Kingussie Community Action Plan 2025

Kin­gussie Com­munity Action Plan Con­sulta­tion Res­ults: Look­ing to 2030

Com­piled winter 2024 Pub­lished spring 2025

Sup­por­ted by Kin­gussie & Vicin­ity Com­munity Coun­cil Kin­gussie Com­munity Devel­op­ment Com­pany Caber­feidh Hori­zons ARC-Kin­gussie Kin­gussie Primary School Par­ent Coun­cil Kin­gussie Churches Kin­gussie Caman­achd Club

Facil­it­ated by Vol­un­tary Action in Badenoch and Strathspey

Kin­gussie Com­munity Action Plan: Look­ing to 2030 Page 1 of 29

Con­tents

1. Sum­mary 3
2. The Com­munity 4
3. The Pro­cess 6
4. Com­munity Engage­ment 10
5. Sur­vey Responses 10
6. Com­munity Sug­ges­tions 11
7. Spa­tial Pri­or­it­ies 18
8. Next Steps: Deliv­ery 19
9. Thanks 22
10. Appen­dices 23 i. What do you like about liv­ing in Kin­gussie ii. What changes would you like to see for Kin­gussie? iii. What new/​existing pro­jects would you like to see hap­pen­ing in the community?

Kin­gussie Com­munity Action Plan: Look­ing to 2030 Page 2 of 29

1. Sum­mary In winter 2024, Kin­gussie & Vicin­ity Com­munity Coun­cil togeth­er with Kin­gussie Com­munity Devel­op­ment Com­pany, Caber­feidh Hori­zons, ARC-Kin­gussie, Kin­gussie Primary School Par­ent Coun­cil, Kin­gussie Churches and Kin­gussie Caman­achd, decided that they wished to carry out a review of the com­munity action plan for the town, which had been pre­vi­ously under­taken in 2018. The pur­pose of revis­it­ing and updat­ing the plan was primar­ily aimed at giv­ing these key com­munity organ­isa­tions, along with a range of oth­er groups in the com­munity, plus pub­lic and private sec­tor stake­hold­ers, a strong man­date to move for­ward with tack­ling cur­rent and emer­ging issues, as well as lead­ing on new com­munity pro­jects, iden­ti­fied as sug­ges­tions by the res­id­ents of Kin­gussie dur­ing the pro­cess in winter 2024.

With sup­port from Vol­un­tary Action in Badenoch & Strath­spey, the com­munity-led steer­ing group, com­pris­ing rep­res­ent­a­tion from the organ­isa­tions lis­ted above, agreed that they would seek the views of loc­al res­id­ents on a num­ber of key ques­tions. This was achieved via a sur­vey which was per­son­ally delivered to every house­hold by volun­teers as a paper copy, which was also access­ible online. In addi­tion, the ques­tions con­tained in the sur­vey were also raised with some tar­geted groups that were iden­ti­fied as being harder to get accurate/​quality inform­a­tion from. This was under­taken by mem­bers of the steer­ing group going out with the sur­vey ques­tions to places and events where it was con­sidered that indi­vidu­als or groups fall­ing into this cat­egory might be approached.

The pro­cess was entitled Kin­gussie Com­munity Action Plan: Look­ing to 2030. In pre­vi­ous action plan­ning car­ried out by the com­munity, the focus was on activ­ity mostly with a 2 – 3 year timespan. Giv­en the increased need now to also focus on longer-term goals, par­tic­u­larly in rela­tion to the envir­on­ment and the eco­nomy, res­id­ents and busi­nesses were asked to con­sider where they and the com­munity wanted to be by 2030, so gen­er­at­ing a more exten­ded set of plans and aspirations.

Examples of recent suc­cesses in Kin­gussie with com­munity pro­jects and action plan­ning include: • Acquir­ing old bank build­ing for com­munity use • Com­munity play­ing fields at Mar­ket Stance • Improv­ing access­ib­il­ity of path net­work • One Kin­gussie com­munity sup­port mech­an­ism • Cre­ation of Warm Spaces • Cre­ation of Sunday mar­kets • Bal­ance bike pro­ject • Wild­flower sow­ing in/​around the town • Com­plete refur­bish­ment of Glebe Ponds • Trans­form­a­tion of Gyn­ack Gar­dens • Put­ting on com­munity fest­ivals, events and celebrations

Kin­gussie Com­munity Action Plan: Look­ing to 2030 Page 3 of 29

To help add to these achieve­ments, res­id­ents were encour­aged to take part in the com­munity action plan review in 2024. How­ever, this time round people were invited to think not only about what might be achieved togeth­er, but that the pro­jects the town was being asked to con­sider, would be ones that would help Kin­gussie devel­op a more sus­tain­able future. This is set against a back­drop of life post-lock­downs, the chal­lenge of find­ing new volun­teers, plus the chan­ging eco­nom­ic and cli­mate situ­ation we find ourselves in.

The Kin­gussie com­munity action plan­ning pro­cess adhered to the Nation­al Stand­ards for Com­munity Engage­ment to ensure all of the fol­low­ing ele­ments were fully taken into account dur­ing the com­munity-led ini­ti­at­ive: Impact, Com­mu­nic­a­tion, Meth­ods, Work­ing togeth­er, Plan­ning, Sup­port and Inclusion.

See Sec­tion 4. Com­munity Engage­ment for fur­ther details on the 7 Standards.

