icon­ic Ian Clark Consulting

Grant­own Action Plan

July 2016

Grant­own Initiative

Con­tents

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..1

Town Centre…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….3

Tourism…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………10

Community……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..17

Appendix……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….19

icon­ic Ian Clark Consulting

Icon­ic Consulting

16 Orch­ard­field Aven­ue, Edin­burgh, EH12 7SX

0131 627 0070

www​.icon​ic​-con​sult​ing​.co​.uk

ian@​iconic-​consulting.​co.​uk

Intro­duc­tion

This Action Plan sets out pro­pos­als to reju­ven­ate Grant­own-on-Spey to make the most of the town’s social, eco­nom­ic and phys­ic­al assets over the next five years. It was com­mis­sioned by Grant­own Ini­ti­at­ive, the town’s com­munity devel­op­ment com­pany, in response to a num­ber of issues iden­ti­fied dur­ing pre­vi­ous con­sulta­tions car­ried out in Grant­own. The over­rid­ing aim of the Action Plan is to put Grant­own back on the map – to revital­ise the town and its vis­it­or eco­nomy, build­ing on its unique cul­tur­al her­it­age and its his­tor­ic­al asso­ci­ation with the sur­round­ing woods. The Plan sets out key themes around which lines of activ­ity will be based. It con­tains pro­pos­als to strengthen com­munity action in Grant­own giv­ing it more focus and bet­ter co-ordin­a­tion, sup­port­ing the community’s efforts to secure addi­tion­al fund­ing for the devel­op­ment of the town.

The Grant­own Ini­ti­at­ive, which has led the pro­ject to devel­op this Action Plan, is grate­ful to Cairngorms LEAD­ER (Small Grants Pro­gramme) and the High­land Coun­cil for provid­ing fund­ing for the project.

Back­ground

Grantown’s com­munity has con­trib­uted to a num­ber of con­sulta­tions in recent years. The most recent involved a cross-sec­tion of com­munity groups and organ­isa­tions which informed the Town Centre Pilot Pro­ject pub­lished by Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity (CNPA) in May 2016. Pri­or to that, a Team Grant­own work­shop was held in 2012, and con­sulta­tion in 2008 informed Our Com­munity — A Way For­ward Action Plan. In addi­tion, a vis­it­ors’ sur­vey was under­taken in 2015 as part of the Grant­own Gate­way Project.

Find­ings from the above con­sulta­tion have informed this Action Plan, par­tic­u­larly the most recent find­ings from the Town Centre Pilot Pro­ject. Although it was focused on the town centre, the pilot pro­ject was not lim­ited to phys­ic­al pro­jects and it ref­er­ences social and eco­nom­ic issues raised by the community.

Action Plan

The devel­op­ment of this Action Plan has been informed by a num­ber of sources.

An ini­tial doc­u­ment review examined the find­ings of the pre­vi­ous con­sulta­tions under­taken in Grant­own, rel­ev­ant policy doc­u­ments which have a bear­ing on Grant­own such as High­land Council’s Single Out­come Agree­ment and High­land First, CNPA’s Eco­nom­ic Strategy, Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan, Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Strategy, and Part­ner­ship Plan, Cairngorms LEAD­ER Loc­al Devel­op­ment Strategy, as well as pro­ject-related doc­u­ments such as pre­vi­ous research and plans. A short review of the devel­op­ment of oth­er small towns in Scot­land was also under­taken to con­sider examples of good prac­tice elsewhere.

Con­sulta­tion with loc­al stake­hold­ers took the form of an ini­tial fact-find­ing work­shop in May 2016, indi­vidu­al dis­cus­sions with key com­munity groups and organ­isa­tions, and a second work­shop in June 2016 to dis­cuss emer­ging themes and actions. The devel­op­ment of spe­cif­ic pro­ject ideas has been informed by a desk based review of costs and fund­ing sources, and fur­ther con­sulta­tion with stakeholders.

Themes

The town centre, tour­ism and the com­munity are the three cent­ral themes of this Action Plan. The themes are inter­linked and should be pro­gressed in uni­son. Each theme con­sists of a series of pro­pos­als includ­ing a small num­ber that have the poten­tial to make a sig­ni­fic­ant con­tri­bu­tion to Grantown’s development.

Town centre: a plan to pro­tect and enhance the built her­it­age, and to provide an attract­ive offer­ing for those who work, live and vis­it Grantown-on-Spey.

Tour­ism: a plan to devel­op Grant­own as an attract­ive tour­ist des­tin­a­tion to a broad range of vis­it­ors, provid­ing qual­ity facil­it­ies and attractions.

Com­munity: a plan to strengthen com­munity action, and to address issues raised by the community.

Action Plan structure

The fol­low­ing sec­tions of this Action Plan focus on each of the themes. A sum­mary of the issues is fol­lowed by an over­arch­ing response and a detailed plan of action. The plan’s final sec­tion out­lines how Grant­own com­munity can take for­ward this Action Plan, in col­lab­or­a­tion with loc­al part­ners includ­ing High­land Coun­cil, CNPA and Vol­un­tary Action in Badenoch and Strath­spey. A sum­mary of the pro­posed actions is shown in an appendix.

Town Centre

Pro­tect­ing, enhan­cing and pro­mot­ing Grantown’s town centre

ISSUES

Grantown-on-Spey’s com­munity has con­sist­ently high­lighted a num­ber of issues regard­ing the town centre and its built envir­on­ment. The devel­op­ment of this Action Plan revis­ited the find­ings of the most recent con­sulta­tion under­taken for the Town Centre Pilot Pro­ject and the key issues are sum­mar­ised below. For the pur­poses of this Action Plan the town centre includes the High Street and The Square how­ever a loose defin­i­tion is used which should not exclude sur­round­ing streets as a tightly defined town centre is unne­ces­sary and poten­tially restrict­ive at this stage.

