Nethy Bridge Community Action Plan 2023

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Nethy Bridge Com­munity Action Plan: Look­ing to 2030

Com­piled Autumn / Winter 2023

Sup­por­ted by Nethy Bridge Com­munity Coun­cil Nethy Bridge Com­munity Devel­op­ment Com­pany Nethy Bridge Com­munity Centre Aber­nethy Primary School Par­ent Coun­cil Aber­nethy High­land Games Explore Aber­nethy Castle Roy Trust Aber­nethy Old Kirk Asso­ci­ation Nethy Bridge busi­nesses: Dell of Aber­nethy, Nethy­bridge Hotel, Wide Sky Weddings

VABS Facil­it­ated by Vol­un­tary Action in Badenoch and Strathspey

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Con­tents

1. Sum­mary 3
2. The Com­munity 4
3. The Pro­cess 5
4. Com­munity Engage­ment 8
5. Sur­vey Responses 9
6. Action Plan – what the com­munity wants 9
7. Spa­tial Pri­or­it­ies 16
8. Next Steps 18
9. Thanks 20
10. Appen­dices 21 i. What do you like about liv­ing in Nethy Bridge? ii. What changes would you like to see for Nethy Bridge by 2030? iii. What new/​existing pro­jects would you like to see hap­pen­ing in the community?

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1. Sum­mary

In Autumn 2023, Nethy Bridge Com­munity Coun­cil, togeth­er with Nethy Bridge Com­munity Devel­op­ment Com­pany, Nethy Bridge Com­munity Centre, Aber­nethy Primary School Par­ent Coun­cil, Aber­nethy High­land Games, Explore Aber­nethy, Castle Roy Trust, Aber­nethy Old Kirk Asso­ci­ation and some of the Nethy Bridge busi­nesses (Dell of Aber­nethy, Nethy­bridge Hotel, Wide Sky Wed­dings), decided that they wished to carry out a review of the com­munity action plan for the vil­lage, which had been pre­vi­ously under­taken in 2011. 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 pri­or­it­ies by the res­id­ents and busi­nesses of Nethy Bridge dur­ing the pro­cess in autumn 2023.

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 and busi­nesses 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 Nethy Bridge Com­munity Action Plan: Look­ing to 2030. In pre­vi­ous action plan­ning car­ried out by the com­munity, the focus was on activ­ity mostly with a 5 – 8 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 Nethy Bridge’s recent suc­cesses with com­munity pro­jects and action plan­ning include: • Upgrade of the Com­munity Centre • Café in the vil­lage • Castle Roy open­ing • Out­door classroom at the primary school • Exten­ded all abil­it­ies path net­work • Traffic calm­ing meas­ures • Safe routes to school • Birch wood pro­ject • Improved web­site • The Spring Gathering

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To help add to these achieve­ments, res­id­ents were encour­aged to take part in the com­munity action plan review in 2023. How­ever, this time round people were invited to think not only about what might be achieved togeth­er, but that the pro­jects the vil­lage was being asked to con­sider, would be ones that would help Nethy Bridge 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 Nethy Bridge 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

Nethy Bridge is a vil­lage of around 650 people, situ­ated in the heart of Strath­spey and often affec­tion­ately referred to simply as ​“Nethy”. It has been a hol­i­day des­tin­a­tion since Vic­tori­an times, yet it remains unspoilt with the major­ity of its build­ings hid­den away in quiet loc­a­tions next to the ancient Cale­do­ni­an pine forest of Aber­nethy. Set against the back­drop of the Cairngorm moun­tains and hun­dreds of acres of Aber­nethy Forest (RSPB owned), the vil­lage spans the lower reaches of the River Nethy. Flow­ing through the centre of the vil­lage, the River Nethy is one of the main trib­u­tar­ies of the fam­ous River Spey.

Nethy Bridge, also known as the ​‘Forest Vil­lage’, has many his­tor­ic­al land­marks and qual­it­ies mak­ing it an attract­ive place for res­id­ents and vis­it­ors. Aber­nethy Old Kirk, Castle Roy, four Thomas Telford bridges and indus­tri­al archae­ology sites, all com­ple­ment the farm­ing land­scape, icon­ic wild­life, Spey­side Way and stun­ning forest envir­on­ment. In addi­tion, the vil­lage has a shop, busy com­munity centre, primary school, Aber­nethy Out­door centre, an act­ive par­ish church (Church of Scot­land), loc­al butcher and del­icatessen and a ranger ser­vice (Explore Aber­nethy), in addi­tion to the river Nethy which is eas­ily accessed via the com­munity cre­ated river­side walks.

