Paper 1 - CEO report

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Form­al Board Paper 1 27 June 2025 Page 1 of 13

For inform­a­tion Title: CEO Report and Con­vener Update Pre­pared by: Grant Moir, Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer

Pur­pose To high­light to Board Mem­bers the main stra­tegic areas of work that are being dir­ec­ted by Man­age­ment Team. These are areas where sig­ni­fic­ant staff resources are being dir­ec­ted to deliv­er with part­ners the aspir­a­tions of the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan.

Nature and Cli­mate Change

1. Peat­land res­tor­a­tion – Veri­fied hec­tares deliv­ery for ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ is 2,181, over 600 hec­tares more than the tar­get of 1,573. The cur­rent focus is on pro­ject design and ten­der­ing for pro­jects in the ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ deliv­ery pipeline. Increased resource with­in the Peat­land ACTION team is facil­it­at­ing the devel­op­ment of multi-year plans. Fund­ing from the Peat­land ACTION grants is being made avail­able spe­cific­ally towards devel­op­ment of the future pro­ject pipeline by third parties. This will allow for a more stra­tegic, longer-term view, build capa­city with­in the private sec­tor, and max­im­ise effi­cien­cies in the Park Author­ity staff resource.
2. Cli­mate Adapt­a­tion Fund — This year’s fund attrac­ted over 60 expres­sions of interest and more than 30 full applic­a­tions. An announce­ment on those that have received fund­ing will be made in early July.
3. Nature Res­tor­a­tion Fund­ing — The Park Author­ity has secured sig­ni­fic­ant fund­ing to sup­port deliv­ery of the Cairngorms Nature Action Plan and pro­gress actions that tackle the biod­iversity crisis. An announce­ment on the fund­ing will be made in early July.
4. Stra­tegic Land Man­age­ment Plans — As an indic­a­tion of the pos­it­ive engage­ment from many landown­ers, the Cairngorms 2030 fund­ing avail­able to Deer Man­age­ment Groups in the South of the Park was heav­ily over­sub­scribed with more than 30 dif­fer­ent applic­a­tions totalling £3.2 mil­lion. Expres­sions of interest (Eol) were assessed against the over­all ambi­tions in the Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme for Innov­a­tion, Trans­form­a­tion and Col­lab­or­a­tion and the desire to

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Form­al Board Paper 1 27 June 2025 Page 2 of 13

1. sup­port land man­agers in tack­ling the twin crises. Land man­agers have been informed of the pro­cess, its out­comes and the next steps. This includes work­ing with applic­ants to identi­fy oppor­tun­it­ies to devel­op Eol’s into pro­ject plans and / or sup­port land man­agers in deliv­er­ing poten­tial pro­jects via altern­at­ive fund­ing streams where more appro­pri­ate. Gamebird release report – Game and Wild­life Con­ser­va­tion Trust (GWCT) have pro­duced a report on Scot­tish gamebird releases which includes a spe­cif­ic ana­lys­is of releases in the Nation­al Park. Nation­al Gamebird Census (NGC) data from estates across Scot­land were used to com­pare gamebird release dens­it­ies. Inform­a­tion from the Cairngorms was derived from inter­views with 10 out of a total of 22 iden­ti­fied shoots of dif­fer­ent sizes. Estab­lish­ing baseline data is an action in the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan. The inform­a­tion will form the basis of fur­ther study into biod­iversity impacts of released gamebirds, regard­ing the spe­cif­ic con­di­tions in Cairngorms Nation­al Park. The report will be pub­lished in July.

Plan­ning and Place

1. Paths and long-dis­tance routes: a) Spey­side Way — The con­tract­or began Gate Replace­ment work from

   Cromdale to Mains of Dalvey (Park boundary) at the end of April and has
   removed most of the outdated “rambler” style gates on this section.
   Replacement self-closing pedestrian gates (where a replacement gate was
   still required) now accommodate bikes and horses making this section much
   more user friendly. The Park Authority was approached by Insh Community
   Holdings with a proposal to upgrade a section that runs behind Insh towards
   Inveruglas. Our Clerk of Works has drawn up designs and associated costs
   for a tender this Autumn.
   

   b) Deeside Way — At the begin­ning of April, the Park Author­ity hos­ted the first

   project advisory group for taking forward the Deeside Way Extension. Focus
   initially is on developing the vision and objectives and a scoring system for
   considering route options before more detailed conversation can occur with
   landowners.
   

