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APPROVED COM­MIT­TEE MINUTES

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

APPROVED MINUTES OF THE PLAN­NING COM­MIT­TEE held at The Com­munity Hall, Boat of Garten on 13 Decem­ber 2019 at 12.30

Mem­bers Present

Peter Argyle (Deputy ‑Con­vener) Elean­or Mack­in­tosh (Con­vener) Geva Black­ett Xan­der McDade Car­o­lyn Cad­dick Wil­lie McK­enna Deirdre Fal­con­er lan McLar­en Pippa Had­ley Dr Fiona McLean John Kirk Wil­li­am Mun­ro John Lath­am Dr Gaen­er Rodger Douglas McAdam

In Attend­ance:

Gav­in Miles, Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies Dan Har­ris, Plan­ning Man­ager (For­ward Plan­ning & Ser­vice Improve­ment) Stephanie Wade, Plan­ning Officer Edward Swales, Mon­it­or­ing & Enforce­ment Officer Peter Fer­guson, Leg­al Adviser, Harp­er MacLeod LLP Alix Hark­ness, Clerk to the Board Dee Straw, Plan­ning Admin­is­tra­tion & Sys­tems Officer

Apo­lo­gies: Janet Hunter Anne Rae Mac­don­ald Derek Ross Judith Webb

Agenda Items I & 2: Wel­come & Apologies

1. The Con­vener wel­comed all present and apo­lo­gies were noted.

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Agenda Item 3: Minutes & Mat­ters Arising from the Pre­vi­ous Meeting

1. The minutes of the pre­vi­ous meet­ing, 15 Novem­ber 2019, held in The Com­munity Hall, Boat of Garten were approved with no amendments.

2. There were no mat­ters arising.

3. The Con­vener provided an update on the Action Point from the pre­vi­ous meet­ing: • Action Point at Para 10i) In Hand – Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies to provide updates on the Dalraddy to Slo­chd inquiry as appropriate.

4. Action Point Arising: None.

Agenda Item 4: Declar­a­tion of Interest by Mem­bers on Items Appear­ing on the Agenda

1. Item 6 — Deirdre Fal­con­er Indir­ect Interest: Bal­avil Estate is her Com­munity Coun­cil area but she did not take place in any dis­cus­sions on this applic­a­tion at the recent meeting.

Agenda Item 5: Applic­a­tion for Detailed Plan­ning Per­mis­sion (2019/0247/DET) Engin­eer­ing works to smooth and re-grade land At Cairngorm Moun­tain, Glen­more, Aviemore, High­land, PH22 IRB Recom­mend­a­tion: Approve Sub­ject to Conditions

1. The Con­vener advised that Tessa & Gus Jones, Badenoch & Strath­spey Con­ser­va­tion Group (Object­ors) were present to address the Committee.

2. Gav­in Miles, Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies presen­ted the paper to the Committee.

3. The Com­mit­tee were invited to ask points of clar­ity. The fol­low­ing was raised: a) The Con­vener asked how the applic­a­tion fits with the mas­ter­plan that had yet to be pre­pared and if this was per­ceived to be an issue? Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies advised that a mas­ter­plan had been reques­ted by the Author­ity and while it would have been good to have it in place, this applic­a­tion was for minor works with­in the exist­ing ski area and so would not com­prom­ise any future plans. b) Being unfa­mil­i­ar with the area a mem­ber asked how chil­dren in par­tic­u­lar get to the top of the ski area in ques­tions. Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies explained

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that an exist­ing T‑bar tow shown on the plans and in the present­a­tion slides was cur­rently used and that Poma tow in vicin­ity would provide fur­ther access snow- cov­er per­mit­ting. c) Had they attemp­ted to cal­cu­late the biod­iversity gain from plant­ing and biod­iversity gain and loss? Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies said that in the longer term, once plant­ing was estab­lished and ground cov­er recovered there would be a gain for the biod­iversity. d) Could it be estim­ated how much car­bon would be dis­turbed and released as part of this devel­op­ment? Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies advised that had not been estim­ated. e) How would the works be under­taken? Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies con­firmed that the detail of con­struc­tion was con­tained in the con­struc­tion meth­od statement.

