Letter from R Brannen to G Moir - undertaking re NMU - 26 February 2020 _

Chief Executive’s Office

Roy Brannen Buchanan House, 58 Port Dun­das Road, Glas­gow G4 0HF Dir­ect Line: 0141 272 7110 [email protected]

Grant Moir Chief Exec­ut­ive Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity 14 The Square Grant­own on Spey Scot­land PH26 3HG [by email: GrantMoir@​cairngorms.​co.​uk]

Your ref: Our ref: ²⁰²⁰⁄_0000996 Date: 26 Feb­ru­ary 2020

Dear Grant,

A9 Dualling Dalraddy to Slochd Aviemore to Car­rbridge Cycleway

Thank you for your time yes­ter­day and a con­struct­ive con­ver­sa­tion. As dis­cussed I am writ­ing to set out the com­mit­ments that I am able to make in rela­tion to the pro­vi­sion of a new non-motor­ised facil­ity between Aviemore and Car­rbridge (the NMU). Hope­fully this will allow you to con­sider your pos­i­tion in rela­tion to the cur­rent scheme con­sent process.

The key points are:

1. We will fund the design of an off­line NMU route between Aviemore and Car­rbridge to a level suf­fi­cient to seek plan­ning con­sents and land acquis­i­tion includ­ing suf­fi­cient EIA and the detailed design and con­struc­tion of the route as part of the A9 scheme.

2. Trans­port Scot­land will take for­ward gain­ing the neces­sary plan­ning (and oth­er) con­sents, with the excep­tion of rights of land entry as covered by clause 3, for the NMU route and the CNPA and THC as the Plan­ning Author­it­ies will work closely on these con­sents as required.

3. As regards neces­sary land rights, we will pro­ceed to acquire the neces­sary land by agree­ment. Should this not be pos­sible CNPA will use its powers (or THC will use their powers, whichever is most appro­pri­ate) in order to acquire the land. Trans­port Scot­land will cov­er any asso­ci­ated costs with this process.

4. The neces­sary con­sents and rights to imple­ment the NMU route will need to be in place for us to be able to incor­por­ate it into the A9 contract.

5. We will work con­struct­ively togeth­er to see the con­clu­sion of this NMU route.

I am advised by my team that there is a nar­row win­dow of oppor­tun­ity to resolve the objec­tion before the inquiry starts on 9 March. It may be that if mat­ters are not resolved this week then it will be too late to can­cel the ses­sion and we and the Report­er will be com­pelled to attend, even in your absence, poten­tially lead­ing to delay for the scheme and the NMU.

Finally, I would like to stress that the TS Dualling Team have received tre­mend­ous sup­port from CNPA since the pro­gramme star­ted in 2012 and that has a sig­ni­fic­ant factor in stream­lin­ing the con­sents pro­cess over­all. I am grate­ful for the hard work that your team have put into the pro­gramme and look for­ward to fur­ther col­lab­or­at­ive work­ing as things progress.

I look for­ward to hear­ing from you.

Yours sin­cerely,

Roy Brannen