200124Approved PC Minutes

APPROVED COM­MIT­TEE MINUTES

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

APPROVED MINUTES OF THE PLAN­NING COM­MIT­TEE held at The Com­munity Hall, Boat of Garten on 24 Janu­ary 2020 at 12 noon

Mem­bers Present Elean­or Mack­in­tosh (Con­vener) Xan­der McDade Peter Argyle (Vice-Chair) Wil­lie McK­enna Geva Black­ett Ian McLar­en Car­o­lyn Cad­dick Dr Fiona McLean Deirdre Fal­con­er Wil­li­am Mun­ro Janet Hunter Anne Rae Mac­don­ald John Kirk Dr Gaen­er Rodger John Lath­am Derek Ross Douglas McAdam Judith Webb

In Attend­ance: Gav­in Miles, Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies Stephanie Wade, Plan­ning Officer Rob­bie Cal­vert, Gradu­ate Plan­ner Mat­thew Hawkins, Con­ser­va­tion Man­ager Peter Fer­guson, Leg­al Adviser, Harp­er MacLeod LLP Alix Hark­ness, Clerk to the Board Dot Har­ris, Plan­ning Sup­port Officer

Apo­lo­gies: Pippa Hadley

Agenda Items I & 2: Wel­come & Apologies

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

APPROVED COM­MIT­TEE MINUTES

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

1. The minutes of the pre­vi­ous meet­ing, 13 Decem­ber 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 29i) Closed – Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment Short Term Lets report to be cir­cu­lated around the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee. • Action Point at Para 32i) In Hand — Head of Plan­ning and Com­munit­ies will provide the Com­mit­tee with an update on Applic­a­tion 2019/120/DET (Car­rbridge 47 houses) Appeal when appro­pri­ate. • Action Point at Para 32ii) In Hand — Head of Plan­ning and Com­munit­ies will provide the Com­mit­tee with an update on A9 Dalraddy- Slo­chd when appropriate.

4. Action Point Arising: None.

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

1. Wil­li­am Mun­ro – Item 7 – Non-interest: Has in the past but no longer requires to as his son and daugh­ter-in-law are no longer buy­ing a prop­erty on the development.

Agenda Item 5: Applic­a­tion for Plan­ning Per­mis­sion in Prin­cip­al (2019/0222/PIP) Erec­tion of 7 no. houses (5 no afford­able) At Land 125kM of Lettoch Road, Nethy Bridge Recom­mend­a­tion: Approve Sub­ject to Conditions

1. The Con­vener advised the Com­mit­tee had just returned from site vis­it to this site which took place before the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee meet­ing today.

2. Gav­in Miles, Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies presen­ted the paper to the Com­mit­tee. He advised that three late rep­res­ent­a­tions had been received from BSCG, Cairngorms Cam­paign and RSPB which do not raise any addi­tion­al issues but all look for refus­al on the basis of the facts set out in the report.

