07

The Cairngorms Eco­nomy — Facts and Fig­ures 08

1. Review of Stra­tegic Con­text 09 Glob­al cli­mate emer­gency and loss of 09 biod­iversity Brexit 09 Enter­prise Review and the Region­al Eco­nom­ic 09 Part­ner­ships Infra­struc­ture improve­ments 10 A place for invest­ment 10 Pre­dicted changes in pop­u­la­tion 11 Deliv­ery of hous­ing 11 Ski centres 11 Towns and vil­lages 12 Avail­ab­il­ity and use of data 12

2. Eco­nom­ic Action Plan 14

3. Build­ing on eco­nom­ic strengths of the Park 15
4. Sup­port­ing and attract­ing busi­ness 16
5. Edu­ca­tion, train­ing and skills devel­op­ment 16
6. Infra­struc­ture and cap­it­al invest­ment 17

7. Com­munity and enter­prise 19

8. Deliv­ery and Mon­it­or­ing 20

Annex A 21 Sum­mary of the eco­nom­ic strategy in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2017 – 2022

Gloss­ary 25

1. Intro­duc­tion

The Cairngorms Nation­al Park cov­ers 6% of Scot­land and is the UK’s most import­ant place for wild­life and the con­ser­va­tion of nature. It is home to around 18,000 people who live in towns, vil­lages and dis­persed rur­al com­munit­ies. The Nation­al Park’s out­stand­ing nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age attracts around 1.9 mil­lion vis­it­ors each year, under­pin­ning many jobs.

There is increas­ing interest in Scot­land in the concept of ​‘nat­ur­al cap­it­al’ which describes the stocks of nat­ur­al assets on which our lives depend and which aims to high­light the con­nec­tions between nat­ur­al resources and eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment. If ever there was a place where these con­nec­tions are both obvi­ous and import­ant then it must be in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. Our long term vis­ion for the Park is set out in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2017 – 2022 | .

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Vis­ion An out­stand­ing Nation­al Park, enjoyed and val­ued by every­one, where nature and people thrive together.

The word ​‘thrive’ comes from an old Norse word mean­ing to flour­ish and prosper and is a good word to sum­mar­ise our approach: grow­ing the eco­nomy and the nat­ur­al cap­it­al of the Park sus­tain­ably and in an inclus­ive way.

This Action Plan is a plan for all the rel­ev­ant organ­isa­tions in the Park, in the pub­lic, private and third sec­tors. We want to ensure that we work well togeth­er to deliv­er the eco­nom­ic strategy set out in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan and to focus our efforts on pri­or­ity issues in the years ahead.

1. Stra­tegic Context

Nation­al context

The Nation­al Per­form­ance Frame­work and Scot­tish Eco­nom­ic Strategy set out the Government’s vis­ion for sus­tain­able and inclus­ive eco­nom­ic growth.

Scot­land is to be a lead­er in the tech­no­lo­gic­al and social innov­a­tions of the future. There are plans to har­ness that innov­a­tion to boost pro­ductiv­ity and busi­ness com­pet­it­ive­ness, improve lives for the bet­ter across all of Scot­land, and to export our solu­tions, goods and ser­vices to the rest of the world. Com­pet­it­ive, innov­at­ive busi­nesses focused on best prac­tice, lead­er­ship and man­age­ment are vital to deliv­er­ing this vis­ion. They sup­port sus­tain­able jobs, incomes and our qual­ity of life. The Gov­ern­ment is com­mit­ted to work in part­ner­ship with busi­ness to deliv­er the kind of eco­nomy we want.

In Octo­ber 2018, Scotland’s Eco­nom­ic Action Plan was launched. This high­lighted, amongst oth­er things, the import­ance of the rur­al eco­nomy, where 20% of the Scot­tish pop­u­la­tion live, and mak­ing com­mit­ments to: • sup­port the devel­op­ment of a diverse and healthy rur­al eco­nomy through the growth of tra­di­tion­al and non-tra­di­tion­al sec­tors • invest in our infra­struc­ture to deliv­er hous­ing, improved access to ser­vices and con­nectiv­ity enabling improved sus­tain­able and inclus­ive eco­nom­ic growth • deliv­er a rur­al skills action plan to ensure that rur­al enter­prises have access to a highly-skilled workforce

In Septem­ber 2018, the Nation­al Coun­cil of Rur­al Advisers recom­men­ded in their final report that:

a vibrant, sus­tain­able and inclus­ive rur­al eco­nomy can only be achieved by recog­nising its stra­tegic import­ance and effect­ively main­stream­ing it with­in all policy and decision-mak­ing processes.

The Coun­cil fur­ther recom­men­ded the estab­lish­ment of a Rur­al Eco­nom­ic Frame­work, aligned to the Nation­al Per­form­a­ce Frame­work to enable a new approach and deliv­ery mod­el for rur­al policy, devel­op­ment sup­port and invest­ment. A new Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment Rur­al Eco­nomy Action Group met for the first time in Octo­ber 2019, chaired by Car­ol Tan­nahill, the Scot­tish Government’s Chief Social Policy Adviser.

