Formal Board Paper 4 Annex 2 - issues report

Annex 2

Core Paths Plan review – issues report

Back­ground

1. From the review of the Core Paths Plan and inform­al con­sulta­tion sev­er­al themes, pro­posed path changes and key mat­ters of interest arose. These mat­ters have been reviewed by the Access Team with input from the Loc­al Out­door Access For­um (LOAF) and reviewed by the Park Author­ity Seni­or Man­age­ment Team (SMT).
2. The mat­ters and issues that arose are presen­ted below with explan­a­tions of the reas­on­ing behind the decisions made about these key issues. The decisions made regard­ing these have been incor­por­ated into the Draft Core Paths Plan which will go out to form­al pub­lic consultation.
3. The updates to the Core Paths Plan have increased the amount of core paths from 693 miles (2015) to 710 miles (2026). An over­all gain of an addi­tion­al 17 miles of core paths.

Plan wide issues

Private level crossings

1. The Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment believes that core paths estab­lished under the Land Reform (Scot­land) Act 2003 (LRA) can­not be des­ig­nated over private level crossings.
2. The Park Author­ity received Min­is­teri­al dir­ec­tion to remove private level cross­ings over Net­work Rail lines from the Core Paths Plan.
3. In response to this core paths have been de-des­ig­nated at two private level cross­ings – Dal­nas­pid­al and New­ton­more (core path status is retained either side of the cross­ing). It is likely that dur­ing the form­al con­sulta­tion stage objec­tions will be received to these core path de-des­ig­na­tions, it is the view of the Access Author­ity that any such objec­tions should be dealt with by the Report­er appoin­ted by Min­is­ters post the form­al consultation.

Core paths on roads

1. While there is no spe­cif­ic defin­i­tion of what can con­sti­tute a ​‘core path’, the notion is that they will by nature be paths or routes inten­ded for recre­ation­al users and that allow per­sons to cross land. Minor pub­lic roads might be des­ig­nated where they meet a par­tic­u­lar need and are of a suit­able con­di­tion (eg traffic reg­u­lated, safe for non-motor­ised use etc).
2. The cur­rent Core Path Plan iden­ti­fies sev­er­al sec­tions of road as core paths and as part of this review core paths on clas­si­fied roads (A and B roads) have been reviewed. In addi­tion, con­sid­er­a­tion was also giv­en to the value of core path des­ig­na­tions on street­side pave­ments through the centres of vil­lages and towns.
3. The out­come of this road and pave­ment review is sum­mar­ised below: a) Two core paths (totalling 3.1km) have been de-des­ig­nated without affect­ing the suf­fi­ciency of the core path net­work. These are the Nation­al Cycle Net­work (NCN) route through New­ton­more (on the A86) and con­tinu­ing south on the B9150, and the last sec­tion of the core path on the B955 Glen Clova Road which has no net­work value. b) Eight core paths / sec­tions of core path on roads have been re-clas­si­fied from core path to ​‘aspir­a­tion­al’ core path. Aspir­a­tion­al routes are on land where access rights apply, but at present there is no path present. This status allows for the recog­ni­tion of an import­ant net­work link, in place of a core path, where no route yet exists. c) Of note are three longer core paths (totalling 5km) entirely on A‑roads at Lag­gan (A86 and A889). These were pre­vi­ously iden­ti­fied as core paths in the first core path plan but have not been delivered. These three paths have been changed in des­ig­na­tion from ​‘core path’ to ​‘aspir­a­tion­al core path’ to reflect their stra­tegic import­ance and ambi­tions of the Lag­gan com­munity to devel­op, but ensure there is not a des­ig­na­tion of a major A‑road as a core path. d) Five core path sec­tions on B‑roads (1.5 km) have been retained in the Draft Plan. All are rated low user risk due to vari­ous mit­ig­at­ing factors, and all are import­ant links in the net­work and have stra­tegic value, and no prac­tic­al altern­at­ive option is avail­able. e) A total of 3.7kms of core paths on pave­ments has been de-designated.
4. The pro­posed changes (de-des­ig­na­tion of 7.2km core path and re-clas­si­fic­a­tion of 6.5km to aspir­a­tion­al core path) will not sig­ni­fic­antly affect the core path net­work and will not impact on the suf­fi­ciency of the Core Path Plan in provid­ing reas­on­able pub­lic access through­out the Nation­al Park.