3. APPROVED COM­MIT­TEE MINUTES The Com­mit­tee were invited to dis­cuss the report. The fol­low­ing was raised: a) Com­ments made that Com­munity Coun­cil had not com­men­ted on the applic­a­tion. b) c) e) Com­ment made that the Spruce needed har­vest­ing and that the com­munity would like to see the ditches near to exist­ing houses being cleared. Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies advised that the details of a wood­land man­age­ment plan would need approv­al from the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee should the applic­a­tion be approved. Con­cern raised sur­round­ing the dangers of low cost homes fall­ing into the second home mar­ket and could any con­di­tions be imposed to stop that from hap­pen­ing? Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies advised that the cur­rent pro­pos­al was for the High­lands Small Com­munit­ies Hous­ing Trust (HSCHT) take on the afford­able hous­ing plots with a rur­al hous­ing bur­den attached to provide long term afford­ab­il­ity. d) Could assur­ance be provided that the wood­land man­age­ment plan would be imple­men­ted? Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies advised that with­in the wood­land man­age­ment plan would be require to be approved by the CNPA, would become part of the con­sent and would be enforce­able. Cla­ri­fic­a­tion on wheth­er there was guid­ance on the weight­ing to be giv­en to the first aim if there is con­flict between the aims of the Nation­al Park. Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies explained that the Nation­al Park Act was clear, at Sec­tion 9.6 it states that the CNPA must give great­er weight to the first aim (of con­serving and enhan­cing the nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age) in com­ing to a decision. How­ever, it does not state that the first aim takes pri­or­ity or out­weighs oth­er con­sid­er­a­tions, so the great­er weight to be giv­en is a mat­ter of judge­ment for the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee on any indi­vidu­al decision. There is no for­mula that gives the cor­rect answer. Peter Fer­guson, Leg­al Adviser, Harp­er MacLeod LLP added that when apprais­ing a plan­ning applic­a­tion firstly they look at how it sits with the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan policies and identi­fy­ing the rel­ev­ant policies. With ref­er­ence to Sec­tion 9.6 of the Nation­al Parks Act, dis­cre­tion is giv­en to the decision maker, there are no rules or cri­ter­ia to guide the decision mak­ing. He added that once a decision had been taken in accord­ance with the LDP the next step would be for oth­er rel­ev­ant con­sid­er­a­tions to be dis­cussed by the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee before reach­ing their decision. The Con­vener recog­nised the dif­fi­culty of the decision the Com­mit­tee were facing. f) Could more inform­a­tion be provided on the rur­al hous­ing bur­den? Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies explained that HSCHT would buy the land at sig­ni­fic­antly less than mar­ket value and that the dif­fer­ence between the price paid and the mar­ket value was retained by HSCHT, cre­at­ing a dis­count in the total value of the prop­erty for own­ers. If an own­er wanted to sell that house, HSCHT would look for suit­able buy­ers in need of afford­able hous­ing and the

APPROVED COM­MIT­TEE MINUTES g) dis­count would move to the new own­er, main­tain­ing afford­ab­il­ity for sub­sequent own­ers. The hous­ing would be likely to be in the mid-mar­ket level. Cla­ri­fic­a­tion reques­ted on the sites in the vil­lage in the pro­posed new LDP. Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies advised that a site on the oppos­ite side of the road from the applic­a­tion was included in the pro­posed LDP as a hous­ing alloc­a­tion for 20 units of which 5 afford­able. h) Was there any more inform­a­tion on the 6m wide forestry track for forestry extrac­tion as described in the plan lay­out? Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies advised the wood­land could be accessed from oth­er, poten­tially more suit­able loc­a­tions too, and explained that if the applic­a­tion was approved a new lay­out would need to be sub­mit­ted by the applic­ant for approv­al by the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee. i) j) Con­cern raised with ref­er­ence to para­graphs 18 to 20 of the officer’s report that the High­land Council’s Land­scape Officer and Forestry Officer and the CNPA Land­scape Officer had all objec­ted or had con­cerns about the scheme. Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies acknow­ledged that was the case. With ref­er­ence to the land own­er enter­ing into a Wood­land Man­age­ment plan agree­ment how many years would that last? Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies advised that it would be in per­petu­ity. k) l) Would the wood­land man­age­ment plan be attached to the land so if the land own­er were to change then the wood­land man­age­ment plan would be sold with the land? Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies con­firmed that this would be the case. Could HSCHT provide guar­an­tee that the houses would not be sold on the open mar­ket at a later date? Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies advised that would only hap­pen if there were no people eli­gible to buy mid-mar­ket hous­ing. He added that if it were to be sold on the open mar­ket, HSCHT would receive the dis­coun­ted land value and any uplift to rein­vest in afford­able hous­ing. m) Could it be con­firmed that the applic­a­tion site was not a cur­rent alloc­a­tion in the LDP? Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies con­firmed this was accur­ate. n) ○) With ref­er­ence to the High­land Council’s Land­scape and Wood­land officer’s con­cern and the CNPA Land­scape officer’s con­cern could it be explained to what extent those com­ments had been weighed up as part of the bal­ance? Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies explained that the com­ments made were reflec­ted in the paper. He added that the com­ments were based on an assump­tion that all wood­land on the site would be lost and did take account of any meas­ures to min­im­ise wood­land loss or improve man­age­ment of the wider wood­land. Could it end up being a dif­fer­ent land buy­er? Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies advised that there was cur­rently an agree­ment between the HSCHT and the land own­er but that this could change over time so con­di­tions would secure afford­able hous­ing via any poten­tial owner.