2. Vis­it­or infra­struc­ture – A planned pre­vent­at­ive main­ten­ance sur­vey has been under­taken for the three Snow Roads Install­a­tions — Still, the Watch­ers and Con­nect­ing Con­tours. A five-year pro­gramme of works includ­ing repairs and

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Form­al Board Paper 1 27 June 2025 Page 3 of 13

1. enhanced access will com­mence in late 2025. The Vis­it­or Infra­struc­ture Improve­ment Pro­gramme grant scheme ran dur­ing April / May with offers made to six pro­jects. The scheme was brought for­ward com­pared to pre­vi­ous years to assist part­ners by giv­ing a longer deliv­ery peri­od. A bid sub­mit­ted to the Rur­al Tour­ism Infra­struc­ture Fund for fund­ing towards a £250,000 pro­ject to improve Loch Mor­lich beach car park and sec­tions of the Old Log­ging way with a response anti­cip­ated by early July. Ranger ser­vices – A full team of rangers is now in place with the two-part time (week­end) rangers and the four train­ees start­ing in mid-June. Patrols so far this year have typ­ic­ally found vis­it­or num­bers to be fairly busy but man­age­able although there have still been a small num­ber of incid­ents includ­ing fires and anti- social beha­viour. Some high­er num­bers of campers were seen dur­ing the fine weath­er dur­ing May but encour­agingly most vis­it­ors did respond well to advice not­ably on the very high fire risk at the time.

2. Volun­teer­ing and health walks – 24 new volun­teer rangers were recruited this spring and fin­ished train­ing on 31 May so have been out on the ground help­ing wel­come vis­it­ors and report­ing on any issues. The Park author­ity hos­ted a suc­cess­ful annu­al gath­er­ing of the Health Walk lead­ers from across the Park in late May. A new health walk in Kin­craig star­ted up in June. With Beaver kits in a num­ber of areas a pro­gramme of volun­teer watches began in June giv­ing staff volun­teer­ing oppor­tun­it­ies that sup­port the work by the beaver officers.

3. Act­ive and sus­tain­able trans­port – work con­tin­ues under the four trans­port strands with­in the Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme: α) Sus­tain­able Trans­port — Bus stop infra­struc­ture audits are com­plete with

   walkability audits underway at a selection of these to identify priorities for
   improvements to meet the needs of residents. A bus infrastructure working
   group with HITRANS has been established and a Badenoch and Strathspey
   Transport Forum has been set up by the Highland Council with support from
   the Park Authority transport team. The Park Authority hosts the first meeting
   on 23 June. Investment has been made to enable cycles on buses in Deeside
   in partnership with NESTRANS and Aberdeenshire Council. Funding has also
   been confirmed towards the design phase for a Ballater mobility hub that will
   support both public transport and active travel.
   

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Form­al Board Paper 1 27 June 2025 Page 4 of 13

b) Behaviour Change – The first two bike buses are up and running successfully
	with Aviemore and Deshar Primary schools with positive feedback from
	parents and pupils. Grantown-on-Spey bike bus to start after the summer
	holidays. Further led rides for adults (“Joy rides”) running weekly from
	Aviemore and Boat of Garten with Grantown-on-Spey started in June. Also
	delivered one-to-one cycle confidence sessions and work with the Active
	Cairngorms E-bike (ACE) project (Cairngorms Trust and Mikes Bikes
	Aviemore) to help adults get cycling to work and local facilities. Support is
	also in place for training and capacity building in skills for cycle maintenance
	at eight primary schools in Badenoch and Strathspey. Funding has also been
	provided to support cycle skills schools at the four Aberdeenshire primary
	schools within the Park. 12 workplaces are being supported with access to
	bikes and skills training through our support to the ACE bikes project.
c) Cycle Friendly Cairngorms – Supported bike hub at community run Glenmore
	Visitor Centre with tool station and e-bike charging. Elsewhere we've
	confirmed investment in secure cycle parking through a community led project
	working with visitor focussed businesses in Blair Atholl. Delivery of staff bikes
	to be used for varying activities including rangers using cargo bikes took place
	in May and these were used to help showcase transport activity as part of the
	National Heritage Lottery visit to Aviemore and Glenmore in June. A staff bike
	launch planned for end of June once operating procedures have been
	finalised.
d) Active Travel – A formal offer of funding from Transport Scotland in relation
	to previously submitted bids for the next stage of design work is still awaited.
	Work has continued to issue an Invitation to Tender (ITT) initially for Aviemore
	and Boat of Garten but with options to extend the contract in future.

1. Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (LDP) – Work con­tin­ues on build­ing the evid­ence base for the next LDP, with ongo­ing engage­ment on top­ic papers and staff attend­ing pub­lic engage­ment ses­sions and loc­al events. Con­sulta­tion is cur­rently under­way on top­ic papers cov­er­ing Nat­ur­al Her­it­age, Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment, and Health and Safety, with the con­sulta­tion on these papers end­ing on 11 July (see Have Your Say Today
   • Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan — Com­mon­place). The team is work­ing towards form­al sub­mis­sion of the Evid­ence Report for the next LDP towards the end of this year. Officers have also sup­por­ted Vol­un­tary Action in Badenoch and Strath­spey (VABS) to under­take con­sulta­tion events on the Grantown-on-Spey

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Form­al Board Paper 1 27 June 2025 Page 5 of 13

Com­munity Action Plan. An updated Deliv­ery Pro­gramme, which mon­it­ors pro­gress in deliv­er­ing the cur­rent LDP, was approved at the last Board meet­ing on 28 March 2025 and has since been pub­lished online and sub­mit­ted to Scot­tish Ministers.

1. Plan­ning case­work – The Plan­ning Com­mit­tee has met twice since the last form­al Board meet­ing on 28 March 2025. The Com­mit­tee has determ­ined plan­ning applic­a­tions for a tele­coms mast at Gael Charn in Glen Avon, exten­sions and alter­a­tions at the Aber­nethy Out­door Centre, and res­tor­a­tion of the March Burn in Glen Clova. The Com­mit­tee has also determ­ined that plan­ning per­mis­sion should be gran­ted for a new ware­house at the House of Bru­ar, although this applic­a­tion has now been referred to Scot­tish Min­is­ters who may decide to call it in for determ­in­a­tion them­selves due to an out­stand­ing objec­tion from Scot­tish Envir­on­ment Pro­tec­tion Agency (SEPA) on flood risk grounds. The Park Author­ity has recently called-in plan­ning applic­a­tions for a non-motor­ised user route / path between Aviemore and Car­rbridge, recon­fig­ur­a­tion of house plots at the ongo­ing Dal­faber devel­op­ment in Aviemore, and a num­ber of forestry tracks at the Muck­rach Estate. These applic­a­tions will be repor­ted to the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee for determ­in­a­tion in due course.

Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engagement

1. Com­munity and stake­hold­er engage­ment – A review of the first year of Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme engage­ment activ­ity has revealed that over 10,000 people will have seen us at events across 2024 and over 1,000 dir­ectly inter­ac­ted with staff across 13 dif­fer­ent pro­jects. Included in the tally are three bespoke com­munity road­shows, two High­land games, two com­munity fest­ivals and one agri­cul­tur­al show. After a peri­od of recruit­ment for two new Engage­ment Coordin­at­ors (both in post by July 2025), the team are now final­ising plans for engage­ment over the second half of the year.