The declar­a­tion by Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment in April 2019 of the glob­al cli­mate emer­gency and the roy­al assent for the Cli­mate Change (Emis­sions Reduc­tion Tar­gets) (Scot­land) Act 2019 also provide an over­arch­ing theme for the devel­op­ment of a sus­tain­able eco­nomy in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park context

The Cairngorms Nation­al Park is the largest Park in the UK and was des­ig­nated in Septem­ber 2003 with four aims set out in the Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000:

1. To con­serve and enhance the nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age of the area
2. To pro­mote sus­tain­able use of the nat­ur­al resources of the area
3. To pro­mote under­stand­ing and enjoy­ment (includ­ing enjoy­ment in the form of recre­ation) of the spe­cial qual­it­ies of the area by the public
4. To pro­mote sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic and social devel­op­ment of the area’s communities

These four aims are to be delivered by all rel­ev­ant organ­isa­tions work­ing togeth­er. The pur­pose of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity (CNPA) is: ” to ensure that the Nation­al Park aims are col­lect­ively achieved … in a coordin­ated way”. The legis­la­tion also makes it clear that if it appears to the CNPA that there is a con­flict between the first aim and any of the oth­er aims, then the Park Author­ity must ” … give great­er weight …” to the first aim.

This integ­rated approach to deliv­ery of the four aims is encap­su­lated in the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan and in the sub­si­di­ary action plans as shown in the dia­gram below.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan The over­arch­ing man­age­ment plan for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park

Act­ive Cairngorms The out­door access strategy for the Nation­al Park

Cairngorms Nature Action Plan Sets out the con­ser­va­tion pri­or­it­ies for the Nation­al Park

Eco­nom­ic Action Plan Sets out the eco­nom­ic pri­or­it­ies for the Nation­al Park

Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan Sets out the polices for land use plan­ning with­in the Nation­al Park

LEAD­ER Loc­al Devel­op­ment Strategy Sets out the pri­or­it­ies for pro­mot­ing com­munity- led loc­al devel­op­ment to sup­port a sus­tain­able rur­al eco­nomy in the Nation­al Park

There are sev­er­al oth­er ini­ti­at­ives with­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park that are tak­ing for­ward work­streams that are dir­ectly rel­ev­ant to the eco­nomy of the Park. • Cairngorms Tour­ism Action Plan 2017 – 2022 sets out actions required to deliv­er the Park’s status under the European Charter for Sus­tain­able Tour­ism – deliv­ery is over­seen by the Cairngorms Tour­ism Part­ner­ship. • Cairngorms Forest Strategy 2019 – to encour­age forest and wood­land expansion,

increase employ­ab­il­ity in the forestry sec­tor and encour­age innov­a­tion in the use and mar­ket­ing of nat­ive forest products. The vari­ous Com­munity Plan­ning pro­cesses that take place with­in each loc­al author­ity area, in line with nation­al require­ments, and their asso­ci­ated Loc­al Out­come Improve­ment Plans. • The City Region Deals that are being imple­men­ted, eg Inverness City Region; Aber­deen Aber­deen­shire and the Tay Cit­ies, and that are in devel­op­ment, eg in Moray.

1. Eco­nom­ic Strategy for the Park

The strategy for pro­mot­ing a sus­tain­able eco­nomy in the Park is set out with­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2017 – 2022 ‘, which has been signed off by Scot­tish Ministers.

The Part­ner­ship Plan iden­ti­fies nine pri­or­ites across three long term outcomes.

Con­ser­va­tion A spe­cial place for people and nature with nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age enhanced

Vis­it­or Exper­i­ence People enjoy­ing the Park through out­stand­ing vis­it­or and learn­ing experiences

Rur­al Devel­op­ment A sus­tain­able eco­nomy sup­port­ing thriv­ing busi­nesses and communities

Rur­al Devel­op­ment Chal­lenges There are spe­cif­ic chal­lenges to be addressed in achiev­ing the long term Rur­al Devel­op­ment outcome.

Deliv­er­ing hous­ing that meets the needs of com­munit­ies • increas­ing the sup­ply of afford­able hous­ing, and ensur­ing that it remains afford­able in the long term; • help­ing to reduce the pro­por­tion of second homes by mak­ing sure that when new hous­ing is built, more of it is access­ible to and tar­geted at people work­ing in the Nation­al Park; • secur­ing an appro­pri­ate level of pub­lic fund­ing and mak­ing the most effect­ive use of it to deliv­er afford­able hous­ing and infra­struc­ture to meet loc­al needs; • help­ing com­munit­ies make the most of the right to buy land in order to secure loc­al hous­ing solu­tions; • meet­ing the bulk of hous­ing needs by the exist­ing lar­ger sites in the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan and, in the future, enabling com­munit­ies to grow in a more small scale ​‘organ­ic’ way.

Com­munity-led devel­op­ment and regen­er­a­tion identi­fy­ing those com­munit­ies most in need of sup­port and build­ing their capa­city to get the most out of oppor­tun­it­ies to shape their places; • mak­ing resources avail­able to sup­port com­munity aspir­a­tions; • giv­ing com­munit­ies con­trol over assets and help­ing them max­im­ise their returns; • increas­ing com­munity resi­li­ence; • strength­en­ing loc­al demo­cracy and par­ti­cipa- tion: • sup­port­ing and encour­aging a part­ner­ship approach between and with­in communities

Strength­en­ing and diver­si­fy­ing the eco­nomy • strength­en­ing the tour­ism sec­tor – a sus­tain­able approach – vis­it­ors stay­ing longer and spend­ing more; • encour­aging start-ups and busi­ness diver­si­fic­a­tion; • improv­ing access to hous­ing for work­ers; • improv­ing digit­al com­mu­nic­a­tions – espe­cially in remoter areas.

See Annex A (p21) for a sum­mary of the eco­nom­ic strategy that is set out in the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan to address these challenges.