Empty/​poorly main­tained properties

There con­tin­ues to be a num­ber of empty retail prop­er­ties on Grant­own High Street. While the num­ber is rel­at­ively small the empty units are prom­in­ent and the com­munity have raised con­cerns about the image this por­trays and the eco­nom­ic bene­fits that a vibrant town centre would bring. CNPA’s Town Centre Health Check recor­ded sev­en empty prop­er­ties out of a total of 77 – a void rate of 9.1% which was mar­gin­ally high­er than the 8.6% rate across the whole of Scot­land repor­ted by the Scot­tish Retail Con­sor­ti­um¹. It has pre­vi­ously been noted that some of these prop­er­ties are not adequately main­tained and the con­di­tion of some High Street prop­er­ties con­tin­ues to be an issue. In addi­tion, it has been repor­ted that due to the age of the prop­er­ties, renov­a­tion is required to make them suit­able for mod­ern busi­ness and retail use although some land­lords appear to be reluct­ant to invest in their prop­er­ties. CNPA’s Town Centre Health Check noted that there had been some invest­ment by land­lords in a num­ber of pre­vi­ously empty prop­er­ties which had con­trib­uted to an enhance­ment of the town centre. Pre­vi­ous sug­ges­tions to address this issue included explor­ing fund­ing oppor­tun­it­ies for upgrad­ing and main­ten­ance of prop­er­ties to help bring them back to pro­duct­ive use, enfor­cing upkeep of empty build­ings and using shop fronts as notice boards to improve the image of the High Street.

Con­di­tion of upper floor properties

As above, there con­tin­ues to be a rel­at­ively small but non­ethe­less prom­in­ent num­ber of upper floor High Street prop­er­ties in a state of dis­repair and in need of main­ten­ance or upgrad­ing. A visu­al inspec­tion of the High Street in early June 2016 sug­gests the issue is not wide­spread but is vis­ible in around 10% of the prop­er­ties with obvi­ous signs of poorly main­tained win­dows and gut­ter­ing for example. It also appeared that some upper floor prop­er­ties were

Foot­note

1 Scot­tish Retail Con­sor­ti­um data pub­lished in Octo­ber 2015. CPNA data relates to June 2015.

unoccupied/​unused although it was not pos­sible to veri­fy this or estim­ate the num­ber of prop­er­ties involved. It has been repor­ted that due to the age of the prop­er­ties, they can be expens­ive to ren­ov­ate or main­tain with some land­lords appear­ing to be reluct­ant to invest in their prop­er­ties. Pre­vi­ous sug­ges­tions to address this issue included explor­ing fund­ing oppor­tun­it­ies to sup­port main­ten­ance and con­ver­sion of prop­er­ties to help bring them back to pro­duct­ive use, and enfor­cing upkeep of properties.

Shop fronts

Pre­vi­ous con­sulta­tions have shown the com­munity gen­er­ally regard the town centre as an asset with a range of inde­pend­ent shops. There has been sup­port to ensure shop fronts are well main­tained with a degree of con­sist­ency without los­ing the indi­vidu­al­ity which helps to make the town centre an attract­ive place to visit.

Strath­spey Hotel and site at rear

The former Strath­spey Hotel and the vacant site behind the hotel have both fea­tured in pre­vi­ous con­sulta­tions with con­cerns expressed that the hotel and the site have been empty for a num­ber of years with the con­di­tion of the hotel appear­ing to deteri­or­ate. It has pre­vi­ously been sug­ges­ted that devel­op­ment of the hotel and the site at the rear should be sup­por­ted by the com­munity and it was noted that the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan sup­ports the con­ver­sion of tra­di­tion­al build­ings to STRATH­SPEY HOTEL

altern­at­ive uses where appro­pri­ate. In Janu­ary 2016, a plan­ning applic­a­tion was approved for the devel­op­ment of four flats on the site at the rear of the hotel and in Feb­ru­ary 2016 a plan­ning applic­a­tion was approved for the con­ver­sion of the former hotel to a house and two flats. Both the hotel and the site at the rear are in private ownership.

YMCA build­ing

The YMCA build­ing is a prom­in­ent land­mark on Grant­own High Street. As well as being a his­tor­ic­ally import­ant build­ing which opened in 1898, it is also one that the com­munity value highly and it con­tin­ues to sup­port young people and the wider com­munity as it has done for many years. Plans to ren­ov­ate the build­ing and mod­ern­ise its facil­it­ies have pre­vi­ously been dis­cussed, and a design brief was pro­duced in 2010. The plans involved the refur­bish­ment and exten­sion of the build­ing to provide a multi-pur­pose com­munity centre, includ­ing the YMCA and oth­er users; the total cost was estim­ated at £3.2m exclud­ing VAT at 2010 prices. These ambi­tious plans have not been pro­gressed, although YMCA has recently under­taken some small scale improvements.

Con­ser­va­tion area

Grant­own town centre is a des­ig­nated con­ser­va­tion area which pro­tects its his­tor­ic iden­tity as one of Scotland’s first planned towns and its Geor­gi­an archi­tec­ture. The absence of a man­age­ment plan and pre­vi­ously relaxed plan­ning con­di­tions have res­ul­ted in some irreg­u­lar­it­ies with­in the con­ser­va­tion area such as new­er houses and mod­ern street light­ing which have been high­lighted by the com­munity in past con­sulta­tion exer­cises as not in keep­ing with its con­ser­va­tion area

status. A review of the con­ser­va­tion area has pre­vi­ously been sug­ges­ted to focus on the key areas of archi­tec­tur­al sig­ni­fic­ance, and a man­age­ment plan was sug­ges­ted to help guide devel­op­ment with­in the con­ser­va­tion area as a means of improv­ing the town centre.

