For dis­cus­sion

Title: Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme update: 2024 and quarter one 2025 (Janu­ary – March)

Pre­pared by: Dav­id Clyne, Head of Cairngorms 2030

Pur­pose

1. This paper presents the status of pro­gramme and risk man­age­ment, based on inform­a­tion in pro­ject reports for the first year of the deliv­ery phase (2024) and the peri­od from Janu­ary to March 2025, and updated where appro­pri­ate to reflect cur­rent pos­i­tion as at the time of writ­ing togeth­er with the planned work to end June 2025.

Recom­mend­a­tions

The Board is asked to:

a) Note pro­gress to date and future plans for Cairngorms 2030 deliv­ery. b) Note spe­cif­ic points of Cairngorms 2030 deliv­ery risk. c) High­light any issues arising that mem­bers may feel need spe­cif­ic con­sid­er­a­tion by staff from a stra­tegic and board perspective.

Stra­tegic context

1. Cairngorms 2030 (C2030) will inspire people and com­munit­ies in the Nation­al Park to act in tack­ling the nature and cli­mate crisis. Bring­ing togeth­er 20 long-term pro­jects on trans­form­ing land­scapes, empower­ing com­munit­ies, rethink­ing how we travel and cham­pi­on­ing wellbeing.

2. The Park Author­ity was awar­ded £12.5 mil­lion by The Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund (NLHF) to devel­op and deliv­er C2030 and become the UK’s first net zero nation­al park. The five-year deliv­ery phase com­menced in Janu­ary 2024.

Stra­tegic risk management

1. A stand­ard­ised per­form­ance dash­board for major pro­grammes has been agreed with the board’s Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee. We have been report­ing on this basis each quarter since com­mence­ment of the deliv­ery phase to the Com­mit­tee. The per­form­ance dash­board at Pro­gramme level as at the end of quarter one (Q1) 2025 is presen­ted here (see Annex 1 for projects).

Per­form­ance Meas­ure	Red Amber Green (RAG) status	Issue/​mitigation
Pro­gramme risk profile	Amber	Risk pro­file remains stat­ic for anoth­er quarter as we await Trans­port Scot­land act­ive travel match fund­ing award let­ter and resolve Act­ive Com­munit­ies pro­cure­ment delays. Con­firm­a­tion now expec­ted June / July 2025.
Future fund­ing profile	Amber	Risk pro­file remains stat­ic for anoth­er quarter as we await Trans­port Scot­land act­ive travel match fund­ing award let­ter. Con­firm­a­tion now expec­ted June/​July 2025.
Fin­ance: impact on Park Author­ity budget management	Green	No sig­ni­fic­ant impact cur­rent or pro­jec­ted iden­ti­fied. The poten­tial fin­an­cial implic­a­tions for C2030 pro­gramme deliv­ery are a key ele­ment of 2025⁄26 budget plans as board and man­age­ment con­sider deploy­ment of fin­an­cial alloc­a­tions for the next fin­an­cial year. Over­all budget man­age­ment impacts remain with­in the total agreed budget and total park author­ity pro­gramme contributions.
Pro­cure­ment	Green	While this aspect remains green over­all, cov­er­ing a large volume of work and value of pro­cure­ment, there are some pro­cure­ment chal­lenges with com­plex­ity of the Act­ive Com­munit­ies tender. But leg­al advice has been sought, and a revised tender will be pub­lished mid-June. The res­ult­ing 30-day delay is expec­ted not to sig­ni­fic­antly impact deliv­ery, while fur­ther delay could res­ult in chal­lenges in fit­ting work required with­in time available.
Staff­ing	Amber	Two engage­ment team resig­na­tions over the last three months, which will impact pro­gramme engage­ment deliv­ery plans. Recruit­ment com­pleted for both posts, com­men­cing at the end of May and July. Vacan­cies have there­fore been short lived. Risk trend is upward pending staff induc­tion and ensur­ing work sched­ules are adequately picked up.
Deliv­ery of Transport	Amber	Trans­port Scot­land act­ive travel match fund­ing award let­ter has not been received as expected.
Scot­land fun­ded projects		This is not a crit­ic­al path giv­en the required exten­sion of the pro­cure­ment pro­cess. Act­ive Com­munit­ies pro­ject risk pro­file remains at amber until July 2025.

