CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

DRAFT MINUTES OF THE BOARD MEETING

held in Spey/​Dee meet­ing rooms of Grant­own HQ (hybrid) on Fri­day 10^th June 2022 at 10am

PRESENT Xan­der McDade (Con­vener) Geva Black­ett until 12noon Peter Argyle Car­o­lyn Cad­dick (Deputy Con­vener) Deirdre Fal­con­er Pippa Had­ley Janet Hunter John Kirk John Lath­am Elean­or Mack­in­tosh Wil­lie McK­enna Ian McLar­en Dr Fiona McLean Anne Rae Mac­don­ald Dr Gaen­er Rodger Derek Ross Judith Webb

In Attend­ance: Grant Moir, Chief Exec­ut­ive Dav­id Camer­on, Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices & Deputy CEO Mur­ray Fer­guson, Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning & Place Andy Ford, Dir­ect­or of Nature & Cli­mate Change Gav­in Miles, Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning Oliv­er Dav­ies, Head of Com­mu­nic­a­tions Kate Christie, Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Colin McLean, Head of Land Man­age­ment Sarah Hen­shall, Head of Con­ser­va­tion Car­o­lyn Robertson, Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject Man­ager Eileen Stu­art, Deputy Dir­ect­or, Nature & Cli­mate Change, NatureScot Nina Caudrey, Plan­ning Officer (Devel­op­ment Plan­ning) Dav­id Clyne, Her­it­age Hori­zons Man­ager Mari­aan Pita, Exec­ut­ive Sup­port Man­ager Alix Hark­ness, PA to Convener/​Clerk to the Board Catri­ona Strang, Clerk to the Board

Apo­lo­gies: Doug McAdam Wil­lie Munro

Wel­come and Introduction

1. Xan­der McDade the Board Con­vener wel­comed every­one to the meet­ing. Apo­lo­gies were noted.

2. The Con­vener on behalf of the Board gave con­dol­ences to the fam­ily of Dave Fal­lows who recently passed away. Dave Fal­lows was a Board Mem­ber from 2007 to 2019. All our thoughts are with his fam­ily. Deputy Con­ven­or would be attend­ing the funer­al on behalf of the CNPA next week,

Declar­a­tions of Interest

1. He wel­comed Mari­aan Pita, Exec­ut­ive Sup­port Man­ager and Catri­ona Strang, Clerk to the Board (Job Share), to the organisation.

2. The Board Con­vener invited Declar­a­tions of interest.

3. Wil­lie McK­enna for trans­par­ency noted a con­nec­tion with regard to Paper 2

   • Con­nec­tion: His daugh­ter is involved in a hous­ing group called PH22 and he has no dir­ect involve­ment in that.

4. Fiona McLean for trans­par­ency noted a con­nec­tion with regard to Paper 2

   • Con­nec­tion: Is a Board mem­ber of His­tor­ic Envir­on­ment Scotland.

5. Geva Black­ett for trans­par­ency noted a con­nec­tion with regard to Papers 1 & 2

   • Con­nec­tions:
     • Paper 1: Hus­band is involved in Cairngorms Voices.
     • Paper 2: involved in a com­munity hous­ing scheme but not sig­ni­fic­ant to have to remove self from discussion.

6. John Kirk declared a Fin­an­cial interest in Paper 2

   • Reas­on: Is a private let landlord.

Minutes of Last Meet­ings held – for approval

1. The draft Minutes of the last meet­ing held on 25^th March 2022 were agreed with no amendments.

Mat­ters Arising

1. The Board Con­vener provided an update on the Action points from pre­vi­ous minutes: a) 10^th Decem­ber Minutes – Action Point at Para. 12i) – Closed — dis­cus­sion was held by Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices about the sec­tion of long-dis­tance route under­stood to be the respons­ib­il­ity of the High­land Coun­cil. b) 10^th Decem­ber Minutes – Action Point at Para 17i) – Closed – Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place organ­ised site vis­it to looks a path con­di­tion in key areas of Glen­more and on Spey­side Way with Wil­lie McK­enna and Deirdre Fal­con­er. c) 25^th March Minutes – Action Point at Para 12i) – Closed — Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place dis­cussed with a Board Mem­ber the details sur­round­ing Sus­trans’ work on routes from Aviemore to the Moray Coast.

2. Action Points Arising: None

CEO Report & Board Con­vener Update (Paper I)

1. Grant Moir, Chief Exec­ut­ive, intro­duced Paper I which was 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 Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan. He spe­cific­ally brought the fol­low­ing to the Board’s atten­tion: a) The Cairngorms Char­ac­ters pod­cast, now live and online and doing well was an inter­est­ing listen. Good example of CNPA and Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship work­ing togeth­er. b) Man­aging for Visitor’s Group is meet­ing fort­nightly, chaired by Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place. With the good weath­er last week­end there was an increase in vis­it­ors and park­ing issues at Glen­more includ­ing some park­ing on new double yel­low lines. Dis­cus­sions had taken place to get more pro­act­ive enforce­ment activ­ity from High­land Coun­cil and extra poli­cing at week­ends in even­ings. c) Look­ing at doing first news­let­ter for res­id­ents on the launch of Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP) in the autumn.

