200522PLCommDraftMinutesV10

DRAFT COM­MIT­TEE MINUTES

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

DRAFT MINUTES OF THE PLAN­NING COM­MIT­TEE held via Video/​Tele­phone Con­fer­ence on 22^nd May 2020 at 10am

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

In Attend­ance: Gav­in Miles, Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies Mur­ray Fer­guson, Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning & Rur­al Devel­op­ment Stephanie Wade, Plan­ning Officer, Devel­op­ment Man­age­ment Peter Fer­guson, Harp­er McLeod LLP Rob­bie Cal­vert, Gradu­ate Plan­ner Alix Hark­ness, Clerk to the Board

Apo­lo­gies: John Latham

Agenda Items I & 2: Wel­come & Apologies

1. The Con­vener wel­comed all present and apo­lo­gies were noted.
2. The Con­vener advised that it was a new way of work­ing (by video con­fer­ence) and asked that Mem­bers be patient. She advised Mem­bers that if her inter­net con­nec­tion was to cut out the order of Chair­ing the meet­ing would be Deputy Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Con­vener, Board Con­vener and then Board Deputy Con­vener and if

DRAFT COM­MIT­TEE MINUTES required, assum­ing the num­ber of mem­bers was still quor­ate, the Com­mit­tee would have to nom­in­ate anoth­er mem­ber to chair.

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

1. The minutes of the pre­vi­ous meet­ing, 24^th April 2020, held via Video Link were approved with no amendments.
2. The Con­vener repor­ted pro­gress on the action arising from the minute of 24^th April 2020: • At Para 13i) — In hand – amend­ments are being made to the Sup­ple­ment­ary Guidance(s) pri­or to going to Pub­lic Consultation.
3. Action Point arising: None.

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

1. Wil­lie Mun­ro declared an Indir­ect Interest in Item 5. • Reas­on: Is a Mem­ber Moun­tain­eer­ing Scot­land who is an object­or to the devel­op­ment but has not been involved in any of their meet­ings dis­cuss­ing this application.

Agenda Item 5: Detailed Plan­ning Per­mis­sion 2020/0076/DET (20/01155/FUL) Engin­eer­ing works for strength­en­ing funicu­lar via­duct At Cairngorm Moun­tain, Glen­more, Aviemore, High­land, PH22 Recom­mend­a­tion: Approve Sub­ject to Conditions

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

2. The Con­vener invited Peter Fer­guson (PF), Leg­al Advisor to cla­ri­fy the leg­al­ity of the applic­a­tion. He made the fol­low­ing points: a) The applic­a­tion only cov­ers the per­man­ent works, the oth­er works includ­ing the tem­por­ary access tracks are not covered by this applic­a­tion. These tem­por­ary works can be per­mit­ted under Class 14 of the devel­op­ment order and can­not endure bey­ond the con­struc­tion phase. This dif­fers from hill tracks as they are per­man­ent or semi-per­man­ent for a dif­fer­ent pur­pose. Class 14 requires that there be a full rein­state­ment. b) While CNPA has looked at the pro­pos­als of tem­por­ary work and are sat­is­fied it meets the require­ments of Class 14 the altern­at­ive would be Cer­ti­fic­ate of

DRAFT COM­MIT­TEE MINUTES Law­ful­ness. How­ever the CNPA do not have the powers to issue these as this falls with­in the gift of the High­land Coun­cil. The applic­a­tion is deemed as sig­ni­fic­ant and this is why the CNPA are determ­in­ing it.

1. The Com­mit­tee were invited to ask Peter Fer­guson (PF) ques­tions of clar­ity, the fol­low­ing points were raised: a) Could reas­sur­ance be provided that the CNPA have full enforce­ment powers if required? Peter Fer­guson con­firmed that enforce­ment is joint power between the Loc­al Author­ity (The High­land Coun­cil) and the CNPA there­fore either can. b) Could reas­sur­ance be provided that the decision today was wheth­er or not to con­sent to repairs being car­ried out and by grant­ing plan­ning per­mis­sion was not set­ting a pre­ced­ent for the forth­com­ing mas­ter­plan to be auto­mat­ic­ally approved? Peter Fer­guson con­firmed that this was the case.

2. The Con­vener informed Mem­bers that late rep­res­ent­a­tions had been received. Peter Fer­guson has answered the points raised by many those rep­res­ent­a­tions. PF noted that one of late rep­res­ent­a­tions referred to him rep­res­ent­ing HIE and CNPA. He explained that neither he, nor his col­leagues have giv­en any advice to HIE so there was no con­flict in interest. Lorne Crerar chair of Harp­er McLeod was the pre­vi­ous Chair of HIE but that did not cre­ate a dir­ect interest for Harp­er McLeod.