2024 Pro­gramme deliv­ery highlights

1. Pro­gramme: a) Cairngorms 2030 has suc­cess­fully com­pleted the first year of its five-year deliv­ery phase. Please see Annex 2 for the annu­al review leaf­let sub­mit­ted to NLHF. b) The full com­ple­ment of 21 pro­ject deliv­ery staff is now employed across the pro­gramme. There are three addi­tion­al intern posts (three months each) await­ing to be recruited when Trans­port fund­ing is con­firmed and design pro­jects are fully under­way. c) 24 Invit­a­tions to Tender (ITT) were issued and awar­ded over the year.

2. Key risks: a) The risk pro­file has remained at amber dur­ing 2024. b) The main pro­gramme deliv­ery risk dur­ing 2024 and extend­ing into 2025 is the Act­ive Com­munit­ies pro­ject. We await Trans­port Scotland’s act­ive travel match fund­ing award let­ter, which is now expec­ted June / July 2025. c) Fur­ther delay in receiv­ing the fund­ing award let­ter will add increased pres­sure to the pro­cure­ment timeline and may raise the deliv­ery risk pro­file for the pro­ject and the pro­gramme to Red, Amber, Green (RAG) status Red in Q2 2025 report­ing. Mit­ig­a­tion will include a form­al review of deliv­er­ables and nego­ti­ation with NLHF and Trans­port Scot­land on what design and con­struc­tion is real­ist­ic­ally achiev­able by end Decem­ber 2028. d) NLHF are fully briefed reg­u­larly on the pro­gramme risk pos­i­tion and our man­age­ment action. To date, NLHF are con­tent with pro­gress and risk man­age­ment action under­way. e) The risks around trans­port pro­jects have now been escal­ated into the Park Author­ity stra­tegic risk register to enhance pro­file of this with­in the Park Authority’s over­all stra­tegic risk management.

3. Trans­form­ing land­scapes: a) Dur­ing 2024 we delivered 517 hec­tares (ha) of new nat­ive wood­land planted at Atholl. b) More than 2,000 ha of peat­land under­went res­tor­a­tion in 2024. c) Two new com­munity deer lar­ders have been delivered and have star­ted to dis­trib­ute ven­ison to com­munit­ies. d) £1.5 mil­lion plus Nature recov­ery grant scheme star­ted seek­ing expres­sions of interest from Deer Man­age­ment Group (DMG) part­ners engaged in the devel­op­ment phase to restore nature and hav­ing com­munity bene­fits. e) Six farms par­ti­cip­at­ing in regen­er­at­ive farm­ing pro­ject – look­ing to reduce chem­ic­al inputs, improve hab­it­ats for wild­life and reduce their car­bon foot­prints. f) River res­tor­a­tion pro­jects on Dee and Spey going through plan­ning and / or final design stage. g) ​‘Com­munity Bene­fits from Nature Officer’ recruited by Scot­tish Land Com­mis­sion. The role will build under­stand­ing and sup­port for best prac­tice in embed­ding com­munity bene­fits from val­ues-led nat­ur­al cap­it­al invest­ment and respons­ible land use change across the Cairngorms Park, and spe­cific­ally through one-to-one sup­port and advice to iden­ti­fied pro­jects. h) 150 people took part in the ​‘Best views of the Cairngorms sur­vey’. i) Cli­mate Resi­li­ent Catch­ments – Dal­gety flood­plain pro­ject was can­celled due to the dis­cov­ery of an inter­me­di­ate pres­sure gas pipeline cross­ing the flood­plain at a shal­low depth (pipeline was exposed dur­ing recent floods), mak­ing this pro­ject unvi­able. The pro­ject will be replaced by a new col­lab­or­a­tion between the Park Author­ity and the Bal­later Flood Issues Group (FIG). The pro­ject will sup­port FIG in improv­ing the flood resi­li­ence of Bal­later. FIG have com­mis­sioned an options and mod­el­ling study and Cairngorms 2030 will provide funds and pro­ject staff time to sup­port FIG to:

   i. engage landown­ers and the com­munity on the study and pre­ferred options. ii. con­tract the detailed design of some options. iii. obtain per­mis­sions and con­sents to carry out the design. iv. con­tract the ground works of the design.

