Paper One - Active Travel

CAIRNGORMS LOC­AL OUT­DOOR ACCESS FOR­UM Paper I

CAIRNGORMS LOC­AL OUT­DOOR ACCESS FORUM

Title: Act­ive Travel

Pre­pared by: Colin Simpson, Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices & Act­ive Travel

Pur­pose: To update members

Advice sought:

How can the LOAF get the most out of the act­ive travel con­sulta­tions and be involved in the future?

Back­ground and Stra­tegic Context

1. The cli­mate and nature crisis is the single biggest chal­lenge that we face and it is crit­ic­al that the Cairngorms Nation­al Park as the largest pro­tec­ted area in the UK – is an exem­plar in achiev­ing net zero, devel­op­ing nature-based solu­tions and help­ing Scot­land as a whole meet its tar­gets as part of a just trans­ition. This is a major com­mit­ment made in the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan.

2. The Cairngorms Nation­al Park also has a sig­ni­fic­ant role to play in deliv­er­ing the policy ambi­tions of Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment. This is focused on Scot­land being a place to innov­ate, tri­al new ways of think­ing and show ambi­tion to tackle the key chal­lenges of our time. An example of this is the Scot­tish Government’s ambi­tion to increase act­ive travel and in par­tic­u­lar deliv­er world-class infra­struc­ture for walk­ing, wheel­ing and cyc­ling. The Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment also pro­poses imple­ment­ing con­cepts such as 20 minute neigh­bour­hoods across our cit­ies, towns, and rur­al areas so that people can access the vast major­ity of the facil­it­ies and ser­vices they need daily with­in a walk or cycle of around 20 minutes.

3. How this might be delivered is a major part of the Her­it­age Hori­zons: Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme which puts act­ive and sus­tain­able travel at the heart of a green­er future for the Nation­al Park. This involves work­ing with com­munit­ies and part­ners to improve pub­lic trans­port and act­ive travel con­nec­tions across the Nation­al Park. This will also involve fur­ther con­sid­er­a­tion of the concept of 20-minute neigh­bour­hoods and how it might apply in a rur­al con­text, where ser­vices and people are more dispersed.

4. The Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme includes a series of 24 pro­jects of which 8 dir­ectly relate to chan­ging how people get around the Nation­al Park. Of these two pro­jects cov­er the whole of the Nation­al Park while the remainder relate to an indi­vidu­al area or areas. These are described in turn below.

Park-wide pro­jects

1. Cairngorms act­ive travel plan We are devel­op­ing a Park-wide act­ive travel net­work plan as the first step in cre­at­ing a Park­wide net­work of safe routes con­nect­ing com­munit­ies and suit­able for every­one. This will make it easi­er to get around the Park without a vehicle and use pub­lic trans­port. The plan will explain what is required to cre­ate the net­work in the medi­um (to 2030) and longer term (to 2045), includ­ing ways to help and encour­age people to make best use of the network.

CAIRNGORMS LOC­AL OUT­DOOR ACCESS FOR­UM Paper I

1. Cairngorms e‑bike pro­ject The aim of the e‑bike pro­ject is to sup­port a reduc­tion in per­son­al car use by vis­it­ors and res­id­ents mov­ing around the Park through enga­ging and inspir­ing people to use e‑bikes as a mode of trans­port. The pro­ject will cre­ate a net­work of e‑bikes that res­id­ents and vis­it­ors can access for hire or loan for simple jour­neys such as shop­ping trips, tak­ing the kids to school or reach­ing vis­it­or attractions.

Loc­a­tion spe­cif­ic projects

1. Act­ive com­munit­ies: Aviemore This pro­ject aims to make it easy and safe for res­id­ents and vis­it­ors to get around Aviemore without a vehicle. By improv­ing act­ive travel infra­struc­ture and pub­lic spaces, we want to make it more enjoy­able for every­one to walk, cycle or get around using a wheelchair.

2. Act­ive com­munit­ies: Badenoch and Strath­spey With involve­ment from loc­al com­munit­ies, we will improve infra­struc­ture and pub­lic spaces in towns and vil­lages across the Park. This will make walk­ing, cyc­ling and using a wheel­chair in these places easi­er, safer and more enjoy­able. In Badenoch & Strath­spey this will cov­er New­ton­more, Car­rbridge, Dul­nain Bridge, Boat of Garten, Nethy Bridge.

3. Upper Deeside Act­ive and Sus­tain­able Travel This pro­ject involves the devel­op­ment of an Act­ive and Sus­tain­able Travel Plan for Bal­later, Brae­mar and area. As with the com­munit­ies lis­ted above, we will also work with these two com­munit­ies to improve infra­struc­ture and pub­lic spaces to make walk­ing, cyc­ling and using a wheel­chair easi­er, safer and more enjoyable.