1. The Com­munity Kin­gussie is the cap­it­al of Badenoch, situ­ated in the west of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. The com­munity area extends from the Mon­adh­liath Moun­tains in the north-west, to Insh Marshes in the east through Glen Tromie in the south. The name Kin­gussie is derived from the Scot­tish Gael­ic name Ceann a’ Ghiùth­saich mean­ing ​‘head of the pine forest’.

The com­munity area of Kin­gussie, covered by Kin­gussie and Vicin­ity Com­munity Coun­cil, also encom­passes Ruthven, Gaick and Pit­main, which togeth­er con­sti­tute a com­munity of approx­im­ately 1470 people, mak­ing Kin­gussie the most pop­u­lous set­tle­ment in Badenoch. Demo­graph­ic stat­ist­ics show that Kingussie’s pop­u­la­tion is 51.8% 18 – 64 year olds, 32.6% over 64 year olds and 15.7% under 18 year olds, mean­ing Kin­gussie has a slightly more ​‘youth­ful’ pop­u­la­tion than many oth­er set­tle­ments in Badenoch and Strathspey.

Kin­gussie has a long and inter­est­ing his­tory. On the site of the ruins of Ruthven Bar­racks, a castle stood from 1229, which became home to Alex­an­der Stew­art, ​‘The Wolf of Badenoch’, in 1371. Ruthven Bar­racks was built on the site in 1719 and was des­troyed by the Jac­ob­ites after their retreat at the Battle of Cul­loden in 1746.

In 1464 Kin­gussie was cre­ated a burgh of bar­ony by King James III in favour of Alex­an­der Gor­don, 1^st Earl of Huntly. The Duke of Gor­don led the devel­op­ment of the planned set­tle­ment of Kin­gussie in 1799, which grew slowly ini­tially but was boos­ted by the build­ing of bridges over River Spey and River Lag­gan in 1808 and 1815 respect­ively, pla­cing Kin­gussie on the new main roads from Inverness to Perth, and to Fort Wil­li­am. Kin­gussie then became a Police Burgh in 1867. Kin­gussie Com­munity Action Plan: Look­ing to 2030 Page 4 of 29

Kin­gussie rail­way sta­tion was opened in 1863, mark­ing the settlement’s trans­form­a­tion into a High­land resort for winter and sum­mer tour­ism. The High­land Main Line now con­nects Kin­gussie by rail to the north and south. Kin­gussie is situ­ated next to the A9 road also run­ning north and south, and on the A86 link­ing to west to Fort Wil­li­am. The A9 used to pass through the town until it was bypassed in 1979. Tour­ism still makes up an import­ant part of the loc­al eco­nomy with mul­tiple hotels and oth­er hos­pit­al­ity and accom­mod­a­tion pro­viders run­ning busi­nesses in Kingussie.

Kin­gussie has a rich sport­ing her­it­age. Kin­gussie Caman­achd Club was foun­ded in 1890 and is based at the Dell, next to the River Spey. Kin­gussie were the first win­ners of the Caman­achd Cup in 1896 (26 times win­ners to date), are record league title win­ners (35 times to date) and in 2024 won all the sports major trophies, their second ​‘Grand Slam’ in three years and eighth in their his­tory. Kin­gussie Golf Course, an 18-hole course adja­cent to the River Gyn­ack, was first opened as a 9‑hole course in 1891 and remains pop­u­lar today.

Kin­gussie has deep con­nec­tions to nature; it is sur­roun­ded by moun­tains, marshes, mead­ows and rivers. How­ever, much of the pine forest from which the Scot­tish Gael­ic name comes, is now depleted. The Scot­tish Gael­ic Badenoch, means ​‘drowned land’ refer­ring to nat­ur­al flood­plain on which Kin­gussie sits on the fringes. Recog­nised as a site of nation­al and inter­na­tion­al con­ser­va­tion import­ance, the RSPB took over man­age­ment of Insh Marshes in 1973. With mul­tiple des­ig­na­tions (Nation­al Nature Reserve Site of Spe­cial Sci­entif­ic Interest, Spe­cies Pro­tec­tion Area etc.), the RSPB man­age the area for the con­ser­va­tion of pro­tec­ted spe­cies and hab­it­at of nat­ur­al import­ance such as breed­ing waders, trans­ition mire, and aspen woodland.

Prin­cip­al loc­al attrac­tions in the com­munity include Ruthven Bar­racks, RSPB Insh Marshes, Kin­gussie Caman­achd, and Kin­gussie Golf Club. Key loc­al employ­ers include hos­pit­al­ity estab­lish­ments, Kin­gussie High & Primary School and loc­al trade busi­nesses. Caber­feidh Hori­zons is a long-estab­lished and very well-regarded asset in the com­munity. The char­ity attracts loc­als and a much wider pub­lic to its high street book­shop, char­ity shop and Hub, provid­ing employ­ment and volun­teer­ing oppor­tun­it­ies for a sig­ni­fic­ant num­ber of people.

Com­mon Good Com­mon Good prop­erty was ori­gin­ally a form of urb­an com­munity own­er­ship, gran­ted to former Burghs to provide space for civic build­ings, mar­kets, recre­ation, and oth­er activ­it­ies. The Com­mon Good Act of 1491 estab­lished a strong leg­al status for these lands and required their man­age­ment for the bene­fit of the com­munity, a law that still stands today.