The Cairngorms Eco­nomy Facts and Fig­ures – at 2019

The Park has a unique rur­al eco­nomy with a par­tic­u­larly strong tour­ism sector

18,600 res­id­ents in the Park

9,500 employed in the Park

Chal­lenges

Infra­struc­ture lim­it­a­tions Roads, rail, loc­al pub­lic trans­port, hous­ing, busi­ness premises, broad­band and mobile

Heavy reli­ance on low waged tour­ism sector

87% of busi­nesses employ less than 10 people

Small Busi­nesses

High­er % of young­er people liv­ing in Park than oth­er parts of rur­al Scotland

Stable employ­ment since 2015 House Prices House Prices

7% more 25% more than the Scot­tish average

6x aver­age income

Oppor­tun­it­ies Source: 2010 State of the Park Report and 2013 update, some fig­ures relate to earli­er years, both reports can be viewed online at www​.cairngorms​.co​.uk

Increased logist­ics costs 1£

Gaps in busi­ness support

An attract­ive place to live, work and visit

A unique nat­ur­al environment

Increased digit­al con­nectiv­ity (fibre broadband)

Aca­dem­ic research opportunities

Lack of High­er and Fur­ther Educ­tion facilities

Dis­tinct­ive eco­nom­ic sec­tors with poten­tial for diversification

Increas­ing num­ber of young people

Links to oth­er parts of Scot­land (dualling of A9)

% Oth­er Pro­duc­tion 6% Prop­erty and Construction

Employ­ment by Sec­tor Source: CNP Eco­nom­ic Bench­mark Review 2013 2% Inform­a­tion Industries

1% Whisky and Drink

3% Forestry 12% 43% Tour­ism 17% Pub­lic Sector

Food and Agri­cul­ture 14% Ser­vices and Activities

1. Review of Stra­tegic Context

The rel­ev­ant stra­tegic factors that have been taken into account in pre­par­ing this Action Plan are sum­mar­ised below.

Glob­al cli­mate emer­gency and loss of biod­iversity There is very sig­ni­fic­antly increased pub­lic aware­ness and polit­ic­al atten­tion being giv­en to these import­ant issues due to the recent reports by the Com­mit­tee on Cli­mate Change and Inter­gov­ern­ment­al Sci­ence- Policy Plat­form on Biod­iversity and Eco­sys­tem Services.

The Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment have declared a cli­mate emer­gency and are com­mit­ted to net zero emis­sions by 2045. The First Min­is­ter said in May 2019 on biod­iversity“… that the dif­fi­culties, com­plex­it­ies and chal­lenges are not to be under­es­tim­ated but that we all want Scot­land to be lead­ing the way”.

The need to tackle cli­mate change and biod­iversity loss will have implic­a­tions for the Nation­al Park and spe­cific­ally land use, man­aging increased flood risk, hous­ing, trans­port and tour­ism. We need to ensure that growth in the Park eco­nomy is sus­tain­able and helps to meet the tar­get of net zero emis­sions and the biod­iversity tar­gets. The col­la­tion of evid­ence to influ­ence the next Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan will take place in 2020 but, giv­en the urgency of cli­mate risks, some sig­ni­fic­ant actions require to be taken now. (NB: The CNPA response to cli­mate emer­gency’ was con­sidered by the CNPA board on 6 Decem­ber 2019).

££ Brexit Depend­ing on what hap­pens with the UK Government’s pro­pos­als to leave the European Uni­on there are likely to be sig­ni­fic­ant implic­a­tions for the rur­al eco­nomy. There are already signs of adverse impacts

on the labour mar­ket, caus­ing par­tic­u­lar con­cern in the tour­ism sec­tor, and which appear likely to con­tin­ue under most Brexit scenarios.

The Fed­er­a­tion of Small Busi­nesses estim­ates that 41% of busi­nesses in the High­lands and Islands employ EU cit­izens com­pared to an aver­age of 25% across Scot­land. The most recent quarterly sur­vey of busi­ness con­fid­ence under­taken by the Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship (to June 2019) recor­ded levels below aver­age and high­lighted tour­ism trends and staff­ing levels as the main chal­lenges of doing busi­ness. The High­land Coun­cil high­lighted con­cerns about upland farm­ing if WTO rules are imple­men­ted. EU fund­ing has sup­por­ted busi­ness, com­munit­ies and infra­struc­ture pro­jects in recent dec­ades, for example through the Cairngorms LEAD­ER pro­gramme. Although there are likely to be some replace­ment schemes, there is little clar­ity on how future fund­ing pro­grammes will be developed. The poten­tial loss of com­munity-led loc­al devel­op­ment fund­ing and changes to agri­cul­tur­al sup­port mech­an­isms are a sig­ni­fic­ant risk to the rur­al eco­nomy going forward.

Enter­prise Review and the Region­al Eco­nom­ic Part­ner­ships The city/​region growth deals have provided a fund­ing for long term eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment in the loc­al author­ity areas over­lap­ping the Nation­al Park. The deals are lead­ing to sig­ni­fic­ant infra­struc­ture invest­ment and stronger mar­ket­ing of the regions as places to do busi­ness. The Cairngorms Nation­al Park sup­ports the mar­ket­ab­il­ity of the wider regions by provid­ing unri­valled land­scapes and recre­ation­al opportunities.

