NPPP 2022 Factsheet:

PEOPLE POP­U­LA­TION & HOUSING

Pop­u­la­tion

The most recent pop­u­la­tion pro­jec­tion for the Nation­al Park was based on 2018 data, pub­lished in Octo­ber 2019. The NRS prin­cip­al pro­jec­tion is that between 2018 and 2043, the pop­u­la­tion of Park will increase by around 5% (with the low and high migra­tion fig­ures being +4 and +7%).

The Nation­al Park pro­jec­ted pop­u­la­tion com­pares favour­ably to the Scot­tish pro­jec­tions, which pre­dict a 0, +3 or +5% pop­u­la­tion change between 2018 and 2043 under the low, prin­cip­al and high migra­tion scenarios.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park — Pop­u­la­tion Pro­jec­tions (2018)

Image of a line graph show­ing pop­u­la­tion pro­jec­tions for Cairngorms Nation­al Park from 2018 to 2043

Pro­jec­ted Pop­u­la­tion Change in the Nation­al Park and Scotland

Image of a bar chart show­ing the pro­jec­ted pop­u­la­tion change in the Nation­al Park and Scotland

The Nation­al Park is likely to encounter sim­il­ar pop­u­la­tion trends as Scot­land as a whole but to a great­er degree. The increase in over 65s is 57% high­er in the Nation­al Park, and the decreases in work­ing pop­u­la­tion and num­ber of chil­dren are 59% and 67% great­er respectively.

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NPPP 2022 Factsheet:

PEOPLE POP­U­LA­TION & HOUSING

Pop­u­la­tion: Inform­a­tion up until 2019

The mid-year estim­ate of the pop­u­la­tion of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park in 2018 was 18,654 people, with around 50% female and 50% male. This is sim­il­ar to the Scot­tish pop­u­la­tion where 49% of the pop­u­la­tion in 2019 were estim­ated to be male and 51% female.

Image of a bar chart show­ing pop­u­la­tion pro­por­tion by gender

Pro­por­tion of 2019 mid-year Pop­u­la­tion Estim­ate by Age Category

Image of two pie charts show­ing age demo­graph­ics in the Nation­al Park

The age pro­file of the people liv­ing in the Nation­al Park dif­fers from the nation­al pop­u­la­tion. A lar­ger pro­por­tion of the pop­u­la­tion in Park is made up of people with­in the 70 years and over age range com­pared to the Scot­tish pop­u­la­tion, which is thought to reflect the attrac- tive­ness of the Park as some­where to retire to.

It should be noted that the mid-year pop­u­la­tion estim­ates for the work­ing age cat­egory may also be skewed by the time of year that data is col­lec­ted, as this is when the work­ing pop- ula­tion increases to ser­vice tour­ism. There­fore the pro­por­tion of pen­sion­able age people res­id­ent in the Nation­al Park year round com­pared to work­ing age people is likely to be great­er than shown.

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NPPP 2022 Factsheet:

PEOPLE POP­U­LA­TION & HOUSING

Pop­u­la­tion: Change

Dur­ing the 21^st cen­tury, the Nation­al Park has exper­i­enced a sig­ni­fic­ant net increase in its res­id­ent pop­u­la­tion, rising by approx­im­ately 2,321 people, a growth of around 14% between 2001 and 2019. This is above the over­all Scot­tish rate, which saw an increase of around 7.8% over the same peri­od. How­ever after steady 1 – 2% annu­al increases dur­ing most of the first dec­ade, the Nation­al Park pop­u­la­tion has plateaued.

How­ever pop­u­la­tion growth in the Nation­al Park is not spread evenly (table below), with areas of decline and areas of growth. The over­all Nation­al Park pop­u­la­tion fig­ures are also skewed by the Aviemore area, which saw a far great­er pop­u­la­tion growth com­pared to oth- er areas of the Nation­al Park.