Park­ing and traffic problems

Park­ing and traffic prob­lems were iden­ti­fied in pre­vi­ous con­sulta­tions in Grant­own-on-Spey, and have been raised on a num­ber of occa­sions with a loc­al Coun­cil­lor. The High Street and The Square/​Seafield Aven­ue have been high­lighted as the two main areas of concern.

It has been high­lighted that some cars park on the High Street bey­ond the free one-hour lim­it deny­ing oth­er town centre vis­it­ors access to these spaces. This is per­ceived as incon­veni­en­cing vis­it­ors by increas­ing the dis­tance they have to walk, which is seen as par­tic­u­larly prob­lem­at­ic for those with mobil­ity issues, and mak­ing it more dif­fi­cult to load or unload bulky items. It has been sug­ges­ted that town centre busi­ness own­ers are among those that exceed the one-hour park­ing lim­it. The lack of enforce­ment of the one-hour lim­it has been high­lighted as a key factor in per­petu­at­ing this prac­tice. It has also been repor­ted that there is a grow­ing prob­lem of heavy goods vehicles park­ing on the High Street. Park­ing enforce­ment has recently trans­ferred from Police Scot­land to High­land Coun­cil and the loc­al author­ity plans to recruit a team of 11 Park­ing Enforce­ment Officers to cov­er their entire area, includ­ing Grant­own. Pre­vi­ously sug­ges­ted actions include enfor­cing the one-hour park­ing restric­tion and mark­ing park­ing bays for deliveries.

There are traffic man­age­ment con­cerns around the Co-op store in The Square and Seafield Aven­ue with cus­tom­ers and deliv­ery vehicles reportedly mak­ing access dif­fi­cult for oth­ers. There are also fears this could, poten­tially, lead to acci­dents involving vehicles and/​or ped­es­tri­ans although acci­dent data shows that the area has not been the scene of any sig­ni­fic­ant incid­ents ². Pre­vi­ously sug­ges­ted actions include re-paint­ing yel­low lines around the Co-op and adopt­ing a one-way sys­tem to improve traffic flow and reduce park­ing congestion.

Oth­er issues

Three oth­er issues have been raised regard­ing the phys­ic­al envir­on­ment in Grant­own. The first relates to sig­nage and it was repor­ted that big­ger and clear­er sig­nage was needed for the likes of car parks, tour­ist inform­a­tion and the cara­van park, the num­ber of signs could be ration­al­ised and that street signs should have more con­form­ity. A pro­ject to cre­ate con­sist­ent threshold wel­come signs for Grant­own was pre­vi­ously under­taken although not all signs were renewed and it was sug­ges­ted that there was poten­tial for fur­ther work on this issue with oth­er signs still in need of replace­ment. The second issue related to the round­abouts on the out­skirts of Grant­own which it has been pro­posed would bene­fit from a facelift to make more attract­ive entrances to the town. There have pre­vi­ously been a series of dis­cus­sions to install art or sculp­tures on the roundabouts

Foot­note

² Traffic Assess­ment (Water­man, 2016) under­taken as part of the Beachan Court plan­ning application.

and an out­line plan was developed. The third issue involves improv­ing the entrance to Grant­own cemetery on the B9102 and some pre­lim­in­ary work was under­taken on this issue.

RESPONSE

In response to the above issues, a coher­ent series of actions is pro­posed to pro­tect, enhance and pro­mote Grantown’s town centre.

Con­ser­va­tion Area Regen­er­a­tion Scheme / Town­scape Her­it­age Programme

A com­pre­hens­ive pro­gramme of cap­it­al works is pro­posed which would address many of the issues high­lighted above provid­ing fin­an­cial assist­ance to repair poorly main­tained prop­er­ties, to mod­ern­ise his­tor­ic prop­er­ties, to bring empty prop­er­ties back into pro­duct­ive use, and to enhance the phys­ic­al appear­ance of the town centre; it could also poten­tially improve sig­nage in the town. The cap­it­al works could be com­ple­men­ted by a pro­gramme to pro­mote the town’s built her­it­age which would con­trib­ute to pro­pos­als out­lined else­where in this Action Plan to pro­mote tour­ism in Grant­own. Key to deliv­ery of this pro­pos­al will be secur­ing extern­al fund­ing from His­tor­ic Envir­on­ment Scotland’s Con­ser­va­tion Area Regen­er­a­tion Scheme (CARS), the Her­it­age Lot­tery Fund (HLF) Town­scape Her­it­age Pro­gramme, and Cairngorms LEADER.

CARS provides sig­ni­fic­ant fin­an­cial assist­ance, over a five-year peri­od, for con­ser­va­tion area based regen­er­a­tion under­taken by Loc­al and Nation­al Park Author­it­ies, com­munity groups and oth­er third sec­tor organ­isa­tions exper­i­enced in deliv­er­ing multi-fun­ded pro­jects. The scheme can fund: 1) a repairs pro­gramme for pri­or­ity pro­jects; 2) a small grants scheme (such as to homeown­ers or retail­ers); 3) com­munity engage­ment through provid­ing train­ing oppor­tun­it­ies in tra­di­tion­al skills and through edu­ca­tion pro­grammes; 4) train­ing oppor­tun­it­ies for tra­di­tion­al crafts­men; 5) pub­lic realm con­ser­va­tion and res­tor­a­tion; and 6) admin­is­tra­tion costs includ­ing the appoint­ment of a ded­ic­ated pro­ject officer. The aver­age CARS award to date has been approx­im­ately £620,000 and a quarter of CARS have also bene­fit­ted from Town­scape Her­it­age pro­gramme fund­ing. A two stage applic­a­tion pro­cess is used with suc­cess­ful bids at stage 1 receiv­ing an offer of fund­ing and sup­port from His­tor­ic Envir­on­ment Scot­land to devel­op a full detailed programme.