4. Empower­ment: a) Over 10,000 people will have seen C2030 staff at events across the Park in 2024. b) At least 1,200 people engaged with per­son­ally at events. c) 835 in-depth, con­ver­sa­tions with loc­al com­munity mem­bers (just count­ing attend­ance, as indi­vidu­al con­ver­sa­tions with pro­ject leads would be multiplied

5. Trans­port: a) The fol­low­ing Stages three to four, Detailed Design pro­jects, which have pre­vi­ously been sub­mit­ted to Places for Every­one, were passed to Trans­port Scot­land Act­ive Travel Infra­struc­ture Fund (ATIF) Tier two dir­ectly, with no require­ment for a new applic­a­tion. Fund­ing for these pro­jects is still sub­ject to sub­mis­sion of the final award notification.

   i. CNP-PFE-4369 — ATI — Boat of Garten ii. CNP-PFE-4397 — ATI — Aviemore Arter­i­al Routes North iii. CNP-PFE-4383 — ATI — Car­rbridge iv. CNP-PFE-4384 — ATI — New­ton­more v. CNP-PFE-4387 — ATI — Nethy Bridge

   b) Stages three to four Unsuc­cess­ful: The Stages three to four, Detailed Design pro­jects for Dul­nain Bridge would not have been suc­cess­ful through Places for Every­one. Feed­back did not recom­mend apply­ing to ATIF for fund­ing. c) The Park Author­ity will pro­gress the act­ive travel design pro­cure­ment of Aviemore, Boat of Garten, New­ton­more and Nethy Bridge. d) Due to recent tender sub­mis­sion costs being more than pro­ject budget Aviemore and Boat of Garten con­tracts will be offered togeth­er as a pack­age and as sep­ar­ate con­tracts. e) The Park Author­ity will delay act­ive travel design pro­cure­ment in Car­rbridge to allow addi­tion­al com­munity engage­ment and sup­port to be agreed before the pro­ject pro­ceeds. f) Due to the lack of fund­ing sup­port, the Park Author­ity will not pro­gress the design pro­cure­ment for Dul­nain Bridge. How­ever, the exist­ing Trans­port Scot­land fun­ded Dul­nain Bridge to Grant­own on act­ive travel link will be pro­gressed sub­ject to fund­ing applic­a­tion. g) Built cyc­ling con­fid­ence with school pupils through bike main­ten­ance sessions.

6. Health and Well­being: a) 39 Green Health refer­rals in 2024, with 25 par­ti­cipants act­ive and 13 who have com­pleted the pro­gramme. b) Over 1,000 people bene­fit­ted from attend­ing the Out­door Demen­tia Resource Centre in 2024.

7. Fin­ance: a) Total expendit­ure: £6.06 mil­lion. b) Total NLHF claims made / received: £1.672 mil­lion — full 100% claimed was approved and paid out. c) Part­ner income received: £875,000. d) Peat­land cost through pro­ject (fig­ure included in above expendit­ure): £3.05 mil­lion and claimed £843,000 from NLHF. e) Com­munity Man­aged Com­munity Grant Scheme cost through pro­ject (fig­ure included in above expendit­ure): £522,000 and claimed £144,000 from NLHF. f) Wood­land Expan­sion cost through pro­ject (fig­ure included in above expendit­ure): £965,000 and claimed £266,000 from NLHF. g) The Park Author­ity payroll costs: £978,600. h) The Park Author­ity non-cash in-kind con­tri­bu­tion: £542,000.

Q1 2025 Pro­gress report

Stake­hold­er engagement

1. Com­mu­nic­a­tions: a) Total engage­ments — that is people who have liked, shared, watched and inter­ac­ted with mater­i­als — of all C2030 activ­ity across social media: 63,271 — an increase of 352% on last quarter. This large rise is due to the deer lar­der film which received 52,500 engage­ments alone. b) There were 24 pieces of press cov­er­age from 01 Janu­ary to 31 March that men­tion Cairngorms 2030 and / or the NLHF. c) There were two press releases dur­ing the period:

   i. Trans­form­ing Trans­port grant fund­ing announce­ment, read here. ii. Announce­ment of the innov­at­ive deer lar­der pro­ject, read here.