3. The Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies read out a state­ment from the applicant.

4. The Com­mit­tee were invited to ask ques­tions arising from the applic­ants state­ment: a) Con­cern raised around the lack of safety report provid­ing reas­sur­ance that the pro­posed strength­en­ing works would suf­fice. Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies reminded the Com­mit­tee that they are not being asked to assess the health & safety of the pro­posed devel­op­ment as this would be con­sidered by anoth­er appro­pri­ate body. b) What abil­ity would the CNPA have to over­see the tem­por­ary works and to imple­ment those? Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies advised that the Com­mit­tee are not being asked to give per­mis­sion for the tem­por­ary works how­ever the applic­ant have provided details of how they envis­age these tak­ing place and the CNPA would mon­it­or the entire site. c) Com­ment made that many of the object­ors had referred to the fact that the Board had been clear that it wanted to see a mas­ter­plan for the site first. Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies agreed and noted it had been reques­ted over a num­ber of years but that this did not restrict the CNPA’s abil­ity to make decisions on plan­ning applic­a­tions on tak­ing decisions on applic­a­tions. He added that tak­ing a decision on the applic­a­tion would not com­prom­ise any future altern­at­ive plans.

DRAFT COM­MIT­TEE MINUTES John Lath­am joined the meeting.

1. The Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies read out state­ments sub­mit­ted by Object­ors Badenoch & Strath­spey Con­ser­va­tion Group and Dave Fallows.

2. The Com­mit­tee were invited to ask ques­tions arising from the Object­ors state­ments. The fol­low point was raised: a) Con­cern raised that the salami sli­cing of the applic­a­tion meant that an Envir­on­ment­al Impacts Assess­ment (EIA) was not required, could it be explained why it was accep­ted on a piece­meal basis? Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies advised that they had to under­take EIA screen­ing, con­cluded that no EIA was required for either per­man­ent works covered by plan­ning applic­a­tion or tem­por­ary works described that could be under­taken under per­mit­ted devel­op­ment rights and officers were sat­is­fied that this was an appro­pri­ate way forward.

3. The Plan­ning Officer invited to come back on points raised in the state­ments: a) It is unreas­on­able for the Com­mit­tee to delay the applic­a­tion on account of wait­ing for the mas­ter­plan. b) The pro­posed con­di­tions are to man­age the devel­op­ment and its impacts, the scope of the detail has already been sup­plied and the con­di­tions are straight­for­ward and should be easy for the applic­ant to supply.

4. The Com­mit­tee were invited to dis­cuss the report, the fol­low­ing points were raised: a) With ref­er­ence to para­graphs 27 and 28, could the con­di­tion be more detailed to describe the meth­od­o­logy applied to the treat­ment of rocks and boulders in order to con­serve lichens grow­ing on them? Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies agreed to add to con­di­tion. b) The peat­land man­age­ment plan and res­tor­a­tion plan, was it con­fined to the area with­in the red line or the whole site? The Plan­ning Officer con­firmed that it cov­ers the land with­in the con­trol of HIE and there­fore expan­ded out with the red line. c) With ref­er­ence to para­graph 50, could reas­sur­ance be provided that the strength­en­ing works would be adequate? Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies advised that the Author­ity were not struc­tur­al engin­eers and there­fore not com­pet­ent to judge that, but that the reg­u­lat­ing author­ity for that ele­ment would assess it. Peter Fer­guson added that tech­nic­al issues are covered by tech­nic­al legis­la­tion much the same as a build­ing war­rant cov­ers the safety of build­ings. d) Com­ment made that this applic­a­tion was not pro­pos­ing a new struc­ture but rather repair­ing an exist­ing struc­ture. Look­ing for­ward to hav­ing sight of a mas­ter­plan in due course.

