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For dis­cus­sion

Title: Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme update: quarter one 2026 (Janu­ary to March)

Pre­pared by: Dav­id Clyne, Head of Cairngorms 2030

Pur­pose

This paper presents the status of the Cairngorms 2030 (C2030) pro­gramme and risk man­age­ment, based on inform­a­tion in pro­ject reports for the peri­od from Janu­ary to March 2026, and updated where appro­pri­ate to reflect cur­rent pos­i­tion as at the time of writ­ing, and the planned work to end June 2026.

Recom­mend­a­tions

The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee is asked to:

a) Note pro­gress to date and future for C2030 deliv­ery. b) Note spe­cif­ic points of C2030 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. C2030 will inspire people and com­munit­ies in the Nation­al Park to act and tackle 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. Per­form­ance dash­board: Pro­gramme level Q1 2026 (see Annex 1 for com­pon­ent pro­ject Red Amber Green (RAG) status).

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Per­form­ance Meas­ure	Red-Amber-Green (RAG) status	Q1 26 (cur­rent)	Q1 trend	Q2 26 (expec­ted)
Pro­gramme risk profile	Green		Green	Green	Pro­gramme level risk remains Green.
: — — — — — — — — — — — — —	: — — — — — -	: — — — — — -	: — — — — — -
Q1 26 (cur­rent)	Q1 trend	Q2 26 (expec­ted)
Pro­gramme risk profile	Green	↑	Green
Deliv­ery of Trans­port Scot­land fun­ded projects	Amber	↑	Amber
Future fund­ing profile	Green	↑	Amber

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Per­form­ance Meas­ure	Red-Amber-Green (RAG) status	Issue/​mitigation	Q1 26 (cur­rent)	Q1 trend	Q2 26 (expec­ted)
Fin­ance: impact on Park Author­ity budget management	Green	→	Green
Pro­cure­ment	Green	→	Green
Staff­ing	Green	→	Green

Key Risks

1. Pro­gramme risk level remains at green.

2. The key deliv­ery risk: Trans­port Scot­land fun­ded pro­jects — The over­all risk pos­i­tion with­in the Trans­form­ing Trans­port theme has increased dur­ing Q1 2026, with three of the four trans­port pro­jects now report­ing at RAG Amber status. While deliv­ery activ­ity con­tin­ues across the theme, there are now sev­er­al inter­con­nec­ted stra­tegic, fin­an­cial and pro­gramme man­age­ment risks that require active

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mit­ig­a­tion and reas­sess­ment dur­ing Q2 and Q3 2026. Key areas of increased risk include: a) Act­ive Com­munit­ies — The prin­cip­al risk relates to fund­ing applic­a­tions, deliv­ery times­cales and the abil­ity to com­plete planned out­puts with­in the remain­ing pro­gramme peri­od. Cur­rent pres­sures around pro­cure­ment, part­ner capa­city and sequen­cing of activ­ity are cre­at­ing increas­ing sched­ule risk across ele­ments of deliv­ery. b) Sus­tain­able Trans­port — Sev­er­al ini­ti­at­ives iden­ti­fied and agreed with part­ners dur­ing the devel­op­ment phase have not trans­lated into deliv­er­able pro­jects with­in anti­cip­ated times­cales. There is there­fore now a need to reas­sess deliv­ery pri­or­it­ies, stra­tegic focus and achiev­able out­puts for the remain­ing pro­gramme peri­od. c) Chan­ging Travel Beha­viours — The pro­ject has lost approx­im­ately £20,000 per annum of Hitrans match fund­ing linked to wider Trans­port Scot­land fund­ing reduc­tions. This cre­ates a dir­ect pres­sure on deliv­ery capa­city and resourcing for the pro­ject officer post. Although sig­ni­fic­ant pos­it­ive deliv­ery con­tin­ues across work­place cyc­ling, Bike Buses and com­munity engage­ment activ­ity, the pro­ject now requires fin­an­cial reas­sess­ment and pri­or­it­isa­tion to main­tain deliv­ery with­in avail­able resources. d) Taken col­lect­ively, these issues now rep­res­ent a sig­ni­fic­ant them­at­ic deliv­ery risk for the wider Trans­form­ing Trans­port pro­gramme. Mit­ig­a­tion activ­ity over the com­ing months will there­fore need to focus on:

i. Strategic reprioritisation of transport activity.
ii. Reassessment of delivery scope against available resources and remaining programme timeframe.
iii. Increased focus on deliverable, lower risk and partnership supported activity.
iv. Review of governance, delivery models and partner responsibilities across transport projects.
v. Strengthened programme oversight and escalation arrangements where projects are not progressing as anticipated.
vi. Identification of opportunities to consolidate activity around highest impact and most achievable outcomes.

e) Des­pite the increased risk pos­i­tion, there remain strong examples of suc­cess­ful deliv­ery across act­ive travel design, beha­viour change, work­place engage­ment and com­munity cyc­ling ini­ti­at­ives. The key chal­lenge for Q2 and

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Q3 2026 will be ensur­ing that avail­able capa­city and fund­ing are aligned to the most deliv­er­able and stra­tegic­ally valu­able ele­ments of the trans­port programme.