At the heart of the vil­lage is a very resource­ful com­munity who are com­mit­ted to improv­ing the qual­ity of life and oppor­tun­it­ies for the cur­rent and future gen­er­a­tions of Nethy res­id­ents. This is reflec­ted in the num­ber and vari­ety of com­munity groups that exist, which look to work togeth­er and are well sup­por­ted. The community’s web­site (Nethy​bridge​.com) and quarterly news­let­ter (The Nethy) help to keep res­id­ents informed of events, activ­it­ies and vil­lage news, whilst also encour­aging vis­it­ors to stay. The Aber­nethy Games are a good example of this community’s suc­cess­ful cooper­a­tion, as the annu­al event goes from strength to strength attract­ing thou­sands of spec­tat­ors each year from home and abroad.

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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: Nethy Bridge Com­munity Coun­cil, Nethy Bridge Com­munity Devel­op­ment Com­pany, Nethy Bridge Com­munity Centre, Aber­nethy Primary School Par­ent Coun­cil, Aber­nethy High­land Games, Explore Aber­nethy, Young At Heart, Castle Roy Trust and Aber­nethy Old Kirk Asso­ci­ation amongst others.

Com­munity Assets Vil­lage Com­munity Centre Nethy​bridge​.com web­site Castle Roy Aber­nethy High­land Games show­field Aber­nethy Old Kirk Vil­lage path net­work Explore Aber­nethy Vis­it­or Centre Vil­lage pond and board­walk The Nethy news­let­ter Com­munity noticeboards

Loc­al Busi­nesses There are numer­ous loc­al busi­nesses, across many sec­tors, oper­at­ing in the vil­lage, although there is cur­rently no loc­al business/​tourism asso­ci­ation to rep­res­ent the voice of com­mer­cial activ­ity in the village.

Nethy Bridge busi­nesses include the Premi­er shop, butchers and del­icatessen, hotel, café and self-cater­ing vis­it­or accom­mod­a­tion, cul­tur­al her­it­age sites such as Aber­nethy Old Kirk and Castle Roy, an out­door activ­ity centre, togeth­er with a num­ber of enter­pris­ing small busi­nesses which cater to a wide vari­ety of sec­tors. These, along with a num­ber of trades­people, farm­ers, people employed on estates and car­ry­ing out oth­er kinds of envir­on­ment­al work, make up the import­ant work­ing heart of this community.

1. The Pro­cess

The Nethy Bridge com­munity con­sulta­tion peri­od ran from Octo­ber to Decem­ber 2023 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 • What do we want to know? • What ques­tions will we ask? • What meth­ods will we use? • How will we do it?

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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 Nethy Bridge 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 a lot of 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 Nethy Bridge 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: 1) What do you like about liv­ing in Nethy Bridge?

2) What changes would you like to see for Nethy Bridge 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?

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3) Are there any new pro­jects (large or small) that you would like to see hap­pen­ing in the com­munity? Or any exist­ing pro­jects that need to be sustained?

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 450 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 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 vil­lage, or from inform­a­tion col­lated at events put on for spe­cif­ic groups in the vil­lage. 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 pri­or­it­ies 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 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 Nethy Bridge’s Big Con­ver­sa­tion, which took place on a Fri­day and Sat­urday in early Decem­ber 2023 at the Nethy Bridge Com­munity Centre. 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 pri­or­it­ies that had

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been iden­ti­fied from the pro­cess under the head­ings of Nethy Bridge:

• 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 Nethy Bridge Big Con­ver­sa­tion event were col­lec­ted and incor­por­ated into this report, which now belongs to the Nethy Bridge com­munity and will be used as the basis for ongo­ing com­munity devel­op­ment in the vil­lage 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 Nethy for the pur­poses of this report).

