Paper 1 - Climate Adaptation Fund Update

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 1 13 June 2025 Page 1 of 5

For inform­a­tion

Title: Cli­mate Adapt­a­tion Fund ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ Pre­pared by: Andy Ford, Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change and Gav­in Miles, Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place

Pur­pose

To provide an update to the Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee on the alloc­a­tion of fund­ing from the Cairngorms Cli­mate Adapt­a­tion Fund, which awar­ded a total of £370,000 to 20 recip­i­ents in ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅. The pur­pose of the fund­ing was to sup­port imme­di­ate and impact­ful actions that address the chal­lenges of cli­mate adapt­a­tion with­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park.

Recom­mend­a­tions

The Per­form­ance is asked to:

α) Note the pro­gress on the deliv­ery of pro­jects and achieve­ment of the Cli­mate Adapt­a­tion Fund object­ives from alloc­a­tions made in the ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ fin­an­cial year.

Back­ground

1. The Cairngorms Nation­al Park Cli­mate Adapt­a­tion Fund was estab­lished to sup­port cap­it­al works and invest­ment in response to the changes that we have seen in our cli­mate over the last few dec­ades and pre­par­ing for the chal­lenges that we will face as our cli­mate con­tin­ues to change.
2. The fund con­sidered the themes set out in the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2022
   • 2027: Nature, People, and Place.
3. The fund had three guid­ing prin­ciples: a) Adapt­a­tion – Pro­jects will con­trib­ute to cli­mate adapt­a­tion with­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park that help deliv­er the Scot­tish Nation­al Cli­mate Change Adapt­a­tion Programme.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 1 13 June 2025 Page 2 of 5

4. b) Nature Based Solu­tions – Pro­jects will pro­mote nature-based solu­tions and green engin­eer­ing to help adapt to cli­mate change while con­trib­ut­ing to hab­it­at and spe­cies recov­ery in the Nation­al Park. c) Eco­nomy – Pro­jects will endeav­our to max­im­ise their con­tri­bu­tion to sus­tain­able loc­al employ­ment and eco­nom­ic activ­ity with­in the Nation­al Park.

There were 51 applic­a­tions in total, rep­res­ent­ing a fund­ing request of £1,182,695.98. Of the 51 applic­a­tions, 20 were awar­ded fund­ing with fund­ing offers totalling £369,749. One pro­ject, value £9,944, was not delivered; res­ult­ing in a total spend of £359,815 against budget. Remain­ing fin­ances were suc­cess­fully redir­ec­ted to oth­er areas of expendit­ure in ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅.

Stra­tegic context

1. The Cli­mate adapt­a­tion Fund dir­ectly sup­ports the deliv­ery of Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP) object­ives: α) A1 — Ensure the Nation­al Park reaches net zero as soon as pos­sible and con­trib­utes all it can to help­ing Scot­land meet its net zero com­mit­ments b) A7 — Ensure that all man­aged burn­ing (muir­burn) fol­lows best prac­tice as defined by the muir­burn licens­ing scheme, sup­port­ing hab­it­at res­tor­a­tion and recov­ery c) A8 — Work with farms in the Nation­al Park to reduce their car­bon foot­print, con­serve soil car­bon, encour­age sus­tain­able pro­duc­tion and deliv­er increased biod­iversity on in-bye land

2. The Park Authority’s Cor­por­ate Plan agreed by the board in March 2023 includes the fol­low­ing rel­ev­ant stra­tegic object­ives asso­ci­ated with this aspect of the NPPP: a) Empower­ing people to con­trib­ute to net zero ambi­tions. b) Devel­op­ing an Integ­rated Wild­fire Man­age­ment Plan. c) Sup­port­ing farm­ers in achiev­ing car­bon neut­ral­ity and help­ing address the nature and cli­mate crises in the con­text of a prof­it­able farm busi­ness. d) Com­munit­ies are sup­por­ted by a com­munity-led loc­al devel­op­ment fund­ing pro­gramme, deliv­er­ing the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan

3. The Cli­mate Adapt­a­tion Fund sup­ports deliv­ery of the Cairngorms Nature Action Plan and Integ­rated Wildifre Man­age­ment Plan

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 1 13 June 2025 Page 3 of 5 Stra­tegic risk management

1. No stra­tegic risks of rel­ev­ance to con­sid­er­a­tion of per­form­ance of the pro­grammes of work have been identified.