1. Tessa Jones of Badenoch & Strath­spey Con­ser­va­tion Group gave a presentation.

2. The Com­mit­tee were invited to ask point of clar­ity. The fol­low­ing was raised: a) Com­ment made that the access point was neces­sary giv­en the site was cre­ated ori­gin­ally as a ski resort. Tessa Jones agreed. b) What con­di­tions would the object­or like to see put on to pro­tect ring ouzels? Tessa Jones advised that she would like them to be made real­ist­ic to detail the size of the machinery and where it would go, being care­ful about remov­ing top­soil and put­ting it back. She acknow­ledged that the Author­ity do not have the staff time to mon­it­or the envir­on­ment­al impacts on a daily basis. A mem­ber respon­ded that excav­at­ors are set out in the con­struc­tion meth­od state­ment. c) What was the per­cent­age of ring ouzels on the Cairngorm Estate that stayed in the applic­a­tion site? Tessa Jones advised that she did not have that fig­ure and explained that the ring ouzels were choos­ing those areas them­selves while the rest of the land on the estate might not suit­able for ring ouzels. d) Are they sug­gest­ing the par­tic­u­lar area when the devel­op­ment site is, is the par­tic­u­lar area for ring ouzels? Tessa agreed and con­firmed that this was where they were often spotted.

3. The Con­vener thanked the speaker.

4. The Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies was invited to come back on points raised: a) A con­struc­tion meth­od state­ment sub­mit­ted sets out how the soil would be stripped and stored and a con­di­tion ensures the works would be car­ried out in accord­ance with that state­ment. b) Acknow­ledg­ment that staff would not be on site daily how­ever the site was eas­ily viewed by the pub­lic and giv­en the interest that many people showed in it

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c) he would expect the CNPA to receive reports from the pub­lic if they per­ceived the con­sent was not being com­plied with. He con­firmed that there were two pairs of ring ouzels who nest in the garden above the Day Lodge. They would not be dir­ectly affected by the devel­op­ment but clearly there could be tem­por­ary dis­place­ment of ring ouzel or oth­er birds on the site itself dur­ing con­struc­tion but that in the longer term, the addi­tion­al tree plant­ing that would be likely to extend the sheltered area that they used for refuge.

1. The Com­mit­tee were invited to dis­cuss the report, the fol­low­ing points were raised: a) Sug­ges­tion made to delay the decision on this applic­a­tion until the mas­ter­plan was in place giv­en that it was in the CNPA’s work­ing prin­ciples for Cairngorm. Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies advised that work­ing prin­ciples were simply the CNPAs prin­ciples and not were not plan­ning policy. If the devel­op­ment was out­side with the exist­ing ski area or not related to it then he agreed that a mas­ter­plan might jus­ti­fy the change. How­ever, the cur­rent applic­a­tion was con­sist­ent with the estab­lished use of the ski are for ski­ing so a defer­ral on those grounds would not make sense in plan­ning terms. b) The Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Deputy-Con­vener com­men­ted that the mas­ter­plan was nine months away from com­ing for­ward and there­fore should the Com­mit­tee delay the determ­in­a­tion of the applic­a­tion, the applic­ant could go to appeal and then the Com­mit­tee would lose con­trol over any future decision. c) A Mem­ber com­men­ted that the devel­op­ment was 1 – 2% of the total site area and that nature has a great way of rein­stat­ing to its ori­gin­al form. d) Giv­en the glob­al cli­mate emer­gency and recent snow report, the upland implic­a­tions and car­bon load­ing, request made for the Author­ity to invest­ig­ate the car­bon implic­a­tions on each applic­a­tion com­ing for­ward as part of their apprais­al. e) Com­ment made that hav­ing a mas­ter­plan was not an issue, the ski area was estab­lished and the devel­op­ment would improve the site for begin­ner ski­ers and make it safer for every­one. f) Con­cern raised that approv­ing this applic­a­tion would encour­age fur­ther piece­meal plan­ning applic­a­tion com­ing for­ward. Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies noted that the CNPA in applic­a­tions that are sig­ni­fic­ant to the aims of the Nation­al Park. He reminded mem­bers that there was an exist­ing busi­ness try­ing to provide a ski resort and that plan­ning applic­a­tions must be determ­ined on their mer­its. g) Com­ment made that any plan­ning applic­a­tion on this site would be sig­ni­fic­ant to the aims of Nation­al Park. Recog­ni­tion that in the absence of the funicu­lar, the pro­posed devel­op­ment would improve the pos­it­ive exper­i­ence for young people and children.