2. Over 30 rep­res­ent­at­ives from com­munity coun­cils and devel­op­ment trusts from across the Cairngorms gathered at the Vic­tor­ia Halls in Bal­later for a packed day of dis­cus­sions in April. Top­ics included volun­teer­ing, suc­ces­sion plan­ning and com­munity fun­drais­ing. We plan to host these events at least annu­ally, with the agenda and loc­a­tion set by the com­munity groups themselves.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Form­al Board Paper 1 27 June 2025 Page 6 of 13

1. Vis­it­or and res­id­ent sur­veys – Field­work for our fifth Nation­al Park vis­it­or sur­vey con­cluded on 30 April, with a total of 1,348 face-to-face inter­views con­duc­ted and a fur­ther 1,008 online responses received. Our inde­pend­ent research part­ners MEL Research are cur­rently pulling togeth­er a head­line report, which is likely to be pub­lished in early / mid-July. As MEL also delivered the first res­id­ent and work­er sur­vey for the Nation­al Park, we have been able to ask sev­er­al core ques­tions across both pieces of work, allow­ing for a more detailed com­par­is­on between audi­ences. This will form part of MEL’s main report.

2. Cor­por­ate com­mu­nic­a­tions – We have been the sub­ject of prom­in­ent media cov­er­age across tele­vi­sion, radio and print out­lets over the past three months. One of the main stor­ies was about the Cairngorms 2030 Out­door Demen­tia Resource Centre inspir­ing a second cen­ter in Edin­burgh, opened by Alzheimer Scot­land at the start of this month. The story reached mil­lions of view­ers, air­ing on ITV News, STV News and BBC Beech­grove Garden. BBC Radio Scotland’s Out of Doors pro­gramme also fea­tured the story. The show car­ried sep­ar­ate pieces on our caper­cail­lie work and the artists in res­id­ence at Glen Tanar as part of Cairngorms 2030.

3. STV’s cur­rent affairs pro­gramme, Scot­land Tonight aired a long form fea­ture on green jobs on 26 June. With a sole focus on the Cairngorms, the piece focused on the beaver pro­ject, our peat­land work and the impact on loc­al con­tract­ors, and green pre­scrip­tions, includ­ing an inter­view with a par­ti­cipant. Mean­while, our pion­eer­ing work on the nar­row-headed ants pro­ject was covered by the Sunday Post and the Mail on Sunday.

4. Web­site and social media – After over a year of com­plex devel­op­ment work, the new Cairngorms Nation­al Park web­site was launched on 11 June 2025. The site includes a num­ber of new com­munit­ies, wild­life and land­scape pages – cap­it­al­ising on high Google search traffic for these top­ics – as well as over 50 pro­ject pages cov­er­ing the work of the Park Author­ity and partners.

5. A new site-wide alerts sys­tem – linked dir­ectly to our social media posts – allows us to provide crit­ic­al updates on emer­ging issues such as wild­fires and extreme weath­er, path clos­ures etc, and to auto­mat­ic­ally serve these mes­sages on every webpage where they are rel­ev­ant. An Ord­nance Sur­vey-powered map­ping tool

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Form­al Board Paper 1 27 June 2025 Page 7 of 13

includes details on key com­munit­ies, events, paths and points of interest, whilst our new con­tent find­er allows vis­it­ors to fil­ter and search for con­tent that would pre­vi­ously have been bur­ied deep in the site struc­ture. This includes a new Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence (AI)-driven doc­u­ment sum­mary fea­ture, which means even pre­vi­ously inac­cess­ible Port­able Doc­u­ment Format (PDF) can be sum­mar­ised and read eg by screen read­er users.

1. In March we suc­cess­fully merged our leg­acy Cairngorms Nature Face­book page with our exist­ing Nation­al Park Face­book page, bring­ing our total audi­ence to 82,000 across Face­book, Ins­tagram, Twit­ter, Linked­In and Bluesky (up from 66,000 pre-mer­ger). Our net growth over the peri­od – over and above account mer­ging was 5,530.

2. Between 22 Novem­ber and 11 March, we received over 4.2 mil­lion impres­sions (up 78% on the pre­vi­ous year), 197,048 engage­ments (up 181%), 918,542 video views (up 166.9%). It is import­ant to note that these res­ults have been a com­bin­a­tion of paid for and organ­ic con­tent, albeit the former was sig­ni­fic­antly impacted by a Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment budget freeze post-Octo­ber 2024.

