Paper 4 - Delivery Of Statutory Duties As Conferred By Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 4 13 June 2025 Page 1 of 7

For inform­a­tion Title: Deliv­ery of stat­utory duties as con­ferred by the Land Reform (Scot­land) Act 2003 Pre­pared by: Colin Simpson, Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices and Act­ive Travel, and Adam Streeter-Smith, Recre­ation and Access Manager

Pur­pose This paper is presen­ted in order to update mem­bers on deliv­ery of the Park Authority’s stat­utory duties under the Land Reform (Scot­land) Act 2003. While activ­ity is delivered by officers with annu­al report­ing to the Loc­al Out­door Access For­um, as this is a stat­utory func­tion it is also con­sidered appro­pri­ate that there is an ele­ment of Board over­sight and scru­tiny of related casework.

Recom­mend­a­tions The Board is asked to: α) Note the sum­mary of access case­work under­taken by the Access and Infra­struc­ture Team. b) Con­sider find­ings, trends and oth­er rel­ev­ant issues arising.

Stra­tegic context

1. Part one of the Land Reform (Scot­land) Act 2003 (“the LRA” or ​“the Act”) estab­lishes stat­utory rights of respons­ible access on and over most land, includ­ing inland water. Part one of the Act sets out the stat­utory duties, respons­ib­il­it­ies and powers of Nation­al Park Author­it­ies in rela­tion to the pro­vi­sion and pro­mo­tion of the right of access, Part one of the Act also places emphas­is on the loc­al man­age­ment of access which is the respons­ib­il­ity of the Nation­al Park Author­ity as the recog­nised Access Authority.

2. In addi­tion, the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan includes under C8 — Access­ible path and cycle net­work, the object­ive ​“improve path, cycle and out­door access net­works to give out­stand­ing oppor­tun­it­ies to exper­i­ence the nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age of the Nation­al Park to the widest range of people, while min­im­ising dis­turb­ance to

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vul­ner­able spe­cies, hab­it­ats and sites.” Achiev­ing this object­ive requires the deliv­ery of the Park Authority’s stat­utory access duties to com­ple­ment oth­er activ­ity such as infra­struc­ture invest­ment and promotion.

Stake­hold­er engagement

1. The Land Reform (Scot­land) Act 2003 required the Park Author­ity to estab­lish a Loc­al Out­door Access For­um (LOAF) to provide advice and sup­port to the author­ity. The LOAF which nor­mally meets three times per annum con­tains a range of mem­bers drawn from user groups, land man­agers and part­ner organ­isa­tions who can reflect the interests of these parties. The LOAF is updated annu­ally on access casework.

Stra­tegic risk management

1. No sig­ni­fic­ant stra­tegic risks have been iden­ti­fied as a res­ult of the access case­work described.

Implic­a­tions

1. There is a risk of repu­ta­tion­al dam­age if cases are not resolved par­tic­u­larly if these cases are high pro­file. While most cases are resolved through dir­ect engage­ment with the parties con­cerned, there is the poten­tial for some cases to require fur­ther leg­al action to resolve them, and this adds an ele­ment of fin­an­cial risk through leg­al costs.

Back­ground

1. Part one of the Land Reform (Scot­land) Act 2003 (“the LRA” or ​“the Act”) sets out the stat­utory duties, respons­ib­il­it­ies and powers of nation­al park author­it­ies in rela­tion to the pro­vi­sion and pro­mo­tion of the right of access.