The HLF Town­scape Her­it­age Pro­gramme helps com­munit­ies regen­er­ate deprived towns and cit­ies across the UK by improv­ing their built his­tor­ic envir­on­ment. Grants range from £100,000 to £2m and are avail­able for a peri­od of up to five years; the applic­ant is expec­ted to con­trib­ute 5% of the total cost where a grant of less than £1m is sought or 10% if the grant reques­ted exceeds £1m. The scheme is made up of a port­fo­lio of pro­jects that have the poten­tial to regen­er­ate and trans­form con­ser­va­tion areas in need of invest­ment. Schemes should aim to halt and reverse the decline of his­tor­ic town­scapes by cre­at­ing attract­ive, vibrant and inter­est­ing places where people will want to live, work, vis­it and invest. It aims to achieve this by fund­ing phys­ic­al works to repair and enhance the his­tor­ic area in order to encour­age busi­ness con­fid­ence, by provid­ing loc­al people with the oppor­tun­ity to learn new skills, and by inspir­ing the loc­al com­munity to take an interest in and get involved with their town­scape her­it­age. Applic­ants can sub­mit a very simple one-page pro­ject enquiry form which HLF will review and indic­ate wheth­er the pro­pos­als fit with the pro­gramme and provide sup­port with the applic­a­tion. A two stage applic­a­tion pro­cess is in place with suc­cess at stage 1 lead­ing to a devel­op­ment grant to put togeth­er a detailed stage 2 bid. Stage 1 bid­ders must provide out­line pro­pos­als includ­ing: a Con­ser­va­tion Area Apprais­al; an Out­line Scheme Plan identi­fy­ing high, medi­um pri­or­ity and reserve tar­get prop­er­ties and any pub­lic realm, or gap sites; an ini­tial break­down of the cap­it­al work; out­line pro­pos­als for

archi­tec­tur­al ele­ments; out­line pro­pos­als for non-archi­tec­tur­al ele­ments such as inter­pret­a­tion or digit­al out­puts; and detailed plans for the devel­op­ment phase. If suc­cess­ful at stage 1, the devel­op­ment grant provides fin­ance for pro­fes­sion­al fees includ­ing the cost of a Con­ser­va­tion Area Man­age­ment Plan which is a require­ment for stage 2. To date the dead­line for stage 1 bids to the Town­scape Her­it­age Pro­gramme — and CARS — has been the end of August.

Cairngorms LEAD­ER may also be a poten­tial fun­der of this pro­posed action, par­tic­u­larly the ini­tial stage of gath­er­ing the inform­a­tion required for the stage 1 CARS / Town­scape Her­it­age Pro­gramme applic­a­tions. One of the themes of Cairngorms LEAD­ER is pro­tect­ing and enhan­cing the Nation­al Park land­scape, wild­life and loc­al her­it­age. LEAD­ER is seek­ing to invest in train­ing, skills devel­op­ment, engage­ment and par­ti­cip­a­tion ini­ti­at­ives (includ­ing vol­un­tary and paid par­ti­cip­a­tion), resources to deliv­er ini­ti­at­ives and sup­port for the acquis­i­tion of com­munity assets includ­ing land, where sup­port is not avail­able through anoth­er scheme or loan fund.

Grant­own Ini­ti­at­ive, and part­ners, may find it use­ful to a vis­it a town which has bene­fit­ted from CARS and/​or the Town­scape Her­it­age Pro­gramme. Poten­tial towns of interest include Kil­lin and Cal­lander in Loch Lomond and the Trossachs which are the only two towns to date where the part­ner­ship has been led by a Nation­al Park Author­ity, or Wick and Ding­wall which were led by High­land Council.

The fol­low­ing spe­cif­ic actions are sug­ges­ted to take for­ward plans for CARS / Town­scape Her­it­age Pro­gramme applic­a­tions in Grant­own. Firstly, it is pro­posed that the com­munity seek con­firm­a­tion that CNPA and High­land Coun­cil are sup­port­ive of the plans includ­ing the sub­mis­sion, in due course, of bids to CARS and the Town­scape Her­it­age Pro­gramme. Without sup­port from both organ­isa­tions bids for extern­al fund­ing are very unlikely to suc­ceed. Without extern­al fund­ing it is dif­fi­cult to envis­age how the issues sum­mar­ised above can be addressed as prop­erty own­ers have demon­strated an unwill­ing­ness to date to invest, while the fin­an­cial situ­ation of High­land Coun­cil and CNPA means they are not in a pos­i­tion to fund the pro­gramme dir­ectly. At this stage, sup­port from CNPA and High­land Coun­cil could take the form of sup­port in prin­ciple to sub­mit part­ner­ship bids to CARS and Town­scape Her­it­age, a com­mit­ment from one of the organ­isa­tions to host a ded­ic­ated pro­ject officer should devel­op­ment fund­ing be secured, and sup­port with the col­la­tion of the rel­ev­ant inform­a­tion required for the stage 1 bids.