Fol­low­ing the Enter­prise Review, the Stra­tegic Plan for the Enter­prise and Skills Board was pub­lished in Octo­ber 2018, giv­ing new stra­tegic dir­ec­tion to the enter­prise and skills agen­cies – Scot­tish Enter­prise, High­lands and Islands Enter­prise, Skills Devel­op­ment Scot­land and the Scot­tish Fund­ing Coun­cil. Scottish

Enter­prise launched its new Stra­tegic Frame­work 2019 – 22 in May 2019 with a focus on col­lab­or­a­tion and an ambi­tion to ​‘build vibrant eco­nom­ic com­munit­ies across Scot­land, spread­ing wealth and well-being’. Skills Devel­op­ment Scot­land recently pro­duced a Skills Action Plan for Rur­al Scot­land 2019 – 2021. And in Septem­ber 2019, the Scot­tish Coun­cil for devel­op­ment and Industry’s Rur­al Com­mis­sion pro­duced a report with 42 recom­mend­a­tions about People, Place and Productivity.

Infra­struc­ture improve­ments We have made very sig­ni­fic­ant pro­gress in deliv­er­ing on the cap­it­al invest­ment pri­or­it­ies set out in the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan and an update on pro­gress and plans is presen­ted in the Action Plan (p14).

With regards to digit­al con­nectiv­ity, the avail­ab­il­ity of broad­band ser­vices and mobile cov­er­age on 3G and 4G net­works has improved sig­ni­fic­antly since 2015, espe­cially in the main set­tle­ments. By Janu­ary 2019 86.4% of premises had access to fibre broad­band at speeds of over 24Mbs. Look­ing ahead, the Scot­tish Government’s R100 pro­gramme will sig­ni­fic­antly extend super­fast broad­band to provide access to all homes and busi­nesses that have not yet been con­nec­ted. This invest­ment in the most rur­al areas of the Park will be wel­come and must be sus­tained. Most com­munit­ies in the Park, and much of the trans­port net­work, are now covered by either 3G or 4G mobile data ser­vices and there are plans to address par­tic­u­lar gaps.

A place for invest­ment There are increas­ingly pos­it­ive signs that the Park is seen as a good place to invest. Sig­ni­fic­ant private sec­tor invest­ment is under­way in Brae­mar with the refur­bished Fife Arms Hotel open since Decem­ber 2018; the renov­a­tion of the Inver­cauld Hotel is cur­rently under­way. In Strath­spey, sig­ni­fic­ant new tour­ism facil­it­ies have been developed at Grant­own East and a new dis­til­lery is under con­struc­tion along­side the pro­posed steam rail­way extension.

Fund­ing from Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment has allowed the CNPA, work­ing with part­ners, to bring in around £14 mil­lion of addi­tion­al fund­ing over the last five years to help deliv­er pro­jects cov­er­ing out­door access, nature con­ser­va­tion, health, tour­ism infra­struc­ture and devel­op­ing our loc­al com­munit­ies. For example, there are four sig­ni­fic­ant pro­jects under­way fun­ded by Nation­al Her­it­age Lot­tery Fund — Moun­tains and the People, Caper­cail­lie, Tomintoul/​Glenlivet Land­scape Part­ner­ship and the Badenoch Great Place pro­jects. In 2019, the Cairngorms Con­nect pro­ject has seen the start of a multi-mil­lion pound invest­ment in nature con­ser­va­tion and rewild­ing on four estates in the west of the Park. The CNPA was also suc­cess­ful in secur­ing funds via Peat­land Action totalling £2.1 mil­lion and is work­ing closely with Scot­tish Forestry on wood­land expansion.

LEAD­ER fund­ing in the region of £4 mil­lion has been dis­trib­uted to a vari­ety of com­munity-led pro­jects dur­ing this time allow­ing com­munity groups to devel­op and deliv­er pri­or­ity actions for their own com­munit­ies. 32 pro­jects were approved cov­er­ing 13 dif­fer­ent com­munit­ies, with a fur­ther 14 pro­jects cov­er­ing the entire Park or regions of it. There has also been invest­ment of £1.6 mil­lion in farm diver­si­fic­a­tion and enter­prise ini­ti­ated by and sup­por­ted through the LEAD­ER pro­cess since 2015. Mean­while, we are see­ing a grow­ing trend for com­munity-led organ­isa­tions and social enter­prises with­in the Park to devel­op and take con­trol of assets to act as a basis for their future development.

The Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship have been suc­cess­ful in devel­op­ing new invest­ment streams for the SnowRoads Scen­ic Route (from Scot­tish Enter­prise Des­tin­a­tion Devel­op­ment Fund) to build busi­ness col­lab­or­a­tion and new digit­al products and,

more recently, for mar­ket­ing (from the Vis­itScot­land Growth Fund). The CNPA has secured Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment fund­ing through the Rur­al Tour­ism Infra­struc­ture Fund (via Vis­itScot­land) for two sig­ni­fic­ant pro­jects on Nation­al Natures Reserves at Din­net and Glen­more, provid­ing enhanced park­ing, toi­lets, paths and sign­posts; all to alle­vi­ate tour­ism pressure.

All of this invest­ment has benefited the vis­it­or eco­nomy. The num­ber of vis­its has grown from 1.3 mil­lion vis­it­ors in 2003 to 1.9 mil­lion in 2018 — a 4.7% increase on 2017. The most recent res­ults from the STEAM Tour­ism impacts study are avail­able at www​.cairngorms​.co​.uk .

