Meeting Minutes

Cairngorms Loc­al Out­door Access For­um Thursday 20^th June 2019 from 6.00pm – 8.30pm CNPA HQ, Grant­own on Spey

1. Wel­come For­um Mem­bers in Attendance

Elean­or Mack­in­tosh (Act­ing Con­ven­or)	Neil Wilson
John Gri­er­son	Ailsa Vil­le­g­as
Tre­vor Thornley

Oth­ers in attendance

Pete Crane (CNPA)	Adam Streeter-Smith (CNPA)
Dav­id Clyne (CNPA)

Apo­lo­gies

Peter Mack­ay	Eilidh Scob­bie
Anne-Mar­ie Nutall	Sally Devlin
Peter Wright

1. Minutes of the last meet­ing and mat­ters arising 2.1. The minutes were checked for accur­acy with the fol­low­ing need­ing to be checked and amended: Add a note of thanks to Ruar­idh Orm­is­ton for his con­tri­bu­tion to CLOAF (10, P4). 2.2. EM wel­comed Ailsa Vil­le­g­as as a new CLOAF mem­ber rep­res­ent­ing the NHS High­land Green Health Part­ner­ship 2.3. EM dis­cussed the his­tor­ic role of CLOAF and how it and the access author­ity have grown in exper­i­ence since the intro­duc­tion of the Land Reform Act. The for­um con­tin­ues to be a valu­able source of advice for CNPA but can now play a key role on devel­op­ing and pro­mot­ing respons­ible access and phys­ic­al activity.

2. Tread Lightly in the Park: update Adam Streeter-Smith presen­ted an update to the CNPA Tread Lightly cam­paign. Feed­back on draft fire man­age­ment posters: 3.1. Posters show­ing alarm­ing images of fire can increase anxi­ety amongst vis­it­ors to the out­doors. 3.2. Fires are not always star­ted by vis­it­ors. Do estates need to cre­ate more fire breaks? 3.3. Like the poster split good/​bad images 3.4. Advise people using stoves to use a stone sur­face or carry foil to place under stove. Feed­back on dogs: 3.5. Tar­get respons­ible access mes­sages on social media 3.6. Cre­ate and pro­mote dog friendly walk­ing routes. 3.7. Focus on green health aspect of dog walk­ing. Phys­ic­al activ­ity bene­fits, thera- pets, bor­row my doggy, dogs and sprogs, dog friendly cafes, ama­bas­sad­ogs etc. Feed­back on Leave no Trace 3.8. It’s been 8 years since CNPA star­ted the Tread Lightly cam­paign. Mem­bers agreed it’s a more appro­pri­ate cam­paign than using ​‘Leave no Trace’ as LNT allows fires in wood­lands. 3.9. Tar­get audi­ence is res­id­ents and vis­it­ors Gen­er­al feed­back 3.10. Cyc­lists should be encour­aged to be cour­teous to oth­er path users. Poten­tial to pro­mote bells. Pos­sible mar­ket­ing giveaway (CNPA branded bike bells). 3.11. Raise aware­ness of access and health­care benefits

3. Case­work Update 4.1. DC dis­cussed a recent qual­ity improve­ment pro­ject with the access team 4.2. 90% of access issues and quer­ies are resolved with­in 10 busi­ness days

   • Report­ing now split into 11 main issue types.
   • 179 cases over the last year
   • 15 obstruc­tion cases have been logged. Mostly all minor issues which are being resolved through negotiation.
   • CNPA will be pre­par­ing an Access Enforce­ment Charter over the next year. CLOAF advice will be sought on con­tent, tar­gets and case res­ol­u­tion guidelines.

4. Act­ive Aviemore: pro­ject update 5.1. DC updated the for­um on work to improve walk­ing and cyc­ling facil­it­ies in Aviemore. 5.2. Sus­trans will announce fund­ing awards in 1^st July 2019. DC will update the for­um. 5.3. Oth­er towns in Badenoch and Strath­spey have applied/​will apply for Sus­trans fund­ing to improve act­ive travel. These include Lag­gan, Kin­gussie and Dulnain.

5. A9 Dualling Update- Pro­ject 11 Dalraddy to Slo­chd 6.1. PC updated the group on the A9 pro­ject. Trans­port Scot­land has not form­ally agreed to con­struct and main­tain an all abil­it­ies cycle path between Aviemore and Car­rbridge. Dis­cus­sions con­tin­ue with Trans­port Scot­land who has prom­ised to deliv­er a feas­ib­il­ity report on the route. 6.2. CNPA will con­tin­ue to object to the omis­sion of the cycle path until fund­ing and long term main­ten­ance has been agreed by TS. 6.3. For­um com­men­ted that there was no pub­lic aware­ness of the objec­tions. PC will dis­cuss with com­munit­ies and THC.

6. Nation­al Access For­um 7.1. Mem­bers asked to be invited to next NAF/LAF meet­ing at least 4 weeks in advance.

7. Pro­posed access man­age­ment sem­in­ar – Octo­ber 2019 8.1. CNPA is plan­ning to host an access sem­in­ar on the sub­ject of Respons­ible Access in Pro­tec­ted Areas. 8.2. Event will be held in Aviemore in Octo­ber 2019. 8.3. NAF mem­ber organ­isa­tions, land man­ager and com­munity rep­res­ent­at­ives will be invited. 8.4. For­um mem­bers are encour­aged to attend if pos­sible. 8.5. Details TBC.

8. AOCB 9.1. Elean­or asked for nom­in­a­tions for the role of CLOAF con­vener. Any mem­ber inter­ested should con­tact davidclyne@​cairngorms.​co.​uk for fur­ther details. Appoint­ment of new con­ven­or will take place at next meeting.

9. Date of next meet­ing 11.1. TBC – Octo­ber 2019.