Car park charging in the Cairngorms National Park

Charges for parking in the countryside pose a particular dilemma in Scotland as they are seen by many outdoor groups as a backdoor approach to restricting the public's newly acquired right of responsible access to the countryside. The issue is particularly sensitive in the case of the Cairngorms National Park (CNP) where charging has spread to a number of key car parks across the area. Based on the results of a survey of over 300 visitors this paper investigates visitors’ attitudes and perceptions towards car park charging in the CNP, and explores the conditions under which they would find charging legitimate; in particular, the notion of hypothecation (i.e. the practice of declaring where and how monies contributed will be spent). We find that the vast majority of visitors surveyed are supportive of charging but that support is conditional on: the nature of the charging system, the type of location in question, and the landowners’ commitment to hypothecating user fees for reinvestment in visitor facilities and preservation of the environment. We conclude by proposing a CNP‐wide charging policy, fundamentally based on the principle of hypothecation.