   d) The spring issue of Cairn hit door­steps on 07 April with the deer lar­der story as the main fea­ture as well as three oth­er art­icles cov­er­ing Fèis Spè, green e) Cairngorms Voices (online blog / photo stor­ies) inter­view with James Ade, Learn­ing Coordin­at­or (Cli­mate and Com­munity Arts) on work­ing with young people through Cairngorms 2030. Read here. f) Oth­er press activity:

   i. Vis­it to Knock­barry farm with First Min­is­ter John Swin­ney MSP. A high­light of this was the release of the first deer lar­der film, telling the story of Knock­barry farm and the deliv­ery of ven­ison to food banks. This video has received over 100,000 views thus far. ii. Social media activ­ity in this peri­od con­tin­ued with a total of 20 posts includ­ing announce­ments and micro-updates that kept Cairngorms 2030 present on our social media channels.

   g) A sum­mary of the social media activ­ity is giv­en in the fol­low­ing reports:

   i. Feb­ru­ary com­mu­nic­a­tions update ii. March com­mu­nic­a­tions update

2. Volun­teer activ­ity: a) Eight indi­vidu­al Volun­teer Rangers have been dir­ectly involved with C2030 pro­jects, for a total of 42 Volun­teer hours. This was through work at the Out­door Demen­tia resource centre, and Aspen plant­ing at C2030 farms. This is great­er than 2024 Q4 by 3.5 hours. b) There have been no C2030 fun­ded or linked pub­lic ses­sions in this time frame. This is no change from 2024 Q4. c) 87 pub­lic volun­teers have cre­ated a volun­teer­ing account with the Park Author­ity in this time­frame. d) Our mod­el for work­ing with the Chan­ging Travel Beha­viours pro­ject is estab­lished fol­low­ing suc­cess­ful appoint­ment of the con­tract­or. For both ​‘bike bus’ volun­teers and ​‘social ride’ volun­teers the con­tract­or will estab­lish the volun­teer-involving activ­it­ies with the Park Author­ity over­sight, rather than the Park Author­ity deliv­er­ing volun­teer sup­port dir­ectly. These volun­teers are likely to be fully involved in Q3. e) Volun­teer Rangers have sup­por­ted the Cairngorms Future Farm­ing pro­ject over the course of two days with two dif­fer­ent farms. f) Dis­cus­sions regard­ing col­lab­or­a­tion for volun­teer involve­ment between But­ter­fly Con­ser­va­tion Scot­land and C2030 con­tin­ue, with a pro­vi­sion­al site

(and asso­ci­ated land own­ing / man­aging part­ner) iden­ti­fied as part of the Peat­land Res­tor­a­tion pro­ject. g) Work­ing with the Wood­land Expan­sion pro­ject to fur­ther devel­op pro­pos­als for three strands of volun­teer­ing with a focus on inclu­sion and innov­a­tion, with a clear pro­posed approach expec­ted to be estab­lished in the fol­low­ing quarter. h) Feed­back from volun­teer­ing leads across the 15 Nation­al Parks has been sought regard­ing ​‘what works’ when devel­op­ing ​‘fam­ily volun­teer­ing’ oppor­tun­it­ies, with the poten­tial to pilot this approach iden­ti­fied with the Cli­mate Learn­ing and Edu­ca­tion pro­ject (dis­cus­sions at a very early stage). i) Identi­fy­ing oppor­tun­it­ies for volun­teer skills devel­op­ment in plant mon­it­or­ing and sur­vey­ing through the Nature Recov­ery pro­ject. j) Volun­teer Ranger recruit­ment has been ongo­ing dur­ing this quarter, with 51 com­pleted applic­a­tions received. The Volun­teer Cairngorms team have offered to meet all applic­ants and expect to offer 24 places for this intake bring­ing the total num­ber of Volun­teer Rangers recruited to date to 115. k) Con­ver­sa­tions with all pro­ject leads have now been com­pleted or are sched­uled in the first three weeks of Q2, com­plet­ing all ini­tial volun­teer­ing incep­tion con­ver­sa­tions across the programme.