Loc­al­ity	Change in no. of people 2001 — 2019	Per­cent­age change 2001 — 2019
Nation­al Park overall	2321	14.2%
Aber­deen­shire	-96	-3.1%
High­land (includ­ing Aviemore)	2336	20.1%
Aviemore	1249	48.9%
High­land (exclud­ing Aviemore)	1087	12.0%
Moray	121	19.2%
Perth and Kinross	-40	-4.3%

Births and Deaths

Image of bar charts show­ing Births and Deaths

Dur­ing this peri­od, deaths have exceeded births every year of this peri­od, indic­at­ing that the pop­u­la­tion growth of the Park is driv­en by migra­tion of people into the Nation­al Park.

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NPPP 2022 Factsheet:

PEOPLE POP­U­LA­TION & HOUSING

Hous­ing: Projections

Pro­jec­ted Pop­u­la­tion and House­hold % Change: NP and SDP Areas, 2018 – 2028

Image of bar chart with % changes

Pro­jec­ted num­ber of house­holds in the Nation­al Park by house­hold type, 2018 and 2028

Image of bar chart with num­ber of house­holds by type

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NPPP 2022 Factsheet:

PEOPLE POP­U­LA­TION & HOUSING

Hous­ing: Projections

Pro­jec­ted num­ber of house­holds in the Nation­al Park, by age of HRP (House­hold Ref­er­ence Per­son), 2018 and 2028

Image of bar chart with num­ber of house­holds by age

Per­cent­age of house­holds headed by people aged 65 or over in each NP and SDP area, 2018 and 2028

Image of bar chart com­par­ing per­cent­ages of older res­id­ents for dif­fer­ent areas.

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NPPP 2022 Factsheet:

PEOPLE POP­U­LA­TION & HOUSING

Hous­ing

Between 2010 and 2020 the num­ber of dwell­ing in the Park grew from 9888 to 10273 (an increase of around 4%), with occu­pa­tion levels remain­ing between 83% – 84% across the period.

House­hold occu­pancy com­par­is­on between Scot­land and Nation­al Park

Images of pie charts show­ing house­hold occu­pancy comparisons

Single Adult Dis­count com­par­is­on between Scot­land and Nation­al Park

Image with 37% for Scot­land and 29% for Nation­al Park

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NPPP 2022 Factsheet:

PEOPLE POP­U­LA­TION & HOUSING

Hous­ing: Link Between Health, Hous­ing and Deprivation

It is well recog­nised that the qual­ity of hous­ing, depriva­tion and health are linked. The NHS con­sider that hous­ing costs and qual­ity, along with fuel poverty, influ­ence health inequal­ity in Scot­land (http://www.healthscotland.scot/media/1250/housing-and-health_nov2016_english. pdf).

Nation­al Park SIMD Data 2020

Images of charts with SIMD data

There is a low level of hous­ing related depriva­tion with­in the Park, with no data zones fall­ing with­in the 20% most deprived. How­ever there are areas where indic­at­ors of hous­ing depriva­tion exceed the nation­al aver­age. In par­tic­u­lar, at 4.3% many areas of the Nation­al Park have rel­at­ively high pro­por­tions of the house­hold pop­u­la­tion liv­ing in homes with no cent­ral heat­ing, high­er than the Scot­tish aver­age of 2.3%.

Indi­vidu­al Wellbeing

Image of scat­ter plot show­ing men­tal health vs deprivation

The graph above shows that there is a cor­rel­a­tion between depriva­tion and men­tal health but that the CNP reports lower levels of people pre­scribed men­tal health med­ic­a­tion com­pared to oth­er sim­il­ar areas in terms of their depriva­tion levels (mean SIMD rank­ings). The well­being of the Parks inhab­it­ants, in terms of men­tal health, is there­fore con­sidered to be above aver­age as well as above levels seen in all oth­er loc­al author­it­ies in Scotland.

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NPPP 2022 Factsheet:

PEOPLE POP­U­LA­TION & HOUSING

Pro­por­tion of Dwell­ings by Num­ber of Hab­it­able Rooms: Park and Scotland

Image of graph­ic com­par­ing dwell­ing types for Park and Scotland

A sig­ni­fic­ant bar­ri­er in redu­cing house­hold depriva­tion is the avail­ab­il­ity of enough new hous­ing to enable people to move from hous­ing that does not meet their needs (such as over­crowded or lack­ing cent­ral heat­ing) into more suit­able homes that are with­in their means.