2. Under part one of the LRA the Park Author­ity has four spe­cif­ic duties: α) Sec­tion 10: The Scot­tish Out­door Access Code (“the Code”)- There is a duty imposed on the Park Author­ity, by sec­tion 10(7) (a) of the Act, to pub­li­cise the Code. b) Sec­tion 13: Duty to uphold access rights- Sec­tion 13(1) of the Act places a duty on the Park Author­ity to uphold access rights which entails asserting,

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1. c) pro­tect­ing, keep­ing open and free from obstruc­tion any route, water­way or oth­er means by which access may reas­on­ably be exer­cised. Sec­tions 17, 18 and 20: Core paths plan- The Park Author­ity has a duty, to draw up, pub­lish and review a plan for a sys­tem of core paths suf­fi­cient to provide reas­on­able pub­lic access through­out their areas. d) Sec­tion 25: Loc­al access for­um- Sec­tion 25 of the Act places a duty on the Park Author­ity to estab­lish a loc­al access for­um con­sist­ing of per­sons, and bod­ies rep­res­ent­ing the interests of such per­sons, with an interest in pub­lic access on and over land includ­ing the exer­cise of access rights, rights of way, core paths plans and the use of core paths, and own­ers, or bod­ies rep­res­ent­at­ive of own­ers, of land in respect of which access rights are exer­cis­able. This paper high­lights the deliv­ery of those stat­utory duties above for the peri­od April 2024 — March 2025 Pro­mo­tion of the Scot­tish Out­door Access Code

2. Dir­ect pub­lic engage­ment — activ­it­ies pro­mot­ing respons­ible beha­viour and the Scot­tish Out­door Access Code (SOAC) are under­taken by Park Author­ity access and ranger staff. Details of this engage­ment are giv­en below for the peri­od April 2024 to March 2025. NB This describes form­al ded­ic­ated access activ­ity only, so does not include ranger patrolling and inform­al con­ver­sa­tions at oth­er com­munity events.

Activ­ity No. of people No. of ses­sions Activ­it­ies School groups 347 14 • Deliv­ery of SOAC edu­ca­tion pro­gramme to four high schools and one primary school. Addi­tion­al refresh­er SOAC camp­ing ses­sion before school exped­i­tions. Pub­lic events 244 5 • Ranger ​“pop-up” events (stall in car park on busy day).

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• Ranger attend­ance at events eg Thrive bike fest­iv­al. • Two recre­ation and wild­life present­a­tions to out­door activ­ity pro­viders (part of Beaver ses­sions). CPD / Train­ing 28 4 • Teach­er train­ing ses­sion – deliv­ery of SOAC edu­ca­tion resource. • SOAC train­ing ses­sions to Park Author­ity staff, volun­teer rangers and part­ner ranger ser­vices. Juni­or rangers 29 2 • Wild­life dis­turb­ance and cre­at­ing videos about respons­ible access. Total num­ber of 485 people dir­ectly engaged with

1. Pub­lic­a­tions — The Park Author­ity con­tin­ues to pro­mote the code under the aus­pices of ​‘Tread Lightly in the Park’, the list of tread lightly pub­lic­a­tions include: α) Main gen­er­al Tread Lightly leaf­let. b) Fire and barbe­que leaf­let. c) ​“High Fire Risk” mag­net­ic vehicle signs for all rangers’ vans and part­ner ranger ser­vice vehicles. d) Respons­ible beha­viour poster signs – suite of five poster signs. e) Caper­cail­lie and dogs on lead signs.
2. Digit­al pro­mo­tion — social media — The Vis­it­or man­age­ment cam­paign ran between 04 July and 29 Septem­ber; the schedul­ing was shared with part­ners who were encour­aged to repost or co-ordin­ate using their own assets on the same top­ics. A total of 53 posts ran which pro­moted the SOAC and respons­ible beha­viour, which achieved 145,420 impres­sions, 47 com­ments and 259 shares. The con­tent included the pre­vi­ous vis­it­or man­age­ment posts, with updated graph­ics: a) Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship respons­ible enjoy­ment videos (fea­tur­ing Ed Byrne)

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b) Ranger rambles videos, three videos with part­ners (Muir of Din­net Nation­al Nature Reserve (NNR) reserve man­ager and ANGUS­alive rangers) Duty to uphold access rights