DRAFT COM­MIT­TEE MINUTES e) Cla­ri­fic­a­tion sought on how the res­tor­a­tion would be car­ried out on the tem­por­ary tracks. Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies advised that the sup­port­ing inform­a­tion provided a spe­cific­a­tion but that con­di­tions sought fur­ther clar­ity.. He advised that res­tor­a­tion would not be instant and would require care and atten­tion dur­ing con­struc­tion and in fol­low­ing years. f) The Con­vener advised that pre­par­at­ory work had not been rig­or­ously under­taken on some sites else­where in the past but by the use of con­di­tions imposed on this applic­a­tion, this provides hope that it would pre­vent it hap­pen­ing. Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies agreed. g) Could it be explained why the helipad was to be situ­ated in Coire Ciste and not Coire Cas giv­en the risk of increased car­bon emis­sions. Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies advised that the Applic­ant wanted to use the Ciste area as they hoped to min­im­ise dis­turb­ance to vis­it­ors using the main car park. He advised that the Applic­ant would still need to sub­mit their flight paths to SNH and if it was found to cause golden eagles dis­turb­ance then flight paths would need to be changed and be resub­mit­ted for approval.

1. The Com­mit­tee agreed to approve the applic­a­tion as per the Officer’s recom­mend­a­tion sub­ject to the con­di­tions stated in the report with addi­tion of more detail to con­di­tion 2.

2. Action Point arising: None.

3. The loc­ally elec­ted mem­ber for the applic­a­tion site praised the decision of approv­al made by the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee on this application.

Agenda Item 6: Detailed Plan­ning Per­mis­sion 2020/0031/DET (20/00322/FUL) Con­ver­sion, exten­sion and change of use of exist­ing office build­ing to cre­ate 8 num­ber flat­ted dwell­ings for hol­i­day let­ting use At Former Police Sta­tion, Kin­gussie, High­land, PH21 IHS Recom­mend­a­tion: Approve Sub­ject to Conditions

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

2. The Com­mit­tee were invited to ask the Officer points of clar­ity. The fol­low­ing was raised: a) Had cal­cu­la­tions been car­ried out to ensure that the day­light on exist­ing prop­er­ties would not be affected? Gradu­ate Plan­ner advised that no details of day­light assess­ment had been received. He explained that the Applic­ant had reduced the height of part of the exten­sion to 1.5 storeys which would be no

DRAFT COM­MIT­TEE MINUTES b) taller than the gar­age that is already in situ. He added that he did not expect a reduc­tion in day­light to any neigh­bour­ing prop­er­ties. Cla­ri­fic­a­tion sought with regards to the park­ing to the rear of the prop­erty and how it could be accessed. Gradu­ate Plan­ner showed the plans again. c) Con­cern raised sur­round­ing the pos­sible reduc­tion in day­light to neigh­bour­ing prop­er­ties should the devel­op­ment go ahead. Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies advised that no cal­cu­la­tions had been car­ried out on the angles of light but that officer’s view was that while there would be some impacts there were small giv­en the nature of oth­er exist­ing build­ings. He noted that if the Com­mit­tee wished, the applic­a­tion could be deferred in order to request a more detailed assess­ment from the applic­ant. d) Con­cern raised around the increase in noise levels this devel­op­ment would bring to the nearby res­id­ents giv­en that this build­ing had been vacant for many years. e) Cla­ri­fic­a­tion reques­ted that the win­dow above the cur­rent flat roof, would it be par­tially covered up or was the inten­tion to remove it? Gradu­ate Plan­ner con­firmed that the neighbour’s win­dow would look out onto a pitched roof rather than flat roof. f) Con­cern raised that 7 flats each with I car park­ing space each may not be suf­fi­cient and where could addi­tion­al cars be parked? Gradu­ate Plan­ner advised that the nearest large car park was situ­ated 100m from the site. g) Was there any detail as to the pur­pose of the rooms where the win­dows of neigh­bour­ing prop­er­ties that look onto the site, would be affected? Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies advised that the prop­erty to the West of the site, the win­dow on the side would face a new elev­a­tion with a 1.5 story pitched roof. He explained the build­ings to the East have some win­dows and a court­yard garden that look out onto the site but that exist­ing build­ings, and the taller and wider build­ing to the west already screen much dir­ect sun­light. He added that the pur­pose of the rooms of the affected win­dows was not known. A Plan­ning Com­mit­tee mem­ber advised that the win­dow in the prop­erty to the West of the site was a bedroom.

1. The Com­mit­tee were invited to dis­cuss the report, the fol­low­ing points were raised: a) Dis­may raised that a day­light assess­ment provides a proven for­mula for determ­in­ing the reduc­tion of day­light on neigh­bour­ing prop­er­ties and that one had not be sought. b) Con­cern raised that the exist­ing neigh­bour­ing prop­er­ties would lose amen­ity and that it was hard to ima­gine from the slides provided and giv­en the fact that site vis­its could not take place at the moment as a res­ult of the cur­rent pan­dem­ic. A sug­ges­tion was made to bring visu­als to help the Com­mit­tee under­stand what the neigh­bours would experience.

