Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

Item 8 Plan­ning Committee

13 Novem­ber 2026

Page 1 of 4

For decision

Title: Scot­tish Par­lia­ment Rur­al Affairs Com­mit­tee short inquiry into the Scot­tish out­door access system

Pre­pared by: Gav­in Miles, Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place

Pur­pose

To update mem­bers on the Scot­tish Par­lia­ment Rur­al Affairs Com­mit­tee short inquiry into the work­ing of the Scot­tish out­door access sys­tem pro­gress; on how officers will con­trib­ute evid­ence to the inquiry; and to endorse the main points that the Park Author­ity con­siders the Com­mit­tee could con­sider in rela­tion to the Scot­tish Out­door Access Code.

Recom­mend­a­tions

The Plan­ning Com­mit­tee is asked to:

a) Note the Rur­al Affairs Committee’s inquiry and officers’ approach to con­trib­ut­ing evidence;

b) Endorse the key themes that officers pro­pose to make to the Com­mit­tee in that are sum­mar­ised on para­graph 5.

Back­ground and Stra­tegic context

1. The Land Reform (Scot­land) Act 2003 gives people the right to respons­ible access to most land and inland water in Scot­land. The Scot­tish Out­door Access Code (SOAC) was pub­lished in Feb­ru­ary 2007 and sets out guid­ance on enjoy­ing those rights of access.

2. The Scot­tish Par­lia­ment Rur­al Affairs Committee’s remit is to con­sider and report on mat­ters with­in the rur­al affairs port­fo­lio of respons­ib­il­ity of the Cab­in­et Sec­ret­ary for Cli­mate and Rur­al Affairs. The com­mit­tee is under­tak­ing a short inquiry to under­stand how well Scotland’s out­door access sys­tem is oper­at­ing and wheth­er changes are needed to ensure it is fit for the future. The Com­mit­tee may recom­mend that changes are needed, but gov­ern­ment is not obliged to act on any recom­mend­a­tions it makes.

Page 2 of 4

1. The Park Author­ity is an out­door access author­ity under the Land Reform (Scot­land) Act 2003 so has extens­ive exper­i­ence of man­aging those func­tions includ­ing pro­mot­ing the Scot­tish Out­door Access Code (SOAC), uphold­ing access rights, the pro­vi­sion, plan­ning and man­age­ment of core paths and of oth­er access infra­struc­ture, con­ven­ing a Loc­al Out­door Access For­um and work­ing with numer­ous part­ners to sup­port respons­ible out­door access.

Park Authority’s approach to the Com­mit­tee Inquiry

1. The Park Author­ity has been invited to give evid­ence to the Com­mit­tee and Colin Simpson, our Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices and Act­ive Travel, will attend the Com­mit­tee with a num­ber of part­ners includ­ing Loch Lomond and Trossachs Nation­al Park Author­ity and NatureScot on 18 Novem­ber 2026 to answer ques­tions and provide evid­ence. The key points we intend to make to the Com­mit­tee are sum­mar­ised below:

2. We con­sider we have suc­cess­fully sup­por­ted the out­door access sys­tem both through using our stat­utory powers and our dis­cre­tion­ary resource and influ­ence. In addi­tion to uphold­ing access rights and man­aging areas of con­flict in out­door access and sup­port­ing land man­agers and landown­ers in their man­age­ment of land and out­door access, we have inves­ted in infra­struc­ture to allow more people to enjoy out­door access and in our own and part­ner ranger ser­vices to sup­port the respons­ible enjoy­ment of access rights on the ground and with­in schools. In gen­er­al terms, we con­sider the out­door access sys­tem to con­tin­ue to be fit for pur­pose and a suc­cess­fully imple­men­ted legis­lat­ive framework.

3. Nev­er­the­less, there are a few areas where tech­no­logy, recre­ation­al activ­it­ies and cli­mate change have changed in ways that were not anti­cip­ated when the legis­la­tion was pre­pared or when SOAC was writ­ten and are worth draw­ing the Committee’s atten­tion to in their inquiry:

a) Fire. It is a well-estab­lished fact that cli­mate change is lead­ing to increased peri­ods of wild­fire risk and con­di­tions where wild­fires could be more extens­ive. SOAC gives the right to light a fire. The Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity has intro­duced a fire man­age­ment byelaw to ban fires and bar­be­cues between April and Septem­ber which over­rides the SOAC guidance.