3. Brand­ing and pub­lic­a­tions – The sum­mer edi­tion of Cairn magazine is due to hit door­steps from 21 July. The lead fea­ture focuses on afford­able hous­ing, reflect­ing on the res­ults of the res­id­ent and work­er sur­vey. Our trans­port work is anoth­er key theme, com­ple­men­ted by an inter­view with Don­ald Hall of Com­munity Con­nXions. The magazine is also packed with the latest com­munity, nature and Cairngorms 2030 updates.

4. Work is under­way on major inter­pret­a­tion pro­jects, with the team work­ing closely with the Aviemore and Glen­more Com­munity Trust on new sig­nage for the Glen­more Vis­it­or Centre, as well as Glen­liv­et Estate on the new Sky Hide inter­pret­a­tion as part of the wider Dark Skies initiative.

5. Next week we wel­come our new Con­tent Cre­ation Intern, who will be sup­port­ing the Com­mu­nic­a­tions Coordin­at­or (Pub­lic­a­tions and Inter­pret­a­tion) over the summer.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Form­al Board Paper 1 27 June 2025 Page 8 of 13

Organ­isa­tion­al Development

1. Staff­ing update – Since March, the fol­low­ing staff changes took place:

2. Staff leav­ing the organ­isa­tion: α) Danie Ral­ph, Fin­ance Man­ager, retired after nearly 12 years’ ser­vice with the

   organisation.
   

   b) Jo Rodgers left her role of C2030 Com­munity Engage­ment Coordin­at­or to

   move to another organisation.
   

3. Staff join­ing the organ­isa­tion: α) Scott Shanks joined as Eco­lo­gic­al Advice Officer (plan­ning). This was a vacant

   post due to previous staff resignation.
   

   b) Anna­bel Ever­ard joined as Peat­land Sci­ence and Mon­it­or­ing Officer. This is a

   new post.
   

   c) Katy Tur­ton joined as C2030 Com­munity Engage­ment Coordin­at­or, replacing

   Jo Rodgers.
   

   d) We appoin­ted two Peat­land Officers to sup­port the increas­ing work within

   the Peatland Team, they are Alyson Price and Liberty Firby-Fisk
   

   e) Kath­er­ine Mal­in-August joined us as Fin­an­cial Account­ant, to replace Danie

   Ralph.
   

4. Ranger Ser­vice — There has been a fair amount of move­ment with­in the Sea­son­al Ranger team, with a total of almost 200 applic­a­tions for the posts, but the full team is now in post, as fol­lows: α) Part Time, based in Badenoch and Strath­spey: Ben Murphy and Josh Sloan. b) Full Time, based in Badenoch and Strath­spey: Caitlin Fox, Cam Fox-Clarke,

   Craig Fraser, Fiona Mansfield and Jade Lennox.
   

   c) Full time based in Deeside: Car­ol-Ann Glass, Jayne Brown and Sarah Stevens. d) Full time based in Angus Glens: Milly Revill-Hay­ward and Chloe Harkness.

5. Staff appoint­ments: a) Emily Als­ford (Sea­son­al Ranger) was pro­moted to Coun­tryside Ranger,

   replacing Pete Short (who was seconded to the Beaver Project as Beaver
   Project Assistant).
   

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Form­al Board Paper 1 27 June 2025 Page 9 of 13

1. Roles appoin­ted for future start dates: α) Lawrence Murphy will be join­ing us in July, as C2030 Com­munity Engagement

   Coordinator, replacing Fi Thomson.
   

2. Live recruit­ment: α) We are cur­rently recruit­ing a River Dee Catch­ment Pro­ject Officer. This is a

   new post with several partners and funders.
   

3. Youth employ­ment: a) Intern­ships — Beth Reid has been appoin­ted to the three-month intern­ship as

   Content Creation Intern. We are also in the process of appointing a Disability
   Access Intern.
   

   b) Train­ee Rangers — with more than 150 applic­ants for four posts, we

   appointed Adam Lovell and Jack Capener to the Deeside team; and Georgia
   Soan and Isla Paton to the Badenoch and Strathspey team.
   