Pro­por­tion of House Types

Image of a bar graph show­ing the pro­por­tions of detached houses, flats, etc

This shows that detached homes account for a much great­er pro­por­tion of dwell­ings in the Nation­al Park (52%) com­pared to Scot­land as a whole (21%). There­fore there is a great­er pro­por­tion of lar­ger and more expens­ive prop­er­ties in com­par­is­on to Scot­land as a whole.

There are sim­il­ar pro­por­tions of semi-detached homes in the Nation­al Park (23%) and Scot­land as a whole, how­ever there are 7% less ter­raced hous­ing and 27% less flats in the Nation­al Park com­pared to Scot­land (20% and 38% respectively).

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NPPP 2022 Factsheet:

PEOPLE POP­U­LA­TION & HOUSING

Hous­ing: Affordability

Afford­ab­il­ity is a recog­nised issue in the Park. Between 1993 and 2015, the medi­an price of a prop­erty in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park saw a net rise of almost 230%, with a peak in 2015 of £192,500. In 2018 it had reduced slightly to £190,000.

The graph below shows the amount that medi­an house prices in the Park and Loc­al Author- ity areas with­in the Park are below/​above the Scot­tish medi­an house price since the Park was established.

When the Park was estab­lished in 2003, the medi­an Park house price was already £13,197 above the Scot­tish aver­age. This gap has since increased to £37,500 in 2018, pla­cing many houses out­with the fin­an­cial reach of work­ers in the Park wish­ing to buy a home there.

£ above/​below Scot­tish medi­an house price

Image of a line graph show­ing the afford­ab­il­ity over time

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NPPP 2022 Factsheet:

PEOPLE POP­U­LA­TION & HOUSING

Medi­an house price to medi­an income in the Nation­al Park

In 1993, a the­or­et­ic­al annu­al income of £14,400 was needed to pur­chase a prop­erty at this level (based on stand­ard lend­ing cal­cu­la­tions) but in 2018 this had increased to £48,857. How­ever the actu­al Medi­an Gross Income in 2018 was £34,300 mean­ing there was nearly a £15,000 short­fall in the income required to be able to pur­chase a home.

Image of line chart

This illus­trates one of the greatest hous­ing chal­lenges in the Nation­al Park – afford­ab­il­ity. The sig­ni­fic­ant dis­par­ity between medi­an house­hold incomes and the income needed to be able to afford a medi­an priced house means that it is increas­ingly dif­fi­cult for people employed with­in the Nation­al Park to pur­chase a home here.

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NPPP 2022 Factsheet:

PEOPLE POP­U­LA­TION & HOUSING

Hous­ing: Inef­fect­ive Hous­ing Stock and Hous­ing Tenure

In the Nation­al Park 11.3% of all dwell­ings are second homes (with sig­ni­fic­ant loc­al vari­ation) and an addi­tion­al 4.6% are vacant, mean­ing that over 15% of all hous­ing stock in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park is inef­fect­ive (see below).

Image of bar chart show­ing per­cent­age of homes in each category

The pie charts below illus­trate the dif­fer­ent hous­ing ten­ures that make up the hous­ing stock in the Nation­al Park (62%). Own­er occu­pa­tion is the dom­in­ant ten­ure, and this is rel­at­ively con­sist­ent with Scot­land as a whole (where own­er occu­pa­tion makes up 62%).

Image of pie charts com­par­ing home own­er­ship vs rented

The Nation­al Park has a much smal­ler pro­por­tion of social ren­ted hous­ing com­pared with Scot­land (16% com­pared to 24% for Scot­land) how­ever a slightly high­er pro­por­tion of private ren­ted (17% com­pared to 12.5%).

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NPPP 2022 Factsheet:

PEOPLE POP­U­LA­TION & HOUSING

Fur­ther Information

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021: https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​p​l​a​n​n​i​n​g​-​d​e​v​e​l​o​p​m​e​n​t​/​l​d​p​-​2021/