National Parks ‘deliver improved well-being’ for visitors and locals – report

National parks can “deliver improved public well-being” for both visitors and locals, a new report has found, with the study adding that Scotland’s two existing national parks regularly generate over £700 million a year for the country’s economy.

Scottish Environment Link published a new assessment as Holyrood ministers consider whether a a third national park should be created in Dumfries and Galloway.

Rural Affairs Secretary Mairi Gougeon announced in July that the Scottish Government was “proposing to create a new national park for Scotland” in the area, with further work to be carried out.

Meanwhile, Deborah Long, director of Scottish Environment Link, said that national parks “bring significant sustainable economic and social development for communities in their areas”.

She added that their new report not only made the case for national park status for Dumfries and Galloway, but for “further national parks elsewhere in Scotland in the future”.

Scotland currently has two designated national parks, in the Cairngorms and Loch Lomond and The Trossachs.

The new report said national parks “make a significant contribution to the local economy in and around their areas, primarily through the spending and employment opportunities generated by the visitor economy”.

It added: “The overall value of the visitor economy in the Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park was £418.5m in 2018, and £308.5 million was generated within the Cairngorms National Park economy through visitor and tourism business expenditure in 2019.

“This means that Scotland’s National Parks regularly generate over £700m of economic impact per annum in their visitor economies alone, more than 30 times the £22m invested in them by the Scottish Government each year.”

National Parks “tend to attract greater levels of inward investment” in areas such as tourism, outdoor recreation and leisure developments, the report added.

As a result, it said, awarding an area national park status can “attract more visitors, increase average spend per visitor and lengthen the visitor season, thereby increasing tourism-related employment and sustaining small-scale tourism businesses”.

With around six million people visiting the two national parks each year, the report added that “tourism accounts for around 60% of the economy in the Cairngorms National Park and supports 6,200 jobs in the Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park”.

It also said Scotland’s two national parks were exceeding Scottish Government targets on affordable housing – which require 25% of new homes built to be affordable.

In the Cairngorms, 175 affordable homes were built between 2016 and 2021, with 45% of properties in four key settlements meeting this criteria. Meanwhile, in the Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park, 207 homes were built between 2018 and 2022, of which almost two-thirds (62%) were affordable.

Adding that national parks were both “popular with the public and deliver significant value for money”, the report added that they “support affordable housing and create high-quality jobs” and “deliver improved public well-being for residents and visitors”.

Long said: “With more than two decades of delivery across the Cairngorms and in Loch Lomond and The Trossachs, the results speak for themselves.

“Our two national parks deliver substantial economic benefits through direct employment, responsible tourism and other indirect income boosts for businesses operating within them. Fundamentally, they also deliver higher proportions of affordable new housing.”

Adding that designating a national park was “an opportunity for local communities”, she stated: “This report helps make the case not just for the designation of Galloway, currently under consideration by ministers, but for further national parks elsewhere in Scotland in the future.”

Nikki Sinclair, national parks strategy project manager for the Scottish Campaign for National Parks, insisted the social and economic case for such areas was “strong”.

She stated: “This report sets out how our existing national parks deliver for people living and working in them, and for businesses based in them.

“It seems that residents of communities in iconic landscapes across Scotland have missed out, economically, over the two decades when not one new national park was designated.”

Gougeon said: “This report provides important context, demonstrating the benefits across a range of important areas that we are seeing come from our established National Parks in Cairngorms and Loch Lomond and the Trossachs.

“It outlines the economic advantages that come from being a national park and how they help represent local interests and deliver initiatives which improve everything from investment, jobs, and affordable housing, while protecting cultural and natural heritage.”