Formal Board Paper 1 Annex 1.7 - Historic and cultural heritage

This document contains an evidence report for the Cairngorms National Park Local Development Plan, focusing on its rich historic and cultural heritage. It sets out the policy context, drawing from the National Planning Framework 4 and the National Parks (Scotland) Act 2000, which aim to protect, enhance, and sustainably manage these important assets. The report provides a baseline of the Park's heritage, detailing special landscape qualities, over 15,300 Historic Environment Records, 110 scheduled monuments, 10 nationally important and 33 locally significant designed landscapes, two battlefields, five planned towns, 595 listed buildings, and 27 buildings at risk. It also highlights the linguistic heritage, with 706 people speaking Gaelic and 4,148 speaking Scots in 2022. Stakeholder engagement emphasized the value of local culture, history, and the need to protect the oral heritage and ancestral sites important to Gypsy / Traveller communities. This comprehensive evidence will inform the Proposed Plan, guiding sustainable management and enhancement of both tangible and intangible heritage within the National Park.