2. The Board con­sidered the detail in the Paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the fol­low­ing: a) Praise for the full report which illus­trates the massive amount and wide range of work going on across the staff team and by part­ners. b) A Mem­ber acknow­ledged and praised the work of the Com­mu­nic­a­tions team for the con­sid­er­able com­mu­nic­a­tions activ­ity and also the way the CNPA now works with com­munit­ies and busi­ness in the Park. c) Con­cern raised that the hard­copy news­let­ter may end up in recyc­ling: would digit­al not be bet­ter? CEO explained that most com­mu­nic­a­tion chan­nels are digit­al but this would be par­tic­u­larly for the audi­ence who are not online. d) A Board Mem­ber com­men­ted that in his own com­munity fol­low­ing a recent ques­tion­naire where they asked if read­ers would prefer a paper or digit­al copy of the news­let­ter, they had been shocked at the num­ber under 50 years old who pre­ferred a digit­al copy. Sug­ges­tion made that recip­i­ents be asked if they’d prefer a hard copy or a digit­al copy. Olly Dav­ies, Head of Com­mu­nic­a­tions, advised that there was a desire from all audi­ences for a mix­ture to com­ple­ment dif­fer­ent online news­let­ters that are pop­u­lar. e) Board mem­ber praised the news of hav­ing a prin­ted news­let­ter and urged that it be dis­trib­uted as soon as pos­sible. The Mem­ber also com­men­ted that there was a need to tackle mis­in­form­a­tion that is put out in the pub­lic domain by oth­ers. Board Con­vener agreed that mis­in­form­a­tion would need to be cor­rec­ted. Deputy Con­vener added that both she and the Con­vener had com­mit­ted to keep­ing in touch with groups in a dif­fer­ent way. She recog­nised that for some people hard copy is bet­ter. CEO added that dur­ing the peri­od from the end of the Con­sulta­tion to the point we are at today where we are seek­ing Board approv­al of the NPPP, it would be dif­fi­cult for us to state there are changes made to the NPPP before the final draft Plan has been form­ally con­sidered. Where there were inac­cur­ate claims made, we fol­lowed this up by put­ting fac­tu­al state­ments on our web­site which rebut­ted the claims made. f) Com­ment made that the breath of top­ics and num­ber of top­ics with­in the report was extraordin­ary. The mem­ber recog­nised that it was chal­len­ging for the Com­mu­nic­a­tions team to put mes­sages across in dif­fer­ent ways and some people may not hear it. She praised the HR team and all Man­agers for the work involved in recruit­ing to the organisation.

3. The Board noted the Paper. The Con­vener thanked the Chief Exec­ut­ive and all the staff on behalf of the Board.

4. Action Points Arising: None.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2022 – 2027 (Paper 2)

1. Grant Moir, CEO intro­duced Paper 2 which seeks the Board’s agree­ment to the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2022 – 27 (NPPP) and its sub­mis­sion to Scot­tish Min­is­ters for approval.

2. The Board con­sidered the detail in the Paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the fol­low­ing: a) Com­ment made that the hous­ing fig­ures in NPPP seem very light if going to serve young people in NP. Con­vener noted this com­ment while reflect­ing that there had already been many dis­cus­sions on hous­ing need and sup­ply over the past 18 months in the lead into this point of final review of the NPPP. b) Could the move towards hab­it­ats assess­ments for deer man­age­ment in A4 be explained? CEO advised that there were two stra­tegic land use plans going on at present and these will be ongo­ing hab­it­at assess­ments, not one-off pro­cesses. Colin McLean, Head of Land Man­age­ment added that the assess­ments in these areas are begin­ning now and that oth­er estates have hab­it­at impact assess­ments. Mem­ber was reas­sured and said it soun­ded like a sens­ible way of man­aging deer num­bers. She com­men­ted that roe deer is included with oth­er herb­i­vore, how­ever hab­it­at impact assess­ments seemed to be sens­ible way for­ward. c) Clar­ity sought as to why the ori­gin­al tar­get of deer from 5 – 8 deer/​km2 across the Nation­al Park (NP) has been changed to 5 – 8 deer/​km2 in each Deer Man­age­ment Group (DMG). CEO advised that the reas­on they had moved it down to DMG level is that it makes more sense if we con­sider this at a DMG level as we can focus on areas where deer num­bers are high rather that look to work on an aver­age basis across the whole CNP. He added that it helps to recog­nise the pro­gress made by oth­er DMGs in the Park and that the approach will help us meet our oth­er tar­gets across the NPPP. d) The estates that have high num­bers, are they estates with­in the CNP or out with the CNP? CEO con­firmed that high deer num­bers are on estates with­in the CNP and that the inform­a­tion was taken from the 2021 – 2022 deer count. e) A mem­ber com­men­ted that it was widely recog­nised that deer dens­it­ies are a crude tool/​meas­ure for dens­ity at DMG level, and what will suc­cess for the plan look like? CEO advised that two DMGs have very high deer dens­it­ies. The CNPA will be look­ing at impacts along­side dens­it­ies and in due course will also look at occu­pancy. He added that there is clear dir­ec­tion from the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment to reduce deer dens­it­ies. It is also clear that Estates use dens­it­ies as a meas­ure as two recent man­age­ment plans from estates with­in the Park show.. He went on to say that when the pre­vi­ous NPPP aimed to reduce deer dens­it­ies to 10/​km2 in last NPPP, it helped to drive the over­all approach to deer man­age­ment with­in the Park and appeared an effect­ive man­age­ment meas­ure and tool from that experience.