APPROVED COM­MIT­TEE MINUTES p) Com­ment made that there was no pro­pos­al for com­pens­at­ory plant­ing when the wood­land was irre­place­able. Why was there not a con­di­tion for this? Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies advised that the applic­ant did not con­trol oth­er land suit­able for com­pens­at­ory plant­ing, only the blue ground covered by forestry. १) Could it be con­firmed that the applic­a­tion site was offered as part of the call for sites for the pro­posed LDP but was not taken for­ward? Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies con­firmed that was cor­rect but noted that when put for­ward for the LDP, it was a pro­pos­al for 5 open mar­ket and 2 afford­able houses. The cur­rent applic­a­tion was for 5 afford­able and two open mar­ket houses with the oppor­tun­ity to add con­di­tions to con­trol and man­age the devel­op­ment in detail that must be con­sidered on its own mer­its. r) s) t) Com­ment made that the site is of high eco­lo­gic­al value and is cat­egor­ised as a Nation­al Veget­a­tion Clas­si­fic­a­tion W18 site which is a UK con­ser­va­tion hab­it­at and an import­ant Biod­iversity Action Plan hab­it­at. Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies con­firmed this was the case and agreed that this was a con­sid­er­a­tion in com­ing to a decision. He noted that the qual­ity of the hab­it­at was threatened by its cur­rent man­age­ment as a com­mer­cial plant­a­tion and that he was not aware of anoth­er mech­an­ism cur­rently avail­able to the CNPA of chan­ging its man­age­ment to main­tain its eco­lo­gic­al value. If the applic­a­tion was to be approved would there be any way of pro­tect­ing the mature pine trees at the front of the site? Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies advised that the applic­ant would have to sub­mit fur­ther detailed plans for approv­al includ­ing a lay­out plan and tree pro­tec­tion meas­ures. An amend­ment to the Officer’s recom­mend­a­tion was put for­ward to refuse the application.

1. The meet­ing paused to allow leg­al advice on word­ing of an amend­ment to refuse the application.

2. Peter Argyle put for­ward a motion to agree with the Officer’s recom­mend­a­tion and approve the applic­a­tion. He high­lighted that it was an extremely and unusu­ally dif­fi­cult applic­a­tion and that it was a ques­tion of bal­an­cing the con­ser­va­tion and afford­able hous­ing need. He stated that if the applic­a­tion had been in any oth­er part of the Nation­al Park he would not sup­port it. John Kirk seconded the motion and stated that the vil­lage des­per­ately needed afford­able housing..

3. An Amend­ment was put for­ward to refuse the applic­a­tion on the fol­low­ing grounds by Derek Ross. This was seconded by John Lath­am: a) The pro­posed devel­op­ment will res­ult in the loss of high qual­ity nat­ive wood­land and asso­ci­ated spe­cies that can­not be suit­ably com­pensated for through appro­pri­ate mit­ig­a­tion, con­trary to Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Her­it­age of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015;

b) c) APPROVED COM­MIT­TEE MINUTES The pro­posed devel­op­ment will have a sig­ni­fic­ant adverse impact on the wood­land set­ting of the vil­lage and an adverse effect on the land­scape char­ac­ter and exper­i­ence of the spe­cial qual­it­ies of the Nation­al Park con­trary to Policy 5: Land­scape of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015. The inab­il­ity of the pro­posed devel­op­ment to com­ply with policies 4 and 5 of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015 out­weighed the bene­fits of the deliv­ery of afford­able hous­ing in com­pli­ance with Policy I, bul­let 6 of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015.

