Formal board meeting - draft meeting minutes - 27 June 2025

Draft minutes of the Form­al Board meeting

Held at Albert Hall, Ballater

In per­son

27 June 2025 at 09.30am

Present in per­son Sandy Brem­ner (Con­vener) Elean­or Mack­in­tosh (Deputy Con­vener) Geva Black­ett Peter Cos­grove Rus­sell Jones Bill Lob­ban Fiona McLean Duncan Miller Derek Ross Jack­ie Brier­ton Han­nah Grist John Kirk Lauren Mac­Cal­lum Steve Mickle­wright Ann Ross Michael Williamson

In attend­ance Grant Moir, Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer Andy Ford, Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change Gav­in Miles, Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place Colin McCle­an Head of Land Man­age­ment Dav­id Clyne, Head of Cairngorms 2030 Nancy Cham­bers, Cairngorms Trust Man­ager Brid­get Trus­sell, Com­munity Grants Man­ager Heath­er Trench, Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Officer Kar­en John­stone, Clerk to the Board

Apo­lo­gies Kenny Deans Paul Gibb

Wel­come and apologies

1. Sandy Brem­ner, the Board Con­vener, wel­comed every­one to the meet­ing. Apo­lo­gies were noted.

Approv­al of minutes of pre­vi­ous meetings

1. The minutes from the pre­vi­ous meet­ing held on 28 March 2025 was approved with no amendments.

Mat­ters arising not covered elsewhere

1. There were not mat­ters arising.

Action	Status
Action Points from meet­ing on 22 March 2024:
Paper 1 CEO report
At para 7
i. CEO, to pre­pare a brief­ing note on farm­ing activ­ity and stat­ist­ics with­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park and dis­trib­ute to the Board.	In hand
Update:
Work being car­ried out with Scotland’s Rur­al Col­lege (SRUC) and should be avail­able for the Septem­ber Board meeting.
Action	Status
Action Points from meet­ing on 22 Novem­ber 2024:
Paper 1 — CEO Report
At para 6b
i. Review the Plan­ning call-in pro­tocol and dis­cuss at a future plan­ning committee.	In hand
Update:
Inform­al dis­cus­sion on call-in cri­ter­ia being held with com­mit­tee mem­bers after plan­ning com­mit­tee on 29 August.
Paper 5 — Act­ive Cairngorms and end of sea­son vis­it­or report
At para 23a
i. Include key chal­lenges in mit­ig­a­tion and learn­ing in future papers.	In hand To be included in 2025 report

At para 23c ii. Stat­ist­ics on camp site and lux­ury camp­ing options with­in the Nation­al Park. | In hand To be Included In 2025 report | Action | Status | | — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — - | — — — — | | Action Points from meet­ing on 28 March 2025: | | | Paper 1 — CEO Report | | | At para 10 | | | i. List of Cairngorms 2030 pro­jects cur­rently going through pro­cure­ment pro­cesses to be cir­cu­lated to the Board. | Com­pleted| | Update: | | | Board will be updated bian­nu­ally a list of the pro­cure­ment under­way and com­pleted. | | | Paper 2 – ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ Budget and Oper­a­tion­al Plan | | | i. Inform­a­tion on the num­ber of eco­lo­gic­al bar­ri­ers that are being removed on catch­ments to be sought and cir­cu­lated to the Board and thought to be giv­en to put­ting this into a staff mem­bers for­ward work plan. | In hand | | ii. Scope of extend­ing the work on spe­cies man­age­ment spe­cific­ally geese fur­ther up the Spey into Badenoch to be invest­ig­ated. | In hand | | Update: | | | In the first of those two points, inform­a­tion is being sought for the num­ber of eco­lo­gic­al bar­ri­ers that are being removed on catch­ments, but not yet avail­able. This will be shared with the Board once it is avail­able. | | | Paper 3 — Con­sulta­tion response to High­land Coun­cil Vis­it­or Levy Proposal | |

| i. Sen­tence to be added to end of con­sulta­tion response as detailed in para­graph 18α. | Com­pleted | | ii. CEO to keep the Board abreast with any devel­op­ments in the dis­cus­sions between HMRC and the UK Gov­ern­ment with regards to the impact any future tour­ism levy would have on VAT thresholds in Scot­land. | Completed |

