Visitor Experience Outcome VE1:
The National Park has a wide variety of well promoted and managed outdoor recreation opportunities providing for a range of abilities and interests.
Why is this outcome important?
The National Park Authority and a wide range of our partners including communities, have invested significantly in improving recreational paths and facilities within the National Park. Guided most recently by the
Park’s Outdoor Recreation Plan and Core Paths Plan, the enhancement of recreational resources needs to respond to changes in demand and the emerging popularity of new activities.
Some new strategic route linkages need to be made alongside improvements to local path networks, while at the same time finding long term solutions to ensure the existing network is maintained and promoted to a high standard.
The popularity of the Park’s mountains means they are subject to path erosion and need concerted efforts to protect these sensitive environments and to allow positive and safe visitor experiences.
So it is important that the Park Authority leads efforts with partners to ensure that the National Park has a wide variety of well promoted and managed outdoor recreation opportunities that appeal to people with a range of abilities and interests.
Our priorities for action:
- Visitor Experience Priority 1: Ensuring that the National Park Core Paths are reviewed and fit for purpose.
- Visitor Experience Priority 2: Deliver ‘The Mountains and The People’ project restoring 22 mountain paths and delivering training and volunteering opportunities.
- Visitor Experience Priority 3: Enabling the Callander Landscape Partnership to secure funding to invest in recreational routes and improvements to the landscape surrounding the town.
- Visitor Experience Priority 4: Delivering a new model for managing, maintaining and increasing the economic benefits of the West Highland Way as Scotland’s premiere long distance route, alongside promoting other long distance routes crossing the National Park.
Loch Lomond looking south
- Visitor Experience Priority 5: Promoting the use and improvement of the National Walking and Cycling Network including new active travel linkages between communities as well as routes facilitating active travel into the Park and better linkages with existing transport hubs and routes.
- Visitor Experience Priority 6: Enabling the development of the cross-Scotland Pilgrim’s Way as a national development by connecting up the Tyndrum to St Fillans section passing through the National Park.
Who can help make this happen?
| LEAD DELIVERY PARTNERS INCLUDE: |
| Forest Enterprise Scotland |
| Scottish Natural Heritage |
| Cairngorms Outdoor Access Trust |
| Community Development Trusts |
| Community Councils |
| ScotRail |
| Sustrans |
| SUPPORT DELIVERY PARTNERS: |
| Loch Lomond & Trossachs Access Forum |
| Local Authorities |
| Paths for All |
| Transport Scotland |
How will we measure success by 2023?
- Length of recreational route developed or improved.
- Number of projects supporting transport mode change.
- Counts of recreational route use.
- Proportion of visitors engaged in active recreation or sport.
- Number of visits to the ‘things to do’ section of our website.
Case Study: The Mountains and the People Project
In 2015, working with our partners Cairngorms Outdoor Access Trust, Cairngorms National Park Authority, Scottish Natural Heritage and Forestry Commission Scotland, we successfully secured Heritage Lottery Funding and launched The Mountains & The People project.
The Mountains and The People is a five-year project that aims to engage people in protecting and maintaining cherished Scottish mountains, as well as create training opportunities for 48 young people.
The project is delivering against all four of our aims and comprises six different elements:
- Upland Path restoration
- Training
- Conservation Volunteering
- The Adopt a Path
- The Education Programme
- Visitor Information
Volunteers restoring the paths
Questions
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