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h) A query around the car­bon bal­ance, with trees being planted and engin­eer­ing works dis­turb­ing peat, could the peat be pro­tec­ted in order to pro­tect the car­bon stores? Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies advised that there was very rel­at­ively little peat on the pro­posed devel­op­ment site, if there had been more peat the hand­ling of this would detailed in the con­struc­tion man­age­ment state­ment and could have been sub­ject to fur­ther reg­u­la­tion through SEPA. i) Com­ment made that it was per­ceived to be chal­len­ging to keep track of all the applic­a­tions com­ing for­ward on the site giv­en that some were determ­ined by the High­land Coun­cil while oth­ers were Called In by the Author­ity, was there an oppor­tun­ity to change that going for­ward in order to get the big­ger pic­ture of what had been approved on the site? Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies advised that the pro­cess for the call­ing in of applic­a­tion was straight­for­ward and simple and that the officer report does con­tain a list of per­mit­ted devel­op­ments on the site. j) Could it be con­firmed that the poten­tial con­sequences of improv­ing drain­age down­stream been taken into account or had the drain­age of the site only been looked at? Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies con­firmed that the hydro­logy and poten­tial dis­charge had been taken into account by High­land Coun­cil flood risk team. k) A mem­ber com­men­ted that the prin­cipals for Cairngorm were included in the pro­posed Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan that had not yet been form­ally adopted.

1. The Com­mit­tee agreed to approve the applic­a­tion as per the Officer’s recommendation.

2. The Con­vener reas­sured Mem­bers that staff were work­ing hard to provide a full pic­ture of what hap­pens on Cairngorm Moun­tain and all organ­isa­tions were work­ing togeth­er to bring a mas­ter­plan to this Com­mit­tee in due course.

3. Action Point arising: None.

Agenda Item 6: Applic­a­tion for Detailed Plan­ning Per­mis­sion (2019/0347/DET) Form­a­tion of forest/​wood­land access track (in retrospect) At Bal­avil House, Kin­gussie, High­land, PH21 ILU Recom­mend­a­tion: Approve Sub­ject to Conditions

1. The Con­vener advised that Tessa & Gus Jones, Badenoch & Strath­spey Con­ser­va­tion Group (Object­ors) were present to address the Committee.

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1. Edward Swales, Mon­it­or­ing & Enforce­ment Officer presen­ted the paper to the Committee.

2. The Com­mit­tee were invited to ask the Mon­it­or­ing & Enforce­ment Officer points of clar­ity. The fol­low­ing were raised: a) Could it be cla­ri­fied why the works had been pre­ma­turely car­ried out pri­or to gain­ing con­sent per­mis­sion? Mon­it­or­ing & Enforce­ment Officer noted that the applic­ants’ explan­a­tion was that a wood­land con­tract­or had been com­mis­sioned to thin the wood­land and that the tim­ings of pri­or noti­fic­a­tion applic­a­tion and oper­a­tion had been mis­taken. The work was brought to the atten­tion of the Author­ity and was hal­ted. b) With ref­er­ence to one of the present­a­tion slides where it looked like there were loose mater­i­als and steep sec­tions of the track, was the entirety of the track like this? Mon­it­or­ing & Enforce­ment Officer advised that the pho­to­graphs showed the cur­rent state of the track and that pro­pos­als included dif­fer­ent con­struc­tion in dif­fer­ent sec­tions. The state inten­ded to use the track in a one way sys­tem for health and safety reas­ons. c) Query around how the track could be used one way when the loop had not yet been con­struc­ted? Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies advised that the dir­ec­tion of the use of the track was at the dis­cre­tion of the applic­ant and did not form part of this applic­a­tion. d) What was the reas­on for a sec­tion being wider than 3 metres? Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies advised that the track had dif­fer­ent ele­ments and this area was the lim­it of where tim­ber lor­ries could reach so required a wider sur­face. e) Would this sec­tion of track remain the width shown in the pic­ture as part of the present­a­tion? Mon­it­or­ing & Enforce­ment Officer explained that in land­scape terms this sec­tion of track did not stand out as it was screened by wood­land and that officers were sat­is­fied with the proposals.

