Formal board meeting - draft minutes - 28 November 2025

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 1 of 18

Draft minutes of the Form­al Board meet­ing Held at Learn­ing Hive at the High­land Wild­life Park, Kin­craig, Kin­gussie PH211NL In per­son 26 Septem­ber 2025 at 10.00am

Present in per­son Sandy Brem­ner (Con­vener) Geva Black­ett Peter Cos­grove Paul Gibb John Kirk Lauren Mac­Cal­lum Ian McLar­en Steve Mickle­wright Michael Williamson

Elean­or Mack­in­tosh (Deputy Con­vener) Jack­ie Brier­ton Kenny Deans Rus­sell Jones Bill Lob­ban Fiona McLean Duncan Miller Ann Ross

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 Berry, Head of Plan­ning and Chief Plan­ning Officer Oliv­er Dav­ies, Head of Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engage­ment Mal­colm Smith, Agri­cul­tur­al Adviser Kar­en John­stone, Clerk to the Board

Apo­lo­gies Han­nah Grist Derek Ross

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Wel­come and introduction

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

2. Board Con­vener noted the sad passing of a pre­vi­ous Board Mem­ber, Greggor Rim­mel say­ing he would be sadly missed and passing on thanks for all he had done for the Park Authority.

3. A spe­cial wel­come to new Board Mem­ber, Ian McLar­en. lan will be sit­ting on the Resources Com­mit­tee and repla­cing Peter Cos­grove on the Audit and Risk Committee.

Approv­al of minutes of pre­vi­ous meetings

1. The minutes from the pre­vi­ous meet­ing held on 27 June 2025 was approved with no amendments.

Mat­ters arising not covered elsewhere

1. There were no 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.	Com­pleted

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:	—-
An inform­al dis­cus­sion on call-in cri­ter­ia has been sched­uled after the last few plan­ning com­mit­tee meet­ings, although it has been deferred on each occa­sion due oth­er agenda items

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over-run­ning. The dis­cus­sion has been re-pro­grammed to be held later today after the Form­al Board meet­ing. |Paper 5 — Act­ive Cairngorms and end of sea­son vis­it­or report| — -| |At para 23a| — -| |i. Include key chal­lenges in mit­ig­a­tion and learn­ing in future papers.|To be included in 2025 report| |At para 23c| — -| |ii. Stat­ist­ics on camp site and lux­ury camp­ing options with­in the Nation­al Park|In hand| |Update:| — -| |Stat­ist­ics on camp site and lux­ury camp­ing options with­in the Nation­al Park.| — -| |As there is no firm defin­i­tion of lux­ury camp­ing or ​“glamp­ing” and some premises can be lis­ted as self-cater­ing prop­er­ties, the fol­low­ing is a best estim­ate. The Park Author­ity sub­scribe to annu­al reports on the volume and value of tour­ism which in turn use a data­base of premises in the area. This shows a total of 27 busi­nesses lis­ted as camp­ing and / or cara­van sites. 21 of these busi­nesses have fur­ther accom­mod­a­tion that is neither tour­ing pitches nor cara­vans and these are con­sidered likely to be lux­ury camp­ing prop­er­ties — for example wig­wams, yurts and even a train carriage.| — -|

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

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|Update:| — -| |Inform­a­tion is being sought for the num­ber of eco­lo­gic­al bar­ri­ers that are being removed on catch­ments, but not yet avail­able. This is one of the indic­at­ors in the Cairngorms Nature Index. Will be shared with the Board once avail­able.| — -| |There has been little or no demand from farm­ers out­with the cur­rent area to extend the goose con­trol scheme. Addi­tion­al factors in con­sid­er­ing exten­sion have been capa­city and prac­tic­al­it­ies in the con­tract­or net­work. Also, high kill rates of geese are not dir­ectly trans­lat­ing to high reduc­tions in num­bers on con­trol sites, which could indic­ate res­id­ent greylags are filling the con­trol areas and thus hav­ing an effect on the wider area, or that there is more inter­change between res­id­ent and migrat­ory geese. This needs more time to estab­lish.| — -| |i.|Paper 3 ‑Con­sulta­tion response to High­land Coun­cil Vis­it­or Levy Pro­pos­al| — -| ||Sen­tence to be added to end of con­sulta­tion response as detailed in para­graph 18a.|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|