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

Inclu­sion We will identi­fy and involve the people and organ­isa­tions that are affected by the focus of the engage­ment. Com­mu­nic­a­tion We will com­mu­nic­ate clearly and reg­u­larly with the people, organ­isa­tions and com­munit­ies affected by the engage­ment. Meth­ods We will use meth­ods of engage­ment that are fit for pur­pose. Impact We will assess the impact of the engage­ment and use what has been learned to improve our future com­munity engage­ment. Sup­port We will identi­fy and over­come any bar­ri­ers to par­ti­cip­a­tion. Plan­ning There is a clear pur­pose for the engage­ment, which is based on a shared under­stand­ing of com­munity needs and ambi­tions. Work­ing Togeth­er We will work effect­ively togeth­er to achieve the aims of the engage­ment. 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.

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1. Sur­vey Responses

Thanks go to the 254 res­id­ents and busi­nesses in Nethy Bridge who con­trib­uted so mean­ing­fully and thought­fully to the com­munity sur­vey – this num­ber rep­res­ents 39% of the community’s pop­u­la­tion and includes responses from school age res­id­ents. Also to the 107 people who atten­ded the Big Con­ver­sa­tion drop-in event at the vil­lage hall 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 Nethy Bridge? Appendix ii What changes would you like to see for Nethy Bridge by 2030? Appendix iii What new/​existing pro­jects would you like to see hap­pen­ing in the community?

1. Action Plan – what the com­munity wants

Pro­ject Themes and Pri­or­it­ies The CAP sets out the community’s vis­ion for the longer term (up to 10 years) with more detailed activ­ity across the 4 spe­cified themes:

• A Socially Con­nec­ted Community
• A Cli­mate Con­scious Community
• An Eco­nom­ic­ally Thriv­ing Community
• A Cul­tur­ally Vibrant Community

itemising pri­or­ity out­comes and actions which are shown in the rel­ev­ant tables below.

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 pri­or­it­ies are for each theme. With­in each pri­or­ity, 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 pri­or­ity were sought from those who atten­ded the drop-in events and sug­ges­ted actions, togeth­er with any addi­tion­al inform­a­tion are out­lined below each section.

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NETHY BRIDGE: A SOCIALLY CON­NEC­TED COMMUNITY

Pri­or­ity: Cre­ate more hous­ing for people who want to live and work here • good por­tion of any new hous­ing must be ​‘afford­able’ — for rent & pur­chase / avail­able for per­man­ent res­id­ents & to retain key work­ers eg head teach­er • invest­ig­ate com­munity-owned hous­ing pro­ject (like Brae­mar) • hold on to social hous­ing stock we do have

Pri­or­ity: Upgrade Play parks & facil­it­ies for Nethy’s young people • ima­gin­at­ive upgrade of play park behind hall with equip­ment for dif­fer­ent ages • bike/​pump track in woods • skate park that is well designed and weather­proof • make oth­er play parks more space-effi­cient — cur­rently dilap­id­ated & under-used

Pri­or­ity: Com­munity Centre • more types of activ­it­ies for all ages — volun­teers com­ing for­ward to put them on • fit a suitable/​better work­ing kit­chen (espe­cially suit­able for big­ger events) • provide a secure stor­age area for bikes • con­sider co-work­ing func­tion in re-jigged Explore Aber­nethy space

Pri­or­ity: Traffic calm­ing meas­ures to reduce speeding

PRI­OR­ITY: CRE­ATE MORE HOUS­ING FOR PEOPLE WHO WANT TO LIVE AND WORK HERE

Good por­tion of any new hous­ing must be ​‘afford­able’ — for rent & pur­chase / avail­able for per­man­ent res­id­ents & to retain key work­ers eg head teach­er • • Import­ant to move away from the pre­vi­ous mod­el of 25 – 40% afford­able hous­ing provided as part of a devel­op­ment. Pos­it­ive that up to 70% is now being looked at in the Nation­al Park. Ref HI on cur­rent Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan: need to push for the major­ity being afford­able, well-built and insu­lated, occu­pied by full time residents.

Invest­ig­ate com­munity-owned hous­ing pro­ject (like Brae­mar) • Look at oth­er suc­cess­ful pro­jects of this type eg at Tomin­toul and Brae­mar and learn from their exper­i­ences. • Nethy Bridge CDC to work with the Com­munit­ies Hous­ing Trust to identi­fy suit­able oppor­tun­it­ies for Nethy and evid­ence of need for dif­fer­ent hous­ing types eg shared equity, mid-mar­ket rent­als. • Invest­ig­ate a Com­munity Asset Trans­fer for pro­vi­sion of afford­able hous­ing for loc­als with pub­lic sec­tor, RSPB, private landowners.