3. The Con­vener drew out two top­ics for debate/​dis­cus­sion from the Board, these were Afford­able Hous­ing and Deer Density.

4. Gav­in Miles, Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning intro­duced the first top­ic and gave an over­view of what is in the NPPP. He made the fol­low­ing points: a) With ref­er­ence to Policy C2 New Hous­ing on pages 26 – 27, there is close inter­ac­tion between NPPP, Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (LDP) and the role of loc­al author­it­ies as the hous­ing authority’s cov­er­ing the Nation­al Park. The Action by 2027 is to deliv­er at least 200 new afford­able houses and by 2030 the tar­get is for 75% of new hous­ing to be afford­able in per­petu­ity. This would be included as part of the next LDP in 2025. He noted that the tar­get of 200 was not a fixed num­ber and was a min­im­um not max­im­um num­ber. b) He advised that 200 was a reas­on­able tar­get, giv­en the effect­ive land sup­ply, con­trol of land sup­ply and cur­rent fund­ing from Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment to loc­al author­it­ies to deliv­er afford­able hous­ing, and the time it takes to deliv­er hous­ing on the ground.

5. The Con­vener invited com­ments on the Afford­able Hous­ing top­ic and the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions were made: a) Could it be cla­ri­fied what was meant by the term ​‘afford­able’? Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning advised that afford­able cov­ers a range of dif­fer­ent types of hous­ing from social rent­al to mid-mar­ket rent­al and is in line with nation­al stand­ards. The key is that as much as pos­sible afford­able hous­ing remains afford­able in per­petu­ity. b) Were the CNPA block­ing people who want to devel­op afford­able hous­ing? Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning advised this was not the case and that if people had ideas about where and how to devel­op afford­able hous­ing they should to speak to the CNPA as plan­ning author­ity about it, or the land own­er, and loc­al author­ity. It is fre­quently the abil­ity to access land at a reas­on­able price that is the key issue that drives the capa­city to devel­op afford­able hous­ing. c) Com­ment made that many young people on a good wage could nev­er afford afford­able house and made a plea for the CNPA to get land man­agers to release the land. d) Com­ment made that the key to suc­cess­ful next ver­sion of the LDP would be to get the right hooks into the NPPP now. Mem­ber was reas­sured that we have suf­fi­cient hooks in NPPP to look at innov­at­ive policies in next LDP, even if nation­al policy isn’t there just now. We need to knock on doors of Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment to ensure they will help and sup­port us. CEO com­men­ted that the cur­rent LDP already has 45% afford­able hous­ing in key set­tle­ments which is above the nor­mal nation­al level of 25%. The NPPP under dis­cus­sion today would give us strong plat­form for the next LDP. There is also sig­ni­fic­ant invest­ment by High­land Coun­cil & oth­er loc­al author­it­ies with Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment sup­port in hous­ing. One of the key things high­lighted in the Plan is the need for a much more pro-act­ive approach to pub­lic sec­tor land pur­chase for hous­ing in the Park. e) How many afford­able houses had been completed/​built dur­ing the course of the last NPPP? Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning advised that it was close to the tar­get of 200 set for the last Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan. f) An opin­ion was offered by a mem­ber that those 200 afford­able houses were a ​“drop in the ocean” for some­where like Aviemore for example. The mem­ber sug­ges­ted there was a need to speak to young people who want to leave because of the lack of hous­ing was a massive prob­lem for the work­force and busi­ness own­ers had to take respons­ib­il­ity for hous­ing work­ers. g) Com­ment made on the 75% tar­get of afford­able hous­ing. Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning replied that the only way to achieve that was through a sub­stan­tial change in the way that hous­ing was delivered in the nation­al Park. h) How many houses are zoned in the cur­rent LDP? Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning advised that 600 – 800 houses, some of which are cur­rently being built and includ­ing some which were unlikely to be developed because of the high costs involved. i) Com­ment made that the cost of white dies­el for con­struc­tion and hike in costs of mater­i­als make it harder for developers to deliv­er afford­able homes. There is a need to put more pres­sure on the SG to put pres­sure on releas­ing land. j) Com­ment made that 200 afford­able homes over­all was not suf­fi­cient and sup­port for earli­er com­ment in the East of the NP. Com­munit­ies should be giv­en pri­or­ity for the land zoned for hous­ing, to make it harder for buy­ers to buy land and build big unaf­ford­able houses on it. k) Com­ment made that more afford­able hous­ing was needed whilst acknow­ledging the pic­ture mov­ing towards 75% is good but only part of pic­ture. Busi­nesses have respons­ib­il­it­ies to provide accom­mod­a­tion for their staff. Short term let licens­ing would likely to release some private rent accom­mod­a­tion. Anoth­er part of pic­ture is the trans­port links to allow loc­al work­ers to get to and from work from set­tle­ments with lower hous­ing pres­sure. l) Was there any way that we could help first time loc­al self-build­ers by provid­ing training/​work­shops or redu­cing the developer con­tri­bu­tions for these people? CEO advised that the Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 would be pub­lished later this year and with­in it, lar­ger scale plan­ning guid­ance would be con­tained with­in it. Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning reminded mem­bers of the pro­cess between the LDP and the NPPP. Hav­ing this in the NPPP gives the CNPA hooks for future plan­ning policy in the next LDP. There was also poten­tial to bring for­ward oth­er areas of hous­ing land if needed. m) Would there be an oppor­tun­ity to feed into dis­cus­sion on a nation­al level, dis­cuss­ing rent­al prop­er­ties or are there pos­sible neg­at­ive impacts of that for us, in rur­al areas? CEO advised that at a recent Scot­tish Land & Estates con­fer­ence, there was dis­cus­sion about the move from long term rent­al to hol­i­day accom­mod­a­tion, how to make hous­ing more energy effi­cient and the implic­a­tions and costs of upgrad­ing houses to meet energy effi­ciency stand­ards. This is one example of region­al and nation­al oppor­tun­it­ies to feed into dis­cus­sion on hous­ing and sup­ply sub­jects. n) Com­ment made that a sim­il­ar dis­cus­sion had taken place on the devel­op­ment of the last NPPP. The mem­ber sug­ges­ted that the cur­rent hous­ing mar­ket does not work across Scot­land and the UK; and that the social hous­ing sec­tor has been decim­ated. Added to that is the pres­sures from the private ren­ted sec­tor and costs arising from new legis­la­tion. The infla­tion in house build­ing sec­tor and second homes legis­la­tion means short term lets and find­ing a bal­ance between rad­ic­al solu­tions and fright­en­ing away developers is chal­len­ging. Giv­en that very chal­len­ging con­text this NPPP provided a good way for­ward in deliv­er­ing as much afford­able hous­ing for the Park as pos­sible. o) Mem­ber advised he was still some­what unsat­is­fied and that we needed to give hope for young people who can’t secure hous­ing des­pite hav­ing good jobs.

6. Grant Moir, CEO intro­duced the second top­ic on deer dens­ity and deer man­age­ment and gave an over­view of what is in the NPPP.