After the dis­sol­u­tion of the Burgh, the assets held by the former Burgh coun­cil are held as Com­mon Good by the loc­al author­ity, The High­land Coun­cil, who holds these assets on behalf of the com­munity to provide pub­lic bene­fit. Kin­gussie Com­munity Action Plan: Look­ing to 2030 Page 5 of 29

Com­mon Good assets belong­ing to Kin­gussie include: • Ardvonie Car Park • Tait’s Brae Play Park • Mar­ket stance (Live­stock mar­ket) and shinty pitch • Put­ting Green • Put­ting Green sheds and adja­cent land • Kin­gussie Ten­nis Courts • Clock Tower and land for loc­a­tion of Clock Tower • Kin­gussie Com­mon Good Fund

Com­munity Organ­isa­tions There are a sig­ni­fic­ant num­ber of com­munity organisations/​groups which work for the bene­fit of the com­munity and are almost entirely run by volun­teers. These include: Kin­gussie & Vicin­ity Com­munity Coun­cil, Kin­gussie Com­munity Devel­op­ment Com­pany, Caber­feidh Hori­zons, ARC-Kin­gussie, Kin­gussie Primary School Par­ent Coun­cil, Kin­gussie High School Par­ent Coun­cil, Kin­gussie Caman­achd, The lona Gal­lery, Kin­gussie Allot­ment Asso­ci­ation (SCIO), and the Kin­gussie Churches.

Com­munity-Owned/Leased Assets Kin­gussie Com­munity Hydro Kin­gussie Bowl­ing Club lona Gal­lery The Dell Kin­gussie Com­munity Wood­land Caber­feidh Hori­zons (3 shops) Kin­gussie Golf Club Kin­gussie Ten­nis Courts Loc­al Busi­nesses Mar­ket Stance Kin­gussie Allot­ments There are numer­ous loc­al busi­nesses across many sec­tors oper­at­ing in the town. Kin­gussie Busi­ness For­um — which was set-up to rep­res­ent the voice of com­mer­cial activ­ity in Kin­gussie — is cur­rently dormant.

1. The Pro­cess The Kin­gussie com­munity con­sulta­tion peri­od ran from Octo­ber to Novem­ber 2024 and dur­ing this time, the way in which the com­munity action plan­ning pro­cess was car­ried out, broadly fell into four stages. These were:

1) Gath­er­ing Inform­a­tion 2) Data Sort­ing and Col­la­tion 3) Involving People & Refin­ing Ideas 4) Com­munity Action Plan (CAP) doc­u­ment production

With­in the four stages of the pro­cess, the steer­ing group asked the fol­low­ing ques­tions: Gath­er­ing Inform­a­tion Kin­gussie Com­munity Action Plan: Look­ing to 2030 Page 6 of 29

What do we want to know? What ques­tions will we ask? What meth­ods will we use? How will we do it?

Data Sort­ing What does it involve? How will we do it? Who will do / assist with this? In what form will we present it back to the community?

Involving People & Refin­ing Ideas What stake­hold­er groups do we need to involve? How (& where) will we present the inform­a­tion gathered so far? How will people in the com­munity help refine the inform­a­tion? Who will assist with this?

CAP doc­u­ment pro­duc­tion What will it include? Who will put it togeth­er? How will it be presen­ted to the com­munity? What hap­pens to it next?

In addi­tion, the steer­ing group also con­sidered what times­cales and key dates they wanted to aim for and how they would deal with com­mu­nic­a­tions & pub­li­city — ensur­ing that these ele­ments were robust, so the pro­cess was as inclus­ive as it could be.

The fifth and most cru­cial stage of the whole action plan­ning ini­ti­at­ive, involves deliv­ery of the plan by the Kin­gussie com­munity and oth­er stake­hold­ers. Essen­tially this deals with ques­tions such as: Who will take respons­ib­il­ity for the CAP? How will it be driv­en for­ward? How will it be mon­itored and evaluated?

There is more detail on how this can be achieved in Sec­tion 8. Next Steps.

Gath­er­ing Inform­a­tion There was dis­cus­sion about the nature and pre­cise word­ing of ques­tions in the sur­vey, as the steer­ing group wanted to revis­it ques­tions asked in pre­vi­ous com­munity-led action plan­ning, to re-estab­lish what spe­cif­ic things people liked about Kin­gussie and wanted to keep in the com­munity. They also wished to encour­age the com­munity to look to a 5 to 10-year hori­zon, and con­sider how it might tackle some of the trick­i­er issues such as care for the envir­on­ment, sup­port­ing young­er and older res­id­ents, employ­ab­il­ity and trans­port. So ques­tions were employed which were broadly framed, to allow respon­ders to bring up a wide range of issues and ideas without being led.

The paper ver­sion covered just two sides of A4 and the sur­vey asked 3 ques­tions: Kin­gussie Com­munity Action Plan: Look­ing to 2030 Page 7 of 29

1) What do you like about liv­ing in Kingussie?

2) What changes would you like to see for Kin­gussie by 2030? (Per­haps con­sider how as indi­vidu­als, or as a com­munity, we can improve the envir­on­ment, address the cli­mate emer­gency, devel­op our loc­al eco­nomy, increase social and leis­ure oppor­tun­it­ies and widen loc­al cul­tur­al exper­i­ences) If you could improve just ONE of these things, what would it be?

3) Are there any new pro­jects (large or small) that you would like to see hap­pen­ing in the com­munity? Plus any pro­jects, clubs or organ­isa­tions that you wouldn’t want to lose?

The sur­vey also asked:

Would you be will­ing to get involved in any pro­jects you are inter­ested in? YES / NO If Yes, please provide con­tact details.