Sup­port­ing inform­a­tion; theme lead highlights

1. Trans­form­ing land­scapes: a) Peat­land res­tor­a­tion has delivered above its tar­get area (2100ha). Peat­land team has recruited two new pro­ject officers, Geo­graph­ic Inform­a­tion Sys­tems (GIS) officer and tech­nic­al assist­ant, increas­ing deliv­ery capa­city and improv­ing team resi­li­ence. b) Two Deer lar­ders are oper­a­tion­al and have already delivered 1,000 kg of ven­ison to loc­al com­munit­ies and schools. c) Wood­land expan­sion has developed four new pro­jects deliv­er­ing more wood­land, rare wood­land types and com­munity involve­ment. d) Nature Recov­ery Expres­sion of Interest (EOI) pro­cess attrac­ted 32 applic­a­tions which have been dis­tilled to three or four poten­tial pro­jects for fur­ther devel­op­ment. e) All six farms are now com­mit­ted to at least one new regen­er­at­ive farm­ing tech­nique and more are in plan­ning. Know­ledge exchange and car­bon mon­it­or­ing work has been planned for later in year. f) Catch­ment pro­ject is work­ing to devel­op a co-cre­at­ive approach to flood man­age­ment with loc­al com­munity in Bal­later, this is an altern­at­ive to the defunct Brechin work. Upper Deeside pro­ject may be delayed until 2026 due to delays in obtain­ing con­sents. g) Com­munity Bene­fits from Nature Invest­ment pro­ject is now work­ing on three pos­sible pro­jects with landown­ers across the Nation­al Park. h) Land­scape and Com­munit­ies work has been affected by both engage­ment coordin­at­ors leav­ing but recruit­ment has been suc­cess­ful for their replace­ments. The first sur­vey still going online in late spring / sum­mer 25.

2. Empower­ment: a) Effect­ive Engage­ment: This pro­ject has been marked as Amber due to the staff­ing short­age impact on the wider pro­gramme. The mit­ig­a­tion is that we have recruited two new staff and are rework­ing this year’s engage­ment plan based on that capa­city. Test­ing and deliv­ery of the gami­fic­a­tion event in Aviemore was a real high­light of this quarter. b) Com­munity Cli­mate Grants: The appoint­ment of the Involve Found­a­tion as our par­ti­cip­at­ory demo­cracy con­sult­ant for this strand of work is a major step for­ward to the deliv­ery of this pro­ject of work and the work rate is likely to now ramp up. c) The final­isa­tion of the Well­being Eco­nomy Action Plan has now allowed this pro­ject to be mapped out, and a route set for the con­tri­bu­tions it will make to the Park Author­ity and Cairngorms 2030 mon­it­or­ing and eval­u­ation. d) Part­ner­ship work­ing and event deliv­ery under­way with Com­munity Cli­mate Hubs. e) Com­munity Arts and Cul­ture high­light is the approv­al of the action plan co-designed by the cre­at­ives net­work. Many les­sons learnt from the ongo­ing devel­op­ment of the codesign pro­cess and the impacts on pre­dicted timescales.

Trans­port

1. Act­ive Com­munit­ies: a) Pro­gress on pri­or­ity pro­jects has been delayed as we await a decision on the exact award amount from Trans­port Scot­land. We have provided a large amount of inform­a­tion and research to inform our exact award request. b) The Aviemore Act­ive Com­munit­ies design works has been com­pleted and invit­a­tions to tender issued on Pub­lic Con­tracts Scot­land. Res­ult­ing quer­ies c) Loc­al com­munity stake­hold­er engage­ment work­shop was hos­ted in Glen­more cor­ridor with rela­tion­ships being built and views gathered on options for poten­tial new path and bus infra­struc­ture improvement.

2. Cycle friendly Cairngorms: a) The Cairngorms 2030 pro­ject delivered by Strath­spey Ped­al Ini­ti­at­ive has con­tin­ued to deliv­er activ­it­ies to com­munit­ies and schools with a total of 132 par­ti­cipants this quarter. They have main­tained school bike fleets, delivered skills and main­ten­ance classes and offered Dr Bike ses­sions to pupils, with 59 pupils from Primary one to Primary sev­en par­ti­cip­at­ing. b) Pur­chase of work­place cycles for the Park Author­ity staff such as the ranger ser­vice to pilot as work­place demon­stra­tion of cargo cycles. c) Pre­par­a­tion for the pro­cure­ment pro­cess to pur­chase equip­ment for cycle hubs has res­ul­ted in an agreed deliv­ery strategy. We will seek com­munity deliv­ery part­ners to host cycle hubs and facil­it­ies such as lease cycles, shel­ters, park­ing, stor­age and rechar­ging for e‑bikes through C2030 support.

3. Sus­tain­able trans­port bus stop: a) A sus­tain­able trans­port bus stop audit was under­taken with find­ings identi­fy­ing com­mon themes for improve­ments to be made.

