CAIRNGORMS LOC­AL OUT­DOOR ACCESS FORUM

Wed­nes­day 25^th of August 2021 from 6.30pm – 8.00pm CNPA Lifes­ize meet­ing room

https://​call​.lifes​ize​cloud​.com/​9​88805.

Who	Rep­res­ent­ing
Pete Crane	CNPA
Grant Moir	CNPA
Adam Streeter-Smith	CNPA
Douglas Stew­art	CNPA
John Gri­er­son	LOAF — Chair
Tre­vor Thorley	LOAF
Neil Wilson	LOAF
Mark John­ston	LOAF
Elean­or Mackintosh	CNPA Board
Alisa Vil­le­g­as	LOAF

Apo­lo­gies

Eilidh M Scob­bie	LOAF
Pete Wright	LOAF
Sally Devlin	LOAF

Item	Action
Wel­come and Minutes of last meet­ing on 4 August 2021
JG wel­comed all to the meeting.
Mat­ters arising from Minutes
Meet­ing note agreed
PC repor­ted that Trans­port Scot­land are still con­sid­er­ing two options for the Car­rbridge to Aviemore cycle path with the decision likely in September
Action
1. AQSS to pub­lish meet­ing note on LOAF meet­ing webpage	AQSS

Item	Action
Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan Review
GM intro­duced this item highlighting:
* Plan for the Park not the CNPA:
* Cov­ers all four aims of the Park and how to imple­ment them:
* Will be sub­ject to pub­lic con­sulta­tion form mid-Septem­ber to mid-December:
* Will require Board sign off in April 2022 before Scot­tish Min­is­ters agree and sign off in June 2022:
* 206 responses to inform­al consultation
* Key agen­das influ­en­cing plan are cli­mate change, nature crisis, cov­id, grouse and deer review amongst others.
GM high­lighted that the LOAF will play a cru­cial role in help­ing to shape the key indic­at­ors around men­tal and phys­ic­al health out­comes for more people in nature and enjoy­ing the Parks spe­cial qualities.
Mem­bers asked ques­tions around estab­lish­ing baseline and how to make the meas­ures cred­ible, EM par­tic­u­larly men­tioned how quant­it­at­ive assess­ment of people impacted will be measured.
AV high­lighted that well­being assess­ment are being car­ried out with struc­ture groups and activ­it­ies encour­aging phys­ic­al activ­ity but that the key chal­lenge was meas­ur­ing self-led activities.
GM invited the LOAF to sub­mit com­ments to the form­al con­sulta­tion which was dis­cussed and an approach agreed.	AQSS
Actions
1. AQSS to facil­it­ate response to NPP4- with a focus on actions and out­comes rel­ev­ant to out­door access.
Man­aging for Vis­it­ors update
PC intro­duced this time high­light­ing that:
* Over 8000 people had spoken with a CNPA ranger and that this equates to 1% of visitors:
* Sig­ni­fic­ant amount of lit­ter had been picked up by the ranger team:
* Pos­it­ive feed­back across the UK for the work going on in the Park:
* 99% plus of vis­it­ors want to do the right thing:
* Work has high­lighted need to improve vis­it­or infrastructure
Mem­bers high­lighted that there was a good news story here that needs to be con­veyed bet­ter to the pub­lic as there is a risk this isn’t happening.
Actions
1. As above

Item	Action
Update on case­work volumes and types over peri­od 2019 – 2021
Actions
DS repor­ted that there has been an upward trend in cases rel­at­ive to the same peri­od in pre­vi­ous years.
EMS (writ­ten input received) stated there was interest in report­ing any cases that had been on the books for a long time or had proven dif­fi­cult to resolve.
1. As above
Dal­whin­nie Rail­way Crossing
AQSS intro­duced this item high­light­ing that the recent clos­ure of the pub­lic cross­ing adja­cent to the private cross­ing south of Dal­whinne sta­tion is hav­ing a sig­ni­fic­ant impact on access to Loch Ericht and the wider hills for walk­ers and cyc­lists, and was hav­ing an impact on the abil­ity of res­id­ent and vis­it­or to access the low ground path network.
He asked mem­bers the fol­low­ing questions:
* Giv­en the sig­ni­fic­ance of the out­door access demand in the area and the safety issues involved, are the pro­posed new arrange­ments sat­is­fact­ory in principle?
* Are the LOAF con­tent with the pro­posed next steps?
In the dis­cus­sion that fol­lowed mem­bers highlighted:
* Had the risk assess­ment been sup­por­ted by reports of near misses by drivers or was it solely based on obser­va­tions of the pub­lic at the crossing?
* If the private cross­ing has mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures in place why not the pub­lic cross­ing for example traffic lights or lock­ing gates?
* That the clos­ure of the cross­ing was hav­ing a sig­ni­fic­ant impact on loc­al walk­ing options:
That the cross­ing was well estab­lished and had been used for many years:
LOAF mem­bers agreed that the cur­rent meas­ures were not sat­is­fact­ory and in fact were most likely mak­ing the safety situ­ation worse.
LOAF mem­bers were keen to sup­port the CNPA in meet­ing with rel­ev­ant stake­hold­ers and Net­work Rail to find a solution.
Actions

Item	Action
1. AQSS to feed­back to LOAF on out­comes of the stake­hold­er meeting	AQSS
AOCB
* Mem­bers sup­por­ted the idea of paper on LOAF mem­ber­ship and meet­ings going for­ward post pandemic.	AQSS
Next Meet­ing
* TBC November