If sup­port can be secured from CNPA and High­land Coun­cil, the com­munity should also seek to engage prop­erty own­ers in Grant­own High Street to dis­cuss the pro­posed pro­gramme. The con­sulta­tion should include the own­ers of the former Strath­spey Hotel and the site at the rear of the hotel to estab­lish the cur­rent status of their devel­op­ment pro­pos­als and to dis­cuss how the pro­gramme could poten­tially sup­port their devel­op­ment. Dis­cus­sions should also be held with YMCA to con­sider how their prom­in­ent his­tor­ic build­ing fits with the pro­pos­als. In addi­tion, a pre­lim­in­ary sur­vey should be under­taken by a sur­vey­or with expert­ise in con­ser­va­tion to provide out­line inform­a­tion on: 1) the num­ber of prop­er­ties in need of repair, 2) the nature of the repair needs, and 3) a ball­park estim­ate of the cost involved. Ideally this task would be under­taken by CNPA or High­land Coun­cil, how­ever if this can­not be provided extern­al sup­port will be required which will incur a cost, estim­ated at approx­im­ately £4,000.

Pre­par­at­ory work would also need to be under­taken on the out­line engage­ment, edu­ca­tion and learn­ing pro­gramme to be included in the bids. This would cov­er the themes, tar­get groups,

activ­it­ies and poten­tial costs of the pro­gramme to be out­lined in the stage 1 applic­a­tions. Grant­own Museum is well placed to lead on this pre­lim­in­ary work although the organisation’s capa­city is lim­ited and ini­tial sup­port from her­it­age con­sult­ants may need to be sought which would incur a cost, estim­ated at approx­im­ately £3,000.

If a Town­scape Her­it­age Pro­gramme stage 1 bid is suc­cess­ful, the The story of Grantown’s Regal­ity Cross

devel­op­ment grant would enable part­ners to devel­op a detailed stage 2 bid, with the sup­port of extern­al experts where required. The stage 2 bid must include: a Con­ser­va­tion Area Man­age­ment Plan; a detailed Scheme Plan identi­fy­ing high, medi­um pri­or­ity and reserve pro­jects; detailed plans and pro­pos­als for oth­er cap­it­al work; detailed plans for archi­tec­tur­al ele­ments; and detailed plans for non-archi­tec­tur­al ele­ments, such as inter­pret­a­tion or digit­al out­puts. Part­ner­ships have twelve months to sub­mit their stage 2 bid.

Park­ing and traffic

Actions to address the traffic and park­ing issues, ulti­mately, rest with High­land Coun­cil as the body respons­ible for park­ing enforce­ment and traffic man­age­ment in Grant­own. High­land Council’s response to the plan­ning applic­a­tion at Beachan Court – to devel­op 43 private and 10 afford­able res­id­en­tial prop­er­ties off Seafield Aven­ue shows that the loc­al author­ity is aware of the com­munity con­cerns regard­ing this area and is attempt­ing to imple­ment a solu­tion. High­land Coun­cil Trans­port Plan­ning Team’s offi­cial response to the plan­ning applic­a­tion stated that ​‘it is recom­men­ded that any per­mis­sion gran­ted is con­di­tion­al requir­ing a Traffic Man­age­ment scheme to be sub­mit­ted and approved by High­land Coun­cil for refresh­ing the exist­ing park­ing restric­tion traffic signs and road mark­ings at the east­ern end of Seafield Aven­ue in the vicin­ity of the junc­tion with High Street and the exist­ing Co-op Store. The scheme should also include the pro­vi­sion of new ​“Keep Clear” road mark­ings on Seafield Aven­ue across the mouth of the junc­tion with the side road that runs across the front of the exist­ing Co-op Store’. A decision on the plan­ning applic­a­tion is due in the near future. Fur­ther action is depend­ent on the out­come of the plan­ning applic­a­tion, and the impos­i­tion of the Council’s recom­men­ded condition.

If the Beachan Court devel­op­ment is not approved, it is pro­posed that a meet­ing be con­vened includ­ing Grant­own-on-Spey and Vicin­ity Com­munity Coun­cil, High­land Coun­cil and Grant­own Busi­ness Asso­ci­ation to con­sider altern­at­ive solu­tions. A loc­al Coun­cil­lor has pre­vi­ously led dis­cus­sions with coun­cil officers and the Co-op man­ager and a fur­ther meet­ing could con­sider altern­at­ive solu­tions such as no park­ing road mark­ings out­side the Co-op as well as dis­cuss­ing pos­sible fun­ders such as Badenoch and Strath­spey Area Committee.

While a solu­tion to the issues on the High Street ulti­mately rest with the Coun­cil and the recruit­ment of a Park­ing Enforce­ment Officer, Grant­own Busi­ness Asso­ci­ation still has a sig­ni­fic­ant role. The Asso­ci­ation could, for example, encour­age or even incentivise/​penalise mem­bers not to park out­side their prop­er­ties for longer than an hour. Any actions to address park­ing prob­lems on the High Street should not how­ever lead to Grant­own being regarded as a town with strict park­ing enforce­ment as this could be coun­ter­pro­duct­ive to the prosper­ity of the town, par­tic­u­larly one seek­ing to pro­mote tour­ism. An altern­at­ive solu­tion would be for loc­al busi­nesses to con­trib­ute towards the cost of a Park­ing Enforce­ment Officer per­haps as part of a Busi­ness Improvement

Dis­trict ini­ti­at­ive. How­ever, this option would involve loc­al busi­nesses incur­ring costs which are unlikely to be met favour­ably in the cur­rent fin­an­cial climate.