As we move for­ward, invest­ment in the nat­ur­al cap­it­al of the Park — and people’s abil­ity to enjoy it sus­tain­ably will be pri­or­it­ised. This will be done through con­serving peat­lands, fur­ther pro­mo­tion of wood­land expan­sion, land­scape scale con­ser­va­tion and invest­ment in sus­tain­able tour­ism infra­struc­ture etc. Such pro­grammes will be a key part of pre­par­a­tions for the next Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan.

Pre­dicted changes in pop­u­la­tion There is a sig­ni­fic­ant aware­ness across Scot­land of the import­ance of main­tain­ing and enhan­cing the work­ing age pop­u­la­tion in rur­al areas. There are nation­al stat­ist­ic­al pro­jec­tions of a gradu­ally age­ing pop­u­la­tion in the Cairngorms and else­where. These pro­jec­tions have been taken into account in devel­op­ing the alloc­a­tion of land for built devel­op­ment with­in the Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2020. This Plan has alloc­ated land to accom­mod­ate an increase in pop­u­la­tion by 7% over the peri­od to 2030. The EURO­PARC Youth Mani­festo, which was sig­ni­fic­antly developed by young people from the Cairngorms and which was launched in Aviemore in Septem­ber 2018, high­lighted the pri­or­it­ies for young people liv­ing and work­ing in Pro­tec­ted Areas.

Deliv­ery of hous­ing There are sig­ni­fic­ant issues with deliv­er­ab­il­ity of hous­ing on some alloc­ated sites – sev­er­al sites have been alloc­ated in the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan for many years and have repeatedly been gran­ted plan­ning per­mis­sion but no houses have been built. Across the Park houses prices have ris­en stead­ily and remain high­er than the nation­al aver­age. Many busi­nesses, espe­cially around Aviemore and Brae­mar, are exper­i­en­cing prob­lems hous­ing key staff and see this as adversely affect­ing their abil­ity to serve cus­tom­ers and a bar­ri­er to growth. More hous­ing is being bought as second and hol­i­day accom­mod­a­tion – Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment research estim­ated in Septem­ber 2019 that short term lets had tripled across Scot­land between 2016 and 2019. In the Cairngorms there are signs of increas­ing com­munity con­cern about the social impact of short term lets. The pro­posed Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2020 will, once approved, increase the pro­por­tion of afford­able hous­ing from 25% to 45% in some com­munit­ies but fur­ther meas­ures will be required to make hous­ing more avail­able to people who live and work in the Park.

Ski centres A sig­ni­fic­ant review of uplift facil­it­ies at Cairngorm Moun­tain by High­lands and Islands Enter­prise in 2018 iden­ti­fied a pro­gramme of recom­mend­a­tions for uplift improve­ments and oth­er facil­it­ies. How­ever, the clos­ure of the funicu­lar rail­way at Cairngorm Moun­tain for ground invest­ig­a­tions since late 2018 has cre­ated con­sid­er­able uncer­tainty about the facil­ity. There is need for acon­cer­ted effort to ensure a viable and sus­tain­able way for­ward is found. The CNPA led the devel­op­ment of the Cairngorm and Glen­more Strategy (2016) and a set of prin­ciples to help guide devel­op­ment at Cairngorm. A new mas­ter­plan for the site is to be pre­pared in 2020, led by HIE, and will be a wel­come step forward.

At both the Lecht and Glen­shee there is a need to con­tin­ue to invest in recre­ation­al facil­it­ies and energy sup­ply, while diver­si­fy­ing the activ­ity offer­ing, in order to under­pin their role in the region­al eco­nom­ies and for visitors.

Towns and vil­lages The towns and vil­lages of the Park are very import­ant and are val­ued by loc­als as ser­vice centres, and by vis­it­ors for the num­ber and char­ac­ter of small, inde­pend­ent shops. Research in 2017 by the Fed­er­a­tion of Small Busi­nesses on Scotland’s entre­pren­eur­i­al towns, high­lighted that New­ton­more was the second most entre­pren­eur­i­al town in Scot­land with Kin­gussie in 15^th place.

How­ever, like oth­er parts of Scot­land, the retail sec­tor is suf­fer­ing chal­lenges and there are a num­ber of vacant units on most of the smal­ler towns and vil­lages; recent bank clos­ures have added to this issue. The invest­ment from the Town Centre Fund in ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀ is most wel­come. A fur­ther con­cen­trated effort is needed, in con­junc­tion with loc­al busi­ness asso­ci­ations and com­munity groups, to encour­age loc­al spend­ing and vis­it­or foot­fall in high streets, invest­ment in town centres and the coordin­ated devel­op­ment of pub­lic invest­ment and facilities.

Avail­ab­il­ity and use of data We have good date about some aspects of the Park, eg tour­ism data, and we col­lect spe­cif­ic inform­a­tion about busi­ness atti­tudes, eg Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship Busi­ness Baro­met­er. How­ever, it con­tin­ues to be chal­len­ging to access, col­late and ana­lyse socio-eco­nom­ic data in a way that is mean­ing­ful at the Nation­al Park scale. There are sev­er­al reas­ons for this: data is fre­quently col­lec­ted for dif­fer­ent spa­tial units over­lap­ping the Nation­al Park, typ­ic­ally loc­al author­ity bound­ar­ies; and some spe­cif­ic stud­ies do not high­light the Nation­al Park as a geo­graph­ic unit. These issues are com­poun­ded by the fact that in rur­al areas the stat­ist­ic­al data avail­able does not always illus­trate well the real life chal­lenges that people face.

