Sustainable Travel in National Parks
By James Burns, Ansons Consulting
In October 2023, the nominations process for a new national park in Scotland opened, and by summer 2024 it is planned that at least one new national park will have been announced. The creation of a new park will present the chosen area with a unique opportunity to attract visitors and support sustainable economic and social development, while protecting its natural and cultural heritage. It also presents a set of acute challenges attached to visitor management and access.
Scotland’s two existing national parks saw an overall increase in visitor numbers in the decade leading up to 2019—a trend also observed in other national parks in Britain—, putting visitor hotspots under increasing traffic and parking related strain at peak times. Staycation surges during the Covid pandemic further highlighted that honey pot locations are increasingly attracting volumes of private vehicles that the sites are ill-equipped to deal with.
The climate emergency presents a further challenge, and visitor access will play a key role in national parks’ response. As custodians of landscapes susceptible to the effects of a warming climate, national park authorities find themselves on the front line in climate change adaptation and mitigation. The UK’s national parks are committed to achieving net zero by 2045, and travel to and around the parks is a significant contributor to the parks’ emissions footprint.
As part of its response to these challenges, the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park Authority commissioned a ‘Sustainable Travel and Modal Shift Assessment and Options Appraisal’. Current travel patterns to and around the park are dominated by private cars, with many sites experiencing serious traffic and parking congestion, leading to delays, traffic hazards, maintenance issues and direct damage to the environment. The negative effects are felt by both visitors and residents. Public transport services which are often inadequate in meeting the needs of visitors and residents do not help. Existing services are aimed at providing lifeline and commuter services within different local authority boundaries, rather than providing integrated coverage to better serve the needs of both visitors and local residents. Parking provision is similarly disjointed. A variety of public and private owners and management regimes ensures that parking charges are not set in a coordinated way. The nominal or non-existent fees associated with parking in the national park area have served to make motoring an even more attractive prospect.
Responding to these challenges is no simple task. The jurisdictions of four local authorities and three regional transport partnerships meet in the national park. Though all bodies recognise the systemic issues associated with transport provision and car congestion, addressing them requires close coordination and a shared vision for transport in the park. Likewise, the financing of solutions requires a new economic and funding model, which will facilitate higher ongoing investment in sustainable transport services.
In developing the Sustainable Travel and Modal Shift report we set out a clear, tailored and bold vision and strategy for the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park as an exemplar of sustainable tourism and rural access. The strategy aims to facilitate and encourage sustainable, inclusive visitor access to and travel around the park, and enhance the visitor experience, while improving quality of life and facilitating access to opportunities for residents in support of the local economy.
The strategy includes a comprehensive series of interventions to support the national park in its sustainable transport goals. It proposes the designation of gateways and hubs around the park. Gateways are locations served by direct, high-quality public transport, with access to visitor amenities, information and seamless ongoing travel options around the park. Hubs are focal points for visitor amenities such as hospitality and accommodation, and starting points for recreation activities. Other facets of the strategy include an improved public transport system offering value for money, convenience and integrated ticketing; infrastructure to develop and promote active travel, encouraging people to explore the park by low-impact means, while positioning the park as a destination for outdoor activities; forward looking parking and traffic management designed for a more coordinated approach to pricing, management, enforcement and communications to alleviate capacity problems and discourage private car use by visitors; and strategic visitor communications and marketing to promote sustainable travel options and the park’s offer. New finance and governance arrangements are also proposed to raise the additional revenue required for improvements across transport, parking and infrastructure, and efficiently coordinate the enhanced offer.
Since Scotland’s last national park was designated in 2003, the need for more robust solutions around visitor access and climate change has become even more apparent. The need for Scotland’s new national park to address key visitor management pressures and support sustainable tourism is recognised in the nominations appraisal guidelines. A new national park authority can make decisions to positively influence travel patterns from the outset. It presents an invaluable opportunity to establish a robust, forward-looking and fit-for-purpose approach to access that learns from the experiences of other national parks and positions the new park to meet its statuary obligations and respond to the immense challenge of climate change, while ensuring inclusivity and contributing to thriving communities.
View the full Loch Lomond and the Trossachs Sustainable Travel and Modal Shift report here.
James Burns is a consultant at Ansons Consulting, which specialises in supporting organisations in achieving more sustainable outcomes around transport and travel. James can be contacted at james@ansonsconsulting.com and more information about Ansons’ services is available at https://www.ansonsconsulting.com