Oth­er actions

The oth­er issues high­lighted above improv­ing the appear­ance of the round­abouts and the entrance to the cemetery – are included in this Action Plan albeit as rel­at­ively low pri­or­it­ies. Both ini­ti­at­ives would ini­tially require the devel­op­ment of more detailed pro­pos­als and are likely to require plan­ning per­mis­sion. Neither of the pro­pos­als are likely to be eli­gible for fund­ing as part of CARS/​Townscape Her­it­age Pro­gramme and altern­at­ive sources of fund­ing are lim­ited. While funds exist from the likes of Cre­at­ive Scot­land and char­it­able trusts for pub­lic art (to improve the appear­ance of the round­abouts), the chances of suc­cess are low although they may be improved if linked to the pro­posed town centre improve­ments and the pro­mo­tion of Grant­own as a tour­ist des­tin­a­tion and the res­ult­ant eco­nom­ic bene­fits. As stated above, dis­cus­sions have been held regard­ing improve­ments to the round­abouts and it is pro­posed that the com­munity revis­it the earli­er plans to final­ise their require­ments and estim­ated cost. The pro­pos­als to build a cemetery wall at the entrance on the B9102 appear more dif­fi­cult still to fund although they could poten­tially, be taken for­ward as a vol­un­tary pro­ject or as part of a train­ing pro­gramme in tra­di­tion­al con­struc­tion skills.

Tour­ism

Devel­op­ing tour­ism and events in Grantown

ISSUES

Grant­own has a num­ber of tour­ist attrac­tions includ­ing Grant­own Museum, Anagach Woods, Crag­gan Out­doors, sal­mon fish­ing on the River Spey, golf­ing, walk­ing, moun­tain bik­ing, cyc­ling, the his­tor­ic town centre, and the Grant fam­ily con­nec­tions. It is also home to a series of events such as the Hog­manay cel­eb­ra­tion, Grant­own Show, Motor­mania, High­land Games, Thun­der in the Glens and Grant­own 250 which attract both loc­als and tour­ists. The town has a range of accom­mod­a­tion cov­er­ing hotels, guest houses, B&Bs and self- cater­ing as well as an award-win­ning cara­van park; in total there are approx­im­ately 440 catered bed spaces, a 24 bed hostel, 29 self-cater­ing units, and space for up to 40 tents and 97 tour­ing cara­vans³. Cafes, bars and res­taur­ants provide places to eat while a range of shops includ­ing inde­pend­ent retail­ers add to the town’s tour­ist offer. Tour­ism has been iden­ti­fied in pre­vi­ous con­sulta­tions, and vari­ous policy doc­u­ments such as the Cairngorms Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Strategy, as a key sec­tor which offers future growth poten­tial. The devel­op­ment of this Action Plan has revis­ited tour­ism-related issues iden­ti­fied in the most recent con­sulta­tion under­taken for the Town Centre Pilot Pro­ject and the fol­low­ing sum­mary provides an up-to-date over­view of the issues.

Mar­ket­ing and communication

Although the vari­ous attrac­tions and events pro­mote them­selves using their avail­able resources and a Vis­it Grant­own on Spey web­site pro­motes the town as a whole, this activ­ity is gen­er­ally low- key and unco­ordin­ated across the attrac­tions inso­far as it lacks a com­mon mes­sage and brand­ing. The Vis­it Grant­own on Spey web­site is inde­pend­ently run and although inform­a­tion is reg­u­larly updated its con­tent is not com­pre­hens­ive and the present­a­tion is some­what func­tion­al. Grant­own Ini­ti­at­ive is pro­gress­ing plans to devel­op a com­munity web­site that aims to serve both com­munity and vis­it­ors alike ensur­ing it becomes the online source, voice and com­munity of Grant­own. Busi­nesses and com­munity groups will be able to post full list­ings free of charge and the inten­tion is to provide a wide range of fre­quently updated inform­a­tion for vis­it­ors and the Grant­own community.

Foot­note

3 Grant­own-on-Spey Town Centre Pilot Pro­ject (CNPA, 2016)

Pre­vi­ous sug­ges­tions to adopt con­sist­ent mar­ket­ing includ­ing wel­come signs on the approaches to the town as well as web­sites, ban­ners, accom­mod­a­tion pro­viders, shops, events and leaf­lets did not come to fruition due to lim­ited buy-in and fund­ing, des­pite sup­port from some loc­al groups and CNPA. The situ­ation in Grant­own con­trasts with that of oth­er towns in Scot­land that have developed suc­cess­ful tour­ist mar­ket­ing cam­paigns such as Mof­fat which pro­motes itself as a spa town, Wig­town: Scotland’s Nation­al Book Town or Castle Douglas Food Town.

A tour­ist map for the town has recently been developed by loc­al part­ners includ­ing Grant­own Ini­ti­at­ive and Grant­own Busi­ness Asso­ci­ation. It high­lights the main points of interest and is inten­ded to keep vis­it­ors in Grant­own for longer. 11,000 maps have been pro­duced and the con­tent will be reviewed and revised if neces­sary for 2017. It has been sug­ges­ted that an online ver­sion of the map and an App that vis­it­ors can down­load would enable the con­tent to be more read­ily updated and would appeal to some tourists.

Inform­a­tion on vis­it­ors to Grant­own is very lim­ited yet it would be extremely valu­able for mar­ket­ing and com­mu­nic­a­tion pur­poses. Although a vis­it­ors’ sur­vey was under­taken in 2015 as part of the Grant­own Gate­way Pro­ject it gathered the views of only 20 vis­it­ors. This means the pro­file of vis­it­ors and why they choose to vis­it Grant­own is largely unknown.

Vis­it­or attractions

Grantown’s exist­ing vis­it­or attrac­tions are pop­u­lar, how­ever none attract sig­ni­fic­ant num­bers of tour­ists. For example, while Grant­own Museum had approx­im­ately 8,000 vis­it­ors in 2015, the top attrac­tions else­where in the Cairngorms had far great­er num­bers of vis­it­ors — approx­im­ately 373,000 at Rothiemurchus Estate and 248,000 Glen­more Forest Park in 20144. Both these attrac­tions are close to Aviemore which is a well-known tour­ist town with ample accom­mod­a­tion and amen­it­ies for vis­it­ors. While tour­ism in Grant­own is by com­par­is­on of a dif­fer­ent scale, con­sulta­tions over the years have con­sist­ently sug­ges­ted the town should seek to enhance its tour­ist offer­ing. There are two ongo­ing devel­op­ments which have the poten­tial to attract sig­ni­fic­ant num­bers of tour­ists and this Action Plan both sup­ports their devel­op­ment and seeks to max­im­ise the bene­fits for the town. Both devel­op­ments are linked to the town’s rail her­it­age and they have the poten­tial to make Grant­own a her­it­age rail­way attraction.