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
Update:	—-
Advis­ory group meet­ing minutes that have been approved have been added to the web­site and linked to via the Board Site. Out­stand­ing advis­ory group minutes will be added fol­low­ing the approv­al of the minutes at the next meeting.	—-

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 5 of 18 |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|

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) Board Con­vener wel­comed the Cab­in­et Secretary’s approv­al of the Fire Byelaws not­ing this was an example of the Park Author­ity hand­ling an issue of huge import­ance, listen­ing care­fully to con­sulta­tion and tak­ing action to reduce the threat of fires, save lives and wild­life. The Con­vener thanked every­one involved in help­ing with this work. b) A Board Mem­ber ques­tioned if the eco­nom­ic impact is being con­sidered in the next stage of the gamebird man­age­ment pro­cess. CEO explained the socio- eco­nom­ic impacts would be con­sidered. The main issue is to ensure that the work is cairngorms focussed as most data on gamebird impacts has been col­lated in the south of Eng­land where the land use is very dif­fer­ent. c) A ques­tion was raised regard­ing the water man­age­ment and how to encour­age people to con­sider the impacts of this in the future. CEO explained that long term water man­age­ment sup­plies are part of the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP) and inform­a­tion on this will be gathered as part of the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (LDP).

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 6 of 18 d) Dis­cus­sions were had around the new web­site, prais­ing the vast improve­ments. It was sug­ges­ted that a fur­ther improve­ment could be high­light­ing loc­al busi­nesses that have opened in the Nation­al Park with help of the grants offered by the Park Author­ity. CEO agreed this would be a pos­it­ive story to share on the web­site and some­thing the team could look into. It was also sug­ges­ted hav­ing heads of ser­vice details on the web­site to allow the pub­lic to engage bet­ter. CEO explained that due to cyber secur­ity reas­ons, the decision was taken to keep a small num­ber of email addresses / con­tact num­bers on the web­site, how­ever, agreed it would be bene­fi­cial to include Head of Ser­vice bio­graph­ies on the web­site along­side Exec­ut­ive Team.

10.17am Steve Mickle­wright joined the meeting

1. e) Dis­cus­sions were had around con­sulta­tion on the LDP Evid­ence Report and how the responses are gathered, sug­gest­ing it is too com­plic­ated and a lot of work for unpaid volun­teers. Mem­bers asked to feed­back con­cerns to Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment (SG) as pub­lic have con­cerns of con­sulta­tion overkill which will res­ult in a lack of engage­ment dur­ing later stages of LDP pre­par­a­tion. CEO sym­path­ised with this and noted this would be shared with SG. f) A Board Mem­ber ques­tioned if the res­ults from the annu­al beaver sur­vey would be fed back to those in areas of high risk. CEO explained the sur­vey will be dis­cussed at the beaver man­age­ment and mit­ig­a­tion group. g) Dis­cus­sions were had around the fire man­age­ment com­munity asset register in Badenoch and Strath­spey. Head of Land Man­age­ment explained this was raised at a debrief regard­ing the Dava fire and accept­ance in the com­munity that the register needs improved. The Park Author­ity is work­ing along­side the Strath­spey Com­mand­er, to improve the work­ing of the fire access register. h) Dis­cus­sions were had around the improve­ment in engage­ment through social media and the pos­sib­il­ity of using con­tent cre­at­ors / influ­en­cers to share spe­cif­ic sci­entif­ic and focused con­tent around fires to engage pub­lic. Head of Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engage­ment agreed this can be a good way of enga­ging with the pub­lic, and that we had exper­i­ence of this from pre­vi­ous cam­paigns. This will be explored as part of the fire byelaws work.

The Board noted the paper. The Con­vener thanks the CEO and all staff on behalf of the Board.

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1. Action Points Arising: i. CEO to write to SG to raise con­cerns about LDP Evid­ence Report process.

Revi­sion of Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Stand­ing Orders (Paper 2)

1. Dav­id Berry, Head of Plan­ning and Chief Plan­ning Officer and Gav­in Miles, Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place intro­duced the paper which seeks form­al approv­al and adop­tion of pro­posed updates to the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Stand­ing Orders. It fol­lows con­sid­er­a­tion and agree­ment of updates to the Stand­ing Orders at the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee meet­ing on 29 August 2025.