7. The Con­vener opened up the second top­ic on Deer Dens­ity for dis­cus­sion, the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions were made: a) Recog­ni­tion that this issue has caused a lot of cor­res­pond­ence from both sides of the argu­ment The mem­ber was strug­gling with 5 – 8 deer/​km2 fig­ure being sci­en­tific­ally accur­ate and thought that impact stud­ies are a more accur­ate way of find­ing out what the deer are actu­ally doing, and their impact. The mem­ber would like to see use of impact assess­ments lead­ing to a more defined tar­get in NPPP. Sug­ges­tion made that site spe­cif­ic stud­ies would be more bene­fi­cial to us. b) Mem­ber thanked officers and team for read­ing the responses and answer­ing issues that the Board had. The mem­ber raised their con­cern that we don’t have full sup­port of this object­ive from Scot­tish Land & Estates (SLE), Scot­tish Game­keep­ers Asso­ci­ation (SGA) and Deer Man­age­ment Groups (DMG’s) and that they are there­fore minded to pro­pose an amend­ment to the NPPP. c) Com­ment made that areas of the NPPP had received thor­ough com­ment from Board, part­ners and stake­hold­ers, encom­passing not just deer dens­it­ies and hab­it­ats impact assess­ments. The mem­ber sug­ges­ted that you can­not look at both in isol­a­tion: they need to be looked at togeth­er in order to make cor­rel­a­tion between the two. d) Com­ment made that they were pleased that the NPA were work­ing closely with DMG’s. Recog­ni­tion for the work done refin­ing the nature sec­tion in order to meet our top object­ive (enhan­cing and pro­tec­tion the nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age of the NP) and the NPPP is the stra­tegic plan which sets out how we will do that. She added that the CNPA’s role is to facil­it­ate people to drive the plan for­ward. e) Recog­ni­tion that to enable peat­land work and wood­land expan­sion to hap­pen at the scale required there is a need for action to be taken where deer dens­it­ies are above the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment guid­ance of 10/​km2. For some DMG’s this will involve sig­ni­fic­ant culls to get to that rate, could the over­all num­bers be provided? Head of Land Man­age­ment explained that the reas­on they were invest­ing fund­ing in the DMG’s in the South was to look at future options for deer and land man­age­ment over time. As an example, Atholl Estate’s man­age­ment plan included redu­cing deer num­bers sig­ni­fic­antly by 2025. On the eco­nom­ic side CNPA & SG are explor­ing mod­els and look­ing into how to best sup­port deer man­age­ment in the future for example look­ing at how they could sup­port stalk­ers across the CNP. f) Com­ment made that Scot­tish Government’s cur­rent upper lim­it is 10/​km2 and the SG have tasked the CNPA to be more ambi­tious. The mem­ber sug­ges­ted the dif­fer­ence between 10 and 8 is very small and wood­land regen­er­a­tion, peat­land res­tor­a­tion tar­gets can­not be achieved without the deer dens­ity being reduced. It is incum­bent on the CNPA to give nature a fight­ing chance. g) Com­ment made that the reduc­tion in deer car­casses could neg­at­ively impact the spe­cies that fol­low the deer, such as sea eagles, dung beetles and the squir­rels enjoy the cal­ci­um of the horns. h) Com­ment made that the CNPA also have a cli­mate change respons­ib­il­ity. i) Com­ment made that in order to achieve nature tar­gets the NPPP needs to have this tar­get. Hav­ing the tar­get at a DMG level is the bet­ter way of doing it, only con­cern that some DMGs are not all with­in the NP and deer range where they want to. Con­tent with pro­pos­als and like hab­it­at assess­ment pro­pos­als. j) Recog­ni­tion that in the dis­cus­sions of the NPPP before the cur­rent one, red deer was the hot top­ic and a fair amount of pro­gress has been made since then. Same com­ments were con­sidered to be com­ing for­ward on the draft for­ward NPPP from the same groups of people, this is at the start of the pro­cess, and it will take lots of time to lead change. In 10 to 15 years, it has been good to see the way the CNPA has respon­ded and recog­ni­tion that we’d nev­er get to achiev­ing pro­gress should we seek 100% sup­port for every action from every stake­hold­er. The mem­ber warned that in their opin­ion not any one piece of the NPPP could be taken in isol­a­tion as people linked into place and into nature, with con­sequen­tial impacts across a range of actions. k) A Mem­ber com­men­ted that Deer Man­age­ment Groups (DMGs) have been work­ing hard to reduce deer num­bers in the NP and that the issue was not deer num­bers in them­selves, but could the tar­get be real­ist­ic­ally met and if not, then this would reflect badly on the NPA Board. l) Giv­en that Scot­tish Land & Estates (SLE), Scot­tish Game­keep­ers Asso­ci­ation (SGA) and some DMG’s were totally opposed to the tar­get an amend­ment was put for­ward by Deirdre Fal­con­er that the tar­get returns to its ori­gin­al tar­get of an aver­age of 5 – 8 deer dens­ity per km2 across the NP rather than by each indi­vidu­al DMG. m) Cla­ri­fic­a­tion was sought on the estates which are part of a DMG with­in the NP but their estate either does not lie wholly with­in the NP or are out with the NP, would they also be obliged to fol­low the 5 – 8 deer per km2 tar­get or the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment tar­get of no more than 10/​km2? CEO explained that if the NPPP was approved today and then sub­mit­ted to Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment and approved by Scot­tish Min­is­ters then it would become pub­lic policy for land with­in the Nation­al Park and NatureScot would then help to imple­ment that. If there are DMGs that are strug­gling to meet tar­gets, NatureScot as the stat­utory deer man­age­ment author­ity have mech­an­isms avail­able to them with­in the Deer Act to assist deer man­age­ment i.e., Sec­tion 7 vol­un­tary agree­ments and sec­tion 8 com­puls­ory deer con­trol schemes.