4. Act­ive com­munit­ies: Blair Atholl and Kil­liecrankie As above we will work with these two com­munit­ies to improve infra­struc­ture and pub­lic spaces to make walk­ing, cyc­ling and using a wheel­chair easi­er, safer and more enjoyable.

5. Glen­more trans­port plan Cur­rently almost all vis­it­ors arrive by private car at des­tin­a­tions such as Loch Mor­lich and Cairngorm Moun­tain. In col­lab­or­a­tion with loc­al stake­hold­ers, we will rethink the way people travel in this area so they are no longer depend­ent on using their own private car to get to places. It will see a future-proofed pub­lic trans­port ser­vice and make it easi­er for people to walk, cycle and use a wheel­chair between Aviemore and Cairngorm Mountain.

6. Sus­tain­able trans­port in the Park This pro­ject will ini­tially focus on areas out­side Badenoch & Strath­spey — Deeside, Angus and High­land Perth­shire first. We will work with part­ners to improve sus­tain­able trans­port options in the Nation­al Park to make it easi­er to get around without a private car.

7. In addi­tion to those new pro­jects, we will also sup­port com­munit­ies who have exist­ing act­ive travel devel­op­ments under­way with Places for Every­one fund­ing from Sus­trans Scot­land. These com­munity led pro­jects are already under way in Lag­gan, Kin­gussie & Grant­own on Spey. Because Tomin­toul was already the sub­ject of a Her­it­age Lot­tery Fun­ded Land­scape part­ner­ship pro­ject at the time of the Her­it­age Hori­zons bid it was not iden­ti­fied for a sep­ar­ate pro­ject but will be included as part of the Park-wide act­ive travel plan.

CAIRNGORMS LOC­AL OUT­DOOR ACCESS FOR­UM Paper I

Activ­ity to date / Cur­rent situation

1. Work on the Cairngorms Act­ive Travel plan is being under­taken by a Sus­trans seconded officer based with­in the Nation­al Park Author­ity devel­op­ing stra­tegic part­ner­ships and a sub­sequent act­ive travel strategy for the whole of the Nation­al Park.

2. The first stage of devel­op­ment of the e‑bike pro­ject is being under­taken intern­ally by officers with activ­ity to date focussed on one to one engage­ment with key stake­hold­ers — ini­tially bike shops.

3. For the loc­a­tion spe­cif­ic pro­jects, officer activ­ity to date has mainly been focussed on pre­par­ing briefs and pro­cur­ing the ser­vices of spe­cial­ist con­sult­ants to under­take the ini­tial stages of the above pro­jects which primar­ily involve under­tak­ing pub­lic con­sulta­tion to identi­fy each community’s needs. Con­tracts for all pro­jects have been let with the excep­tion of the Upper Deeside Act­ive and Sus­tain­able Travel one which has been tendered with a clos­ing date for responses of 9^th September.

4. Pub­lic engage­ment is now under way with the first few pub­lic ses­sions hav­ing been held in the last fort­night. As well as a ded­ic­ated ses­sion to gath­er the spe­cif­ic thoughts and needs of more eld­erly users and those with mobil­ity dif­fi­culties, a series of more gen­er­al loc­al events are being held. Dates for the first events were as below: -

   • Boat of Garten Com­munity Hall – 18^th August 4:30 – 8:00pm
   • Aviemore Com­munity Hall — 23 August 4:30 – 8:00pm
   • Car­rbridge Vil­lage Hall – 23^rd August 4:30 – 8:00pm
   • New­ton­more Vil­lage Hall – 24^th August 4:30 – 8:00pm
   • Dul­nain Bridge Com­munity Hall – Ist Septem­ber 4:30 – 8:00pm
   • Nethy Bridge Com­munity Centre – 6^th Septem­ber 4:30 – 8:00pm More locations/​dates (includ­ing Deeside and High­land Perth­shire) are to follow.

5. In addi­tion to the face to face options, people also have to oppor­tun­ity to take part in the con­sulta­tion and give their views online through the Com­mon­place plat­form — https://​cairngorm​s2030​.com​mon​place​.is/

LOAF Role /​involvement

1. While the above pro­jects are described as ​“Act­ive Travel” pro­jects the rur­al nature of the Nation­al Park and small com­munit­ies inev­it­ably mean there will be quite sig­ni­fic­ant cros­sov­er between poten­tial new devel­op­ments and the exist­ing access net­work of core paths, long dis­tance routes and any new paths or routes may also become well used for leis­ure pur­poses as well as more util­ity-based travel.

2. In view of this cros­sov­er and the depth of know­ledge and exper­i­ence amongst the mem­bers of the LOAF it is recom­men­ded that the LOAF play a part in the con­sulta­tion – and in par­tic­u­lar that mem­bers of the LOAF take part in the con­sulta­tion events in their loc­al area(s) where possible.

How can the LOAF get the most out of the act­ive travel con­sulta­tions and be involved in the future?

Colin Simpson Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity August 2022