2. The Board con­sidered the detail in the Paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the fol­low­ing: α) Dis­cus­sions were had around Board Mem­bers hav­ing their cam­er­as on while attend­ing a meet­ing online. Some mem­bers felt that it shows pres­ence in the meet­ing and can show pub­lic that you are act­ively listen­ing. Oth­er mem­bers explained due to broad­band con­nec­tions in rur­al areas it can be dif­fi­cult for cam­er­as to be on per­man­ently. Sug­ges­tions were made for Board Mem­bers to go to a loc­al pub­lic area with stronger broad­band speeds, how­ever this is not always feas­ible for mem­bers. There­fore, the decision was made to amend the word­ing in the Stand­ing Orders to read: Mem­bers should have their cam­era switched on (unless there is a spe­cif­ic tech­nic­al reas­on why it is not pos­sible at that meeting).

3. The Board noted the paper and agreed to the recom­mend­a­tions: a) Approve and adopt the updated Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Stand­ing Orders set out in Annex 1 to this paper.

4. Action Points Arising: i. Amend the word­ing in the Stand­ing Orders to read: Mem­bers should have their cam­era switched on (unless there is a spe­cif­ic tech­nic­al reas­on why it is not pos­sible at that meeting).

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 8 of 18 Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan annu­al update (Paper 3)

1. Gav­in Miles, Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place intro­duced the paper which sum­mar­ises the mon­it­or­ing frame­work for the [Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan](National Park Part­ner­ship Plan) (NPPP) and iden­ti­fies some of the key areas where indic­at­ors show pro­gress or where officers expect pro­gress to be demon­strated in future after the third year of deliv­ery of the NPPP.

2. The Board con­sidered the detail in the Paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the fol­low­ing: α) A board mem­ber raised the issues of child­care with­in the Nation­al Park and how to sup­port new child­care busi­nesses and encour­age young people to start careers in child­care as this would be a fant­ast­ic busi­ness oppor­tun­ity which is des­per­ately required, espe­cially through the school hol­i­days when tour­ists vis­it the area, this can have a det­ri­ment­al impact on eco­nomy. b) A Board Mem­ber explained they felt like object­ive 12 b i) is bey­ond the Park Authority’s remit and care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion should be giv­en to NPPP if this should be retained, and if so, this should be meas­ured against pro­por­tion of young and work­ing age pop­u­la­tions main­tained rel­at­ive to com­par­able areas in Scot­land as this would be a bet­ter way to approach it. c) Dis­cus­sions were had around ​“green jobs” and if they should just be called ​“jobs” in the next NPPP while also includ­ing tra­di­tion­al skills with­in these as well as skills and train­ing being offered. Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place explained that Eco­nom­ic Steer­ing Group have dis­cussed how to identi­fy key areas and gaps in skills and how to identi­fy courses and pro­grammes with­in the Nation­al Park to tar­get these. Eco­nom­ic Steer­ing Group also dis­cussed the demo­graph­ic in the Nation­al Park, not­ing that there was more than 50% of people liv­ing in the area over 50 years old who could be encour­aged to take up employ­ment or start up a small busi­ness on a part time basis with help from pilot pro­grammes which is import­ant to be included in the NPPP to encour­age part­ners to devel­op and reach object­ives. d) A Board Mem­ber noted that pub­lic trans­port is still an issue due to bus / train times not being suit­able for those work­ing in the towns / vil­lages. Also noted that cycle paths still need improve­ment. Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place explained the Park Author­ity are work­ing along­side oth­er organ­isa­tions to

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 9 of 18 e) improve this, but noted work on Aviemore to Car­rbridge cycle path is tied in with the work being car­ried out on the A9. f) A Board Mem­ber praised the trans­port improve­ments in Deeside, not­ing the new bus route from Aber­deen to Dun­dee is being very well used and has made a big improve­ment. g) Board Mem­bers com­men­ted that the NPPP should be con­sid­er­ing the impact of peat­land work, not just the quant­ity. h) A dis­cus­sion was had around 20-minute neigh­bour­hoods and the struggles of achiev­ing this in the High­lands. Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place explained the meth­od­o­logy of this was to have key ser­vices with­in a 20-minute walk, drive or cycle to rur­al com­munit­ies, which is achiev­able, espe­cially now with elec­tric vehicles being more pop­u­lar. i) A ques­tion was raised if the 75% tar­get for afford­able hous­ing was achiev­able. Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place explained that this tar­get is not likely to be achiev­able for an indi­vidu­al developer on their own but will require sig­ni­fic­ant pub­lic sec­tor invest­ment as well as com­munit­ies and the pub­lic sec­tor tak­ing more own­er­ship of land.