There was short com­fort break to allow for the amend­ment word­ing to be worked up.

1. The Con­vener took the oppor­tun­ity to thank all part­ners, vol­un­tary organ­isa­tions and mem­bers of the pub­lic who respon­ded to con­sulta­tion. He com­men­ted that there had been lots of changes over the full pro­cess of NPPP devel­op­ment: some minor and some sig­ni­fic­ant. The Cairngorms NPA team and board have listened and looked at evid­ence as it had been com­ing in and as a res­ult we have a very good NPPP. He recog­nised and praised the staff and Board for the work they had put in the last few months and high­lighted now it was time for part­ners to come togeth­er to put plans into action. The next 5 years was where the work would really start.

2. Xan­der McDade, Board Con­vener pro­posed the motion to approve the NPPP as presen­ted today. This was seconded by Car­o­lyn Cad­dick, Deputy Convener.

3. Deirdre Fal­con­er pro­posed an amend­ment which was that the Board return to the ori­gin­al pro­posed tar­get for A4 in the Nature Out­come, as set out in the NPPP pub­lic con­sulta­tion in Sept 2021, which stated that the aver­age red deer dens­it­ies on the open range are 5 – 8 per square km across the NP by 2030. John Kirk seconded this amendment.

4. A num­ber of com­ments and points of cla­ri­fic­a­tion were sought on the amend­ment pri­or to pro­ceed­ing to a vote, these were as fol­lows: a) Recog­ni­tion that it was a hugely com­plex area and con­cerns raised regard­ing the sig­ni­fic­ant num­ber of deer in some DMGs to have to reduce to the SG tar­get of 10 deer per km2 would be chal­len­ging enough without hav­ing to reduce that fur­ther to 8/​km2. In approv­ing the NPPP it would have rami­fic­a­tions for those in the deer industry and the deer impacts on the ground is crit­ic­al. b) If the board went with the amend­ment, what rami­fic­a­tions would it have on the rest of the tar­gets with­in the NPPP? CEO advised that the eco­lo­gic­al tar­gets set out in the NPPP would be unlikely to be met. He went on to explain that there were two DMGs whose deer dens­it­ies were sig­ni­fic­antly high­er than the aver­age and they would be rely­ing on the oth­er DMGs being sig­ni­fic­antly below the aver­age. The tar­get as set out in the pro­posed NPPP would show the vari­ation between those DMGs meet­ing the tar­get and those that are sig­ni­fic­antly above. c) Com­ment made that for the DMGs that were not already meet­ing this tar­get, this NPPP would give them a push in the right dir­ec­tion. How could the impacts of this be meas­ured? d) For pur­poses of clar­ity the estates with the very high num­bers of deer dens­it­ies in the South of the NP, were they in the NP? Colin McLean, Head of Land Man­age­ment advised that most of them are in Perth & Kinross: Atholl Estate, Glen­fern­it North Estate, Tul­can Estate and in the South Upper Glen­isla estate. e) Could it be con­firmed if those estates with­in that DMG are hav­ing action tak­ing against them to cur­tail deer num­bers? Head of Land Man­age­ment advised that this is some­thing that NatureScot are lead­ing on with sup­port from the CNPA.

5. The Board pro­ceeded into a vote. The res­ult was as follows:

NAME	MOTION	AMEND­MENT	ABSTAIN
Peter Argyle	X
Geva Black­ett
Car­o­lyn Caddick	X
Deirdre Fal­con­er		X
Pippa Had­ley	X
Janet Hunter
John Kirk		X
John Lath­am	X
Elean­or Mackintosh		X
Xan­der McDade	X
Wil­lie McKenna	X
Ian McLar­en	X
Fiona McLean	X
Anne Rae Macdonald		X
Gaen­er Rodger	X
Derek Ross	X
Judith Webb	X
TOTAL	12	4	0

1. The Board con­sidered and agreed the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2022 – 27 for sub­mis­sion to Scot­tish Min­is­ters for approv­al with the launch tak­ing place late sum­mer 2022.

2. Action Points Arising: None.

Break for Lunch, recon­vened at 1.20pm

Role of CNPA in Beaver Trans­lo­ca­tion (Paper 3)

1. Andy Ford, Dir­ect­or of Nature & Cli­mate intro­duced Paper 3 which presents the cur­rent pos­i­tion on beaver trans­lo­ca­tion in Scot­land and the options for CNPA role in facil­it­at­ing the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment policy to act­ively expand the beaver pop­u­la­tion in Scotland.

2. Sarah Hen­shall, Head of Con­ser­va­tion, presen­ted the three options for dis­cus­sion and decision being: Observ­er Role, Facil­it­a­tion and sup­port­ing role or Lead­er­ship Role.