The first pro­pos­al is the res­tor­a­tion and con­ver­sion of the former Grant­own East Rail­way Sta­tion into a vis­it­or attrac­tion pro­mot­ing the area’s cul­tur­al her­it­age. Plan­ning approv­al was gran­ted in Decem­ber 2015 for a centre incor­por­at­ing exhib­i­tion space for loc­al crafts and his­tory, a High­land Games demon­stra­tion area, craft shop and oth­er retail space, and con­vert­ing old rail­way car­riages to cre­ate a café. The Eco­nom­ic State­ment and Busi­ness Plan accom­pa­ny­ing the plan­ning applic­a­tions stated that vis­it­or num­bers were expec­ted to be well in excess of 35,000 per year and the centre would cre­ate eight new jobs. The site is just off the A95, over a mile south of the town centre and the chal­lenge facing loc­al organ­isa­tions and

Foot­note

4 Tour­ism in Scotland’s Regions 2014 (Vis­it Scot­land, 2016).

busi­nesses will be cap­tur­ing the bene­fits of such vis­it­or num­bers, aside from the onsite employ­ment and oppor­tun­it­ies for loc­al craft pro­du­cers to sell their products.

The second pro­pos­al is the exten­sion of Strath­spey Steam Rail­way to Grant­own and sup­port for this was raised in pre­vi­ous con­sulta­tion. This is a long­stand­ing ambi­tion which would extend the ser­vice, that cur­rently ends at Broom­hill, to a new sta­tion on the out­skirts of Grant­own town centre near the cara­van park. The Rails to Grant­own Eco­nom­ic Impact Assess­ment fore­cast that the exten­sion would lead to 98,000 pas­sen­gers arriv­ing in Grant­own by rail each year and 28,000 start­ing their jour­ney in the town – num­bers that would change the tour­ist mar­ket in Grant­own sig­ni­fic­antly. The eco­nom­ic impact assess­ment notes ​‘that effort would be required to max­im­ise the bene­fits of the oppor­tun­ity presen­ted by the rail­way’. In par­tic­u­lar, the report sug­gests that mar­ket­ing will be import­ant to ​‘fully inform vis­it­ors of the range of activ­it­ies avail­able in and around the vil­lage, espe­cially giv­en the lack of a sig­ni­fic­ant single vis­it­or attrac­tion’. It also notes that the pro­posed sta­tion is on the out­skirts of the town, over 10 minutes’ walk from its centre, and some stake­hold­ers were of the opin­ion that this could deter vis­its to the town by pas­sen­gers espe­cially the less mobile; a shuttle bus and/​or a des­ig­nated pic­tur­esque walk­ing route between the sta­tion and town centre were sug­ges­ted. The report also noted that the rail­way timetable would need to provide a suit­able amount of time for pas­sen­gers to vis­it Grant­own. A sig­ni­fic­ant increase in tour­ist num­bers would also cre­ate a fur­ther issue as the demand for overnight accom­mod­a­tion in Grant­own would, in all like­li­hood, far out­strip sup­ply which is rel­at­ively mod­est at the present time.

In addi­tion, exist­ing vis­it­or attrac­tions such as Anagach Woods and Grant­own Museum have plans or ideas that could increase vis­it­or num­bers. Anagach Woods Trust for example has raised the idea of a build­ing or log cab­in in the woods which could poten­tially be used as a vis­it­or centre and/​or a base for com­munity organ­isa­tions includ­ing the Trust. Oth­er con­sul­tees high­lighted the idea of a vis­it­or centre in the town centre to com­ple­ment exist­ing attrac­tions and planned devel­op­ments. Anagach Woods Trust also has plans to fur­ther devel­op the moun­tain bike trail in the wood­lands and the cost of the exten­ded trail has been estim­ated at £40,000 exclud­ing VAT. Grant­own Museum recently com­pleted a £40,000 refit which improved the museum’s facil­it­ies and dis­plays with the aid of grants from Museums Gal­ler­ies Scot­land and The High­land Coun­cil. Plans also exist to revamp Mossie play park on the corner of Mossie Road and Castle Road in Grant­own. Although the park is primar­ily used by loc­als, an influx of vis­it­ors, par­tic­u­larly those with young chil­dren brought about by the steam rail­way could greatly increase use of the park.

Vis­it­or experience

Pre­vi­ous con­sulta­tions noted that the exper­i­ence of vis­it­ors to Grant­own could be improved, for example it noted that there was a lack of vibrancy to the High Street in the even­ings and that some shops were shut for half days or at lunch­times. Sug­ges­tions included World Host and Make It Yours train­ing for busi­nesses to improve vis­it­or hand­ling and exper­i­ences; restrict­ing park­ing, adding tables and updat­ing inform­a­tion boards in The Square to improve vis­it­or exper­i­ence; and adding

to events in the town centre to increase vis­it­or num­bers. These issues remain import­ant if Grant­own is to grow its tour­ist mar­ket and they take on added sig­ni­fic­ance giv­en the major vis­it­or attrac­tions pro­posed for the town.