1. The Board noted the paper and agreed to the recom­mend­a­tions: α) Note the pro­gress sum­mar­ised in the paper and asso­ci­ated Annex 1.

2. Action Points Arising: None.

Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2027 – 2032 Timetable (Paper 4)

1. Grant Moir, CEO intro­duced the paper which provides an ini­tial timetable for the devel­op­ment of the 2027 — 2032 Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP).

2. The Board con­sidered the detail in the Paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the fol­low­ing: α) A Board Mem­ber ques­tioned the safety of cyber-attacks from using mobile apps. CEO noted that the Park Author­ity have cyber essen­tial plus secur­ity, mean­ing it is as secure as pos­sible. b) Dis­cus­sions were had around con­sulta­tion fatigue and approach­ing this is a new way to more effect­ively engage with com­munit­ies. CEO explained they will build on evid­ence already gained from work on Cairngorms 2030 (C2030) such as com­munity drop in events, to speak with pub­lic and gather

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 10 of 18 c) inform­a­tion in less of a con­sulta­tion situ­ation. Head of Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engage­ment noted that the C2030 Engage­ment team have been test­ing a vari­ety of innov­at­ive engage­ment tech­niques, and these will be con­sidered as part of our plans for the NPPP con­sulta­tion. d) Dis­cus­sions were had around child­care and how to encour­age this to be a busi­ness oppor­tun­ity. CEO noted the Park Author­ity can work along­side organ­isa­tions as some aspects are for oth­er part­ners to lead on, as they would be bet­ter suited to deliv­er on cer­tain object­ives. e) A Board Mem­ber ques­tioned the change to facil­it­ate imple­ment­a­tion, ask­ing if this will affect the pro­cess to talk with oth­er agen­cies. CEO explained the Park Author­ity always works along­side oth­er organ­isa­tions with­in the pub­lic sec­tor, and if they have a stat­utory duty to facil­it­ate imple­ment­a­tion, rather than simply hav­ing regard to the NPPP, then they may be more inves­ted. Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate change noted there is a poten­tial strength in this as agen­cies could be more likely to speak with one voice, giv­ing more clar­ity to land man­agers with clear object­ives and would res­ult in more alignment.

1. The Board noted the paper and agreed to the recom­mend­a­tions: a) Agree the timetable for the devel­op­ment of the NPPP 2027 – 2032.

2. Action Points Arising: None.

Form­al Board broke for a com­fort break at 11.15am

Form­al Board resumed at 11.30am

Agri­cul­tur­al land use and farm­ing activ­ity (Paper 5)

1. Colin McCle­an, Head of Land Man­age­ment and Mal­colm Smith, Agri­cul­tur­al Adviser intro­duced the paper which sets out an over­view of farm­ing and croft­ing in the Nation­al Park over the past 20 years, based on June census data. The inform­a­tion provides pre­lim­in­ary con­text on agri­cul­ture in the Nation­al Park, how sys­tems have changed and some of the influ­ences which have driv­en those changes. Sub­sequently, more detailed dis­cus­sions on policy set­ting and stra­tegic dir­ec­tion will take place as part of devel­op­ing the next Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP).

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 11 of 18 Fur­ther dis­cus­sion will be sup­por­ted by an eval­u­ation of the amount of pub­lic money inves­ted in farm­ing and croft­ing in the Nation­al Park and the out­comes towards which it is dir­ec­ted. This will be as part of a study of the envir­on­ment­al, social and eco­nom­ic value of farm­ing and croft­ing in the Nation­al Park. This work is cur­rently being com­mis­sioned in part­ner­ship with the Scotland’s Rur­al Col­lege (SRUC) and Loch Lomond and the Trossachs Nation­al Park Author­ity (LLT­NPA) and will be presen­ted to Board in due course.