3. The Board con­sidered the detail in the paper and the dis­cus­sion was as fol­lows: a) Com­ment was made that it was a clear paper and the roles had pre­vi­ously been dis­cussed at a board meet­ing and the Cairngorm Nature Strategy Group. b) Ques­tions about the con­trol of beavers. Applic­a­tion can be made to Nature Scot for the man­age­ment of beaver and asso­ci­ated land man­age­ment issues includ­ing mit­ig­a­tion, remov­al and, as a last resort, leth­al con­trol, even as a European Pro­tect­ive Spe­cies (EPS). c) Con­sensus was that CNPA should take on the Lead­er­ship role in Beaver Trans­lo­ca­tion with­in the Nation­al Park and ensure good com­mu­nic­a­tions with those that will be impacted by the trans­lo­ca­tion. d) There would be a cost for land man­agers, and it was good that the CNPA were set­ting out a com­pre­hens­ive approach to sup­port­ing land man­agers in mit­ig­at­ing impacts. e) NatureScot are very clear that they want pro­jects at a stra­tegic level and the approach out­lined in the paper provides this for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park.

4. The Board: a) Con­sidered the options for the trans­lo­ca­tion of beavers. b) Approved the recom­mend­a­tion that CNPA take a lead role in beaver applic­a­tion. Applic­a­tion would be made fol­low­ing a full and com­pre­hens­ive consultation.

5. Action Point Arising: None

Review of Caper­cail­lie Con­ser­va­tion and Man­age­ment (Paper 4)

1. Andy Ford, Dir­ect­or of Con­ser­va­tion and Man­age­ment presen­ted Paper 4 which provides the cur­rent pos­i­tion on caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park, tak­ing into con­sid­er­a­tion dis­cus­sions with stake­hold­ers fol­low­ing the Nature Scot Sci­entif­ic Advis­ory Com­mit­tee (SAC) report and presents a series of recom­mend­a­tions for CNPA activ­ity going for­wards. He high­lighted the fol­low­ing points: a) The SAC report lists four options that are likely to have the greatest imme­di­ate pos­it­ive impact on the pop­u­la­tion: Pred­at­or con­trol, Diver­sion­ary feed­ing of pred­at­ors, Redu­cing dis­turb­ance and Fence marking/​removal. b) As iden­ti­fied with­in the report a com­bin­a­tion of all the above, at speed and scale, is recom­men­ded to have the neces­sary effect. They should not be con­sidered in isol­a­tion. c) Many of the recom­mend­a­tions in the paper have high degrees of clar­ity and con­sensus build­ing, how­ever dis­cus­sions on pred­at­or man­age­ment are still char­ac­ter­ised by dif­fer­ing views. Mem­bers were being asked for their advice to staff regard­ing where CNPA resource is best dir­ec­ted con­cern­ing work on pred­at­or man­age­ment, not­ing that whilst decisions regard­ing licens­ing and legis­la­tion around pred­at­or man­age­ment are not with­in CNPA’s remit, the opin­ions and advice of the CNPA Board would be borne in mind by the NatureScot Board at their meet­ing later in June.

2. The Board con­sidered the detail of the Paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the fol­low­ing: a) The con­sensus with­in the Board were that recom­mend­a­tion B‑F was agreed and more dis­cus­sion needed on recom­mend­a­tion A. b) With ref­er­ence to Page 26 not­ing there are loc­a­tions that pred­at­or con­trol was not hap­pen­ing, but caper­cail­lie are doing well. High­lights there are dif­fer­ing approaches in dif­fer­ent loc­a­tion on pred­at­or con­trol, hab­it­at and con­ser­va­tion show­ing the likely solu­tion is not a one size fits all areas. c) That some pred­at­ory spe­cies have pro­tec­ted status and that whilst the pop­u­la­tions of dif­fer­ent spe­cies may have changed there is not the abil­ity to change this leg­al status. d) Big­ger, more com­plex con­ver­sa­tion than just caper­cail­lie around nature recov­ery and how spe­cies pop­u­la­tions with­in areas change. Need to think about meso-pred­at­ors (the range of pred­at­ors in the middle of a food chain) as a whole and our over­all approach to that sub­ject. e) Fol­low­ing this board dis­cus­sion there will be fur­ther work done with NatureScot to provide advice to Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ters. f) Need to move quickly to ensure the sur­viv­al of the caper­cail­lie. g) Recog­ni­tion that des­pite sig­nage through­out the Nation­al Park dog own­ers were still let­ting dogs loose and not in con­trol. Was there a need for more enforce­ment in areas? Officers respon­ded that teams have been work­ing with loc­al dog walk­ing com­munity. It has been recog­nised that the dog walk­ing com­munity is a chal­len­ging one to engage with. Through Cairngorms Caper Pro­ject groups have been iden­ti­fied to col­lab­or­ate with on this issue. h) With ref­er­ence to para 12 it shows that there has been no sig­ni­fic­ant reduc­tion in the caper pop­u­la­tion in an area where there has been no fox and crow con­trol for a num­ber of years. i) Sup­port for invest­ig­at­ing some con­trol of pine mar­tin on a tri­al basis. j) Need to ensure that there is a simple approach to the issue of refuges that people can under­stand. k) It was noted that dif­fer­ent loc­a­tions required a dif­fer­ent level of inter­ven­tion on all recom­mend­a­tions. l) CNPA has an import­ant role to play in work­ing with a range of stake­hold­ers, find­ing con­sensus and encour­aging col­lab­or­a­tion m) Sug­ges­tion that as con­ver­sa­tions around pred­at­or man­age­ment con­tin­ue, a sub- group of the Cairngorms Nature Strategy Group could be a good for­um. Been very suc­cess­ful tak­ing for­wards work on beaver for example.