Pro­posed addi­tion­al core paths

1. Dur­ing the inform­al con­sulta­tion 40 routes were sug­ges­ted by the pub­lic for con­sid­er­a­tion as addi­tion­al core paths. Of these sev­en were dis­coun­ted due to not being usable routes (six were routes that do not exist and where access is not cur­rently taken, and one that included a sec­tion of road).
2. Of the remain­ing 33 paths, 10 were judged to add value to the core path net­work and have been added into the Draft Plan as can­did­ate core paths, the remain­ing 23 paths were rejec­ted for des­ig­na­tion as core paths. The reas­ons these paths were rejec­ted included: a) The path not meet­ing the object­ives of a core path. b) The path being in a more remote or moun­tain­ous area*. c) The area already hav­ing an adequate num­ber of paths to provide a suf­fi­cient net­work. d) The path being in unsuit­able con­di­tion for dir­ect­ing people onto

*In the devel­op­ment of the first Core Path Plan it was decided that it would not be appro­pri­ate to des­ig­nate remote and upland paths as core paths, as this may lead to people believ­ing these paths to be a cer­tain stand­ard or safe to use which is not the case. Only a small num­ber of link paths across the Park were des­ig­nated to ensure the Plan was suf­fi­cient at the Park-wide level, these routes are robust and easy to follow.

1. Two spe­cif­ic paths of note that have not been included in the Draft Plan are: a) Aviemore to Cam­bridge pro­posed NMU (non-motor­ized user route). Deliv­ery timetable of this route has not yet been con­firmed. Not all the land required for the path is cur­rently with­in access rights so core path status can­not be des­ig­nated at this time. Core path status is unlikely to add any weight to the pro­gramme of deliv­ery for this route giv­en it has already been iden­ti­fied in the A9 dualling deliv­ery com­mit­ments. The route can be added as a core path at a later date, after it is com­pleted. NB If the route were to receive plan­ning per­mis­sion before the form­al con­sulta­tion starts (and there­fore it could be assumed all com­puls­ory land pur­chases and agree­ments have been made), it may be added into the Draft Core Paths Plan. b) Car­rbridge — Carr Road to school link path The route is being pro­gressed as part of a developer con­tri­bu­tion linked to a new hous­ing devel­op­ment. Although dis­cus­sions are ongo­ing with the com­munity and landown­er the pre­cise route has not been agreed on the ground. As such it would be pre­ma­ture to des­ig­nate any par­tic­u­lar route as a core path at this time.

Pro­posed de-des­ig­na­tions of core paths

1. 10 sug­ges­tions were received to de-des­ig­nate exist­ing core paths. A de-des­ig­na­tion would only be done where this is in the pub­lic interest, core paths would be con­sidered for de-des­ig­na­tion in cir­cum­stances such as: a) The path has been super­seded by an altern­at­ive new path so its remov­al would not affect the suf­fi­ciency of the plan. b) The route is not there on the ground ie it can­not be fol­lowed. c) Safety reas­ons such as land­slips that have made the route unsafe to use or re-assess­ment of safety of core paths on roads.
2. Three sug­ges­tions to de-des­ig­nate paths were accep­ted, the oth­er sev­en sug­ges­tions didn’t meet these cri­ter­ia and were rejected.

Forestry man­age­ment

1. Sev­er­al land man­agers expressed con­cerns that they believed core path des­ig­na­tion would impact on forest man­age­ment prac­tices. The Access Author­ity takes the pos­i­tion that such con­cerns are not a sat­is­fact­ory reas­on for not des­ig­nat­ing a core path where it would add value and suf­fi­ciency to the net­work. Core paths can be diver­ted or if neces­sary, tem­por­ar­ily closed for land man­age­ment oper­a­tions such as tree felling works to be undertaken.

Main­ten­ance issues

1. Sev­er­al com­ments were received dur­ing the inform­al con­sulta­tion which related to main­ten­ance or safety issues with exist­ing or pro­posed core paths. These issues are not related to this review of suf­fi­ciency of the core path network.
2. Such com­ments were reviewed and passed to the rel­ev­ant landown­er, high­ways author­ity or noted for action by the Park Author­ity. It is acknow­ledged that there are sig­ni­fic­ant bene­fits from improv­ing the qual­ity of paths how­ever this is done on a pri­or­ity basis and works are lim­ited by budget­ary con­straints. There is no oblig­a­tion on the Park Author­ity or land man­ager to main­tain any core path to any set standard.
3. Paths that were high­lighted mul­tiple times: a) Glen­more Alt Mor path (GR12), lower sec­tion with board­walks. Con­cerns were raised that landown­er Foresty and Land Scot­land (FLS) were no longer main­tain­ing the route (indic­ated by signs stat­ing as such on site) and con­sequently this key path that links Glen­more to Cairngorm Moun­tain would fall into dis­repair and become impass­able. While essen­tially a main­ten­ance issue at this time, this does raise con­cerns due to the import­ance of this net­work link. The Park Author­ity will work with Forestry and Land Scot­land (FLS) to invest­ig­ate altern­ate loc­a­tions where a poten­tial new path might be developed. b) Dul­nain bridge to Bal­naan (LBS96) – a link route from Skye of Curr forestry track to the unclas­si­fied road between Bal­naan and Car­rbridge. This was repor­ted as being dif­fi­cult to access and use and is cur­rently being invest­ig­ated by the Access Team.