This last addi­tion­al ques­tion was included to try to encour­age more people to come for­ward to help with pro­jects that were of par­tic­u­lar interest to them, in order to coun­ter­act the reduc­tion in volun­teer num­bers, that had come about in recent years and espe­cially fol­low­ing the ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁ pan­dem­ic lockdowns.

It was decided that all 1100 house­holds would receive a paper copy of the sur­vey through their let­ter­box and this was car­ried out by a team of com­munity volun­teers, who over a peri­od of a few days, delivered cop­ies out into all areas of the com­munity. This meth­od helped to deliv­er an inclus­ive pro­cess of com­munity engage­ment, where every­one had the oppor­tun­ity to respond to the sur­vey if they wished and they were able to do this via hard copy, which could be depos­ited back into one of the cent­rally loc­ated sur­vey boxes, or online via QR code which enabled the com­munity to access the sur­vey on a range of devices.

Data Sort­ing All of the responses came in either online via Sur­vey Mon­key, by hard copy into CAP- branded boxes left at vari­ous loc­a­tions in the town, or from inform­a­tion col­lated at events put on for spe­cif­ic groups in the town. Sur­veys were returned from the community’s school pupils and these responses high­lighted the ideas and opin­ions of young people liv­ing in the area.

Every com­ment was recor­ded and cat­egor­ised, so that every­one would be able to ​‘see’ their voice in the dis­played res­ults. The inform­a­tion was sor­ted into 4 main themes: Social, Envir­on­ment­al, Eco­nom­ic and Cul­tur­al and the num­ber of times a par­tic­u­lar issue or idea was men­tioned was noted, so sug­ges­tions could rise to the top of the lists in each themed cat­egory. These lists were then pre­pared for dis­play (see Sec­tion 6. Action Plan what the com­munity wants and Sec­tion 10. Appen­dices), so every mem­ber of the com­munity Kin­gussie Com­munity Action Plan: Look­ing to 2030 Page 8 of 29

could see what had been said and get involved in the next stage, when ideas were refined and solu­tions to issues sought.

Involving People & Refin­ing Ideas The pro­cess cul­min­ated in the Kin­gussie Big Con­ver­sa­tion, which took place on a Fri­day and Sat­urday in Novem­ber 2024 at Talla Nan Ros. At this drop in event, the res­ults were offered back to the com­munity and time giv­en for reflec­tion and dis­cus­sion around the topics.

Dur­ing the event, all of the res­id­ents who atten­ded were asked to con­sider the top sug­ges­tions that had been iden­ti­fied from the pro­cess under the head­ings of: A Socially Con­nec­ted Com­munity A Cli­mate Con­scious Com­munity An Eco­nom­ic­ally Thriv­ing Com­munity A Cul­tur­ally Vibrant Community

They were asked to look at those areas of par­tic­u­lar interest to them and write on action plan tem­plates aimed at refin­ing ideas by look­ing at ques­tions such as: What spe­cif­ic action needs to be taken to achieve this pri­or­ity and Who needs to be involved?

CAP doc­u­ment pro­duc­tion All of the com­ments and pieces of inform­a­tion giv­en by the pub­lic dur­ing the Kin­gussie Big Con­ver­sa­tion event were col­lec­ted and incor­por­ated into this report, which now belongs to the Kin­gussie com­munity and will be used as the basis for ongo­ing com­munity devel­op­ment over the next 5 – 8 years, with sup­port from the community’s organ­isa­tions and all oth­er rel­ev­ant stake­hold­ers from the pub­lic, private and vol­un­tary sector.

Also a list of all those who came for­ward offer­ing to volun­teer their help with cer­tain pro­jects was com­piled and will be held by the team tak­ing the action plan for­ward (referred to as Team Kin­gussie for the pur­poses of this report). Kin­gussie Com­munity Action Plan: Look­ing to 2030 Page 9 of 29

1. Com­munity Engage­ment The Nation­al Stand­ards for Com­munity Engage­ment are good-prac­tice prin­ciples designed to improve and guide the pro­cess of com­munity engagement.

They are clear prin­ciples that describe the main ele­ments of effect­ive com­munity engage­ment. They provide detailed per­form­ance state­ments that every­one involved can use to achieve the highest qual­ity res­ults and the greatest impact.

The stand­ards are par­tic­u­larly help­ful for com­munit­ies — their organ­isa­tions and groups — to help them involve their mem­bers or the wider com­munity in shap­ing the ser­vices and changes they need, and to make sure they accur­ately rep­res­ent mem­bers’ or the community’s views in the decision-mak­ing processes.

1. Sur­vey Responses Thanks go to the res­id­ents in Kin­gussie who con­trib­uted so mean­ing­fully and thought­fully to the com­munity sur­vey. 274 responses were made, rep­res­ent­ing at least 19% of the community’s pop­u­la­tion and includes responses from school age res­id­ents. Also, thanks go to the people who atten­ded the Big Con­ver­sa­tion drop-in event at Talla Nan Ross over the two days.