1. The Com­mit­tee pro­ceeded into a vote. The res­ults were as follows:

Name	Motion	Amend­ment	Abstain
Peter Argyle	√
Geva Black­ett	√
Car­o­lyn Caddick		√
Deirdre Fal­con­er	√
Janet Hunter		√
John Kirk	√
John Lath­am		√
Elean­or Mackintosh		√
Douglas McAdam		√
Xan­der McDade
Wil­lie McKenna	√
Ian McLar­en		√
Fiona McLean		√
Wil­li­am Munro	√
Anne Rae Macdonald		√
Gaen­er Rodger	√
Derek Ross		√
Judith Webb		√
TOTAL	8	10	0

1. The Com­mit­tee agreed to refuse the applic­a­tion for the reas­ons stated above.

2. Action Point arising: None.

APPROVED COM­MIT­TEE MINUTES Agenda Item 6: Applic­a­tion for Detailed Plan­ning Per­mis­sion (2019/0298/DET) Devel­op­ment of 14 no dwell­ings includ­ing 6 no ter­raced houses, 4 no bun­ga­lows and 4 no cot­tage flats At Land 20M South East of Spey House, Cairngorm Tech­no­logy Park, Dal­faber Drive, Aviemore Recom­mend­a­tion: Approve Sub­ject to Con­di­tions and Developer Contributions

1. Stephanie Wade, Plan­ning Officer presen­ted the paper to the Com­mit­tee. a)

2. The Com­mit­tee were invited to ask points of clar­ity. The fol­low­ing were raised: Cla­ri­fic­a­tion reques­ted on wheth­er there was exist­ing biod­iversity on the site giv­en that there was a rep­tile bar­ri­er in place on the new hos­pit­al site? Could reas­sur­ance be provided to ensure adequate pro­tec­tion was in place to mit­ig­ate spe­cies dis­turb­ance? Mat­thew Hawkins, Con­ser­va­tion Man­ager explained that this site cleared before the applic­a­tion was sub­mit­ted and had little eco­lo­gic­al value in its cur­rent state. b) Com­ment made that the plans did not clearly show how much amen­ity plant­ing was being pro­posed with the dom­in­ant fea­tures being rotary clothes driers could there be more green­ery? Con­ser­va­tion Man­ager advised that the developer had sub­mit­ted a land­scape plan but that a con­di­tion was propsed for a revised plan with fur­ther plant­ing. c) Com­ment made that it was a good devel­op­ment in an appro­pri­ate location.

3. The Com­mit­tee agreed to approve the applic­a­tion sub­ject to the reas­ons stated in the report.

4. Action Point arising: None.

Agenda Item 7: Applic­a­tion for Detailed Plan­ning Per­mis­sion (2019/0353/DET) Erec­tion of House and Gar­age At 28 Dulicht Court, Grant­own on Spey Recom­mend­a­tion: Approve Sub­ject to Conditions

1. Rob­bie Cal­vert, Gradu­ate Plan­ner presen­ted the paper to the Committee.

2. The Com­mit­tee agreed to approve the applic­a­tion sub­ject to the reas­ons stated in the report.

3. Action Point arising: APPROVED COM­MIT­TEE MINUTES None.

Agenda Item 8: Any Oth­er Business

1. The Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies provided the fol­low­ing updates: a) The DPEA have con­firmed that Report­ers are sat­is­fied with the LDP State­ment b) c) d) e) f) g) of con­form­ity and are now look­ing at out­stand­ing rep­res­ent­a­tions in detail.. The CNPA will be host­ing the Scot­tish Green Infra­struc­ture Group Con­fer­ence on 6 May in our offices two places have been reserved for board mem­bers to attend. The Clerk to the Board will be in touch in due course. RTPI event on Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 is being held in CNPA offices between 5 – 7pm on 10^th March 2020. Board mem­bers are wel­come to attend The Clerk to the Board will be in touch in due course. Clova Track enforce­ment appeal update – site vis­it held before Christ­mas and the report­er had recently asked CNPA and appel­lant some more ques­tions about the notice. A9 Dalraddy Slo­chd update – CNPA were con­tinu­ing to pre­pare for the Inquiry. Car­rbridge 47 houses plan­ning appeal update – appeal pro­cess was delayed by DPEA but would restart soon. Hill tracks map­ping update – a let­ter had been sent to estates explain­ing the hill tracks map­ping work and Scot­tish Land and Estates had been briefed.