1. The Board con­sidered the detail in the Paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the fol­low­ing: α) Board Mem­bers noted the import­ance of this work and the dif­fi­culty of gath­er­ing the data for the paper, thank­ing the authors for their work on this. b) A Board Mem­ber praised the appoint­ment of the Agri­cul­tur­al Adviser, not­ing the Park Author­ity is mov­ing in a pos­it­ive dir­ec­tion, keep­ing dis­cus­sions ongo­ing with farm­ers, crofters, and advis­ory groups. c) Dis­cus­sions were had around the change in farm­ing and how it is imper­at­ive to encour­age young farm­ers to move into the sec­tor, train­ing them and to con­tin­ue with tri­als for cut­ting costs and improv­ing busi­ness devel­op­ments. A sug­ges­tion was made to sup­port young farm­ers with cre­at­ing robust busi­ness plans to sup­port farms in times of mar­ket volat­il­ity and chan­ging policy. In order for young people to want to come into the industry, farm busi­nesses need to be able to sup­port incomes that give people a decent stand­ard of liv­ing. d) A Board Mem­ber ques­tioned the impacts of inher­it­ance tax, (not­ing some farms are keep­ing sheep graz­ing land to avoid this, if there would be a pos­sib­il­ity to re-wild land to give the same bene­fits). Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change explained that work in the C2030 Pro­gram the Nation­al Park has included look­ing at land-based business’s resi­li­ence, vul­ner­ab­il­it­ies and changes. The work is led by Land Man­agers identi­fy­ing the impacts of change in policy and income streams on busi­ness plans and how a work force strategy could sup­port a trans­ition. This will sup­port them in deal­ing with vul­ner­ab­il­it­ies and strategies that are chan­ging and nav­ig­ate an out­come from a busi­ness sense. Part of the Farm adviser’s job is to facil­it­ate Know­ledge Exchange events where farm­ers can be shown new technologies

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 12 of 18 e) and dis­cuss ideas. These meet­ings have the added bonus of improv­ing men­tal health by get­ting farm­ers off farm and speak­ing to each oth­er. f) A ques­tion was raised regard­ing the total work­force fig­ures being up and if this was affected by hol­i­day lets adding to tour­ism lists. Agri­cul­tur­al Adviser explained the data depends on the per­cent­age of the work they are doing on the farm. g) A Board Mem­ber ques­tioned when the future data will be gathered and what the inten­tion of this data will be, if it will be shared with advis­ory groups. Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change explained this is a rudi­ment­ary cut of data to give mem­bers a snap­shot of recent trends in farm­ing. Future work will be done to take the census fur­ther and look at pay­ment in the Nation­al Park to under­stand where fund­ing is being tar­geted. It was noted that advis­ory groups were made aware of the sur­vey and were con­sul­ted on the met­ric to be examined. Future data will be taken to them to con­sider and devel­op. h) Dis­cus­sions were had around the chal­lenges of tech­no­logy in farm­ing and if this was redu­cing jobs. Agri­cul­tur­al Adviser explained there are less farm­ers now due to tech­no­logy, how­ever this allows farm­ers to spend more time man­aging the farm and con­cen­trate on oth­er aspects, even though the tech­no­logy still requires the farm­er to oper­ate it. i) A ques­tion was raised regard­ing farm plans and if the Park Author­ity were sup­port­ing farm­ers to write these. Agri­cul­ture Advisor high­lighted that the whole farm plan has five meas­ures set out for farm­ers to achieve by 2028, it is in the farm­ers best interest to com­plete all meas­ures that apply to their busi­ness as it can give access to fund­ing like the recent Future Farm Invest­ment Scheme. The Park Author­ity can help them to apply for fund­ing and sup­port through­out, with the Agri­cul­ture Advisor offer­ing indi­vidu­al sup­port to those who need. Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change noted it’s import­ant to look for areas where the Park Author­ity adds value and where it might be at risk of duplic­at­ing ser­vices provided by the private sec­tor, explain­ing it is a com­plic­ated land­scape of pro­viders and the Park Author­ity should care­fully con­sider where would anoth­er organ­isa­tion be best served to lead. j) A Board Mem­ber raised con­cerns about dis­crep­an­cies in the work­force data presen­ted in the paper. It was also noted that women now make up 40% of the work­force, reflect­ing increased oppor­tun­it­ies. The Head of Land Man­age­ment will review the census data and invest­ig­ate the inconsistencies,

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 13 of 18 k) includ­ing demo­graph­ic break­downs and trends such as the young­er age pro­file of farm­ers. l) A Board Mem­ber com­men­ted that the dates for the envir­on­ment­al pay­ments are not suit­able for the area and would encour­age SG to make changes to coin­cide bet­ter with the later sea­sons to bene­fit the wildlife.

1. The Board noted the paper and agreed to the recom­mend­a­tions: α) Note the over­all pic­ture of farm­ing activ­ity, trends and pre­dic­tions for the future.

2. Action Points Arising: i. Head of Land Man­age­ment will invest­ig­ate the fig­ures and amend the data, update paper and share fig­ures with Board Members.