Spe­cif­ic paths

1. These pro­posed changes to the Core Paths Plan received numer­ous com­ments dur­ing the inform­a­tion con­sulta­tion stage and as such have been invest­ig­ated and dis­cussed further.

Nethy Bridge – Tul­loch Moor track (LBS151), a tarred unadop­ted road between the B970 and minor road at Tulloch

• Status: Addi­tion to core path network
• Issues raised: Num­ber of objec­tions received (also num­ber of sup­port­ing com­ments received).
• Decision: Retain in Draft Core Paths Plan
• Decision reas­on­ing: This is an exist­ing track that is an import­ant net­work link, and a very pop­u­lar cycle route link­ing Nation­al Cycle Net­work Route 7 with the wider net­work of minor roads around Aber­nethy as well as the Rights of Way over An Slugan and Ryvoan. The route had suffered a his­tor­ic sig­ni­fic­ant flood­ing issue which had caused safety con­cerns, but the track has now been repaired and is useable.

Glen­more — Alt Mor path from Utsi bridge (near Sug­ar­bowl car park) to Cairngorm Mountain

• Status: De-des­ig­nate this sec­tion of core path due to a major land­slip block­ing route (GR12)
• Issues raised: Num­ber of objec­tions received. Points raised regard­ing import­ance of hav­ing an off-road link between Glen­more and Cairngorm Mountain
• Decision: Remove core path des­ig­na­tion from sec­tion as pro­posed. Include an aspir­a­tion­al core path as an altern­at­ive route (ASP253)
• Decision reas­on­ing: This path provides an import­ant net­work link in the Core Paths Plan and the need to main­tain it is recog­nised. Repair­ing and reopen­ing the blocked path is not feas­ible due to cost, the like­li­hood of fur­ther dam­age and ongo­ing safety issues. The ambi­tion is to identi­fy a new route, likely incor­por­at­ing the old road and devel­op this as an altern­at­ive route. This has been incor­por­ated in the Draft Plan as an ​‘aspir­a­tion­al’ route, recog­nising that the actu­al route has not yet been iden­ti­fied on the ground and con­struc­tion works will be required in places to facil­it­ate a new route.

Kin­gussie — Spey­side way on B970 from A9 under­pass to Ruthven Barracks

• Status: Addi­tion to core path net­work (LBS313)
• Issues raised: Sup­port for includ­ing as a core path, but safety issues raised about being on pub­lic road and blind bend.
• Decision: Include in Draft Plan as an aspir­a­tion­al route (ASP255)
• Decision reas­on­ing: The Spey­side Way is one of Scotland’s Long-Dis­tance Routes and the path links togeth­er many vil­lages and towns. As such it is a key part of the Cairngorms path net­work, and this is recog­nised through its des­ig­na­tion as a core path. To ensure con­tinu­ity in core path des­ig­na­tion this sec­tion will be included in the Draft Plan as an aspir­a­tion­al core path, recog­nising the inten­tion to devel­op an off-road route par­al­lel to the road. The Access Team is cur­rently work­ing with stake­hold­ers to secure a solu­tion here, but the exact line of the route is yet to be iden­ti­fied and will require construction.

New­ton­more – sec­tion of the Wild­cat trail through the Allt Laraidh gorge

• Status: De-des­ig­nate sec­tion of core path due to land­slip block­ing route in the gorge
• Issues raised: Some objec­tions to this received and sug­ges­tions should find altern­at­ive route
• Decision: De-des­ig­nate core path (removed from Draft Plan) as proposed
• Decision reas­on­ing: The cur­rent route is impass­able, a new route with­in the gorge is unlikely to deliv­er­able giv­en the fra­gile nature of the slopes. The com­munity have invest­ig­ated repairs and decided to per­man­ently close this sec­tion and redir­ect the trail onto the minor Strone Road. Cre­at­ing an altern­at­ive new route with­in the field above the gorge wouldn’t replace the exper­i­ence of the gorge sec­tion and thus would offer little value for the invest­ment required.