Form­al Board Paper 4 27 March 2026 Page 1 of 4

For decision

Title: Core Paths Plan Review – form­al consultation

Pre­pared by: Colin Simpson, Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices and Act­ive Travel Adam Streeter-Smith, Recre­ation, Access and Infra­struc­ture Man­ager Vicky Hilton, Out­door Access Officer

Pur­pose

Sec­tion 17 of the Land Reform (Scot­land) Act 2003 (the Act) obliges all access author­it­ies to ​“draw up a plan for a sys­tem of paths (“core paths”) suf­fi­cient for the pur­pose of giv­ing the pub­lic reas­on­able access through­out their area.” The Park Author­ity has pre­vi­ously pro­duced a Core Paths Plan for this pur­pose in 2015.

Sec­tion 20 of the Act requires that the Park Author­ity must review the plan adop­ted under sec­tion 18 if Min­is­ters require them to do so, and or may review such a plan if they con­sider it appro­pri­ate to do so for the pur­pose of ensur­ing that the Core Paths Plan con­tin­ues to give the pub­lic reas­on­able access through­out their area. The Park Author­ity has received a min­is­teri­al dir­ec­tion to review its Core Paths Plan.

Sec­tion 18 of the Act also obliges the access author­ity to make a draft plan avail­able for pub­lic inspec­tion for a peri­od of not less than 12-weeks. This report and its asso­ci­ated annexes provide Board mem­bers with officer’s recom­mend­a­tions on changes to the pre­vi­ous plan through their inclu­sion in the draft plan and seek Board approv­al to com­mence the pub­lic con­sulta­tion on the draft plan.

Recom­mend­a­tions

The Board is asked to:

a) Approve a form­al pub­lic con­sulta­tion on the draft Core Paths Plan.

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Form­al Board Paper 4 27 March 2026 Page 2 of 4

Stra­tegic context

1. Sec­tion C8 of the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP) — ​“Access­ible path and cycle net­work” includes the object­ive ​“improve path, cycle and out­door access net­works to give out­stand­ing oppor­tun­it­ies to exper­i­ence the nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age of the Nation­al Park to the widest range of people, while min­im­ising dis­turb­ance to vul­ner­able spe­cies, hab­it­ats and sites.” Review­ing and updat­ing the Core Paths Plan to bring it up to date with wider devel­op­ments, the inclu­sion of newly built paths and to reflect changed pub­lic expect­a­tions is an import­ant part of devel­op­ing this net­work. This takes on addi­tion­al rel­ev­ance as fund­ing for path improve­ments is largely focussed on those paths defined as ​“core paths”.

2. Sec­tion 38 of the Act­ive Cairngorms Action Plan sets out an action to review and pub­lish an update Core Paths Plan. This action set an expect­a­tion that the updated Core Paths Plan would be pub­lished in 2026. Giv­en that the exist­ing plan is at least 10-years old it was agreed that the review should take the form of an inform­al con­sulta­tion fol­lowed by the form­al stat­utory con­sulta­tion. Intro­du­cing this addi­tion­al step means that the plan is more likely to be adop­ted and pub­lished in 2027.

Stra­tegic policy consideration

1. Board mem­bers are reminded that sec­tion 20 of the Act also gives powers to Scot­tish Min­is­ters to dir­ect the Park Author­ity to review its Core Paths Plan. Such a dir­ec­tion was received on the 24 July 2024. Expli­cit in this dir­ec­tion was a require­ment to review wheth­er any core paths crossed the main­line rail­way via a private level crossing.

2. Whilst the Park Author­ity was dir­ec­ted to review its Core Paths Plan, no spe­cif­ic ref­er­ence was made as to when this should be done. In view of the action in the Act­ive Cairngorms Action Plan to ​“Review and pub­lish an updated Core Paths Plan by end of 2026” officers con­sidered ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ as being an appro­pri­ate time to under­take this review. This would mean the review of the Core Paths Plan would likely con­clude before the con­sulta­tion and adop­tion of the next NPPP. How­ever, as the cur­rent NPPP already includes the object­ive of improv­ing path, cycle and out­door access net­works and as the adop­tion of the Core Paths Plan is not

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Form­al Board Paper 4 27 March 2026 Page 3 of 4

anti­cip­ated to have a sig­ni­fic­ant impact on the detail of the next NPPP this tim­ing is con­sidered appropriate.

Review of the cur­rent Core Path Plan

1. Tak­ing dir­ec­tion both from Min­is­ters and from the Act­ive Cairngorms Action Plan, the Access Team under­took a review of the Core Paths Plan. This review iden­ti­fied a num­ber of sug­ges­ted amend­ments based on changes to the net­work on the ground, pri­or­it­ies with the NPPP4 and its asso­ci­ated action plans and well as the pub­lished com­munity action plans.

2. The pub­lic were invited to com­ment on these amend­ments via an inform­al con­sulta­tion that ran over three months from the 29 May to 31 August 2025. A sum­mary of the inform­al con­sulta­tion pro­cess, engage­ments and feed­back can be found in the sum­mary report in Annex 1.

3. All the feed­back and com­ments received dur­ing the inform­al con­sulta­tion have been reviewed and assessed by the Access team, with the Loc­al Out­door Access For­um (LOAF) con­sul­ted as required.

Mat­ters arising from the inform­al consultation

1. Dur­ing the inform­al con­sulta­tion sug­ges­tions were received to both des­ig­nate addi­tion­al routes as core paths (40 paths sug­ges­ted) and to de-des­ig­nate core paths (10 suggestions).

2. A num­ber of themes emerged from the inform­al con­sulta­tion as being the most pop­u­lar mat­ters of interest by volume of responses. Whilst not exhaust­ive these are best sum­mar­ised as:

   • a) The Tul­loch Moor Track
   • b) Glen­more — Allt Mor path from Glen­more to Cairngorm Mountain
   • c) Aviemore to Car­rbridge pro­posed non-motor­ised user route
   • d) Private level crossings

3. A review was also under­taken by the access team of all core paths on clas­si­fied roads (A and B class roads) which con­sidered the appro­pri­ate­ness and safety of these routes.

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Form­al Board Paper 4 27 March 2026 Page 4 of 4

1. The out­comes and the Park Authority’s pos­i­tion on these mat­ters is presen­ted in the issues report (Annex 2). Changes to reflect the decisions made have been incor­por­ated into the Draft Plan.

2. 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.

Stra­tegic risk management

1. There are no new risk implic­a­tions arising from the pub­lic con­sulta­tion on the draft Core Paths Plan itself. How­ever, there are risks post-con­sulta­tion on the timetable for adop­tion. It is uncer­tain how many objec­tions may be received how­ever steps, includ­ing under­tak­ing the inform­al con­sulta­tion were taken to mit­ig­ate this risk.

2. If objec­tions remain unre­solved then they have to be sub­mit­ted to Min­is­ters along­side the draft plan. In address­ing these objec­tions Min­is­ters may appoint a Report­er to under­take an inquiry. The timetable for such being dic­tated by the Report­ers Unit.

Sup­port­ing information

• Annex 1 — Inform­al con­sulta­tion sum­mary report
• Annex 2 – Issues report
• Annex 3 — Core Paths Plan maps – set of 15 maps

Colin Simpson 12 March 2026 colinsimpson@​cairngorms.​co.​uk