For a full list of what came out of the sur­vey responses, see Sec­tion 10. Appen­dices (list of appen­dices below). These show all com­ments made by the com­munity in answer to the sur­vey ques­tions, pri­or­it­ised in order of the num­ber of people who men­tioned them. Appendix I What do you like about liv­ing in Kin­gussie? Appendix ii What changes would you like to see for Kin­gussie by 2030? Appendix iii What new/​existing pro­jects would you like to see hap­pen­ing in the com­munity? Kin­gussie Com­munity Action Plan: Look­ing to 2030 Page 10 of 29

1. Com­munity Sug­ges­tions Pro­ject Themes and Sug­ges­tions The CAP sets out the community’s vis­ion for the longer term (up to 10 years) with detailed sug­ges­tions and sug­ges­ted actions shown in the rel­ev­ant tables and text below. These sug­ges­tions and sug­ges­ted actions have been cat­egor­ised across 4 spe­cified themes: A Socially Con­nec­ted Com­munity A Cli­mate Con­scious Com­munity An Eco­nom­ic­ally Thriv­ing Com­munity A Cul­tur­ally Vibrant Community

These four themes, adap­ted from Place Plan­ning guidelines, have been used in this Com­munity Action Plan to cat­egor­ise the community’s sug­ges­tions. These themes demon­strate the breadth and strength of com­munity ambi­tion, and provide a tool to struc­ture the community’s vis­ion, group­ing related pro­jects togeth­er across key aren­as of com­munity life: the social, envir­on­ment­al, eco­nom­ic, and cul­tur­al. These themes are not clear-cut, with many of sug­ges­tions relat­ing to mul­tiple themes. In par­tic­u­lar, sug­ges­tions relat­ing to achiev­ing a more envir­on­ment­ally sus­tain­able ​‘Net Zero’ future for Kin­gussie cut across all themes.

It is import­ant to note that some of the pro­ject out­comes will be a ​“quick win” where­as oth­ers will some­times take sig­ni­fic­antly more time to plan and execute. To achieve res­ults and out­comes in the short, medium/​longer term each high pri­or­ity project/​outcome will have its own activ­ity plan which will be Spe­cif­ic, Meas­ur­able, Achiev­able, Real­ist­ic and Timely (SMART) and determ­ined and agreed in the first part of the CAP implementation.

The 4 themes were taken and put into sep­ar­ate group­ings, show­ing what the sug­ges­tions are for each theme. With­in each sug­ges­tion, pro­jects have been lis­ted that have been drawn from the high pri­or­it­ies that came out of the sur­vey data. Fur­ther views and inform­a­tion for each sug­ges­tion were sought from those who atten­ded the drop-in events and sug­ges­ted actions, togeth­er with any addi­tion­al inform­a­tion are out­lined below each sec­tion. Kin­gussie Com­munity Action Plan: Look­ing to 2030 Page 11 of 29

KIN­GUSSIE: A SOCIALLY CON­NEC­TED COM­MUNITY Sug­ges­tion: Redevel­op St Vin­cents for com­munity bene­fit • Feas­ib­il­ity to invest­ig­ate hous­ing (see sug­ges­tion below) • Cre­ate oppor­tun­ity for oth­er com­munity bene­fit projects

Sug­ges­tion: Cre­ate more hous­ing for people who want to live and work here • Focus on retain­ing young people • Repur­pose unused build­ings • Change of use from com­mer­cial premises

Sug­ges­tion: Loc­al swim­ming facil­it­ies for com­munity and High School use • Explore what options might be available

Sug­ges­tion: Improve what’s avail­able loc­ally for teen­agers • Explore options includ­ing place to meet, youth club, and more activ­it­ies • Empower young people to become com­munity leaders

UPDATE: Since the engage­ment for this plan was com­pleted, St Vin­cents has been pur­chased by The High­land Coun­cil for redevel­op­ment into hous­ing (May 2025) SUG­GES­TION: Redevel­op St Vin­cents for com­munity bene­fit • Feas­ib­il­ity to invest­ig­ate options for hous­ing (see sug­ges­tion below) • Run a feas­ib­il­ity study to assess the suit­ab­il­ity of the site for redevel­op­ment for hous­ing • Any devel­op­ment of the site and its build­ings must be con­sid­er­ate of the his­tory and envir­on­ment­al value of the site, as well as its sus­tain­ab­il­ity into the future

Cre­ate oppor­tun­ity for oth­er com­munity bene­fit pro­jects • Con­sult with the com­munity over poten­tial uses, includ­ing hous­ing, key work­er accom­mod­a­tion, hostel, camp site, youth centre, care in the com­munity, Demen­tia- friendly facil­ity, com­munity gar­dens, and an edu­ca­tion facil­ity (Uni­ver­sity of the High­lands and Islands (UHI) out­post, accom­mod­a­tion for stu­dent field trips) • Work with The High­land Coun­cil who cur­rently own the site, as well as plan­ners at Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity (CNPA), experts in com­munity own­er­ship and enter­prise, and loc­al organ­isa­tions, includ­ing Kin­gussie Com­munity Devel­op­ment Com­pany (KCDC)

SUG­GES­TION: Cre­ate more hous­ing for people who want to live and work here • Cre­ate com­munity hous­ing asso­ci­ation to rep­res­ent and provide for loc­al need • Ring­fence hous­ing for loc­al people, first-time buy­ers, key work­ers, and young people Kin­gussie Com­munity Action Plan: Look­ing to 2030 Page 12 of 29

• Reduce second home and AirB­nB pro­vi­sion • Cre­ate afford­able hous­ing that is afford­able for res­id­ents, espe­cially young people • Alloc­ate plots for self-builders

SUG­GES­TION: Loc­al sport­ing facil­it­ies for com­munity and High School use • Sup­port the devel­op­ment of a com­munity or pub­licly owned swim­ming pool in Aviemore (for use by Kin­gussie res­id­ents) to reduce reli­ance on hotel pools • Explore options for Com­mon Good land oppos­ite the Badenoch Centre (Padel court, out­door vol­ley­ball court) • Boul­der­ing wall in Badenoch Centre

