Cairngorms Loc­al Out­door Access Forum

Title: 2024/2025 Deliv­ery of sec­tion 10 and 13 stat­utory duties as con­ferred by the Land Reform (Scot­land) Act 2003

Pre­pared by: Sarah Lawth­er and Vicky Hilton, Out­door Access Officers

Pur­pose

This paper is presen­ted in order to update LOAF mem­bers on deliv­ery of the Park Author­it­ies stat­utory duties under the Land Reform (Scot­land) Act 2003.

Recom­mend­a­tions

The LOAF is asked to:

1. Note the sum­mary of access case­work under­taken by the Access team
2. Mem­bers are asked how they would like to advise on case­work going for­ward at LOAF meetings.

Back­ground

Part one of the Land Reform (Scot­land) Act 2003 (“the LRA” or ​“the Act”) sets out the stat­utory duties, respons­ib­il­it­ies and powers of nation­al park author­it­ies in rela­tion to the pro­vi­sion and pro­mo­tion of the right of access. Under part one of the LRA the Park Author­ity has four spe­cif­ic duties including:

• Sec­tion 10: The Scot­tish Out­door Access Code (“the Code”)- There is a duty imposed on the Park Author­ity, by sec­tion 10(7) (a) of the Act, to pub­li­cise the Code.
• Sec­tion 13: Duty to uphold access rights- Sec­tion 13(1) of the Act places a duty on the Park Author­ity to uphold access rights which entails assert­ing, pro­tect­ing, keep­ing open and free from obstruc­tion any route, water­way or oth­er means by which access may reas­on­ably be exercised.

Pro­mo­tion of the Scot­tish Out­door Access Code

Pub­lic engagement

Dir­ect pub­lic engage­ment activ­it­ies pro­mot­ing respons­ible beha­viour and the Scot­tish Out­door Access Code (SOAC) are under­taken by Park Author­ity access officers and ranger staff. Details of this engage­ment are giv­en below for the peri­od Feb­ru­ary 2024 to Feb­ru­ary 2025.

Activ­ity	No. of people	No. of ses­sions	Activ­it­ies
School groups	209	89	• Deliv­ery of SOAC edu­ca­tion pro­gramme in four high schools
Pub­lic events	244	5	• Ranger ​“pop-up” events (stall in car park on busy day) • Ranger attend­ance at events eg Thrive bike fest­iv­al • Two recre­ation and wild­life present­a­tions to out­door activ­ity pro­viders (part of Beaver sessions)
CPD / Training	28	4	• Teach­er train­ing ses­sion – deliv­ery of SOAC edu­ca­tion resource • SOAC train­ing ses­sions to Park Author­ity staff, volun­teer rangers and part­ner ranger services
Juni­or rangers	29	2	• Wild­life dis­turb­ance and cre­at­ing videos about respons­ible access
Total num­ber of people dir­ectly engaged with	485

NB This describes form­al ded­ic­ated access activ­ity only, so does not include ranger patrolling and inform­al con­ver­sa­tions at oth­er com­munity events.

Pub­lic­a­tions

The Park Author­ity con­tin­ues to pro­mote the Code under the aus­pices of Tread Lightly in the Park, the list of tread lightly pub­lic­a­tions include:

• Main gen­er­al Tread Lightly leaflet
• Fire and barbe­que leaflet
• “High Fire Risk” mag­net­ic vehicle signs for all rangers vans and part­ner ranger ser­vice vehicles.
• Respons­ible beha­viour poster signs – suite of 5 poster signs
• Caper­cail­lie & dog on lead signs

Digit­al pro­mo­tion — Social media

The Vis­it­or man­age­ment cam­paign ran between 4 July – 29 Sept, the schedul­ing was shared with part­ners who were encour­aged to re-post or co-ordin­ate using their own assets on the same top­ics. A total of 58 posts ran, which achieved 156,137 impres­sions, 85 com­ments and 3,661 reac­tions. The con­tent included:

• The pre­vi­ous vis­it­or man­age­ment posts, with updated graphics
• CBP respons­ible enjoy­ment videos (fea­tur­ing Ed Byrne)
• Ranger rambles videos, three videos with part­ners (Muir of Din­net NNR reserve man­ager and ANUG­Salive rangers) — 24,000 views, 25 com­ments, 907 reactions

Duty to uphold access rights

Ana­lys­is of annu­al records

The cur­rent record shows a slight decrease in S14 case­work (obstruc­tions to access rights eg locked gates) for the review peri­od 1 April 2024 to begin­ning of Feb­ru­ary 2025. Records for the review peri­od com­pare as follows:

• ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ — 24 cases (4 live)
• ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ — 33 (1 live)
• ²⁰²²⁄₂₃ — 28 cases (0 live)

Of the above 24 cases recor­ded in ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅, four are cur­rently live, mean­ing 20 cases have been closed fol­low­ing invest­ig­a­tion and rel­ev­ant actions hav­ing been taken.

Break­down of cases by area and type

Of the 24 access obstruc­tion cases received 1 April 2024 to present date:

• 16 locked gates / bar­ri­ers (2023÷4 – 20 gates / barriers).
• 2 obstruct­ive signage
• 2 obstruct­ive behaviour
• 4 oth­er access restriction

The num­ber of cases repor­ted are sig­ni­fic­antly high­er in Badenoch and Strath­spey com­pared to the oth­er areas with­in Nation­al Park.

Recent Not­able Cases

1. Case no. 2024-078; Red deer enclos­ure Rothiemurchus Estate (nr Aviemore) This case involves a locked deer gate on a path that can be taken to access Ord Ban hill (nr Loch an Eilein) from the south­w­est (the path is shown on Open treet­map but not on the OS map). The gate is in the peri­met­er of the deer enclos­ure that Rothiemurchus Estate use as a loc­a­tion for a paid attrac­tion to feed the deer. While the ini­tial review has con­cluded that access rights do apply to the enclos­ure, dis­cus­sion is ongo­ing around pub­lic safety con­cerns and if in these spe­cif­ic cir­cum­stances a per­man­ent diver­sion around the out­side of the enclos­ure would be reasonable.
2. Case no. 2023-082; Locked gate, Deshar wood (Boat of Garten) Deshar wood lies between Boat of Garten and Car­rbridge. There are sev­er­al vehicle tracks in the forest and mul­tiple access points. The gate in ques­tion is a field gate at an entry point between farm­land and the wood­land, which is pad­locked. This case has raised an inter­est­ing point regard­ing the suf­fi­ciency of access into a wood­land, as access is provided on both side of the wood­land at altern­at­ive locations.

Mem­bers are asked how they would like to advise on case­work going for­ward at LOAF meetings.