Hold on to social hous­ing stock we do have • Work with Registered Social Land­lords to ensure aware­ness of community’s wishes.

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PRI­OR­ITY: UPGRADE PLAY PARKS & FACIL­IT­IES FOR NETHY’S YOUNG PEOPLE

Need to look at which one of these sug­ges­tions is highest pri­or­ity and there­fore to be tackled first: Ima­gin­at­ive upgrade of play park behind hall with equip­ment for dif­fer­ent ages • Involve young people in design and pro­vi­sion of any new facil­it­ies. • Con­sider main­ten­ance and repairs.

Bike/​pump track in woods • Identi­fy poten­tial site. • Involve young people in design, pro­vi­sion and main­ten­ance of any new facilities.

Skate park that is well designed and weather­proof • Identi­fy a pos­sible site. • Involve young people in design, pro­vi­sion and main­ten­ance of any new facilities.

Make oth­er play parks more space-effi­cient — cur­rently dilap­id­ated & under-used • Liaise with Aber­nethy Trust on use of some facil­it­ies eg ski slope/​swimming pool for loc­al school chil­dren. • Upgrade/​add new goals at Lynstock.

PRI­OR­ITY: COM­MUNITY CENTRE

More types of activ­it­ies for all ages — volun­teers com­ing for­ward to put them on • Extend hall com­mit­tee to include young people. • Can­vas opin­ion on other/​new activ­it­ies eg arch­ery, bad­min­ton and call for volun­teers to start up. • Look into feas­ib­il­ity of cov­er­ing over some of the extern­al space for events and increased usage.

Fit a suitable/​better work­ing kit­chen (espe­cially suit­able for big­ger events) • Revis­it kit­chen lay­out to make it more appro­pri­ate for lar­ger events. • Useable bar for events (not neces­sar­ily by kitchen).

Provide a secure stor­age area for bikes • Identi­fy a good loc­a­tion. • Work with Act­ive Travel groups to help fund infra­struc­ture. • Provide a rechar­ging point for e‑bikes.

Con­sider co-work­ing func­tion in re-jigged Explore Aber­nethy space • Offer hot-desk­ing space in this area with an occa­sion­al rent­al fee.

PRI­OR­ITY: TRAFFIC CALM­ING MEAS­URES TO REDUCE SPEED­ING • Work with High­land Coun­cil & Police Scot­land (loc­al) to assess poten­tial measures/​sites.

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NETHY BRIDGE: A CLI­MATE CON­SCIOUS COMMUNITY

Pri­or­ity: Improve path net­work in com­munity eg • ped­es­tri­an bridge over river in centre or traffic lights to allow safe cross­ing • improve pavements/​cycle lanes in centre near the café/​hotel/​bridge junc­tion • path from Broom­hill Court into centre and to golf club/​Old Kirk/​Castle Roy • walking/​cycling to school exper­i­ence – make safer for all parts of com­munity • cut back trees/​hedges to fence lines to allow for clear pave­ments • improve Spey­side Way sur­face between Nethy and Boat and also to Grant­own • repair foot­bridge by school and over Aultmore

Pri­or­ity: Devel­op com­munity grow­ing spaces and com­munity garden • for per­son­al food pro­duce eg fruit and veget­ables ⚫ place for a com­munity orch­ard • com­munity enter­prise: com­munity poly­tun­nels for year round pro­duce • encour­age garden­ing events & talks and a loc­al food market

Pri­or­ity: Improve river man­age­ment • update flood pre­ven­tion audit, to reduce flood risk/​blocked bridge • enhance the riverb­ank • repair river­side (small) wall oppos­ite the com­munity centre • flood bar­ri­er in Sta­tion Road (oppos­ite farm shop)

PRI­OR­ITY: IMPROVE PATH NET­WORK IN COMMUNITY

For all sug­ges­tions, involve the Act­ive Travel ini­ti­at­ive from CNPA where appro­pri­ate. Ped­es­tri­an bridge over river in centre or traffic lights to allow safe cross­ing • Improve pavements/​cycle lanes in centre near the café/​hotel/​bridge junc­tion. • Make vil­lage square more wheel­chair friendly.