SUG­GES­TION: Improve what’s avail­able loc­ally for young people • Explore options includ­ing place to meet, youth club, and more activ­it­ies • Revital­ise pump track pro­ject and explore the cre­ation of a moun­tain bike skills area (Cycle Friendly Kin­gussie, Kin­gussie High School) • Start a youth club • Cre­ate a juni­or sports club for young­er children

Empower young people to become com­munity lead­ers • Cre­ate and fund a loc­al youth pan­el and oth­er mech­an­isms to enable young people to take for­ward pro­jects and ini­ti­at­ives that mat­ter to them • Work with Kin­gussie High School, The High­land Coun­cil and loc­al youth work­ers to sup­port this pro­ject, and involve all loc­al groups

KIN­GUSSIE: A CLI­MATE CON­SCIOUS COM­MUNITY Sug­ges­tion: Con­tin­ue improve­ments to Act­ive Travel links • Improve cycle path­ways and facil­it­ies (access to Kin­craig and New­ton­more) • Improve foot­paths and walk­ing routes (to Ruthven and Drumguish and around Kin­gussie) • Cre­ate safer roads (reduce traffic speed on main roads, reduce street parking)

Sug­ges­tion: Improve use of and access to loc­al green spaces • Bring loc­al land into com­munity own­er­ship • Man­age loc­al land and green space sus­tain­ably (work in part­ner­ship to encour­age con­ser­va­tion of estates and loc­al land, sup­port com­munity-run con­ser­va­tion pro­jects, cre­ate com­munity food grow­ing oppor­tun­it­ies and loc­al food sup­ply chains)

Sug­ges­tion: Improve pub­lic trans­port • Improve bus pro­vi­sion (bet­ter ser­vice, con­nect to Fort Wil­li­am and south) • Improve train pro­vi­sion (reduce train costs, more trains to Inverness) • Cam­paign for integ­rated trans­port (coordin­ate bus and train timetables, cam­paign for bikes on buses)

Sug­ges­tion: Con­tin­ue improve­ment work on Gyn­ack Gar­dens • More wild­life-friendly, struc­tur­al, and per­en­ni­al plant­ing (com­munity orch­ard, more nat­ive plants, wild­life corner) Kin­gussie Com­munity Action Plan: Look­ing to 2030 Page 13 of 29

SUG­GES­TION: Con­tin­ue improve­ments to Act­ive Travel links Improve cycle path­ways and facil­it­ies • Cre­ate an off-road cycle path or safer cyc­ling route to Kin­craig • Improve cycle route to New­ton­more at sharp bend out­side town • Extend cycle path so safer to access path to New­ton­more • Cre­ate covered/​locked bike stor­age area for High Street for use by res­id­ents in flats and workers

Improve foot­paths and walk­ing routes • Cam­paign for safer walk­ing / cyc­ling route to Ruthven and Drumguish by extend­ing the Spey­side Way. Work with the access team at the CNPA and landown­ers on this route • Improve ped­es­tri­an safety of Gyn­ack Road, Ard­broilach Road and Dun­barry Road • Con­tin­ue com­munity-led path improve­ments to include ​‘Kin­gussie Crag’

Cre­ate safer roads • Work with The High­land Coun­cil to enhance speed lim­it­a­tions on High Street by enfor­cing and high­light­ing 20mph lim­it and intro­du­cing speed calm­ing meas­ures • Reduce on street park­ing by enfor­cing yel­low lines, encour­aging act­ive travel by busi­ness own­ers, and bet­ter sign­post­ing to car parks.

SUG­GES­TION: Improve use of and access to loc­al green spaces Bring loc­al land into com­munity own­er­ship • Col­lect ideas and input from the com­munity around com­munity own­er­ship of a wood­land, includ­ing poten­tial loc­a­tion of wood­land, mod­el of own­er­ship and man­age­ment etc.

Man­age loc­al land and green space sus­tain­ably • Work with loc­al estates and landown­ers to encour­age con­ser­va­tion and expan­sion of nat­ive wood­land and explore options to bring land into public/​community own­er­ship. • Man­age loc­al wild­life and con­ser­va­tion pro­jects includ­ing swift-friendly Kin­gussie, wild­flower plant­ing, and a loc­al wild­life group. • Work with loc­al crofters and landown­ers to cre­ate com­munity food grow­ing enter­prise to grow veget­ables for loc­al people, make loc­al sup­ply chains, • Work with loc­al landown­ers, KCDC, RSPB Insh Marshes and Cairngorms Connect.

SUG­GES­TION: Improve pub­lic trans­port Improve bus pro­vi­sion • Cam­paign for a bus link to Fort Wil­li­am • Cam­paign for a Mega­bus con­nec­tion at A9 junc­tion to con­nect to South by bus • Install­a­tion of bet­ter bus stops with elec­tron­ic timetables, shel­ters • Cam­paign for a more reli­able, reg­u­lar and effi­cient bus ser­vice. Kin­gussie Com­munity Action Plan: Look­ing to 2030 Page 14 of 29

Improve train pro­vi­sion • Cam­paign for reduced train costs on the High­land Main­line to Aviemore, Car­rbridge and Inverness in par­tic­u­lar. • Cam­paign for more trains to Inverness, Edin­burgh, and Glas­gow that allow com­muters to arrive before 9am • Cam­paign for late trains from Inverness in the evenings

Cam­paign for integ­rated trans­port • Work with bus pro­viders to enable bikes to be car­ried on buses • Coordin­ate bus and train timetables

SUG­GES­TION: Con­tin­ue improve­ment work on Gyn­ack Gar­dens • Plant fruit trees for com­munity orch­ard • More mature, struc­tur­al and per­en­ni­al plant­ing • Plant more nat­ive plants and those suited to High­land cli­mate • Cre­ate a wild­life corner with bee hotel, wild­flowers etc.