1. The cur­rent record shows a slight decrease in Sec­tion 14 case­work (obstruc­tions to access rights eg locked gates) for the 12-month peri­od April 2024 to March 2025 versus the pre­vi­ous year. Records for the review peri­od com­pare as fol­lows: 2024÷25−26 cases α) b) ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ – 33 cases c) ²⁰²²⁄₂₃ – 28 cases
2. Of the above 26 cases recor­ded in ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅, six are cur­rently live, mean­ing 20 cases have been closed fol­low­ing invest­ig­a­tion and rel­ev­ant actions hav­ing been taken.
3. Break­down of cases by area and type: Of the 26 access obstruc­tion cases received from 01 April 2024 to present date: α) 17 locked gates / bar­ri­ers (2023÷24 – 20 gates / bar­ri­ers). b) Two obstruct­ive sig­nage. c) Two obstruct­ive beha­viours. d) Five oth­er access restrictions.
4. The num­ber of cases repor­ted are sig­ni­fic­antly high­er in Badenoch and Strath­spey com­pared to the oth­er areas with­in Nation­al Park. This is likely to reflect a high­er pop­u­la­tion and great­er vis­it­or num­bers rather than any beha­vi­our­al dif­fer­ences. Core paths plan
5. The Park Author­ity is under­tak­ing a review of the Core Paths Plan to reaf­firm if the cur­rent net­work of core paths remains suf­fi­cient to facil­it­ate access across the Nation­al Park. The cur­rent Core Paths Plan (second edi­tion) was adop­ted in 2015, and while this is gen­er­ally con­sidered fit for pur­pose, it is timely to review and con­sider any changes over the last decade.
6. The review pro­cess is anti­cip­ated to take around 18 months and will include inform­al pub­lic con­sulta­tion, pro­duc­tion of a draft plan, stat­utory assess­ments on

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the draft, final­isa­tion of plan and a fur­ther stat­utory pub­lic con­sulta­tion. It is expec­ted the final Core Paths Plan will be sub­mit­ted to Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment around Autumn 2026. Loc­al Out­door Access Forum

1. The Cairngorms Loc­al Out­door Access For­um (LOAF) had been oper­a­tion­al for 20 years on the 31 March 2025 and has played a cru­cial role in help­ing the Park Author­ity shape and devel­op policies and plans, address access issues and advise on the sus­tain­able man­age­ment of out­door access. Mem­bers time and ded­ic­a­tion is highly val­ued by the Park Author­ity and by the Park Author­ity Board.
2. The LOAF met three times in ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ and covered top­ics as wide ran­ging as: α) Fire man­age­ment byelaw b) Out­door access case­work c) Core Paths Plan­ning d) Sea­son­al advis­ory sig­nage e) Guid­ance on man­aging recre­ation­al pres­sures on lochs
3. The LOAF oper­at­ing pro­ced­ures state there will be a max­im­um of 15 mem­bers includ­ing one Park Author­ity board mem­ber. Cur­rently there are nine mem­bers with an addi­tion­al three poten­tial new mem­bers plan­ning to attend future meet­ings (a meet­ing of the LOAF takes place between the date this report is final­ised and the Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee meet­ing itself so an update on num­bers can be giv­en at the Com­mit­tee). Three exist­ing mem­bers have served in excess of six years and will be stand­ing down over the year, so addi­tion­al recruit­ment will be tak­ing place to ensure con­tinu­ity and rep­res­ent­a­tion. Con­clu­sions: Per­form­ance Overview
4. There are no mat­ters of stra­tegic sig­ni­fic­ance which mer­it escal­a­tion at this time in the opin­ion of seni­or man­agers lead­ing the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority’s deliv­ery of stat­utory duties. 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.

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Adam Streeter-Smith 28 May 2025 adamstreetersmith@​cairngorms.​co.​uk Colin Simpson 28 May 2025 colinsimpson@​cairngorms.​co.​uk