13 August 2010
Capita Symonds’ Heritage Management team has won a
contract to provide visitor experience and interpretation planning
services for the Forestry Commission Scotland’s South Loch Ness
Estate.
The project is the company’s first parcel of work under a new
framework contract with the Forestry Commission Scotland (FCS). The
framework, which is for two years with an option to extend for a
further two years, is used to procure all FCS interpretation
planning projects valued at less than £20k.
Working in collaboration with Countryside Management Services
(UK), Capita Symonds will be playing a major role in FCS’s rigorous
planning processes while enhancing the visitor experience. Working
closely with FCS’s local staff, its design and interpretation team,
and the local community and other stakeholders, Capita Symonds will
be:
- Carrying out an audit of current visitor facilities;
- Carrying out audience and stakeholder research to develop a
statement of significance reflecting the forest’s unique sense of
place and informing the interpretive plan;
- Identifying visitor management issues which can be addressed
through effective interpretation;
- Producing a visitor experience and interpretation plan.
FCS has holdings across the whole of the Scottish mainland and
islands, ranging from Dumfries and Borders Forest in the South to
the North Highland Forest in the North of the country, via Ross and
Skye in the West.
Jane Gibson, Capita Symonds, says: “We hope that South Loch Ness
will the be the first of many similar projects and are ready to set
off, with wellies and midgie repellent to hand!”