Form­al Board broke for lunch at 12.00pm

Form­al Board resume at 12.30pm

Kenny Deans and Bill Lob­ban left at 12.30pm

Pub­lic Sec­tor Reform (Paper 6)

1. Grant Moir, CEO intro­duced the paper which provides an over­view of the Pub­lic Sec­tor Reform (PSR) agenda with­in Scot­land and the role the Park Author­ity will play in deliv­er­ing this.

2. The Board con­sidered the detail in the Paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the fol­low­ing: α) A Board Mem­ber ques­tioned how PSR would work with loc­al author­it­ies. CEO explained that there is close work­ing through the place pro­to­type work, both nation­ally and loc­ally. b) A Board Mem­ber was con­cerned about the times­cale as there would be an elec­tion and if this would affect the Park Authority’s pos­i­tion. CEO noted that there would be the same gen­er­al pres­sures around budgets post elec­tion but that the solu­tions may be slightly dif­fer­ent depend­ing on the Gov­ern­ment. c) A Board Mem­ber quer­ied if fund­ing could be ring fenced at a nation­al level, for example for ranger ser­vices. CEO explained that the Park Author­ity can­not ring fence fund­ing, the Board make the decision on what the fund­ing is spent

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 14 of 18 d) on. The PSR com­mit­ment is to reduce 20% of cor­por­ate costs, how­ever the Park Author­ity still needs to deliv­er on the ground, cut­ting budget will affect front line deliv­ery and the Board need to be aware of the impacts of cut­ting budgets in dif­fer­ent areas. e) A Board Mem­ber quer­ied mon­it­or­ing the pro­gress of the work that could impact the Park Author­ity. CEO explained there is a PSR meet­ing in Octo­ber, and the Park Author­ity are involved through their SG spon­sor team and col­lect­ive gov­ern­ment work, com­mis­sions that are all linked togeth­er, and the Board will be updated on all stra­tegic impacts.

1. The Board noted the paper and agreed to the recom­mend­a­tions: α) Note the stra­tegic dir­ec­tion from Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment. b) Note the place pro­to­type work in the Dee and South Esk catch­ments as part of the devel­op­ing PSR work.

2. Action Points Arising: None.

Envir­on­ment Strategy and Land Use Strategy con­sulta­tion (Paper 7)

1. Andy Ford, Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change intro­duced the paper which explained that Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment are cur­rently con­sult­ing on the draft Envir­on­ment Strategy and Scotland’s Fourth Land Use Strategy, to be pub­lished March 2026. The paper presents the key points the Park Author­ity wishes to make in order for pub­lic policy and strategy to best sup­port deliv­ery of the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP).

2. The Board con­sidered the detail in the Paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the fol­low­ing: α) A Board Mem­ber shared sup­port for the multi bene­fits approach of the strategy, not­ing that the dir­ect link between peat­land res­tor­a­tion and upland biod­iversity are under­played and under­val­ued. b) Dis­cus­sions were had around the strategy mov­ing in the right dir­ec­tion, how­ever, clear, defined guid­ance to sup­port land use decision mak­ing would be required. CEO noted the key factor is what this strategy influ­ences, it is only as strong as how it aligns fund­ing and reg­u­la­tion below it. Con­sulta­tion response to SG will high­light this.

3. The Board noted the paper and agreed to the recommendations:

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 15 of 18 α) Note the key points the Park Author­ity wishes to make as part of the con­sulta­tion responses

1. Action Points Arising: None

Com­mit­tee Minutes (Paper 8)

1. Con­vener intro­duced the paper which presents the minutes for the fol­low­ing meet­ings from 14 March 2025 to 13 June 2025 (Annex 1). α) Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee, 21 March 2025 b) Resources Com­mit­tee, 16 May2025 c) Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee, 13 June 2025

2. This paper also presents the con­fid­en­tial minutes for the fol­low­ing meet­ings from 24 Janu­ary 2025 to 14 March 2025 (Annex 2). α) Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee, 21 March 2025 b) Resources Com­mit­tee, 16 May2025