3. Tessa Jones of Badenoch & Strath­spey Con­ser­va­tion Group gave a presentation.

4. The Con­vener thanked the speaker.

5. The Com­mit­tee were invited to dis­cuss the report, the fol­low­ing points were raised: a) Com­ment made that there was no real reas­on to refuse how­ever dis­may at the ret­ro­spect­ive nature of the applic­a­tion and the pub­lic per­cep­tion of the num­ber of these. b) Could it be explained how the CNPA decide what types of vehicles can be used by the estate on the tracks? Mon­it­or­ing & Enforce­ment Officer advised that the CNPA does do con­trol the type of vehicles that can be used but that the estate sets out the type of vehicles they will require for forestry oper­a­tions in an application.

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1. The Com­mit­tee agreed to approve the applic­a­tion sub­ject to the con­di­tions stated in the report.

2. Action Point arising: None.

Agenda Item 7: Plan­ning Ser­vice Per­form­ance Update

1. Gav­in Miles, Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies presen­ted the paper to the Committee.

2. The Com­mit­tee were invited to ask points of clar­ity. The fol­low­ing were raised: a) The Con­vener con­grat­u­lated the Plan­ning team on the pos­it­ive score­card. b) Could an update on the pro­gress be provided for Plan­ning Ser­vice Improve­ment Num­ber 4 (a mon­it­or­ing scheme on hol­i­day and second home own­er­ship, changes of use from res­id­en­tial prop­erty and the impacts on com­munit­ies)? Dan Har­ris, Plan­ning Man­ager advised that staff had acquired data on non-domest­ic rates which provides an idea of the num­ber of hol­i­day lets in Nation­al Park. He added that he was try­ing to secure inform­a­tion on the num­ber of Airbnb’s which was part of a Scot­land Gov­ern­ment Scot­land wide case study. Agreed that a link to the doc­u­ment would be cir­cu­lated around mem­bers for inform­a­tion. c) Mur­ray Fer­guson, Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning & Rur­al Devel­op­ment advised that dis­cus­sions on this gen­er­al issue were ongo­ing with col­leagues at Loch Lomond & Trossachs Nation­al Park. d) Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning & Rur­al Devel­op­ment added that he had been in dis­cus­sions with the Hut­ton Insti­tute and HIE and had high­lighted the dif­fi­culty in col­lect­ing mean­ing­ful eco­nom­ic data by Loc­al Author­ity area. e) Could it be explained what pro­cessing agree­ments were and were they used by oth­er Loc­al Author­it­ies? Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies advised that they were a tool for pro­ject man­aging the pro­cessing of plan­ning applic­a­tions and provid­ing cer­tainty about times­cales and pro­cessing needs. He added that they are widely used by Loc­al Author­it­ies and are offered by the CNPA to all applic­a­tions called in or even likely to be called in. f) With regards to developer oblig­a­tions were there any plans to enlarge the pot, giv­en that what can be col­lec­ted for is broad in terms of the new LDP? Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies advised that the Author­ity have few­er large scale devel­op­ments but nor­mally developer con­tri­bu­tions would be col­lec­ted for edu­ca­tions and afford­able hous­ing. g) Com­ment made that in one loc­al Author­ity area developer con­tri­bu­tions is used on lib­rar­ies and the install­a­tion of web cam­er­as on snow affected roads. Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies advised that the fund­ing could only be used on those types of things if the devel­op­ment were to have a dir­ect impact on them. He