1. Eco­nom­ic Action Plan

Five pri­or­ity themes have been developed to struc­ture the Eco­nom­ic Action Plan and provide focus.

Pri­or­ity themes deliv­er­ing the long term out­come for rur­al development

2 Sup­port­ing and attract­ing business

3 Edu­ca­tion, train­ing and skills development

4 Infra­struc­ture and cap­it­al investment

Build­ing on eco­nom­ic strengths of the Park

A sus­tain­able eco­nomy sup­port­ing thriv­ing busi­nesses and communities

5 Com­munity and enterprise

Pri­or­ity Theme I Build­ing on the eco­nom­ic strengths of the Park

Actions Lead Wages CNPA, FSB, СВР Invest­ig­ate and pro­mote adop­tion of a liv­ing wage scheme for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Forestry CNPA, Scot­tish Pilot a wood­land chal­lenge fund scheme to incentiv­ise wood­land plant­ing and forest Forestry expan­sion and the uptake of the Forestry Grant Scheme Rur­al devel­op­ment frame­works CNPA, Crown Pilot new approach to Rur­al Devel­op­ment Frame­works with estates and Estate, Scot­tish com­munit­ies to provide long term plan­ning for land use, busi­ness devel­op­ment and Land and hous­ing across estates Estates Agri­cul­ture SNH, SAC, Build the case for a region­al­ised approach to future sup­port for land man­age­ment NFUS, CNPA in the Cairngorms Cairngorm Moun­tain HIE, Cairngorm Devel­op a long term mas­ter­plan and invest­ment pack­age for Cairngorm Moun­tain Moun­tain as part of the Cairngorm and Glen­more Strategy (Scot­land) Ltd, CNPA, THC, Com­munity Trust Glen­shee and the Lecht Ski Centres SE, HIE, P&K Devel­op plans to invest in and diver­si­fy these sites to sus­tain loc­al employ­ment and Coun­cil, enhance the vis­it­or exper­i­ence Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil Eco­nom­ic and social data CNPA; Scot­tish Work to improve the avail­ab­il­ity and use of eco­nom­ic and social data on the Park Gov­ern­ment, HIE, SE Tour­ism CNPA Imple­ment the Tour­ism Action Plan’ and work to achieve con­tin­ued reten­tion of the European Charter for Sus­tain­able Tour­ism through the Cairngorms Tour­ism Partnership

Pri­or­ity Theme 2 Sup­port­ing and attract­ing business

Actions Lead Hous­ing deliv­ery CNPA Under­take a review of vacant and derel­ict land and prop­erty, stalled devel­op­ment sites and impacts of short term lets, to identi­fy inter­ven­tions and oppor­tun­it­ies for pub­lic interest devel­op­ment Com­munity-led hous­ing deliv­ery CNPA Pro­mote new com­munity-led approaches to deliv­ery of hous­ing in com­munit­ies across the Park using Rur­al Hous­ing Fund Busi­ness-led hous­ing deliv­ery CNPA, BSW Pilot and encour­age busi­ness-led hous­ing pro­jects and agree­ments with developers to Tim­ber, pri­or­it­ise hous­ing for loc­al work­ers Cairngorm Brew­ery Con­trol of short term lets CNPA, Loc­al Imple­ment scheme to con­trol short term lets using new powers avail­able through Author­it­ies Plan­ning (Scot­land) Act 2019 which are due to come into force by end of 2020 Attract­ing tal­ent and invest­ment CoHI Tal­ent Pro­mote work/​lifestyle/​cultural bene­fits of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park through Attrac­tion Group devel­op­ment of web­site con­tent Sup­port­ing busi­ness CNPA, Grow­biz, Invest­ig­ate poten­tial for new mod­els of busi­ness sup­port includ­ing Loc­al Author­it­ies, com­munity-led and social enter­prise mod­els HIE, SE

Pri­or­ity Theme 3 Edu­ca­tion, train­ing and skills development

Actions Lead Cir­cu­lar eco­nomy and adap­tion to cli­mate change Cairngorms Devel­op a busi­ness-led ini­ti­at­ive to pro­mote the cir­cu­lar eco­nomy of the Cairngorms Busi­ness Nation­al Park and to help busi­nesses adapt to cli­mate change Part­ner­ship, CNPA

Pri­or­ity Theme 3 Edu­ca­tion, train­ing and skills devel­op­ment con­tin­ued Actions Lead Digit­al train­ing Cairngorms Deliv­er train­ing for tour­ism sec­tor Busi­ness Part­ner­ship Skills Skills Con­tin­ued deliv­ery of region­al Skills Invest­ment Plans and Rur­al Skills Action Plan Devel­op­ment through­out the Park Scot­land Busi­ness and envir­on­ment CNPA, SEPA, Pro­mo­tion of the VIBES Award Scheme and oth­er meas­ures to pro­mote the CBP con­nec­tions between busi­ness and nature