4. Chan­ging travel beha­viours: a) Key part­ner­ships were developed for chan­ging travel beha­viours with plans to work with young people through act­ive schools. b) Organ­ised led rides pro­gramme was planned for deliv­ery with con­tract awar­ded for 10 weeks of com­munity rides and rides to and from school. c) A fur­ther con­tract has been awar­ded for a work­places ini­ti­at­ive to reach 12 loc­al work­places to offer cycle safety checks and organ­ised rides. d) There have been two of 12 work­places tar­geted so reach­ing new audi­ences and offer­ing cycle safety checks, access to e‑bikes and cargo bikes for longer term loan. e) Over 20 cycle safety checks have been com­pleted to date.

Health and Wellbeing

1. Pub­lic Health and the Out­doors: a) Good, con­tin­ued pro­gress this quarter with new mater­nity cov­er in place and pro­ject per­form­ing well. b) An increase in addi­tion­al work­ing hours for one part time Green Health work­er was required to address deliv­ery and capa­city issues. c) Sup­port­ing patients on a one-to-one to basis is resource intens­ive and addi­tion­al time was required to deliv­er a high-qual­ity ser­vice. d) Work con­tin­ues to raise the pro­file of the pro­ject with health and social care staff.

2. Out­door Demen­tia Resource Centre (ODRC): a) Con­sol­id­a­tion for the pro­ject over the last three months. b) Devel­op­ments have been made to the pro­grammes offered through learn­ing gained in the pre­vi­ous quarter. c) Stor­age issues have been resolved tak­ing pres­sure away from the staff and the centre facil­it­ies provid­ing a bet­ter exper­i­ence for users. d) It has been iden­ti­fied that work on the sus­tain­able future of the ODRC needs to begin soon.

3. Recruit­ment: a) Two new Engage­ment Co-ordin­at­ors have been recruited to fill recently vacated posts. b) Con­tract for Green Health Link work­er has been exten­ded by one day per week to help man­age workload.

4. Gov­ernance: a) Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme risk man­age­ment has been added to the Park Authority’s seni­or man­age­ment team meet­ing as a stand­ing agenda item. Key risks and issues now doc­u­mented and escal­ated for res­ol­u­tion, which is improv­ing task man­age­ment. The Board’s Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee also reviews pro­gramme risk man­age­ment on a quarterly basis in tan­dem with con­sid­er­a­tion of the Park Authority’s stra­tegic risk management.

5. Budget and cash flow a) A new cash flow from Q1 2025 has been pre­pared and issued to NLHF. b) Peat­land res­tor­a­tion ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ budget con­firmed by Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment is £4.63 mil­lion with 17 pro­jects in draft plan. c) A new £10,000 match fund­ing con­tri­bu­tion has been secured through con­tri­bu­tions made by Nation­al Park Part­ner­ships / BMW.

6. Pro­cure­ment a) Some pro­cure­ment chal­lenges with the com­plex­ity of the Act­ive Com­munit­ies tender. But leg­al advice has been sought, and a revised tender will be published.