Declar­a­tions of interest

1. There were no declar­a­tions of interest.

CEO Report (Paper 1)

1. Grant Moir, CEO, intro­duced the paper which was to high­light to Board Mem­bers the main stra­tegic areas of work that are being dir­ec­ted by the Man­age­ment Team. These are areas where sig­ni­fic­ant staff resources are being dir­ec­ted to deliv­er, with part­ners, the aspir­a­tions of the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan.

2. The Board con­sidered the detail in the Paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the fol­low­ing: α) Praise was giv­en to the work being car­ried out on the Deeside way and to see the pro­gress of the Cairngorms 2030 pro­jects. b) Fur­ther inform­a­tion was reques­ted on the Convener’s update relat­ing to Scot­tish Land Com­mis­sion (SLC) and the King’s Found­a­tion. Board Con­vener explained he would get back to the Mem­ber with an update on the SLC. Board Con­vener then explained that the King’s Found­a­tion was a fol­low up meet­ing to an event at Mar Lodge in Octo­ber where landown­ers across the Nation­al Park met to have a high-level dis­cus­sion about afford­able hous­ing and land man­age­ment. c) A Board mem­ber reques­ted updates on the advis­ory groups that Board Mem­bers sit on, ask­ing if the minutes be made avail­able for Board Mem­bers to view. CEO noted that the minutes are avail­able on the web­site to view and the Clerks to the Board will add a link to these on the Board Portal. d) A ques­tion was raised regard­ing the fund­ing for nature recov­ery and deer man­age­ment through Cairngorms 2030 being over­sub­scribed and how the Park Author­ity aims to fill this fund­ing gap. CEO noted that some applic­a­tions fit bet­ter with oth­er grants schemes avail­able and applic­ants are guided

3. towards this. It was explained there will always be demand exceed­ing sup­ply from landown­ers, but the Park Author­ity will work closely with landown­ers to find a way to try and help. e) Praise was giv­en to the new web­site, acknow­ledging the amount of hard work that has gone into the pro­ject from the Com­mu­nic­a­tions Team. It was high­lighted that deliv­ery of com­mu­nic­a­tions is greatly improved with the new web­site. A ques­tion was raised if there was any data avail­able for the eval­u­ation and impact from a stra­tegic point of view. CEO explained there is ana­lyt­ics data avail­able which will be gathered after a few months of the new web­site run­ning and brought to the Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee. The Board noted the paper. The Con­vener thanks the CEO and all staff on behalf of the Board.

4. Action Points Arising: i. Clerks to the Board to share the minutes from advis­ory group meet­ings that Board Mem­bers attend on behalf of the board via the board portal.

Integ­rated Wild­fire Man­age­ment Plan – final approv­al (Paper 2)

1. Colin McLean, Head of Land Man­age­ment intro­duced the paper which presents a final ver­sion of the Integ­rated Wild­fire Man­age­ment Plan (IWMP).

2. The Board con­sidered the detail in the Paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the fol­low­ing: α) Board mem­bers all agreed to the amend­ment to the action for ​“All muir­burn prac­ti­tion­ers to adhere to the require­ments of the new stat­utory muir­burn licens­ing sys­tem”. b) Peter Cos­grove, the Chair of the Cairngorms Upland Advis­ory Group (CUAG) high­lighted that all issues from that for­um were addressed and con­cluded. c) CEO high­lighted the role the Cli­mate Adapt­a­tion fund has played in sup­port­ing the IWMP with fund­ing, train­ing and equip­ment for estates. d) A Board Mem­ber ques­tioned if there was an update avail­able on the Fire Byelaw. CEO explained this was with the Scot­tish Min­is­ters and an announce­ment of the Min­is­ters decision would be shared with Board Mem­bers once available.

