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CAIRNGORMS NATIONAL PARK AUTHORITY 


MINUTES OF THE BOARD MEETING 
held at The Clova Hall, Glen Clova 
on Friday 16th May 2008 at 11.30am 

PRESENT 

Stuart Black 		Ian Mackintosh 
Geva Blackett 		Mary McCafferty 
Duncan Bryden 		Eleanor Mackintosh 
Nonie Coulthard 		Fiona Murdoch 
Jaci Douglas 		Sandy Park 
Lucy Grant 		Andrew Rafferty 
David Fallows 		Richard Stroud 
David Green (Convenor) 	Susan Walker 
Marcus Humphrey 

In Attendance: 

Bob Grant 
David Cameron 
Jane Hope 

Apologies: 

Eric Baird 		Alastair MacLennan 
Drew Hendry 		Anne MacLean 
Bob Kinnaird 		Bruce Luffman 
William McKenna 		Ross Watson 

Welcome 

1. The Convener welcomed everyone to the meeting, the first in the Clova 
Hall. He noted that the previous evening the Board had held its usual 
open public meeting and there had been some interesting discussion, in 
particular on the increasing use of substantial electrified fences which 
were significantly impeding rights of access. It appeared that these 
examples were all just outside the National Park, but nevertheless 
provided an interesting insight into an issue that might in due course 
become an issue for the National Park. 
Minutes of Last Meeting – approval 

2. Minutes of the last meeting on 20th March 2008 were approved with no 
changes. 

Matters Arising 

3. Jane Hope reported, further to Paragraph 12 of the previous minutes, that 
the Corporate Plan for 2008/11 had been submitted to the Scottish 
Government for approval. [Approval subsequently received on 19th May.] 
The Operational Plan 2008/09 had been revised and approved by the 
Finance Committee that morning. 

Declarations of Interest 

4. Marcus Humphrey declared an interest in respect of paper 1 as a Director 
of the Cairngorms Outdoor Access Trust, and withdrew from this item. 
Nominations for the Board of the Cairngorms Outdoor Access Trust (COAT) 
and Contribution Towards the Trust’s First Business Plan (Paper 1) 

5. Bob Grant and David Cameron introduced the paper which sought the 
Board’s approval for two nominees as Directors of the COAT and for a 
contribution of £150,000 from the CNPA towards the delivery of the Trust’s 
2008/09 Business Plan. The proposal was that in view of the skills and 
knowledge required by the Trust and the importance of ensuring that the 
Trust membership reflected the geography of the National Park, the two 
CNPA nominees should be the Head of Corporate Services and a Board 
Member from an appropriate area of the National Park – currently this 
implied someone from the west side of the Park given the spread of the 
rest of the COAT membership. The contribution of £150,000 from the CNPA 
was acknowledged as representing quite high gearing from the CNPA, 
but reflecting the newness of the Trust and the important role of the CNPA 
in providing a lead to other partners, who it was hoped would also 
contribute to this Trust, given that the intention was to benefit the whole of 
the National Park. 

6. In discussion the following points were made: 

a) There was some further discussion about the composition of the 
Board of Directors on the COAT. This was set out at Paragraph 2. 
Membership was not open to individuals but to organisations who 
could nominate Directors. However, once on the Board, each 
Director was required to act in the best interests of the company. 
The Memorandum and Articles of association were not specific 
about geographical spread or other issues; but there was a duty on 
the Board of Directors to ensure that they were able to deliver the 
objects of the Trust. So in practice no organisation could control or 
manage the composition of the Board, indeed one of the 
requirements of charitable status was that no member could have a 

controlling interest. However, the CNPA through its two 
nominations, had some limited scope to make nominations to 
ensure appropriate geographical spread. 

b) Current membership appeared to be very much based on land 
management/nature conservation interests. It would be good to 
see a wider membership, for example drawn from the Chamber of 
Commerce, the Destination Management Organisations etc. 
reflecting the fact that the objects of the Trust included wider public 
benefit, which surely included economic benefit. It was 
acknowledged that the CNPA would like to see the Trust develop in 
that way; however, it was early days and the important thing was to 
demonstrate first of all that the Trust was able to deliver. Hopefully 
the two Directors nominated by the CNPA would encourage the 
Trust Board to recognise these points and ultimately the financial 
contribution from the CNPA could be used to similarly encourage 
the Trust to take that approach. 

c) There appeared to be no one on the Trust with a Park-wide 
recreational interest. However it was acknowledged that there 
were many representative bodies concerned with recreation and 
sport and it was very difficult to pick just one. However there was 
merit in ensuring someone from the Cairngorms Local Outdoor 
Access Forum was able to sit on the Trust to ensure linkage between 
the two bodies. 

d) The important point at the start of the life of the Trust was to 
concentrate on credibility. The Trust was a new body, and not 
simply and extension of UDAT to the west side of the Park. It would 
be important to have someone on the Board of Directors who was 
from the west side of the Park, and had the ability to attract money 
into the Trust. 

e) The Trust was intended to be a delivery organisation and not a grant 
giving organisation. 