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h) noted that it was crit­ic­al to know the impacts of the devel­op­ment in order to jus­ti­fy a con­tri­bu­tion. Peter Fer­guson, Leg­al Adviser advised that under the new plan­ning legis­la­tion a new infra­struc­ture levy will enable developers to know upfront what is deman­ded of them in some cir­cum­stances. i) Had any more thought be giv­en to how the hill track map­ping work would be dis­trib­uted to estates? Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies advised that let­ters to all the estates would be sent out in the near future explain­ing the pro­cess and how it would be used. j) Recog­ni­tion and praise for the con­tin­ued effort of the Plan­ning team and all car­ried out with­in the set per­form­ance targets.

1. The Com­mit­tee noted the update.

2. Action Point arising: i. Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment Short Term Lets report to be cir­cu­lated around the Plan­ning Committee.

Agenda Item 8: Any Oth­er Business

1. The Head of Plan­ning and Com­munit­ies provided the fol­low­ing updates: a) Applic­a­tion 2019/120/DET (Car­rbridge 47 houses) which was deferred from Octo­ber plan­ning com­mit­tee. Applic­ant sub­mit­ted addi­tion­al inform­a­tion traffic calm­ing details at end of Novem­ber which CNPA con­sul­ted High­land Coun­cil Trans­port Plan­ning Team on. How­ever, notice was received on 12 Decem­ber inform­ing the CNPA that the applic­ants are appeal­ing a deemed refus­al of the applic­a­tion by CNPA through non-determ­in­a­tion. Applic­a­tion will be con­sidered by report­er from DPEA. Agreed to update the Com­mit­tee when appro­pri­ate. b) A9 Dalraddy-Slo­chd — Fol­low­ing the pre-exam­in­a­tion meet­ing with the report­er, CNPA provided writ­ten rep­res­ent­a­tion set­ting out why the report­er should con­sider the CNPA’s objec­tion. As long as the report­er con­siders the issues raised to be rel­ev­ant we are likely to have to provide fur­ther writ­ten evid­ence on our pos­i­tion. Trans­port Scot­land have told us they will not fund the addi­tion­al NMU study between Aviemore and Car­rbridge while the exam­in­a­tion takes place. That is dis­ap­point­ing as it means a delay in the pro­cess. Agreed to update the Com­mit­tee when appro­pri­ate. c) Clova Track enforce­ment appeal – Report­er hold­ing site vis­it on 20 December
2. Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies and Mon­it­or­ing & Enforce­ment Officer will be attend­ing to answer questions.

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1. The Con­vener regret­tably announced that Kath­er­ine Don­nach­ie, Plan­ning Officer had resigned from the CNPA and will take up a post with Moray Coun­cil in the New Year. She said that Kath­er­ine had been a stal­wart of the plan­ning team for a num­ber of years and had man­aged many of the most inter­est­ing as well as con­tro­ver­sial plan­ning applic­a­tions the Com­mit­tee have con­sidered and would be sorely missed. She noted that every­one was sorry to see her go, but that on behalf of the Com­mit­tee she wanted to wish her well in her new role.

2. Action Point arising: i. Head of Plan­ning and Com­munit­ies to provide the Com­mit­tee with an update on Applic­a­tion 2019/120/DET (Car­rbridge 47 houses) Appeal when appro­pri­ate. ii. Head of Plan­ning and Com­munit­ies to provide the Com­mit­tee with an update on A9 Dalraddy- Slo­chd when appropriate.

Agenda Item 12: Date of Next Meeting

1. 11.30am on Fri­day 24^th Janu­ary 2020, Com­munity Hall, Boat of Garten.

2. Com­mit­tee Mem­bers are reques­ted to ensure that any Apo­lo­gies for this meet­ing are sub­mit­ted to the Clerk to the Board, Alix Harkness.

3. The pub­lic busi­ness of the meet­ing con­cluded at 14.10