3. The Board noted the paper and agreed to the recom­mend­a­tions: α) To approve the Integ­rated Wild­fire Man­age­ment Plan.

4. Action Points Arising: i. Update action at 2.2 Muir­burn: ​“All muir­burn prac­ti­tion­ers to adhere to the require­ments of the new stat­utory muir­burn licens­ing system”.

Cairngorms Trust and Com­munity Led Loc­al Devel­op­ment update (Paper 3)

1. Brid­get Trus­sell, Com­munity Grants Man­ager and Nancy Cham­bers, Cairngorms Trust Man­ager intro­duced the paper which updates the Park Author­ity Board on the pro­gress made by the Cairngorms Trust in deliv­er­ing fund­ing to pro­jects across the Cairngorms. In 2026, it will be the 10-year anniversary of the Cairngorms Trust becom­ing a Scot­tish Char­it­able Incor­por­ated Organ­isa­tion (SCIO), mark­ing a sig­ni­fic­ant mile­stone in its development.

2. This paper high­lights the impact and out­comes of the Trust’s fun­ded ini­ti­at­ives to date and seeks views from the Park Author­ity board on the charity’s poten­tial future operations.

3. The paper also presents pro­gress in the evol­u­tion of new approaches to Com­munity Led Loc­al Devel­op­ment (CLLD) fund­ing, fol­low­ing the loss of European Uni­on (EU) LEAD­ER fund­ing as a con­sequence of the UK’s exit from the EU.

4. The Board con­sidered the detail in the Paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the fol­low­ing: α) Board Mem­bers praised Officers for their work on these pro­jects, high­light­ing great examples of ambi­tions of com­munit­ies. It was explained that ideas are being cre­ated with­in the Nation­al Park and fund­ing allows them to take off, show they can be suc­cess­ful and allow oth­ers with­in the Nation­al Park to roll out sim­il­ar pro­jects to sup­port loc­al com­munit­ies, includ­ing as a response to rur­al poverty. b) Com­ments were made regard­ing the eval­u­ation of the mean­ing / impacts on com­munit­ies of the pro­jects which have already been fun­ded to inform future spend. It was also noted that plans need to be in place to allow pro­jects to be sus­tain­able when fund­ing ends.

c) Board Mem­bers noted that they would like to con­tin­ue to see a focus on grants / fund­ing dis­trib­uted across the full Nation­al Park. d) Dis­cus­sions were had around third sec­tor organ­isa­tions hav­ing to put fund­ing into pro­jects and loc­al ini­ti­at­ives that may pre­vi­ously have been sup­por­ted by dis­cre­tion­ary fund­ing from loc­al and health author­it­ies. It was noted that unfor­tu­nately loc­al and health author­it­ies can­not fund all pro­vi­sions and that third sec­tor organ­isa­tions have always sup­por­ted edu­ca­tion­al needs where pos­sible to allow young people to thrive.

Steve Mickle­wright left at 10.23am e) A ques­tion was raised regard­ing applic­a­tions and pro­jects grow­ing, how much con­sid­er­a­tion is in Place Plans. Trust Man­ager explained the applic­a­tions are opened for every­one across the park and the team try to spread the fund­ing park wide, as much as pos­sible. Com­munity Grants Man­ager explained Place Plans will be taken into con­sid­er­a­tion on a stra­tegic level when set­ting fund­ing pri­or­it­ies; along­side Com­munity Action Plans that are more loc­al­ised, and it’s import­ant to liaise with loc­al author­it­ies and devel­op fund­ing strategies aligned with them.