Pri­or­ity Theme 4 Infra­struc­ture and cap­it­al invest­ment Actions Lead Digit­al con­nectiv­ity Scot­tish Plan and deliv­er the Scot­tish Government’s ​‘Reach­ing 100’ Pro­gramme to deliv­er Gov­ern­ment, HIE super­fast broad­band to every premise and enhance mobile con­nectiv­ity Cap­it­al invest­ment pri­or­it­ies CNPA and Con­tin­ue to deliv­er on the pri­or­it­ies as set out in the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan spe­cif­ic pro­ject while work­ing to increase invest­ment over time in the nat­ur­al cap­it­al – an update part­ners for each on pro­gress and plans is presen­ted below pro­ject Cap­it­al invest­ment pri­or­it­ies Update on pro­gress and plans Enhance­ment of vis­it­or facil­it­ies at Forest and Land Scot­land have com­pleted a revised vis­it­or Glen­more man­age­ment plan for Glen­more. Fund­ing has been secured from Rur­al Tour­ism Infra­struc­ture Fund for a new multi-use path in Glen­more to link car park­ing and vis­it­or facil­it­ies for com­ple­tion in 2020. Spey­side Way and Deeside Way exten­sions Spey­side Way to be exten­ded to New­ton­more and launched April 2020. Pro­posed new path from Brae­mar to Old Bridge of Dee has plan­ning per­mis­sion. Act­ive Aviemore pro­ject Sus­trans fund­ing applic­a­tion for first phase of act­ive travel improve­ments made in 2019. Pro­ject on hold until fund­ing secured.

Cap­it­al invest­ment pri­or­it­ies con­tin­ued Update on pro­gress and plans con­tin­ued Aviemore com­munity hos­pit­al pro­ject Con­struc­tion under­way fol­low­ing approv­al of plan­ning per­mis­sion in April 2019. Com­ple­tion and open­ing expec­ted in 2021. A9 dualling pro­ject The A9 dualling pro­gramme has com­menced – Alvie to Dalraddy sec­tion was com­pleted in 2017. Trans­port Scot­land pub­lished draft orders for all sec­tions with the Park in 2018. Work is under­way to design new act­ive travel path between Aviemore and Carr-Bridge for com­ple­tion along with A9 by 2021. High­land Folk Museum enhance­ments Fund­ing applic­a­tion made to sup­port devel­op­ment of res­id­en­tial facil­it­ies to pro­gress towards view to year round open­ing. Tomin­toul and Glen­liv­et Land­scape In year 4 of deliv­ery of £3.6 mil­lion pro­ject, devel­op­ing Part­ner­ship cap­it­al assets includ­ing Tomin­toul Dis­cov­ery Centre, Scalan Sem­in­ary, bird hides, restored paths and the world’s most north­erly Dark Sky Park. Pro­ject will be com­pleted by Septem­ber 2020. The Moun­tains and the People pro­ject Pro­ject has upgraded 44.2km of paths, 83% of the 53km tar­get, by late 2019. Res­tor­a­tion of degraded peat­land through the 1600ha of peat­land in the Park under res­tor­a­tion Peat­land ACTION Pro­ject man­age­ment by mid 2019. Fur­ther devel­op­ment at Mac­don­ald Land with plan­ning per­mis­sion for 130 houses now sold Aviemore High­land Resort to house­build­er and devel­op­ment expec­ted to start early 2020. Com­ple­tion of the major refur­bish­ment of the The newly ren­ov­ated Fife Arms Hotel was offi­cially opened Fife Arms Hotel, Brae­mar in early 2019. Renov­a­tion of Inver­cauld Arms is under­way and due to open in 2020. Deliv­ery of key hous­ing sites iden­ti­fied in the Sites in Beachen Court, Grant­own-on-Spey; Carr Road, Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan Carr-Bridge; and Spey House, Aviemore, are all under con- struc­tion. Final plans have been approved for hous­ing at the Old School in Bal­later, Dal­faber in Aviemore, at Kin­gussie, New­ton­more, Dul­nain Bridge and fur­ther phases of Beachen Court. Plan­ning per­mi­sion in prin­ciple was gran­ted for An Camas Mòr in April 2019. Improve­ments to High­land main­line New Cale­do­ni­an Sleep­er trains came into ser­vice in 2019. rail­way and sta­tions New timetable with more fre­quent ser­vice and bet­ter con­nec­tions to be intro­duced mid 2020. Enhanced sta­tion facil­it­ies and con­nec­tions to vis­it­or exper­i­ence are planned. Strath­spey Steam Rail­way exten­sion to The draft Order under the Trans­port and Works Grant­own-on-Spey Scot­land Act sub­mit­ted in April 2019 and form­al per­mis­sion expec­ted to be sought early in 2020. The pro­ject is being planned in con­junc­tion with upgrade of A95 trunk road, pro­posed new dis­til­lery and new paths con­nect­ing two com­munit­ies. Enhan­cing facil­it­ies at Cairngorm Moun­tain HIE inves­ted in snow­mak­ing facil­it­ies and is plan­ning improve­ments to beginner’s area. Assist­ance has been provided to Aviemore and Glen­more Com­munity Trust to

Cap­it­al invest­ment pri­or­it­ies con­tin­ued Update on pro­gress and plans con­tin­ued Enhan­cing facil­it­ies at Cairngorm Moun­tain strengthen their vis­ion for com­munity own­er­ship / con­tin­ued man­ag­ment. Long term mas­ter­plan and funicu­lar rail­way busi­ness case to be made by 2020. High­land Wild­life Park enhance­ments Devel­op­ment fund­ing has been awar­ded to RZSS to pro­gress plans to cre­ate Scotland’s Wild­life Dis­cov­ery Centre which will enhance vis­it­or facil­it­ies. Plans are also in place, with a £3.2 m EU Life grant, for a Wild­cat Res­tor­a­tion Centre of nation­al sig­ni­fic­ance. Cairngorms Con­nect Cairngorms Con­nect is a part­ner­ship of neigh­bour­ing land man­agers, com­mit­ted to an ambi­tious 200 year vis­ion to enhance hab­it­ats, spe­cies and eco­lo­gic­al pro­cesses across 600km² with­in the Park. The Endangered Land­scapes Pro­gramme awar­ded a £3.75 m grant which, with part­ners, brings the total invest­ment to £9 M in the biggest hab­it­at res­tor­a­tion pro­ject in the UK.