Pub­lic events

As high­lighted above a num­ber of events are held in Grant­own for the bene­fit of loc­als and tour­ists. Loc­al com­munity groups have dis­cussed the need for new equip­ment for these events includ­ing a Pub­lic Address (PA) sys­tem, mar­quee and stage. Although Grant­own-on-Spey and Vicin­ity Com­munity Coun­cil own a PA sys­tem, it is unclear wheth­er the sys­tem is fully oper­a­tion­al and it has been sug­ges­ted that if may not meet the community’s needs for music events. It has also been repor­ted that not all loc­al groups know how to set up and oper­ate the PA sys­tem, and the safety of the cur­rent elec­tri­city sup­ply (which plugs into a sup­ply on a tree in The Square) has been ques­tioned although it was also repor­ted that it is reg­u­larly checked by High­land Coun­cil. A stage is hired for the Hog­manay cel­eb­ra­tion and it has been sug­ges­ted that own­ing a mobile stage would be use­ful. How­ever, the level of addi­tion­al demand aside from the Hog­manay cel­eb­ra­tion and stor­age have been high­lighted as issues. A Grant­own-branded gazebo to cov­er the PA sys­tem and tables to set the sys­tem up on have also been sug­ges­ted as use­ful addi­tions. While the Town Twin­ning Asso­ci­ation own two large tents that suf­fice for their pur­poses it has been sug­ges­ted a mar­quee would be use­ful for oth­er events and a mar­quee was hired for the Grant­own 250 cel­eb­ra­tions. Demand and stor­age of the mar­quee have been raised as issues. Pre­vi­ous con­sulta­tion in Grant­own high­lighted an ongo­ing com­mit­ment to hold pub­lic events in the town as well as a need for equip­ment and stor­age facil­it­ies. The iden­ti­fic­a­tion of a suit­able ven­ue for events/​concerts has also been dis­cussed with the devel­op­ment of a band­stand near The Square raised by some.

RESPONSE

It is pro­posed that Grant­own Ini­ti­at­ive works col­lab­or­at­ively with part­ners to devel­op tour­ism and events in Grant­own. The response should focus on the devel­op­ment of a co-ordin­ated approach to mar­ket­ing and com­mu­nic­a­tion, pro­act­ive sup­port for the devel­op­ment of new and expan­sion of exist­ing vis­it­or attrac­tions, and a pro­gramme to improve the vis­it­or exper­i­ence. The pro­gramme com­ple­ments the oth­er themes in the Action Plan, most dir­ectly the pro­posed CARS/​Townscape Her­it­age Pro­gramme which includes a sig­ni­fic­ant learn­ing and engage­ment ele­ment to pro­mote Grantown’s his­tory and built heritage.

Tour­ism is one of the key themes in the Cairngorms LEAD­ER and it is there­fore high­lighted as a poten­tial source of fund­ing for the pro­posed actions. The tour­ism theme aims to devel­op excel­lence in sus­tain­able tour­ism and recre­ation to enhance enjoy­ment of res­id­ents and vis­it­ors. Grantown’s tour­ism pro­gramme should seek to address the rel­ev­ant LEAD­ER out­comes which are: a more resi­li­ent, com­pet­it­ive, bet­ter qual­ity and diverse tour­ism sec­tor bene­fit­ting all com­munit­ies by 2020; and the Cairngorms Nation­al Park recre­ation oppor­tun­it­ies will improve the health and enjoy­ment of res­id­ents and visitors.

The fol­low­ing spe­cif­ic actions are pro­posed in order to devel­op tour­ism and events in Grantown.

Mar­ket­ing, research and training

The devel­op­ment of mar­ket­ing and com­mu­nic­a­tions is pro­posed that pro­motes Grantown’s var­ied tour­ist offer­ing using high qual­ity digit­al and prin­ted mater­i­al centred around a com­mon message

and brand­ing. Wherever pos­sible, the mes­sage and brand­ing should be used con­sist­ently by loc­al attrac­tions for their own pro­mo­tion­al efforts thereby rein­for­cing Grant­own as a tour­ist des­tin­a­tion. A key ele­ment of the pro­posed mar­ket­ing pro­gramme should be ensur­ing the new com­munity web­site is pro­moted to poten­tial vis­it­ors and that the con­tent is rel­ev­ant and appeal­ing to them; the devel­op­ment of a tour­ist App should also be con­sidered. If fund­ing can be secured, extern­al sup­port should be sought from a spe­cial­ist tour­ism com­mu­nic­a­tions agency to final­ise the mes­sage and brand­ing. Their work should be informed by research which estab­lishes the pro­file of exist­ing tour­ists to Grant­own and their reas­ons for vis­it­ing the town as lim­ited inform­a­tion cur­rently exists; this work should also identi­fy Grantown’s tar­get mar­ket tak­ing into account tour­ist num­bers and char­ac­ter­ist­ics else­where in the Cairngorms and the High­lands. Fund­ing could poten­tially be sought from Cairngorms LEAD­ER for this work and the devel­op­ment of a pro­gramme to improve the vis­it­or exper­i­ence. The vis­it­or exper­i­ence pro­gramme should provide train­ing oppor­tun­it­ies for loc­al busi­ness such as World Host and Make It Yours. The estim­ated cost of a mar­ket­ing, research and train­ing pro­gramme is £15,000.

Vis­it­or attractions

Prac­tic­al sup­port for the new or expan­ded vis­it­or attrac­tions is a key fea­ture of plans to devel­op tour­ism and events in Grant­own. For exist­ing groups and attrac­tions with ideas or firmer devel­op­ment pro­pos­als, these plans should be pro­gressed, where neces­sary with sup­port from Vol­un­tary Action in Badenoch and Strath­spey, to identi­fy poten­tial fun­ders and to bene­fit from their expert­ise in bid writ­ing. This should for example, see Anagach Woods Trust pro­gress their mountain