Steve Micklewirght returned at 10.26am f) A Board Mem­ber ques­tioned that the alloc­a­tion for this year is largely cap­it­al and what impact that will have on the CLLD’s abil­ity to ful­fil pro­jects, and if there is any impact eval­u­ation on any of the assess­ments that have been car­ried out. Regard­ing eval­u­ation the Com­munity Grants Man­ager explained Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment reques­ted loc­al action groups to input into the Social Value engine to eval­u­ate impact, how­ever this is more on nation­al scale, there­fore the team are work­ing with the Inform­a­tion Man­ager to cap­ture pre­vi­ous data, once col­lated this will be shared with the Board. g) A ques­tion was raised regard­ing how CLLD sup­ports entre­pren­eur­ship and pro­mot­ing enter­prise. Com­munity Grants Man­ager explained that fund­ing is avail­able to all, and they act­ively encour­age social enter­prises and small busi­ness. The team work along­side Grow Biz and oth­er organ­isa­tions to sup­port pro­jects. CLLD has a robust form­a­tion, along with the sup­port from

h) a the Park Author­ity which allows the funds to sup­port a dynam­ic range of pro­jects. A ques­tion was raised regard­ing the lived exper­i­ence pan­el. Trust Man­ager explained the lived exper­i­ence pan­el was put togeth­er with assist­ance of an inde­pend­ent con­tract­or who has pre­vi­ously worked with the Black, Asi­an and minor­ity eth­nic (BAME) com­munity. Head of Cairngorms 2030 high­lighted the Park Author­ity were also work­ing in part­ner­ship with the lived exper­i­ence pan­el as part of the C2030 effect­ive engage­ment pro­ject. i) A Board Mem­ber com­men­ted that a strength of the work of the Cairngorms Trust is that it can be more respons­ive to short term needs, while still cre­at­ing long term rela­tion­ships, high­light­ing this was a qual­ity of what the fund can offer. j) A ques­tion was raised regard­ing the con­nec­tion and ambi­tions of the role of the Cairngorms Trust, the Park Author­ity and the loc­al com­munit­ies. Cairngorms Trust Man­ager explained that the Cairngorms Trust are reg­u­larly over sub­scribed for funds, high­light­ing there is a need which then feeds into the CLLD fund­ing. Cairngorms Trust are in dis­cus­sions with Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment to see if it is pos­sible for the fund­ing to become more long term with multi-year fund­ing alloc­a­tions a con­sist­ent ask to gov­ern­ment from the CLLD sec­tor. There is ambi­tion to return to pre­vi­ous part­ner­ship work with com­munit­ies in deliv­ery of their longer-term ambi­tions. k) A ques­tion was raised regard­ing the per­cent­age of cap­it­al verses rev­en­ue with this year’s fund­ing applic­a­tion, if less rev­en­ue, can the team identi­fy the sources and if there is sup­port the Board can offer. Com­munity Grants Man­ager explained a plan is cre­ated with the CLLD fund­ing from Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment (SG) based on what the fund aims to deliv­er, using com­munity action plans to devel­op and meet needs, ensur­ing there is a bot­tom-up approach. It was noted that cap­it­al­isa­tion of funds is not ideal for some com­munit­ies, there­fore the expres­sions of interest were opened as early as pos­sible, to max­im­ise poten­tial for the £275,000 fun­ded to be alloc­ated to com­munit­ies / pro­jects. Com­munity Grants Man­ager went on to explain that the approach to cap­it­al­isa­tion has been flex­ible from SG allow­ing the team to work closely with com­munit­ies to sup­port early stages of cap­it­al pro­jects as well as pro­gress­ing small cap­it­al pro­jects. It was also noted that the grants team work with all enquir­ies to identi­fy suit­able fund­ing, wheth­er from a Cairngorms Trust, the Park Author­ity or source an altern­at­ive. The grants

team also work closely with the Rur­al Devel­op­ment team and Vol­un­tary Action Badenoch and Strath­spey (VABS), Marr Area Part­ner­ship (MAP) and oth­er Third Sec­tor Inter­faces (TSI) to sup­port com­munit­ies with this.