KIN­GUSSIE: AN ECO­NOM­IC­ALLY THRIV­ING COM­MUNITY Sug­ges­tion: Sup­port for High Street • Devel­op Kin­gussie Tour­ism Strategy to improve year-round tour­ism offer­ing of town. Improved iden­tity to pro­mote Kin­gussie as a des­tin­a­tion • Rein­vig­or­ate High Street • Util­ise empty and under­used build­ings on the High Street

Sug­ges­tion: Explore fur­ther com­munity energy oppor­tun­it­ies • Com­munity wind, sol­ar or hydro scheme to provide com­munity income • Devel­op loc­al, sus­tain­ab­il­ity-focussed ser­vices and enterprise

Sug­ges­tion: Improve oppor­tun­it­ies for loc­al employ­ment / busi­nesses • Cre­ate small loc­al indus­tri­al units to grow loc­al employ­ment • Cre­ate loc­al flex­ible space for co-work­ing • Revital­ise Kingussie’s online presence

SUG­GES­TION: Sup­port for High Street Devel­op Kin­gussie Tour­ism Strategy to improve year-round tour­ism offer­ing of town. Improved iden­tity to pro­mote Kin­gussie as a des­tin­a­tion • Use cul­tur­al her­it­age as a focal point for activ­it­ies and attrac­tions by devel­op­ing trails, work­ing with Badenoch Her­it­age etc. • Encour­age traffic to stop in Kin­gussie rather than travel straight through • Cre­ate a Kin­gussie-spe­cif­ic tour­ism cam­paign focus­ing on spe­cif­ic loc­al her­it­age, nature, out­door activ­it­ies Kin­gussie Com­munity Action Plan: Look­ing to 2030 Page 15 of 29

• Build a stronger online pres­ence to pro­mote Kin­gussie as a tour­ism des­tin­a­tion • Work with Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship (CBP), Badenoch Her­it­age, ARC- Kin­gussie, and loc­al busi­ness forums.

Rein­vig­or­ate High Street • Estab­lish a work­ing group and volun­teer team to main­tain a more attract­ive High Street • Improve ped­es­tri­an and cyc­list exper­i­ence of the High Street by widen­ing pave­ments, redu­cing park­ing dir­ectly on the road, adding cycle racks and cre­at­ing spaces to sit. • Cre­ate more park­ing close to High Street – explore options with the Fire Sta­tion or Old Tele­phone exchange

Util­ise empty and under­used build­ings on the High Street • Use empty shop win­dows to dis­play inform­a­tion or art­work • Work with spe­cif­ic own­ers to bet­ter util­ise empty space • Set up a cooper­at­ive in one of the unoc­cu­pied shops • Pur­sue change of use of selec­ted com­mer­cial premises on High Street – explore poten­tial to con­vert empty shops into housing

SUG­GES­TION: Explore fur­ther com­munity energy and sus­tain­ab­il­ity oppor­tun­it­ies Com­munity wind, sol­ar or hydro scheme to provide com­munity income • Devel­op a loc­al green energy strategy and eval­u­ate oppor­tun­it­ies Install EV char­gers in pub­lic car parks to bring in income • Com­munity rent rooftops for sol­ar pan­els • Estab­lish a com­munity enter­prise to train up young people to do ret­ro­fit pro­jects (insu­la­tion etc.) • Explore dis­trict heat­ing oppor­tun­it­ies • Work with: CNPA, SSE, High­lands & Islands Enter­prise (HIE), KCDC, THC, Energy Trust, Schools

Devel­op loc­al, sus­tain­ab­il­ity-focussed ser­vices and enter­prise • Refill shop • Tool lib­rary • Remakery and repair shop for fur­niture, elec­tron­ics and house­hold items • Work with Badenoch Cli­mate Action, KCDC, CBP, HIE and CNPA

SUG­GES­TION: Improve oppor­tun­it­ies for loc­al employ­ment / busi­nesses Cre­ate small loc­al indus­tri­al units to grow loc­al employ­ment • Explore feas­ib­il­ity of cre­at­ing units at Mar­ket Stance (and the old Tele­phone Exchange and old Museum Car Park) • Re-estab­lish the Kin­gussie Busi­ness For­um Kin­gussie Com­munity Action Plan: Look­ing to 2030 Page 16 of 29

• Explore options for tool lib­rary, remakery/​repair shop, refill shop, as well as space for loc­al craftspeople and artists

Cre­ate loc­al flex­ible space for co-work­ing • Pro­vi­sion for loc­al hot desk­ing and meet­ing space at reas­on­able cost Revital­ise Kingussie’s online pres­ence • Advert­ise loc­al job vacan­cies on cent­ral web­site (Kin​gussie​.co​.uk) • Cre­ate loc­al Face­book for­um where people can ask ques­tions and post opportunities

KIN­GUSSIE: A CUL­TUR­ALLY VIBRANT COM­MUNITY Sug­ges­tion: Devel­op Talla Nan Ros as a com­munity space • Explore bring­ing Talla Nan Ros into com­munity own­er­ship • Devel­op more com­munity uses of the space