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

4. Action Points Arising: None.

AOCB

1. None

Date of Next Meeting

1. The date of the next meet­ing is 28 Novem­ber in Grant­own on Spey in person.
2. The meet­ing con­cluded at 12.51pm.

Action	Status
Action Points from meet­ing on 22 Novem­ber 2024:	—-

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 16 of 18 |Paper 1 — CEO Report| — -| |At para 6b| — -| |ii. Review the Plan­ning call-in pro­tocol and dis­cuss at a future plan­ning committee.|In hand| |Update:| — -| |An inform­al dis­cus­sion on call-in cri­ter­ia has been sched­uled after the last few plan­ning com­mit­tee meet­ings, although it has been deferred on each occa­sion due oth­er agenda items over-run­ning. The dis­cus­sion has been re-pro­grammed to be held later today after the Form­al Board meet­ing.| — -| |Paper 5 — Act­ive Cairngorms and end of sea­son vis­it­or report| — -| |At para 23a| — -| |iii. Include key chal­lenges in mit­ig­a­tion and learn­ing in future papers.|To be included in 2025 report| |At para 23c| — -| |iv. Stat­ist­ics on camp site and lux­ury camp­ing options with­in the Nation­al Park|In hand| |Update:| — -| |Stat­ist­ics on camp site and lux­ury camp­ing options with­in the Nation­al Park.| — -| |As there is no firm defin­i­tion of lux­ury camp­ing or ​“glamp­ing” and some premises can be lis­ted as self-cater­ing prop­er­ties, the fol­low­ing is a best estim­ate. The Park Author­ity sub­scribe to annu­al reports on the volume and value of tour­ism which in turn use a data­base of premises in the area. This shows a total of 27 busi­nesses lis­ted as camp­ing and / or cara­van sites. 21 of these busi­nesses have fur­ther accom­mod­a­tion that is neither tour­ing pitches nor cara­vans and these are con­sidered likely to be lux­ury camp­ing prop­er­ties — for example wig­wams, yurts and even a train carriage.| — -|

Action	Status
Action Points from meet­ing on 28 March 2025:	—-
Paper 2 – 2025⁄26 Budget and Oper­a­tion­al Plan	—-
v. 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
vi. Scope of extend­ing the work on spe­cies man­age­ment spe­cific­ally geese fur­ther up the Spey into Badenoch to be investigated.	In hand

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 17 of 18 |Update:| — -| |Inform­a­tion is being sought for the num­ber of eco­lo­gic­al bar­ri­ers that are being removed on catch­ments, but not yet avail­able. This is one of the indic­at­ors in the Cairngorms Nature Index. Will be shared with the Board once avail­able.| — -| |There has been little or no demand from farm­ers out­with the cur­rent area to extend the goose con­trol scheme. Addi­tion­al factors in con­sid­er­ing exten­sion have been capa­city and prac­tic­al­it­ies in the con­tract­or net­work. Also, high kill rates of geese are not dir­ectly trans­lat­ing to high reduc­tions in num­bers on con­trol sites, which could indic­ate res­id­ent greylags are filling the con­trol areas and thus hav­ing an effect on the wider area, or that there is more inter­change between res­id­ent and migrat­ory geese. This needs more time to establish.| — -|

Action	Status
Action Points from meet­ing on 27 June 2025:	—-
Paper 1 CEO Report	—-
At para 6 c	—-
vii. Clerks to the Board to share the minutes from group meet­ings that Board Mem­bers sit on to the board portal.	In hand
Update:	—-
Advis­ory group meet­ing minutes that have been approved have been added to the web­site and linked to via the Board Site. Out­stand­ing advis­ory group minutes will be added fol­low­ing the approv­al of the minutes at the next meeting.	—-

Action	Status
Action points from meet­ing on 26 September	—-
Paper 1 CEO Report	—-
At para 8 e)	—-
i. CEO to write to SG to request a change in LDP con­sulta­tion process.	—-
Paper 2 Revi­sion of Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Stand­ing Orders	—-
At para 12 a)	—-
i. Amend the word­ing in the Stand­ing Orders to read: Mem­bers should have their cam­era switched on (unless there is a spe­cif­ic tech­nic­al reas­on for that meeting).	—-
Paper 5 Agri­cul­tur­al land use and farm­ing activity	—-

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 18 of 18 |At para 24 i)| — -| |i. Head of Land Man­age­ment will invest­ig­ate the fig­ures and amend the data, update paper and share fig­ures with Board Mem­bers.| — -| |The fig­ures being quer­ied were taken dir­ectly from inform­a­tion sup­plied by RESAS. On con­tact­ing RESAS, the dis­crep­ancy is most likely due to respond­ents not sup­ply­ing com­plete inform­a­tion on age range.| — -|