Sup­port­ing inform­a­tion – theme lead highlights

1. Restor­ing and enhan­cing land­scapes — Deliv­ery across the Restor­ing and Enhan­cing Land­scapes theme con­tin­ues to pro­gress pos­it­ively, with strong part­ner­ship engage­ment sup­port­ing land­scape scale cli­mate, biod­iversity and resi­li­ence out­comes across the Nation­al Park.
2. All sev­en pro­jects remain at Green RAG status and are pro­gress­ing broadly in line with approved plans and mile­stones. Strong col­lab­or­a­tion between estates, com­munit­ies, agen­cies and land man­age­ment organ­isa­tions con­tin­ues to be a major strength of the theme. Key pro­gress dur­ing Q1 2026 includes: a) Con­tin­ued advance­ment of wood­land expan­sion, peat­land res­tor­a­tion and nature recov­ery activ­ity, con­trib­ut­ing to long term cli­mate resi­li­ence and biod­iversity recov­ery object­ives. b) Ongo­ing devel­op­ment of the Cairngorms Future Farm­ing work­stream, sup­port­ing col­lab­or­a­tion with land man­agers and farm­ing part­ners around regen­er­at­ive land man­age­ment, biod­iversity enhance­ment and lower car­bon farm­ing prac­tices. c) Pro­gres­sion of cli­mate resi­li­ent catch­ment pro­jects, strength­en­ing integ­rated approaches to flood resi­li­ence, water man­age­ment and land­scape adapt­a­tion. d) Con­tin­ued devel­op­ment of green fin­ance and com­munity wealth build­ing approaches, sup­port­ing explor­a­tion of longer-term sus­tain­able invest­ment mech­an­isms and loc­al eco­nom­ic bene­fit. e) Strong part­ner­ship deliv­ery and pipeline devel­op­ment across the theme, with sub­stan­tial activ­ity pro­gress­ing across mul­tiple pro­jects and land­scapes. f) The theme remains in a strong deliv­ery pos­i­tion enter­ing Q2 2026. How­ever, extern­al cost pres­sures and tim­ing risks asso­ci­ated with sev­er­al major cap­it­al ele­ments will require con­tin­ued mon­it­or­ing and act­ive man­age­ment over the com­ing quarters.
3. Empower­ment — The Empower­ment theme remains Green across all pro­jects and con­tin­ues to build strong momentum around com­munity par­ti­cip­a­tion, organ­isa­tion­al engage­ment prac­tice and cre­at­ive approaches to cli­mate learn­ing and empower­ment across the Nation­al Park.

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1. The theme is mak­ing a sig­ni­fic­ant con­tri­bu­tion to one of the programme’s core stra­tegic object­ives: enabling long term com­munity empower­ment, par­ti­cip­a­tion and sys­tems change through loc­ally led action, col­lab­or­a­tion and know­ledge exchange. Key pro­gress dur­ing Q1 2026 includes: a) Con­tin­ued devel­op­ment of com­munity engage­ment and par­ti­cip­at­ory approaches, sup­port­ing great­er loc­al involve­ment in cli­mate action and pro­gramme deliv­ery. b) Pro­gres­sion of cli­mate learn­ing and edu­ca­tion activ­ity, help­ing build aware­ness, skills and under­stand­ing around cli­mate adapt­a­tion, sus­tain­ab­il­ity and green skills. c) Ongo­ing devel­op­ment of cli­mate con­scious com­munity ini­ti­at­ives, sup­port­ing beha­viour change and loc­ally led responses to cli­mate and envir­on­ment­al chal­lenges. d) Advance­ment of com­munity arts and cul­ture activ­ity, help­ing con­nect com­munit­ies with cli­mate, land­scape and place through cre­at­ive and cul­tur­al engage­ment. e) Con­tin­ued devel­op­ment of the C2030 Com­munity Fund gov­ernance and codesign pro­cess, sup­port­ing trans­par­ent, par­ti­cip­at­ory and com­munity led alloc­a­tion approaches aligned with the approved NLHF pro­gramme frame­work. f) Ongo­ing part­ner­ship devel­op­ment and know­ledge exchange activ­ity, strength­en­ing col­lab­or­a­tion across com­munit­ies, deliv­ery part­ners and organ­isa­tions through­out the Nation­al Park.
2. The theme con­tin­ues to demon­strate strong deliv­ery momentum and pos­it­ive com­munity engage­ment out­comes. Key stra­tegic chal­lenges relate primar­ily to part­ner capa­city, main­tain­ing deliv­ery pace and man­aging increas­ingly com­plex stake­hold­er rela­tion­ships as pro­jects con­tin­ue to scale and mature.
3. Trans­port — The Trans­form­ing Trans­port theme con­tin­ues to deliv­er sig­ni­fic­ant activ­ity across act­ive travel infra­struc­ture, beha­viour change, work­place engage­ment and com­munity cyc­ling initiatives.
4. Key deliv­ery pro­gress dur­ing Q1 2026 included advance­ment of the Aviemore, Boat of Garten, New­ton­more and Nethy Bridge pro­jects, con­tin­ued devel­op­ment of the Aviemore pub­lic cycle hire scheme, rol­lout of cyc­ling infra­struc­ture pro­cure­ment and ongo­ing Bike Bus and work­place cyc­ling activ­ity. How­ever, as out­lined in the pro­gramme risk sec­tion above, the over­all them­at­ic risk pos­i­tion has increased