DRAFT COM­MIT­TEE MINUTES c) Would it be pos­sible to request a day­light assess­ment be car­ried out? Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies advised that the Applic­ant would need to task an archi­tect to do this and it would be pos­sible to defer the decision until these were forth­com­ing. How­ever he advised that the Com­mit­tee should con­sider all parts of the applic­a­tion before com­ing to that decision. d) Sug­ges­tion made to des­ig­nate the car park as a quiet zone from 10pm to 7am. Con­cern raised that the already lim­ited park­ing on the High Street would be used, could a clause be added which would dis­suade the own­ers of the prop­er­ties using the high street for over­spill car park­ing? Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies advised that they could request a park­ing man­age­ment plan but would have lim­ited abil­ity to enforce it. Sug­ges­tion made to add it as an inform­at­ive. Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies advised that it would be dif­fi­cult impose a quiet zone as the High­land Coun­cil Trans­port Plan­ning have not raised any con­cerns nor objec­ted. e) Sup­port for the redevel­op­ment of a long vacant build­ing. f) Con­cern raised due to the lack of explan­a­tion to the sur­round­ing area, the nearest car parks being at diag­on­al areas of the vil­lage both of which are being changed to park­ing zones and already have park­ing issues attached to them. The site is near a busy cross­roads where there is lim­ited abil­ity to turn and this devel­op­ment would increase con­ges­tion. g) What was the need for afford­able housing/​ren­ted flats in Kin­gussie? Was there a need for com­mer­cial flats as opposed to afford­able flats? Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies advised that the pro­posed devel­op­ment does not give rise to a require­ment for afford­able hous­ing as it is hol­i­day accom­mod­a­tion that is pro­posed. h) Com­ment made that the pro­posed 2 bed­room hol­i­day flats are likely to attract fam­il­ies and there­fore the I space per flat car park­ing alloc­a­tion should suf­fice for short hol­i­day lets. i) Com­ment made that had the flats been inten­ded for res­id­en­tial let then day­light draw­ings would be neces­sary how­ever since it is for hol­i­day lets it was not necessary.

1. Peter Argyle put for­ward a motion to agree with the Officer’s recom­mend­a­tion and approve the applic­a­tion. Derek Ross seconded this motion.

2. An Amend­ment was put for­ward to defer the applic­a­tion until a day­light impact assess­ment was forth­com­ing and visu­als to show the impact the pro­posed devel­op­ment would have on the exist­ing properties.

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

Name Motion Amend­ment Abstain Peter Argyle √ Geva Black­ett √ Car­o­lyn Cad­dick √ Deirdre Fal­con­er √ Pippa Had­ley √ 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 11 8 0

1. The Com­mit­tee agreed to approve the applic­a­tion as per the Officer’s recom­mend­a­tion sub­ject to the con­di­tions stated in the report.

2. Action Point arising: None.

Agenda Item 8: Pri­or Approv­al 2020/0037/NOT (19/00901/PRIORN) Pri­or approv­al for forestry-related build­ing works (non-res­id­en­tial) main­ten­ance and upgrad­ing of exist­ing access tracks and form­a­tion of new access tracks, turn­ing areas, a bor­row pit and water cross­ings At Cad­dam Plant­a­tion, Glen Clova RECOM­MEND­A­TION: Approve Sub­ject to Conditions

1. Gav­in Miles, Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies intro­duced the paper and gave a presentation.

2. The Com­mit­tee were invited to dis­cuss the report, the com­ment was made: a) Look­ing at the site and the sup­port­ing inform­a­tion sup­plied, it fits in well with appro­pri­ate guidance.

DRAFT COM­MIT­TEE MINUTES

1. The Com­mit­tee agreed to approve the applic­a­tion as per the Officer’s recom­mend­a­tion sub­ject to the con­di­tions stated in the report.

2. Action Point arising: None.

Agenda Item 9: AOB

1. Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies repor­ted that since the last meet­ing the S75 for the Dis­til­lery near Grant­own had been signed off by all parties and should be in the pro­cess of being registered.

2. Action Points arising: None.

Agenda Item 10: Date of Next Meeting

1. Fri­day 12 June 2020 at 2,30pm via video/​tele­phone conference.

2. The pub­lic busi­ness of the meet­ing con­cluded at 12.10 hours.