Page 3 of 4

It’s imple­ment­a­tion in its first year has sig­ni­fic­antly reduced the num­bers of fires encountered by rangers across the Nation­al Park. We are aware that at least two neigh­bour­ing loc­al author­it­ies are con­sid­er­ing intro­du­cing sim­il­ar byelaws. We con­sider that a more con­sist­ent nation­al approach to restrict­ing the rights to light fires would be worth­while and that SOAC’s advice in rela­tion to fire light­ing should be reviewed giv­en the increas­ing risk and poten­tial con­sequences of wild­fire in Scotland.

b) Inform­al camp­ing. While wild camp­ing is gen­er­ally under­taken in a respons­ible way, there are numer­ous oth­er forms of inform­al camp­ing that have increased and can lead to indi­vidu­al or cumu­lat­ive impacts that people mis­take for or ima­gine to be wild camp­ing. The increased use of camper­vans and motor homes, road­side and oth­er vehicle-based camp­ing or at access­ible vis­it­or loc­a­tions have had a range of well-estab­lished impacts on loc­al areas, com­munit­ies and nature. While there are some tools bey­ond the out­door access sys­tem to help man­age these issues, SOAC could also provide more clar­ity on such activ­it­ies that are not covered by access rights.

c) Tech­no­logy advances and recre­ation­al activ­it­ies. There are a range of new or changed recre­ation­al activ­it­ies because of advan­cing tech­no­logy. Drone tech­no­logy has advanced over recent years and while avi­ation legis­la­tion cov­ers some aspects of their use, recre­ation­al use of drones can give rise to issues of pri­vacy, dis­turb­ance to wild­life, impacts on live­stock and inter­fer­ence with the enjoy­ment of oth­ers. When SOAC was writ­ten ​“powered mod­el air­craft” was noted as an activ­ity excluded from out­door access rights, but drones are not men­tioned and the absence of guid­ance in SOAC cre­ates poten­tial for uncer­tainty for drone users and land man­agers. Sim­il­arly, advances in elec­tron­ic motor tech­no­logy mean that bikes, skoot­ers and water craft are all being adap­ted and used more extens­ively both with­in any leg­al lim­its (and at times in mod­i­fied forms) for out­door recre­ation that were not anti­cip­ated when SOAC was written.

d) Wild­life dis­turb­ance from new or chan­ging recre­ation­al activ­it­ies. As one of Scotland’s most nature-rich areas, we have exper­i­ence of many loc­a­tions, areas or peri­ods of dis­turb­ance of nature by people exer­cising access rights, some­times aware of the poten­tial impacts, but often unaware. The nuanced

Page 4 of 4

e) and some­time com­plic­ated real­ity of what is respons­ible access is not always well under­stood by the pub­lic and can be dif­fi­cult to explain clearly for any giv­en site or issue.

As an example, when SOAC was writ­ten, paddle­board­ing was a minor­ity activ­ity, but is now a pop­u­lar and access­ible sport that has led to people using many water bod­ies for recre­ation, includ­ing smal­ler water bod­ies in much great­er num­bers than in the past or over more of the year. At times this has intro­duced new con­flicts between the people par­ti­cip­at­ing and spe­cies sens­it­ive to dis­turb­ance by humans or oth­er users of the water body.

f) While there are tools and options that can help man­age those poten­tial con­flicts, we con­sider these issues will con­tin­ue to grow and be a chal­lenge in future in some parts of Scot­land. We recog­nise this issue is a com­plex one, par­tic­u­larly as the dis­turb­ance effect of recre­ation are often not due to any indi­vidu­als act­ing irre­spons­ibly, but simply due to the num­bers of people in spe­cif­ic loc­a­tions or sea­sons caus­ing a col­lect­ive or cumu­lat­ive effect on nature.

Next Steps

1. Colin Simpson will attend the Rur­al Affairs Com­mit­tee ses­sion on 18 Novem­ber and reit­er­ate or amp­li­fy and expand on the points made above. Officers will also respond to any oth­er spe­cif­ic calls for inform­a­tion or evidence.

Gav­in Miles 6 Novem­ber 2026 gavinmiles@​cairngorms.​co.​uk