National Parks legislation in Scotland will change from October when commencement of Part 2 of the Natural Environment (Scotland) Act will happen. However, a number of potentially significant changes to public bodies and local government were announced in the Programme for Government 2026 and this raises a number of concerns over how implementation of the new measures and duties will be taken forward.
At the end of July the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Action and Rural Affairs wrote to two
Scottish Parliament Committees announcing that several parts of the Natural Environment
(Scotland) Act 2026 would commence in October and that the necessary commencement
order would be laid in Parliament in due course. APRS is pleased that all the measures
related to National Parks and contained in Part 2 of the NE Act were included in this. The
provisions are as follows (numbers refer to sections in the legislation):
o 3: Aims of National Parks
o 4: Policy statement on National Parks
o 5: National Park Proposals
o 6: Reports on National Park Proposals
o 7: Definitions for the National Parks (Scotland) Act 2000
o 8: Duty to facilitate implementation of National Park Plans
o 9: Meaning of local authority for the purpose of access rights
o 10: Power to make regulations for the issuing of fixed penalty notices
The full letter from the Cabinet Secretary can be seen on the Scottish Parliament website ,
and it details anticipated progress with commencement of the other parts of the Act
including some which have already been subject to delay (eg statutory nature targets).
In early August, the chair of APRS’s new Mayhew Committee, which focuses on
Scotland’s protected landscapes, wrote to the Cabinet Secretary to welcome the
commencement announcement and to emphasise that we hoped to see early action on
what will be the new section 1A of the National Parks (Scotland) Act that requires the
Scottish Government to produce a National Parks policy statement. We would also hope to
see guidance on how the government expects to see the duties on public bodies operating
within National Parks published timeously. We received a short response from Gillian
Martin MSP soon after the Programme for Government was announced, in which she
agreed that the policy statement would have an important role to play in establishing a
shared vision for National Parks and allowing them to deliver more effectively on climate
and nature. The two letters can be seen here .
Meanwhile, the publication of the Programme for Government 2026 (PfG) has created
some anxiety about the likely capacity of key public bodies to support effective changes
needed in the next few years to make rapid progress on combating climate change and
nature loss. The PfG proposes a significant reorganisation of public bodies and their
operation. This includes specifically potential consolidation of all public bodies involved in
the management of public land assets, possible simplification of the management of our
national cultural assets, and the creation of a single overarching environment body from
the merger of NatureScot, Zero Waste Scotland, SEPA and potentially Forestry Scotland.
All other public bodies will be reviewed for efficiency and opportunities for joint working.
While detailed proposals or timescales are not currently known, such major organisational
changes could well impact capacity for their usual functions and thus on operation of the
National Park Authorities, as well as implementation of the new provisions in the Natural
Environment (Scotland) Act.
Part 2 of the Natural Environment (Scotland) Act can be seen here.