Pri­or­ity Theme 5 Com­munity and enter­prise Actions Lead Young people Cairngorms Devel­op a pro­gramme of action with young people to max­im­ise oppor­tun­it­ies, and Youth Action address bar­ri­ers, to liv­ing and work­ing in the Park Group, CNPA Smart villages/​town centres Grow­biz, CNPA Devel­op a pilot net­work of three smart vil­lages based on vil­lage scale col­lab­or­a­tion using digit­al tech­no­logy (Grant­own-on-Spey, Ballater/​Braemar and Badenoch) Invest­ment in com­munity-led devel­op­ment CNPA, The Secure con­tinu­ity of invest­ment in loc­al enter­prise devel­op­ment, includ­ing farm Cairngorms Trust diver­si­fic­a­tion to fol­low on from cur­rent LEAD­ER pro­gramme Devel­op­ing an entre­pren­eur­i­al cul­ture Entre­pren­eur­i­al Devel­op a pro­gramme of events to stim­u­late a pos­it­ive and cre­at­ive approach to Scot­land, CNPA doing busi­ness with­in the Park in all sec­tors Social enter­prise train­ing HIE, CNPA, The Review arrange­ments to fol­low on from Social Enter­prise Academy train­ing pro­ject Cairngorms Trust TICK trans­port pro­ject The Cairngorms Deliv­er trans­port pro­ject to invest­ig­ate innov­at­ive approaches to rur­al trans­port, Trust includ­ing enhanced ebike pro­vi­sion and integ­rated trans­port inform­a­tion Col­lab­or­a­tion with busi­ness asso­ci­ations CNPA, busi­ness Pro­mote col­lab­or­a­tion between busi­ness asso­ci­ations and pro­jects to pro­mote asso­ci­ations, loc­al busi­ness sus­tain­ab­il­ity, espe­cially in town centres authorities

1. Deliv­ery and Monitoring

The arrange­ments for deliv­ery will be based on: • coordin­a­tion of activ­ity through the Cairngorms Eco­nom­ic Steer­ing Group includ­ing: CNPA (chair), Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship, Fed­er­a­tion of Small Busi­nesses, loc­al author­it­ies, High­land and Islands Enter­prise, Scot­tish Enter­prise and Skills Devel­op­ment Scot­land; • pre­par­a­tion of an annu­al review of deliv­ery (using high level red / amber / green assess­ment) asso­ci­ated with the Action Plan and con­sid­er­a­tion by the CNPA board along with the rel­ev­ant part­ners. Tar­gets to be developed at the first meet­ing of the Cairngorms Eco­nom­ic Steer­ing Group; • enhanced CNPA engage­ment with the busi­ness asso­ci­ations across the Park and facil­it­a­tion of loc­al busi­ness net­work meet­ings; • co-design with the Cairngorms Youth Action Group of spe­cif­ic pro­jects and ini­ti­at­ives that take for­ward all of the actions iden­ti­fied above in a way that addresses the con­cerns and interests of young people; • enhanced com­mu­nic­a­tions as part of CNPA Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engage­ment Plan about the many rur­al devel­op­ment suc­cess stor­ies in the Park and the inter­de­pend­ence of the eco­nomy and the Park’s nat­ur­al capital.

Annex A Sum­mary of the eco­nom­ic strategy in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2017 – 2022

1. The pri­or­it­ies and agen­das for action In order to address the Rur­al Devel­op­ment chal­lenges iden­ti­fied in the Part­ner­ship Plan, Agen­das for Action were developed for each of the pri­or­ity areas of work includ­ing Hous­ing and Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment. Due to the integ­rated nature of the Part­ner­ship Plan, any activ­ity delivered relat­ing to the nine pri­or­it­ies plays a role in sup­port­ing the eco­nomy of the Nation­al Park – for example, invest­ment in wood­land expan­sion increases bio­lo­gic­al diversity, enhances the land­scape for vis­it­ors and provides addi­tion­al recre­ation­al exper­i­ences and new eco­nom­ic oppor­tun­it­ies. All nine pri­or­it­ies are there­fore import­ant to the deliv­ery of a sus­tain­able eco­nomy of the Park; but the two most sig­ni­fic­ant pri­or­it­ies – Hous­ing and Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment – are prin­ted below.

Pri­or­ity 7 Hous­ing AGENDA FOR ACTION Part­ners will respond to the unique hous­ing chal­lenges and pres­sures with­in the Park by devel­op­ing a spe­cial approach that is based on: a) Redu­cing the pro­por­tion of second homes in new devel­op­ments by ensur­ing the new hous­ing devel­op­ment is tar­geted at meet­ing loc­al needs as far as pos­sible; b) Max­im­ising the pro­por­tion of new hous­ing that is afford­able in per­petu­ity; c) Identi­fy­ing sites in the next Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan where the afford­able hous­ing con­tri­bu­tion will be more than the nor­mal nation­al max­im­um of 25% because of acute afford­ab­il­ity pres­sures and the short­age of sup­ply; d) Using the next Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan to man­age the nature of new open mar­ket hous­ing so it is bet­ter tar­geted towards loc­al needs (eg by seek­ing a great­er mix of house types and sizes, with an