Sum­mary of fun­ded pro­jects ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅

Pro­ject	Applic­ant / Organ­isa­tion	Loc­a­tion	Fund Awar­ded
Hesco bar­ri­er box flood protection	Bal­later (RD) Ltd.	Bal­later	£18,742.44
Sol­ar PV and bat­tery stor­age installation	Gray’s Auto Services	Kin­gussie	£27,083.33
Fuel load man­age­ment for wild­fire mitigation	Inver­mark Estate (Dal­housie Estate)	Brechin	£13,500.00
Wild­fire fog­ging unit	Alvie and Dalraddy Estates	Alvie	£19,000.00
Sol­ar water pump for drink­ing troughs	Clachaig Part­ner­ship	Nethy Bridge	£3,090.00
Expan­sion of Photo­vol­ta­ic (PV) and bat­tery stor­age system	Russ­wood Ltd.	New­ton­more	£26,400.00
Renew­able elec­tri­city and fork­lift char­ging system	Green­flame	Grant­own-on-Spey	£8,425.00
Co-work­ing space insu­la­tion and three-phase electricity	Head Space	Nethy Bridge	£8,360.00

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 1 13 June 2025 Page 4 of 5

Pro­ject	Applic­ant / Organ­isa­tion	Loc­a­tion	Fund Awar­ded
Energy effi­ciency upgrades at vis­it­or centre	Aviemore and Glen­more Com­munity Trust	Glen­more	£46,720.00
PV sys­tem install­a­tion on clubhouse	Kin­gussie Caman­achd Club	Kin­gussie	£19,350.00
Wild­fire train­ing and equipment	Nation­al Trust for Scot­land, Mar Lodge Estate	Mar Lodge	£14,000.00
Heath­er cut­ter to replace con­trolled burning	Phoines Estate	New­ton­more	£6,000.00
Ripari­an wood­land plant­ing for flood resilience	Bal­lie­furth Farm	Nethy Bridge	£40,000.00
Upgrade to energy-effi­cient lighting	Kin­craig Vil­lage Hall	Kin­craig	£2,506.80
Fer­til­iser spray­er for sus­tain­able farming	Culreach Farm	Nethy Bridge	£20,000.00
Dal­nac­ar­doch rewild­ing acceleration	Dur­rell Wild­life Con­ser­va­tion Trust Scotland	Dal­nac­ar­doch	£9,500.00
PV sol­ar pan­el installation	Angus and Mack Ltd.	Unknown	£9,944.00
Air-to-water heat pump system	Land­mark	Car­rbridge	£33,133.00
Dir­ect drill collaboration	Lag­gan and Strathspey	Mul­tiple	£40,000.00 (£20,000 each)

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 1 13 June 2025 Page 5 of 5

Impacts

1. The alloc­a­tion of fund­ing has enabled mean­ing­ful pro­gress across a range of pri­or­ity areas, includ­ing renew­able energy devel­op­ment, infra­struc­ture improve­ments, enhanced wild­fire pre­pared­ness and train­ing, and advance­ments in sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture. These tar­geted invest­ments have strengthened the capa­city of organ­isa­tions to deliv­er endur­ing envir­on­ment­al and eco­nom­ic out­comes, while con­trib­ut­ing col­lect­ively to broad­er cli­mate adapt­a­tion objectives.

2. Par­ti­cipant feed­back has con­sist­ently high­lighted that the fund­ing acted as a pivotal ena­bler for sus­tain­ab­il­ity, risk mit­ig­a­tion, and increased oper­a­tion­al cap­ab­il­ity. Many ini­ti­at­ives that pro­gressed under this fund­ing would likely not have been feas­ible without such sup­port. Recip­i­ents have expressed strong appre­ci­ation for the invest­ment, not­ing its stra­tegic align­ment with both envir­on­ment­al and com­munity-driv­en priorities.

Pub­li­city

1. News and case study stor­ies of the impacts of the pro­jects on cli­mate adapt­a­tion have been pro­moted via Park Author­ity and part­ner com­mu­nic­a­tions chan­nels, for example in Cairn magazine and on the Park Author­ity web­site https://​beta​.cairngorms​.co​.uk/​v​i​e​w​s​/​i​m​p​r​o​v​i​n​g​-​p​l​a​n​t​-​a​n​d​-​s​o​i​l​-​h​e​a​l​t​h​-​a​t​-​c​u​l​r​each- farm

Next Steps

1. The Cli­mate Adapt­a­tion Fund for ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ is now closed. Expres­sions of interest were accep­ted from Janu­ary 2025 until April 2025. Fol­low­ing this, selec­ted applic­ants were invited to sub­mit full applic­a­tions by mid-May. The decision pan­el met later in May to review and short­l­ist the proposals.

2. Suc­cess­ful pro­jects will com­mence on 01 June 2025, with all activ­it­ies and expendit­ure to be com­pleted by 31 March 2026.

Andy Ford 30 May 2025 andyford@​cairngorms.​co.​uk

Gav­in Miles 30 May 2025 gavinmiles@​cairngorms.​co.​uk