1. The Board noted the paper and agreed to the recom­mend­a­tions: α) Note pro­gress to date in deliv­ery of Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan and Cor­por­ate Plan object­ive in respect of CLLD. b) Dis­cuss value of CLLD actions to date. c) Note, dis­cuss and provide stra­tegic advice on for­ward plans In sup­port of future CLLD pro­grammes of work.
2. Action Points Arising: None

Form­al Board broke for a com­fort break at 10.55am

Form­al Board meet­ing resumed at 11.05am

Cairngorms 2023 – 2024 and Q1 2025 pro­gress report (Paper 4)

1. Dav­id Clyne, Head of Cairngorms 2030 intro­duced the paper which presents the status of pro­gramme and risk man­age­ment, based on inform­a­tion in pro­ject reports for the first year of the deliv­ery phase (2024) and the peri­od from Janu­ary to March 2025, and updated where appro­pri­ate to reflect cur­rent pos­i­tion as at the time of writ­ing togeth­er with the planned work to end June 2025.

2. The Board con­sidered the detail in the Paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the fol­low­ing: α) Board Con­vener shared appre­ci­ation to staff on deliv­er­ing a vast amount of work, not­ing Board Mem­bers had the priv­ilege to see the work trans­form lives through these pro­jects, such as the deer lar­ders. It was noted the Con­vener and CEO are pur­su­ing the spe­cif­ic point of trans­port fund­ing at a seni­or level. b) A Board Mem­ber asked for cla­ri­fic­a­tion on the mean­ing of gami­fic­a­tion. Head of C2030 explained this was a pro­ject designed in part­ner­ship with Edin­burgh uni­ver­sity and the Park Authority’s Plan­ning Team, which uses a gam­ing ele­ment to gath­er inform­a­tion through an excit­ing and inter­est­ing way,

c) allow­ing dis­cus­sions on loc­al pri­or­it­ies. The C2030 Team then gath­er this inform­a­tion and eval­u­ate the find­ings. A Board Mem­ber com­men­ted that there was no men­tion of a cycle hub in Tomin­toul. Head of C2030 explained that there are pro­pos­als to devel­op cycle hubs in all main vil­lages includ­ing Tomin­toul and a future report will cap­ture more of these. d) A ques­tion was raised regard­ing the bio secur­ity of com­munity deer lar­ders ask­ing if these issues have been resolved yet. Head of C2030 explained that they were still eval­u­at­ing the pro­cess of the setup, the cur­rent deer lar­ders have only been oper­a­tion­al for six months, and all issues will be assessed as part of long-term deliv­ery strategy. e) Dis­cus­sions were had around the fund­ing issues with act­ive travel, ask­ing if there had been improve­ments on bus stops and ques­tion­ing if it would be a pos­sib­il­ity to have a road cross­ing at the High­land Folk Museum as this is a dan­ger­ous sec­tion of the road. Head of C2030 explained that the road cross­ing would not be part of the C2030 pro­jects, but this will be high­lighted to the Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices and Act­ive Travel. It was noted there was work being car­ried out along­side the High­land Coun­cil relat­ing to the bus stops, to help improve bus travel and make use of pub­lic trans­port easi­er and trans­port green­er. f) Dis­cus­sions were had around bike stor­age and the import­ance of hav­ing bikes safely stored. Head of C2030 agreed that secure bike stor­age is a fun­da­ment­al part of cycle hub pro­pos­als. g) A Board Mem­ber reques­ted fur­ther inform­a­tion on com­munity bene­fits from nature res­tor­a­tion along­side the Scot­tish Land Com­mis­sion (SLC) to bet­ter under­stand how land is exchan­ging hands and how this affects the com­munity. Board Con­vener noted that the Board can look at doing a fur­ther ses­sion on this, explain­ing SLC will be involved in a future Board Busi­ness ses­sion. h) A Board Mem­ber ques­tioned the long-term fin­an­cial viab­il­ity of the out­door demen­tia resource centre and if this was taken into account when foun­ded. Head of C2030 explained that the sus­tain­ab­il­ity and fin­an­cial plan was a key com­pon­ent which will be provided by 2028 and over the next six months explore the long-term plan, focus­ing on brain health and whole life­time care. i) A Board Mem­ber ques­tioned the role of the Well­being Eco­nomy pro­ject. Head of C2030 explained that the well­being eco­nomy pro­ject is aligned to the Parks

Well­being Eco­nomy Action Plan and will primar­ily serve a mon­it­or­ing and eval­u­ation role in meas­ur­ing the impact of Cairngorms 2030.