Path from Broom­hill Court into centre and to golf club/​Old Kirk/​Castle Roy • Devel­op a safer route in con­sulta­tion with com­munity and landowner/​s. • Encour­age more use of Spey­side Way from Sta­tion Road to Balliemore.

Walking/​cycling to school exper­i­ence – make safer for all parts of com­munity Cut back trees/​hedges to fence lines to allow for clear pave­ments • Road­side veget­a­tion on Dell Rd. • Com­munity sup­port for those house­hold­ers who are phys­ic­ally unable to trim hedging.

Improve Spey­side Way between Nethy and Boat and also to Grant­own • Enhance and main­tain sur­face. • Remove gates where pos­sible — install altern­at­ive meth­od of live­stock con­trol where needed. • Improve sig­nage on SW to Boat of Garten.

Repair foot­bridge by school and over Ault­more • Repair­ing Ault­more bridge will provide an off-road route from vil­lage to Castle Roy.

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PRI­OR­ITY: DEVEL­OP COM­MUNITY GROW­ING SPACES AND COM­MUNITY GARDEN

For per­son­al food pro­duce eg fruit and veget­ables Place for a com­munity orch­ard Com­munity enter­prise: com­munity poly­tun­nels for year round pro­duce • • • • • Encour­age garden­ing events & talks and a loc­al food mar­ket Find out who has land that can be used to devel­op these ideas (field next to hotel, field on river­side path, Dell farm stead­ing, field adja­cent to foot­ball pitch?) and seek a lease or own­er­ship. Work with the school who have a com­munity garden, orch­ard and poly­tun­nels. Rather than start more, maybe first com­bine all these pro­jects for everyone’s bene­fit, with new volun­teers to help. Look into feas­ib­il­ity of allot­ments as well as com­munity garden. Ensure there is access for all on any site. Dis­tin­guish between com­munity enter­prise and com­munity-par­ti­cip­at­ory pro­ject. Not neces­sar­ily about pro­du­cing lots of food.

PRI­OR­ITY: IMPROVE RIVER MAN­AGE­MENT Update flood pre­ven­tion audit, to reduce flood risk/​blocked bridge Enhance the riverb­ank Repair river­side (small) wall oppos­ite the com­munity centre Flood bar­ri­er in Sta­tion Road (oppos­ite farm shop) • Clear gravel, silt, dead trees from river • Main­tain the banks • Man­age fallen and fall­ing trees on river banks, if cre­at­ing a haz­ard. Oth­er­wise leave for wild­life habitat.

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NETHY BRIDGE: AN ECO­NOM­IC­ALLY THRIV­ING COMMUNITY

Pri­or­ity: Review pos­sib­il­ity of a com­munity-owned renew­able energy pro­ject • Look into feas­ib­il­ity for wind tur­bines, hydro scheme or sol­ar farm to help fund oth­er com­munity initiatives

Pri­or­ity: Invest­ig­ate options for tak­ing more assets into com­munity own­er­ship • Com­munity owned/​managed tour­ing camp­site with ser­vice facil­it­ies for tents, camper­vans & motorhomes • Acquire buildings/​land for envir­on­ment­al, social, cul­tur­al redevel­op­ment to bene­fit the community

Pri­or­ity: Improve oppor­tun­it­ies for loc­al employ­ment / busi­nesses • Small indus­tri­al area for loc­al busi­ness hub • Loc­al space for co-work­ing / hot desking

PRI­OR­ITY: REVIEW POS­SIB­IL­ITY OF A COM­MUNITY-OWNED RENEW­ABLE ENERGY PROJECT

Look into feas­ib­il­ity for wind tur­bines, hydro scheme or sol­ar farm to help fund oth­er com­munity ini­ti­at­ives • Revis­it up to date pos­sib­il­it­ies for com­munity energy scheme and rev­en­ue gen­er­a­tion for bene­fit of com­munity pro­jects. Feas­ib­il­ity study for loc­a­tions eg Dell farm sol­ar. Advice on fund­ing sources. • Con­sider a wider range of renew­ables eg Nano-hydro micro gen­er­at­ors. • Lobby Scot­Gov and CNPA to amend policy to allow for 2 – 3 com­munity owned tur­bines eg above Dirdhu which is out of sight for most. • Sup­port for indi­vidu­al house­holds to help with green energy gen­er­a­tion. Advice ses­sions and help with fund­ing install­a­tions. • Encour­age use of small domest­ic wind turbines.