4. Equal­it­ies: α) We sup­por­ted Black Scot­tish Adven­tures (BSA) with a walk from

   Feshiebridge via Ballintean to Uath Lochans. This involved approximately 50
   walkers from the BSA network.
   

   b) We had a staff pres­ence at High­land Pride in Inverness, with staff

   participation in the parade, and also manning a stand around C2030
   Community Engagement. Approximately 130 people engaged with the stand
   and there was a very positive response to the Park Authority's presence at
   this event.
   

   c) We will be host­ing a group of young people from the Black Pro­fes­sion­als UK

   network to the Park Authority Office, to meet with various officers and hear
   about the career journeys.
   

5. Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment – We have launched an action plan to enhance engage­ment with staff at Policy Officer and Middle Man­ager levels. Actions have been developed around the four prin­ciples, and include in-house, bite-sized train­ing for all line man­agers on key policies; cla­ri­fic­a­tion on expect­a­tions of roles at the dif­fer­ent grades via gen­er­ic role descrip­tions for these grades; and refresh­ing the terms of ref­er­ence for the Seni­or Man­age­ment Team, Oper­a­tion­al Man­age­ment Group and Exec­ut­ive Team.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Form­al Board Paper 1 27 June 2025 Page 10 of 13

Pro­cure­ment

1. The Trans­port and Pro­cure­ment teams have been work­ing closely with Harp­er McLeod to devel­op the pro­cure­ment offer­ing for design of the Cairngorms 2030 Act­ive Travel pro­jects; the work will be final­ised with­in the next few days. We have developed a con­tract that provides suit­able pro­tec­tion for the interests of the Park Author­ity, and that we believe will be an attract­ive offer­ing to the mar­ket, provid­ing oppor­tun­ity for both large firms and smal­ler loc­al designers.

2. We con­tin­ue to devel­op our intern­al sys­tems to stream­line pro­cure­ment pro­cesses and provide inform­a­tion for future report­ing. The latest devel­op­ments have been a data­base of pro­cure­ment pro­jects – those in pro­gress and those in plan­ning – and a register of contracts.

Grant Moir 13 June 2025 grantmoir@​cairngorms.​co.​uk

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Form­al Board Paper 1 27 June 2025 Page 11 of 13

Title: Convener’s update Pre­pared by: Sandy Brem­ner, Board Convener

Pur­pose To high­light to board mem­bers and Seni­or Man­age­ment Team (SMT) and staff of the meet­ings and events the Board Con­vener has been attend­ing since the last Form­al Board meeting.

1. First Min­is­ter – Dis­cus­sion with the First Min­is­ter, cov­er­ing how the Park Authority’s pro­jects and lever­aged fund­ing for land­scape-scale ini­ti­at­ives are help­ing mit­ig­ate crises for people and nature.
2. Cab­in­et Sec­ret­ary – Met with the Cab­in­et Sec­ret­ary for Rur­al Affairs, Land Reform and Islands Mairi Gougeon, along with the Con­vener and Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer’s (CEO) of Scotland’s two Nation­al Parks, dis­cuss­ing implic­a­tions and oppor­tun­it­ies presen­ted by the Nat­ur­al Envir­on­ment (Scot­land) Bill, includ­ing flex­ib­il­ity around land des­ig­na­tions and the sig­ni­fic­ance for the Park Author­ity of powers regard­ing fixed pen­alty notices in rela­tion to fire byelaw proposals.
3. Rur­al Affairs Com­mit­tee – Took part in com­munity dis­cus­sion ses­sion with mem­bers of the Scot­tish Parliament’s Rur­al Affairs and Islands Com­mit­tee, examin­ing aspects of the Nat­ur­al Envir­on­ment (Scot­land) Bill and their implic­a­tions for the Nation­al Park. Par­ti­cip­ated in a sub­sequent day of evid­ence-gath­er­ing by Com­mit­tee mem­bers on estate vis­its to Seafield, Dor­back and Abernethy.
4. Nation­al Farm­ers’ Uni­on Scot­land (NFUS) – Hos­ted meet­ing with the new pres­id­ent of NFUS Andrew Con­non and policy dir­ect­or Jonath­an Hall after invit­ing the pres­id­ent to vis­it the Nation­al Park to dis­cuss issues of mutu­al interest and oppor­tun­it­ies for fur­ther col­lab­or­a­tion to sup­port crofters and farm­ers. Top­ics included cli­mate adapt­a­tion, food pro­duc­tion, rur­al com­munit­ies and bills cur­rently going through parliament.
5. Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment – Met with the Dir­ect­or of Envir­on­ment and Forestry to review the past year’s work of the Nation­al Park, next year’s pri­or­it­ies and related issues.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Form­al Board Paper 1 27 June 2025 Page 12 of 13