1. The Board noted the paper and agreed to the recom­mend­a­tions: α) Note the pro­gress to date and future plans for Cairngorms 2030 deliv­ery b) Note spe­cif­ic points of Cairngorms 2030 deliv­ery risk. c) High­light any issues arising that mem­bers may feel need spe­cif­ic con­sid­er­a­tion by staff from a stra­tegic and board perspective.
2. Action Points Arising: None

Com­mit­tee Minutes (Paper 5)

1. Sandy Brem­ner, Board Con­vener intro­duced the paper which sets out the minutes from for the fol­low­ing meet­ings from 24 Janu­ary 2025 to 14 March 2025 (Annex 1) Resources Com­mit­tee, 24 Janu­ary 2025 and Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee, 14 March

2. This paper also presents the con­fid­en­tial minutes for the fol­low­ing meet­ings from 24 Janu­ary 2025 to 14 March 2025 (Annex 2) Resources Com­mit­tee, 24 Janu­ary Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee, 14 March

3. The Board noted the paper and agreed to the recom­mend­a­tions: α) Note the minutes of the Resources Com­mit­tee and Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee. b) Note the con­fid­en­tial minutes of the Resources Com­mit­tee and Per­form­ance Committee.

4. Action Points Arising: None

AOCB

1. None

Date of Next Meeting

1. The date of the next meet­ing is 26 Septem­ber 2025 in person.

2. The meet­ing con­cluded at 10.43am

Action	Status
Action Points from meet­ing on 22 March 2024:
Paper 1 CEO report
At para 7
i. CEO, to pre­pare a brief­ing note on farm­ing activ­ity and stat­ist­ics with­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park and dis­trib­ute to the Board.	In hand
Update:
Work being car­ried out with Scotland’s Rur­al Col­lege (SRUC) and should be avail­able for the Septem­ber Board meeting.
Action	Status
Action Points from meet­ing on 22 Novem­ber 2024:
Paper 1 — CEO Report
At para 6b
i. Review the Plan­ning call-in pro­tocol and dis­cuss at a future plan­ning committee.	In hand
Update:
Inform­al dis­cus­sion on call-in cri­ter­ia being held with com­mit­tee mem­bers after plan­ning com­mit­tee on 29 August.
Paper 5 — Act­ive Cairngorms and end of sea­son vis­it­or report
At para 23a
i. Include key chal­lenges in mit­ig­a­tion and learn­ing in future papers.	In hand To be included in 2025 report
At para 23c
ii. Stat­ist­ics on camp site and lux­ury camp­ing options with­in the Nation­al Park.	In hand To be included in 2025 report
Update:
Action	Status
Action Points from meet­ing on 28 March 2025:
Paper 2 – 2025⁄26 Budget and Oper­a­tion­al Plan

| i. Inform­a­tion on the num­ber of eco­lo­gic­al bar­ri­ers that are being removed on catch­ments to be sought and cir­cu­lated to the Board and thought to be giv­en to put­ting this into a staff mem­bers for­ward work plan. | In hand | | ii. Scope of extend­ing the work on spe­cies man­age­ment spe­cific­ally geese fur­ther up the Spey into Badenoch to be invest­ig­ated. | In hand | | Update: | | | Inform­a­tion is being sought for the num­ber of eco­lo­gic­al bar­ri­ers that are being removed on catch­ments, but not yet avail­able. Will be shared with the Board once avail­able. | | | Action | Status | | Action Points from meet­ing on 27 June 2025: | | | Paper 1 CEO Report | | | At para 6 c | | | i. Clerks to the Board to share the minutes from group meet­ings that Board Mem­bers sit on to the board portal. | In hand | | Paper 2 — Integ­rated Wild­fire Man­age­ment Plan — final approv­al | | | At para 10 a | | | i. Update action at 2.2 Muir­burn: All muir­burn prac­ti­tion­ers to adhere to the require­ments of the new stat­utory muir­burn licens­ing sys­tem. | Completed |