2. The Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies reminded the Com­mit­tee of the Rothes 3 wind­farm applic­a­tion where they had Objec­ted to the pro­pos­al. He advised that a modi­fic­a­tion had been pro­posed to the scheme which reduced the impact of the tur­bines by redu­cing both the num­ber and the height of some of them. He noted that officers had pre­vi­ously recom­men­ded no objec­tion to the pro­pos­al but that the Com­mit­tee had agreed to object and explained that officers’ recom­mend­a­tion would con­tin­ue to be no objec­tion giv­en the reduced impacts of the modification.

3. The Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the modi­fic­a­tion, the fol­low­ing points were raised: a) Com­ment made that the ori­gin­al objec­tion was on the grounds of the b) cumu­lat­ive impact of wind­farms around the Nation­al Park and the risk the light­ing could have on the Dark Skies accred­it­a­tion being gran­ted. Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies advised that the Com­mit­tee were entitled to main­tain their objec­tion and advised that the mod­i­fied pro­pos­al would not impact on the fea­tures of the Dark Skies pro­ject. Could it be explained why the pro­pos­al was objec­ted to in the first place? Head of Plan­ning and Com­munit­ies advised that it had been objec­ted to on the fol­low­ing grounds ​‘due to sig­ni­fic­ant adverse effects on the Spe­cial Landscape

c) APPROVED COM­MIT­TEE MINUTES Qual­it­ies of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park, includ­ing dark skies, and the cumu­lat­ive impacts of the devel­op­ment as a res­ult of the scale and sit­ing of the devel­op­ment extend­ing the visu­al envel­ope of wind tur­bines around the Nation­al Park.’. Was the same num­ber of tur­bines and heights being pro­posed? Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies con­firmed that 23 tur­bines were being pro­posed this was a reduc­tion of 6 and that ori­gin­ally the highest tur­bines were to be 225m where­as the heights spanned between 149m and 175m in the modi­fic­a­tion. d) Com­ment made that papers should have been pre­pared and brought to Com­mit­tee on this as a sep­ar­ate agenda item. The Con­vener advised that the modi­fic­a­tion had come in dur­ing the fest­ive break and that the times­cales were short on sub­mit­ting a response. e) Com­ment made that the reas­on for objec­tion ori­gin­ally was because the pro­pos­al would fill a gap in the ring of tur­bines around the Nation­al Park, increas­ing the sense of encirclement and the cor­res­pond­ing impacts on the Nation­al Park.

1. A motion to main­tain the objec­tion was put for­ward by Derek Ross and seconded by Peter Argyle. An amend­ment was put for­ward to remove the objec­tion by Wil­lie McK­enna and this was seconded by Car­o­lyn Caddick.

2. The Com­mit­tee pro­ceeded into a vote. The res­ults were as follows:

Name	Motion	Amend­ment	Abstain
Peter Argyle
Geva Black­ett	√
Car­o­lyn Caddick		√
Deirdre Fal­con­er	√
Janet Hunter
John Kirk	√
John Lath­am		√
Elean­or Mackintosh	√
Douglas McAdam
Xan­der McDade			√
Wil­lie McKenna		√
Ian McLar­en
Fiona McLean		√
Wil­li­am Munro	√
Anne Rae Macdonald		√
Gaen­er Rodger	√
Derek Ross
Judith Webb	√
TOTAL	9	8	1

APPROVED COM­MIT­TEE MINUTES

1. The Com­mit­tee agreed to main­tain the Objection.

2. Action Point arising: None.

Agenda Item 9: Date of Next Meeting

1. 11.00am on Fri­day 21^st Feb­ru­ary 2020, Albert Hall, Ballater.

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 13.44