PRI­OR­ITY: INVEST­IG­ATE OPTIONS FOR TAK­ING MORE ASSETS INTO COM­MUNITY OWNERSHIP

Com­munity owned/​managed tour­ing camp­site with ser­vice facil­it­ies for tents, camper­vans & motorhomes • Liaise with com­munity and CNPA plan­ning re Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan about appro­pri­ate sites and facil­it­ies required. • Con­sider which com­munity organ­isa­tion would take this on.

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Acquire buildings/​land for envir­on­ment­al, social, cul­tur­al redevel­op­ment to bene­fit the com­munity • Audit of poten­tial assets and pos­sible uses (renew­able energy?) • Import­ant to sup­port the build­ings already in com­munity own­er­ship eg Old Kirk and Castle Roy, to look at increas­ing usage and revenue.

PRI­OR­ITY: IMPROVE OPPOR­TUN­IT­IES FOR LOC­AL EMPLOY­MENT / BUSI­NESS Small indus­tri­al area for loc­al busi­ness hub • Invest­ig­ate level of need.

Loc­al space for co-work­ing / hot desk­ing • Check level of demand – sur­vey of loc­al busi­nesses. • Use small hall as a test with a simple set up. • Can the Old Kirk be used for more things. • Are oth­er exist­ing premises avail­able for rent. • Talk with Grant­own group who are doing similar

NETHY BRIDGE: A CUL­TUR­ALLY VIBRANT COM­MUNITY Sug­ges­tions: • Sus­tain & keep mak­ing improve­ments to The Nethy news­let­ter • Repair wall at Old Kirk and improve qual­ity of car park for here and Castle Roy • Sus­tain Explore Aber­nethy • Fix old vil­lage foun­tain • Fly the Nethy Flag all year round

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1. Spa­tial Priorities

The maps below illus­trate the spa­tial pro­pos­als to help real­ise Nethy Bridge’s com­munity vis­ion and Com­munity Action Plan. They dis­play com­ments which were provided by Nethy Bridge res­id­ents and busi­nesses dur­ing the two-day Big Con­ver­sa­tion drop-in event. They refer to the pri­or­it­ies 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).

Nethy Bridge CAP map: Access and Infrastructure

Improve Spey­side Way to Grant­own, includ­ing remov­ing and improv­ing gates for cyclists

Improve path / cre­ate cir­cu­lar walk to Broom­hill Station

Provide park­ing for Spey­side Way

Address park­ing issues along road

Camper­van site

Fibre to the premises (FTTP) con­nec­tions to sup­port home working/​busi­nesses

Make track access only. Being used as cut through by deliv­ery drivers and tour­ists get stuck

Access­ible path through vil­lage as far as Castle Roy

Char­ging points for elec­tric bikes and vehicles

Secure bike stand / shelter

Char­ging points for elec­tric bikes and vehicles and bike tool stations

Nethy Bridge

River Nethy

Improve path

Foot­bridge should be about I metre wide

Com­munity owned sol­ar farm

Afford­able housing

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Nethy Bridge CAP map: Open Space

Com­munity garden/​orch­ard

Youth shel­ter at vil­lage hall / games field

Allot­ments, camp­site and pic­nic area

Tidy up fallen trees and over­hanging veget­a­tion through­out village

Com­munity orchard

Com­munity garden / Fal­lot­ments. Expand on school garden

Play area / skate park / pump track/​wood­land play area

Mar­ket garden and polytunnels

The maps show the community’s ideas and pri­or­it­ies for the future devel­op­ment of the Nethy Bridge 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 Nethy Bridge com­munity could look in the future once the vis­ion and CAP have been imple­men­ted. • Help the Nethy Bridge Com­munity Coun­cil, High­land Coun­cil and CNPA con­sider the impact of plan­ning applic­a­tions on the com­munity. • Inform CNPA’s review of the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan. • Influ­ence invest­ment from pub­lic bod­ies, fun­ders, landown­ers and busi­nesses, in ways that sup­port the community.