f) It was noted that discussions had been held with all local authorities 
regarding contributions to the trust. The difficulty was that once the 
CNPA was the Access Authority, local authorities tended to feel that 
they did not need to contribute to the funding of path works and 
maintenance within the National Park. A notable and very 
welcome exception to this was Aberdeenshire Council who 
continued to contribute. The CNPA continued to try and persuade 
the other councils about the benefits of the Park to their own areas 
and hence the rationale for them contributing to the work of the 
Trust. It was noted that there was huge public benefit at stake 
which went well beyond the Access legislation and the duties of 
Access Authorities and there was a very strong argument for 
councils to contribute. 

g) The development of the COAT was acknowledged as a really 
important mechanism for delivering public benefits through good 
walking opportunities. It was excellent that the Trust was now up 
and running; it was potentially very important in respect of health 

promotion and the NHS should be approached as potential 
contributors. 

h) It was suggested that there should be a follow up paper for the 
Board to consider setting out the arguments that the Board would 
like to see the two CNPA nominees take to the Trust, setting these in 
the context of the strategy being developed within the Park for 
outdoor recreation and access opportunities. 

i) Dave Fallows was proposed by Eleanor Mackintosh as COAT 
Director, seconded by Duncan Bryden. 

7. The Board agreed the recommendations of the papers as follows: 

a) Agreed that there would be two nominees as Directors of the COAT, 
one of whom would be Head of Corporate Services. 
b) Agreed that Dave Fallows should be the Board Member nominee 
(both of these nominations to be for four years); 
c) Approved a contribution of £150,000 towards the delivery of the 
Trust’s 2008/09 business plan. 

8. Action: 

a) Bob Grant to bring forward a further Board paper setting out the 
CNPA’s ideas on how the Trust might usefully develop over the 
medium to long term as a vehicle for delivering a high quality path 
network in the Cairngorms National Park. 

Operational Plan 2007/08 Update (Paper 2) 

9. This was an information paper reporting on the final quarter of delivery of 
the Operational Plan 2007/08; this also represented the final report on the 
delivery of the Corporate Plan 2005/08. Members congratulated staff on 
the comprehensive delivery of both that Corporate Plan and the 2007/08 
Operational Plan. 

AOCB 

10.Geva Blackett reported on a recent nature exchange visit made to 
Norway under the Leonardo Da Vinci Exchange Programme. This had 
proved an extremely useful way of bringing together different 
perspectives and view points on nature conservation and land 
management and Colin McClean was thanked for his efforts in 
organisation. 

11.The Convener reported on a number of meetings he had attended 
recently: 

a) Fiona Spencer - conducting the Strategic Review of National Parks; 

b) Angus Council - the Convener and Chief Executive had met a small 
group of members and staff from Angus Council all of whom were 
very positive towards the National Park. 

c) Perth and Kinross Council – the Convener, Chief Executive and a 
number of Board Members had made contact with Perth and 
Kinross Council for an informal meeting. It was noted that SNH had 
been appointed to undertake the boundary review and there was 
scope to use some of their consultation meetings to help build levels 
of understanding and ownership of the Cairngorms National Park. 

d) It was noted that the SEARS project would be announced by 
Ministers at the Royal Highland Show on Friday the 20th June. The 
CNPA would be present and Members were asked to indicate if 
they would be on the stand at any point. 

e) Greener Scotland meeting – the Convener and Chief Executive had 
attended a meeting at which Richard Lochhead, John Swinney, 
and Jonathan Porritt had all given talks about delivering the 
Greener Scotland Agenda. The talks had all been inspirational and 
had focused on the need not just to join up but to embed the 
greening aspiration in every single policy; in other words we were all 
responsible for delivering the greener agenda. 

f) Tourism. There had been some follow up to the informal discussion 
about tourism on the 18th April. The Convener had started 
discussions with the various DMOs as well as business groupings in 
Angus and Perth and Kinross to develop the idea of a more joined 
up concerted approach to delivering the tourism product to visitors 
as well as supporting the tourism businesses across the Park. The 
aim, emerging from the informal discussion, was to ensure that this 
was business-led, taking advantage of those things that could be 
done collectively across the National Park, while maintaining the 
identity and diversity of the various areas within the Park. A meeting 
had been held to explore the principles and all those concerned 
were considering this further. 

g) Advisory Forums - the three Advisory Forums were being held on 
Wednesday 21st May (Enjoying and Understanding the Park), 
Thursday 22nd May (Living and Working in the Park), Wednesday 11th 
June (Conserving and Enhancing). Board Members were 
encouraged to attend these advisory forums, which had been 
established to ensure a good two way dialogue between the Board 
and others with an interest in delivery of the National Park Plan. 

h) Strategic Review – progress on this would be reported to the Board 
once the remit for the review had been approved by Ministers. 
However, in the meantime it was noted that Ministers had 
committed to there being a consultation on the Strategic Review, 
and the working assumption was that this would mean input into the 
review itself, as well as consultation on its proposed outputs. 

Date and Venue of Next Meeting 

12. Friday 11th July, Braemar Village Hall.