Paper 3 Update on casework volumes and types over 2019-2023 calendar years

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ügh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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CAIRNGORMS LOC­AL OUT­DOOR ACCESS FOR­UM Douglas Stew­art, Out­door Access Officer 7 Feb­ru­ary 2024 Update on case­work volumes and types over 2019 – 2023 cal­en­dar years.

Pur­pose

1. To update mem­bers on case­work hand­ling of all types includ­ing monthly break­downs and sum­mary of key types by volume.
2. To con­sider find­ings, trends and oth­er rel­ev­ant issues arising.

Back­ground

1. The Nation­al Park Author­ity has a num­ber of duties and respons­ib­il­it­ies requir­ing pro­vi­sion of advice to intern­al col­leagues and key part­ners along­side respond­ing to both gen­er­al enquir­ies from the pub­lic and also com­plaints over obstruc­tions to and/​or inter­fer­ence with the exer­cise of stat­utory access rights.
2. In order to both mon­it­or and pro­cess these tasks a case­work record is main­tained. This ​‘log’ records num­bers and types of case­work includ­ing dates, hand­ling times and a record of con­tacts made dur­ing processing.

Case­work Handling

1. Man­age­ment of case­work work­load is an ongo­ing con­sid­er­a­tion with the present sys­tem alloc­at­ing case­work on the basis of a 50:50 split between the two Out­door Access Officers in post. Depend­ing on the com­plex­ity or nature of any giv­en case col­lab­or­a­tion and dis­cus­sion often takes place towards ensur­ing bal­anced decision mak­ing. Pro­cessing, record­ing and alloc­a­tion is sup­por­ted by an admin­is­trat­ive sup­port officer.

Adop­tion of New Case­work Mon­it­or­ing and Reporting

1. As of the cur­rent cal­en­dar year we have mod­i­fied the mon­it­or­ing approach adop­ted in our case­work hand­ling pro­ced­ures to focus primar­ily on mat­ters per­tain­ing to the deliv­ery of stat­utory con­sulta­tions (forestry and plan­ning) and the Land Reform (Scot­land) Act 2003 Sec­tion 13 duty to uphold access rights. In effect this means mon­it­or­ing and report­ing going for­ward will be focussed on instances where obstruc­tions to access rights are the sub­ject. A key pur­pose of this to align

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Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ügh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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mon­it­or­ing and report­ing with NP Park Plan out­comes and main­tain a focus on stat­ist­ics and trends relat­ing to obstruc­tion to access spe­cific­ally such they relate to Sec­tions 13 and 14 of the Land Reform (Scot­land) Act 2003.

1. Future report­ing to the LOAF will take a sim­il­ar stat­ist­ics-based format as pre­vi­ously how­ever will reflect the afore­men­tioned change in focus.

Ana­lys­is of Annu­al Records

1. The cur­rent record shows a rel­at­ive increase in S14 case­work (obstruc­tions to access rights e.g. locked gates) for the 9 month review peri­od (exclud­ing Janu­ary, Feb­ru­ary and March) versus pre­vi­ous figures.

2. Records for the review peri­od vs baseline com­pare as follows:

• 2023 – 66 cases • 2022 — 42 cases • 2021 – 41 cases • 2020 – 39 cases • 2019 – 25 cases

1. It is prob­able that 2023 has main­tained a high­er num­ber (com­pare pre-pan­dem­ic) of UK res­id­ents hol­i­day­ing at home (i.e. with­in the UK) due to struc­tur­al shifts in choice of hol­i­day des­tin­a­tions. Cost of liv­ing pres­sures, inter­na­tion­al geo-polit­ic­al ten­sions (i.e. war & con­flict) and cli­mate related issues such as pre­val­ence of wild­fires glob­ally for example, may also impact inter­na­tion­al travel choices with high­er num­bers of domest­ic vis­it­ors seen feed­ing into the levels of S14 case­work exper­i­enced. The logic here relates that a great­er num­ber of vis­it­ors to the Nation­al Park means a con­cur­rently high­er prob­ab­il­ity of access related prob­lems arising and thence being repor­ted. There is also ongo­ing evid­ence to sug­gest the num­ber of camper­vans and mobile homes being used con­tin­ues to see a sus­tained increase since the pre-pan­dem­ic peri­od which persists.

2. Of the above 66 cases recor­ded to date 7 are cur­rently LIVE and there­fore OPEN mean­ing 59 cases have been CLOSED fol­low­ing invest­ig­a­tion and rel­ev­ant actions hav­ing been taken.

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Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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1. Case­work hand­ling capa­city and pro­ced­ures have proven resi­li­ent to fluc­tu­ations in num­bers and types of issues over­all although any sus­tained upward trend requires mon­it­or­ing in respect of staff capa­city. Case­work is react­ive and tends to lim­it capa­city else­where when an increase in case­load is evident.

Recent Not­able Cases

Case No 2021- 689 — Curr Wood This ongo­ing case involves two aspects namely (1) ret­ro­spect­ive attach­ment of obstruct­ive tim­ber ele­ments (hori­zont­al bars) across a pre­vi­ously open (access­ible) gap affect­ing a pop­u­lar core path and (2) erec­tion of a ten­sioned fence (com­pris­ing two strands of plain wire) across a sep­ar­ate but nearby path with­in Curr Wood. The own­ers have been con­tac­ted (in writ­ing) and engaged with con­cern­ing the above over a peri­od extend­ing to many months but have so far refused to remove the obstruc­tions or modi­fy them to render them access­ible. The Author­ity has now writ­ten to the landown­er with a dead­line for action (Janu­ary 2024) bey­ond which pro­ceed­ings under the LR(S)A Sec­tion 13 duty will be invoked. Next steps are cur­rently being considered.

Case 2022-032 – No cyc­ling sign at Lude Estate Mul­tiple com­plaints were received when a sign stat­ing ​“No cyc­ling” was erec­ted at the end of a track at Lude Estate. Fur­ther invest­ig­a­tions and site vis­its con­cluded that as the track led through a farm stead­ing – at this point – access rights were not exer­cis­able (as per Sec­tion 2 of the Act, build­ings and their cur­til­age). Unfor­tu­nately, numer­ous web­sites and online cyc­ling trails have been pro­mot­ing this route, which led to the increase in use, res­ult­ing in near acci­dents at the farm and ulti­mately the erec­tion of the sign by a frus­trated landown­er. The sig­nage will be updated to more help­fully dir­ect people down the road instead and to com­mu­nic­ate that at the farm that there is no pub­lic right of access.

One com­plain­ant entered into ongo­ing cor­res­pond­ence con­tinu­ally query­ing this and then rais­ing if it was feas­ible to walk near the main house at Lude instead. This led to the Author­ity fur­ther hav­ing to carry out a pri­vacy assess­ment to identi­fy the reas­on­able amount of land required for the pri­vacy and undis­turbed enjoy­ment of the res­id­ents. Should any party dis­agree with the pri­vacy and cur­til­age opin­ion this would now be a mat­ter for judi­cial review if either wished to pro­gress this.

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Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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