Sug­ges­tion: Wolf of Badenoch trail and statue completed

SUG­GES­TION: Devel­op Talla Nan Ros as a com­munity space Explore bring­ing Talla Nan Ros into com­munity own­er­ship • Explore feas­ib­il­ity of con­vert­ing the space into hous­ing, multi-media centre, retail space etc. • Look at find­ing an altern­at­ive space in Kin­gussie for a pur­pose-built new vil­lage hall • Build capa­city for a volun­teer work­ing group on this project

Devel­op more com­munity uses of the space • Use space for wrap-around child­care – break­fast club, after­school club, as well as tod­dler groups in after­noons • Work with High­life High­land to nego­ti­ate com­munity rates for use and easi­er book­ing sys­tem • Improve acous­tics in the Hall for music and oth­er events Kin­gussie Com­munity Action Plan: Look­ing to 2030 Page 17 of 29

SUG­GES­TION: Wolf of Badenoch statue and trail com­pleted • Con­sider con­cerns over the statue as poten­tial cel­eb­ra­tion of a viol­ent his­tor­ic­al fig­ure • Edu­ca­tion around his­tory of the area • Work with schools, Badenoch Her­it­age, KVCC, com­munity lead­ers, and artists. • Cre­ate a her­it­age trail incor­por­at­ing this import­ant piece of loc­al his­tory amongst oth­er nature and cul­tur­al heritage

In addi­tion to the ideas lis­ted above, par­ti­cipants in the Big Con­ver­sa­tion event also added the fol­low­ing sug­ges­tions to this sec­tion. • Estab­lish a twin­ning with anoth­er vil­lage or town abroad to facil­it­ate cul­tur­al exchanges, tour­ism, and cel­eb­rate the loc­al area • Cel­eb­rate rich nat­ur­al value of the area as part of its cul­ture more by cel­eb­rat­ing con­nec­tion to a par­tic­u­lar anim­al or hab­it­at (e.g. Nethy ​‘The Forest Vil­lage), and cre­at­ing nature-themed inter­pret­a­tion or trail. Work with RSPB, Cairngorms Con­nect, CNPA, KCDC, and KVCC.

1. Spa­tial Pri­or­it­ies The maps below illus­trate the spa­tial pro­pos­als to help real­ise Kingussie’s com­munity vis­ion and Com­munity Action Plan. They dis­play com­ments which were provided by Kin­gussie res­id­ents and busi­nesses dur­ing the two-day Big Con­ver­sa­tion drop-in event. They refer to the sug­ges­tions that have come out of the Com­munity Action Plan (CAP) responses and help express the community’s aspir­a­tions and solu­tions for devel­op­ment and use of land with­in the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan. This reflects the loc­al plan­ning policy which aims to cre­ate sus­tain­able, live­able and pro­duct­ive places as expressed in Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 (2023).

The maps show the community’s ideas and sug­ges­tions for the future devel­op­ment of the Kin­gussie area, as well as help­ing the com­munity to devel­op and deliv­er its own projects.

The pur­pose of the maps is to: • Com­ple­ment the CAP by show­ing how the Kin­gussie com­munity could look in the future once the vis­ion and CAP have been imple­men­ted. • Help the Kin­gussie, High­land Coun­cil and Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity con­sider the impact of plan­ning applic­a­tions on the com­munity. • Inform Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority’s review of the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan. • Influ­ence invest­ment from pub­lic bod­ies, fun­ders, landown­ers and busi­nesses, in ways that sup­port the com­munity. Kin­gussie Com­munity Action Plan: Look­ing to 2030 Page 18 of 29

1. Next Steps: Deliv­ery Steps to deliv­er the Kin­gussie Com­munity Action Plan The next steps to start work­ing with the Com­munity Action Plan and look­ing at how parts can start to be delivered will be sub­ject to some dis­cus­sion with­in Kingussie’s com­munity organ­isa­tions, but broadly involves col­lect­ively: • Set­ting up a Team Kin­gussie (see below) to take the plan for­ward. Agree­ing a chair for a spe­cified peri­od at a time, so will rotate after X months or after X meet­ings • Agree­ing to adopt the Val­ues and Prin­ciples laid out below • Agree­ing what sug­ges­tions will be taken for­ward ini­tially • Draw­ing up a detailed Deliv­ery Action Plan for each pri­or­it­ised pro­ject, identi­fy­ing aims, actions, mile­stones, who needs to be involved, key deliv­er­ables. (VABS has a tem­plate for this.) • Man­aging the pro­ject volun­teer list that has come out of the pro­cess • Involving all key stake­hold­ers (organ­isa­tions & indi­vidu­als) in co-design of pro­ject deliv­ery • Com­mu­nic­at­ing pro­gress with the com­munity Kin­gussie Com­munity Action Plan: Look­ing to 2030 Page 19 of 29

• Review­ing pro­gress on a reg­u­lar basis • Revis­it­ing the Deliv­ery Action Plan as required

Val­ues and Prin­ciples The fol­low­ing val­ues and prin­ciples will under­pin the way in which this action plan is rolled out and imple­men­ted: 1) A plan for all — it is the respons­ib­il­ity of the whole com­munity (indi­vidu­als and groups) to unite and work togeth­er for pro­ject ambi­tions to be real­ised 2) Trans­par­ency all ideas should be planned and researched openly with a com­mit­ment to co-pro­duc­tion where groups con­trib­ute to the ideas as they devel­op 3) Part­ner­ship — work­ing togeth­er with a shared agenda will be at the heart of any activ­ity arising from this plan