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dur­ing Q1 2026, with three of the four pro­jects now report­ing at Amber RAG status. The prin­cip­al chal­lenges relate to deliv­ery times­cales, fund­ing uncer­tainty, pro­ject sequen­cing, part­ner capa­city and stra­tegic pri­or­it­isa­tion across remain­ing pro­gramme activity.

1. Mit­ig­a­tion activ­ity dur­ing Q2 and Q3 2026 will focus on stra­tegic repri­or­it­isa­tion of trans­port activ­ity, reas­sess­ment of deliv­ery scope and strength­en­ing gov­ernance and pro­gramme over­sight arrange­ments in pre­par­a­tion for future Trans­port Scot­land fund­ing decisions.
2. Des­pite the increased risk pro­file, the theme con­tin­ues to demon­strate strong com­munity demand, pos­it­ive part­ner­ship engage­ment and good pro­gress across sev­er­al act­ive travel, cycle infra­struc­ture and beha­viour change initiatives
3. Health and Well­being — All pro­jects at RAG green status.
4. The Health and Well­being theme con­tin­ues to per­form strongly, with both pro­jects remain­ing at Green RAG status and demon­strat­ing strong part­ner­ship deliv­ery, innov­a­tion and increas­ing par­ti­cipant engage­ment across the Nation­al Park.
5. The theme con­tin­ues to demon­strate strong align­ment between nature, pub­lic health and com­munity well­being object­ives, while sup­port­ing integ­rated deliv­ery across health, trans­port, inclu­sion and out­door access agendas.
6. Key pri­or­it­ies dur­ing Q1 2026 focused on strength­en­ing oper­a­tion­al pro­ced­ures, expand­ing deliv­ery capa­city and embed­ding longer term leg­acy approaches: a) Con­tin­ued deliv­ery of out­door health and well­being activ­ity, sup­port­ing improved access to nature-based health inter­ven­tions and pre­vent­at­ive health approaches. b) Ongo­ing devel­op­ment of the Out­door Demen­tia Resource Centre and asso­ci­ated part­ner­ship work­ing, strength­en­ing inclus­ive access to out­door envir­on­ments and well­being sup­port. c) Con­tin­ued col­lab­or­a­tion with health, com­munity and third sec­tor part­ners to help embed well­being out­comes across wider C2030 activ­ity. d) Increas­ing integ­ra­tion between act­ive travel, out­door access and health improve­ment agen­das, sup­port­ing more joined up deliv­ery across pro­gramme themes. e) Pos­it­ive engage­ment with com­munit­ies and deliv­ery part­ners, sup­port­ing longer term leg­acy plan­ning and devel­op­ment of scal­able well­being approaches.

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f) The theme con­tin­ues to demon­strate strong poten­tial for long term social impact through integ­rated deliv­ery link­ing envir­on­ment, trans­port, inclu­sion and health out­comes. g) Key pri­or­it­ies for Q2 2026 will focus on strength­en­ing refer­ral path­ways, embed­ding revised oper­a­tion­al pro­ced­ures, expand­ing nation­al learn­ing activ­ity and con­tinu­ing devel­op­ment of longer-term sus­tain­ab­il­ity and leg­acy planning.

Stake­hold­er engagement

1. Com­mu­nic­a­tions — Com­mu­nic­a­tions activ­ity dur­ing Q1 2