For­ward look

1. Key deliv­ery actions to end Decem­ber 2025 include: a) The pub­lic­a­tion and award of Act­ive Com­munit­ies Invit­a­tions to Tender (ITT) on Pub­lic Con­tract Scot­land. Act­ive travel ITT design con­tracts include Aviemore, Boat of Garten, Nethy­bridge and New­ton­more. An addi­tion­al act­ive travel pro­ject to con­nect Dul­nain Bridge and Grant­own-on-Spey will be pro­gressed with a sep­ar­ate Trans­port Scot­land fund­ing applic­a­tion. Fur­ther com­munity engage­ment on act­ive travel demand in Car­rbridge will also be delivered. b) Suc­cess­ful deliv­ery of Act­ive Com­munit­ies con­tracts sup­por­ted by Trans­port Scot­land fund­ing by end March 2026. c) The new Bal­later Com­munity Cli­mate Resi­li­ent Catch­ment pro­ject will com­mence with a new grant award and the selec­tion of flood risk mit­ig­a­tion pro­ject options. d) The Par­ti­cip­at­ive demo­cracy pro­ject to co-design a new Com­munity Cli­mate Grant will com­mence and is expec­ted to be sub­stan­tially com­plete by the end of March 2026. We expect to provide the board with an update on this work over the peri­od of the con­sultancy con­tract. e) The Park Author­ity has nom­in­ated Alzheimer Scot­land for a ​‘Nature of Scot­land Award’ for the C2030 Out­door Demen­tia Resource Centre pro­ject. The short­l­ist will take place on 10 Septem­ber 2025. f) The Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund staff team (30 employ­ees) will be vis­it­ing the Park on 16 and 17 Septem­ber 2025. g) The strategy for deliv­er­ing new Com­munity Cycle Hubs will be agreed and pro­cured. Pri­or­ity loc­a­tions include Aviemore, Glen­more, Grant­own-on-Spey and Bal­later. Oth­er main res­id­en­tial centres will be pro­posed for a range of new cycle facil­it­ies from bike stor­age, e‑bike char­gers to beha­viour change ini­ti­at­ives. h) Land man­agers who sub­mit­ted an expres­sion of interest to the C2030 £1.5 mil­lion Nature Recov­ery pro­ject will be con­tac­ted and sup­por­ted through the applic­a­tion pro­cess with awards con­firmed by Autumn 2025. i) Four new wood­land expan­sion pro­jects will be ini­ti­ated and grant awar­ded. These include new mont­ane wood­land on Marr Lodge Estate, increas­ing the Aspen net­work with Trees for Life, a new Angus Glens Tree Nurs­ery and a series of com­munity work­shops on filling the con­sulta­tion and com­munity bene­fit gap for Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment grant fun­ded wood­land and forestry cre­ation schemes. j) Long term stra­tegic deliv­ery and leg­acy plan­ning with NHS High­land to ensure the sus­tain­able future of the Pub­lic Health and the Out­doors green health refer­ral project.

2. Sig­ni­fic­ant Budget Adjust­ments a) None

Con­clu­sions: Per­form­ance Over­view and Mat­ters Mer­it­ing Stra­tegic Review

1. In con­clu­sion, the fol­low­ing key oper­a­tion­al pro­gramme risks under man­age­ment are drawn to the Boards atten­tion: a) Pro­gramme risk level remains at amber due to the delay in receiv­ing Trans­port Scot­land form­al award let­ter. The con­tin­ued delay is unfor­tu­nate, but it does not increase deliv­ery risk as the offer has been agreed in prin­ciple. The issue has been escal­ated at a seni­or man­age­ment level, and we expect form­al grant award noti­fic­a­tion in June 2025. Any fur­ther delay will see the risk raise to RAG status red. b) The view of pro­gramme man­agers is that these escal­ated risks can be effect­ively man­aged and there is no cur­rent need to escal­ate any risks to a more stra­tegic level.

Dav­id Clyne 13 June 2025 davidclyne@​cairngorms.​co.​uk

Annex 1

Cairngorms 2030 Pro­ject Red Amber Green (RAG) status – Q1 2025

Pro­ject Name	Jan-Mar 24	Apr-June 24	July-Sept 24	Oct-Dec 24	Jan — Mar 2025
Wood­land Expansion	Green	Green	Green	Green	Green
Peat­land restoration	Green	Amber	Amber	Green	Green
Nature recov­ery	Green	Green	Green	Green	Green
Cairngorms future farming	Amber	Green	Green	Green	Green
Cli­mate resi­li­ent catchments	Amber	Amber	Green	Amber	Green
Green fin­ance & com­munity wealth building	Green	Green	Green	Green	Green
Well­being economy	Green	Green	Green	Green	Green
Pub­lic health & the outdoors	Green	Green	Green	Green	Green
Out­door demen­tia resource centre	Green	Green	Green	Green	Green
Land­scape & communities	Green	Green	Green	Green	Green
Effect­ive com­munity engagement	Green	Green	Green	Green	Amber
Cli­mate learn­ing & education	Green	Green	Green	Green	Green
Cli­mate con­scious communities	Green	Green	Green	Green	Green
Com­munity arts & culture	Green	Green	Green	Green	Green
Com­munity man­aged cli­mate grants	Green	Green	Green	Green	Green
Know­ledge & exchange	Green	Green	Green	Green	Green
Cycle friendly Cairngorms	Green	Green	Green	Green	Green
Act­ive communities	Green	Amber	Amber	Amber	Amber
Sus­tain­able transport	Green	Amber	Green	Green	Green
Chan­ging travel behaviours	Green	Green	Green	Green	Green