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1. Next Steps: Delivery

Steps to deliv­er the Nethy Bridge Com­munity Action Plan The next steps to start work­ing with the action plan and look­ing at how parts can start to be delivered will be sub­ject to some dis­cus­sion with­in Nethy Bridge’s com­munity organ­isa­tions, but broadly involves col­lect­ively: • Set­ting up a Team Nethy Bridge (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 pri­or­it­ies will be taken for­ward ini­tially • Man­aging the pro­ject volun­teer list that has come out of the pro­cess • Involving all key stake­hold­ers (organ­isa­tions & indi­vidu­als) in co-design of pro­ject deliv­ery • Draw­ing up a more 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.) • Com­mu­nic­at­ing pro­gress with the com­munity • Review­ing pro­gress on a reg­u­lar basis • Revis­it­ing the 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 4) Inclu­sion — every­one is invited to par­ti­cip­ate and every­one bene­fits, regard­less of age and abil­ity 5) Impact — the suc­cess of this plan will be judged on activ­it­ies which have a pos­it­ive influ­ence on people and com­munit­ies 6) Involve­ment — ensur­ing the com­munity is mean­ing­fully involved in decisions that affect their lives.

Team Nethy Bridge It is very import­ant to ensure the effect­ive deliv­ery of this action plan, for the whole com­munity to work togeth­er to imple­ment it, ie a full vil­lage approach not just one or two organ­isa­tions. This approach has been called Team Nethy Bridge in this report, but of course the com­munity will decide on its own name for these purposes.

Team Nethy Bridge will be the for­um for agree­ing on how the Steps at the start of this sec­tion are taken for­ward, as well as where respons­ib­il­ity will sit in terms of deliv­er­ing on the Val­ues and Prin­ciples out­lined above. It will not have a sep­ar­ate leg­al iden­tity, but simply be a for­um called maybe two or three times a year, per­haps by a rotat­ing chair. It should com­prise as a

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min­im­um, rep­res­ent­at­ives from the organ­isa­tions who ini­tially steered the action plan­ning pro­cess, togeth­er with any oth­er com­munity groups who wish to be involved.

Ongo­ing com­munity engage­ment A pro­cess for secur­ing com­munity man­dates for pro­jects at key mile­stones is advis­able, so that pro­jects can enjoy broad com­munity sup­port, fol­low best prac­tice in terms of co-design and allow for those who will be most impacted by a project’s deliv­er­ables to be involved in the activity.

Volun­teer lists A list of people who have come for­ward to volun­teer in gen­er­al or for spe­cif­ic pro­jects, has been com­piled from a ques­tion in the sur­vey and also inform­a­tion giv­en by res­id­ents at the Big Con­ver­sa­tion event. The Nethy Bridge CAP Volun­teer list is a vital part of deliv­er­ing on the action plan­ning pro­cess and those on the list need to be kept informed of how things are being pro­gressed and what part they might be able to play in that.

Levels of Sup­port The sur­veys have giv­en the key com­munity organ­isa­tions in Nethy Bridge, a lot of detailed inform­a­tion com­ing from a wide sec­tor of the com­munity, regard­ing their thoughts on issues and ideas for pro­jects that they would like to see taken for­ward on their behalf.

The pri­or­it­ies fall into two main groups and will require to be tackled in a dif­fer­ent way: • pro­jects which, although some are mid to longer term, are pos­sible for the com­munity to take for­ward them­selves, with some min­im­al sup­port from the rel­ev­ant key agen­cies or sup­port organ­isa­tions. • large, com­plex issues around employ­ment, hous­ing, trans­port, busi­ness sup­port and infra­struc­ture, where the com­munity will require a great deal of long term assist­ance from vari­ous pub­lic, third and some­times private sec­tor organ­isa­tions in order to take these for­ward and make a not­able difference.

Mon­it­or­ing, Audit­ing and Eval­u­ation of the Com­munity Action Plan Mon­it­or­ing, audit­ing and eval­u­ation are essen­tial require­ments of any Com­munity Action Plan to ensure it is being imple­men­ted. Team Nethy Bridge will meet reg­u­larly to review pro­gress on the plan. Keep­ing records against each theme and pro­ject will be a use­ful tool to ensure pro­gress is being main­tained. These meet­ings will be open and access­ible to all groups and indi­vidu­als. Eval­u­ation provides an oppor­tun­ity to reflect and learn