3. In their advice to staff, Board expressed a range of views on pred­at­or man­age­ment. The Board high­lighted the need for enhanced pred­at­or man­age­ment as part of the solu­tion with a desire to see fur­ther invest­ig­a­tion of dif­fer­ent options around pred­at­or con­trol, work­ing with NatureScot to look at what the approach would be a nation­al level. The Board also sup­por­ted staff con­tinu­ing to work with the body of emer­ging evid­ence and with land man­agers in areas where no pred­at­or man­age­ment takes place.

4. The Board: a) Provided advice to staff on the approaches that they wish to see the CNPA work with NatureScot (NS) and oth­ers to devel­op on the issue of pred­at­or con­trol with­in the core caper area. b) Sup­por­ted the devel­op­ment of a wider diver­sion­ary feed­ing approach with­in the core caper area. c) Agreed that CNPA and NS lead fur­ther con­sulta­tion to devel­op a range of deliv­ery options for nature refuges, build­ing on the approach of the Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject. d) Agreed that CNPA and NS work closely with Scot­tish Forestry, as part of the FGS review, to ensure that from 2024 the scheme can sup­port the mark­ing and remov­al of fences that pose a risk to caper­cail­lie. e) Agreed CNPA sup­port the deliv­ery of hab­it­at enhance­ment and expan­sion, land­scape scale sur­vey and mon­it­or­ing approaches, fur­ther research into genet­ic diversity and oth­er devel­op­ing areas of sci­entif­ic research and pre­par­a­tions for rein­force­ment work in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. f) Agree that CNPA and NS provide stra­tegic over­sight of caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion in the Cairngorms by co-ordin­at­ing and over­see­ing the col­lect­ive deliv­ery of a clear place-based strategy.

5. The Con­vener thanked Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate and Head of Con­ser­va­tion for their paper.

6. Action Point Arising: None

Break for 10mins com­fort break.

Pub­lic Sec­tor Equal­ity Duty Report 2021 (Paper 5)

1. Kate Christie, Head of Organ­isa­tion devel­op­ment presen­ted paper 5 which gave an update to the Pub­lic Sec­tor Equal­ity Duty Report 2021.

2. The Board dis­cussed the report and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: a) Praise for an excel­lent report and the Board com­men­ded lead­er­ship of the work. b) It was noted the excel­lent input from the HR intern and the HR team to pro­duce the doc­u­ment. c) It was noted that there will be chal­lenges on keep­ing the doc­u­ment current.

3. That the Board noted the Report.

4. Action Point Arising: None

Draft Minutes of Com­mit­tee meet­ings since last Board meeting

1. Dav­id Camer­on Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices intro­duced the fol­low­ing draft minutes dated 13 May & 27 May 2022 of pub­lic meet­ings which were presen­ted to the Board but not yet in the pub­lic domain:

Draft Audit & Risk Com­mit­tee Minutes Draft Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Minutes

He repor­ted that once the Gov­ernance Com­mit­tee and Resources Com­mit­tee minutes had been draf­ted and reviewed by seni­or staff, these draft minutes would be cir­cu­lated to the remainder of the Board.

1. The CEO reminded mem­bers of the Board if they had any ques­tions about the minutes to please take up with com­mit­tee chairs, vice-chairs or himself.

2. The Board noted the draft minutes of the Board Committees.

3. Action Point Arising: None.

Plan­ning Enforce­ment Mat­ters (Paper 7)

1. The Con­vener moved the motion to take paper in con­fid­en­tial ses­sion. This was agreed by all members.

AOCB

1. CEO reminded the Board that there would be an online ses­sion on Food Secur­ity with James With­ers, CEO of Scot­tish Food & Drink on 6^th July 2022 at 4pm.

2. Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment advised that a request for information