1. Scot­tish Land Com­mis­sion – Had sep­ar­ate dis­cus­sions with the Com­mis­sion Chair­man and Chief Exec­ut­ive, look­ing at oppor­tun­it­ies to pro­mote the devel­op­ment of afford­able hous­ing in rur­al areas, and upcom­ing con­sulta­tions on land reform.
2. NatureScot — Met with the Chair of NatureScot, dis­cuss­ing joint pro­jects and the poten­tial for fur­ther incent­ives for farm­ers, crofters and oth­er land man­agers to enhance biod­iversity and sup­port com­munity cli­mate resilience.
3. NatureScot CEO – Intro­duct­ory meet­ing with the Act­ing Chief Exec­ut­ive of NatureScot on cur­rent chal­lenges and opportunities.
4. King’s Found­a­tion – Meet­ing with rep­res­ent­at­ive of the King’s Found­a­tion, dis­cuss­ing out­comes from the major landown­er / land man­ager event hos­ted last year jointly by the Found­a­tion and the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity, and the pro­spects for build­ing on dis­cus­sions about land man­age­ment and increas­ing the sup­ply of afford­able housing.
5. UK Chairs / CEO For­um – Atten­ded the Nation­al Park Chairs and CEOs For­um, hos­ted by the Peak Dis­trict Nation­al Park, dis­cuss­ing col­lab­or­a­tions to achieve mutu­al aims includ­ing action on wild­fires, sup­port for sus­tain­able farm­ing, use of new Al applic­a­tions to sup­port land policy strategies, ensur­ing we devel­op Parks for all, ini­ti­at­ives to deal with vis­it­or pres­sures, devel­op­ments to sup­port nature res­tor­a­tion and adapt­a­tion, and work to achieve com­mon mes­sages to lever­age extern­al funding.
6. Deer Lar­ders – Hos­ted vis­it with the First Min­is­ter to the Park Author­ity / Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund (NLHF) — sup­por­ted deer lar­der pro­ject at Knock­barry Farm, near Moulin, review­ing pro­gress and future poten­tial with the own­ers and staff.
7. Save the Spring – Addressed the stake­hold­ers’ launch of the Save the Spring pro­gramme, a 20-year ini­ti­at­ive to restore biod­iversity and mit­ig­ate flood­ing and drought impacts in the Dee catch­ment, out­lining the Park Authority’s role in the initiative.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Form­al Board Paper 1 27 June 2025 Page 13 of 13

1. Major estates – Met indi­vidu­ally with the own­ers and land man­agers of sev­er­al major estates, dis­cuss­ing approaches to over­com­ing chal­lenges and meet­ing the aims of the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan.
2. Nation­al Parks Part­ner­ships – Atten­ded online Extraordin­ary Gen­er­al Meet­ing of Nation­al Parks Part­ner­ships to review and update bank­ing arrangements.
3. The Park Author­ity Liais­on – Atten­ded weekly liais­on meet­ings with the Park Author­ity Deputy Con­vener, CEO and Deputy CEO.
4. Nation­al Park Con­veners – Met reg­u­larly with the Con­vener of the Loch Lomond and Trossachs Nation­al Park Board to dis­cuss issues of mutu­al interest.
5. All meet­ings were in addi­tion to indi­vidu­al meet­ings and dis­cus­sions with Board mem­bers, seni­or officers, staff and oth­er stake­hold­ers on a wide range of subjects.

Sandy Brem­ner, 06 June 2025 Sandybremner@​cairngorms.​co.​uk