210827PCDraftMinutes

DRAFT COM­MIT­TEE MINUTES

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

DRAFT MINUTES OF THE PLAN­NING COM­MIT­TEE held via Video Con­fer­ence on 27 August 2021 at 10am

Mem­bers Present:

Dr Gaen­er Rodger (Con­vener) Anne Rae Mac­don­ald – joined at 10:15 Peter Argyle (Deputy Con­vener) Douglas McAdam – left mtg for Item 6 Geva Black­ett Xan­der McDade Car­o­lyn Cad­dick Wil­lie McK­enna Deirdre Fal­con­er Ian McLar­en Pippa Had­ley Dr Fiona McLean John Kirk Wil­li­am Mun­ro John Lath­am Derek Ross Elean­or Mack­in­tosh – left mtg 10:05 – 10:15 Judith Webb

In Attend­ance:

Gav­in Miles, Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning Mur­ray Fer­guson, Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning & Place Grant Moir, CEO Dan Har­ris, Plan­ning Man­ager, Devel­op­ment Plan­ning Ed Swales, Mon­it­or­ing & Enforce­ment Officer Nina Caudrey, Plan­ning Officer, Devel­op­ment Plan­ning Katie Crerar, Plan­ning Officer, Devel­op­ment Plan­ning Nas­im Mehr­abi, Gradu­ate Plan­ner (Devel­op­ment Plan­ning) Peter Fer­guson, Harp­er McLeod LLP

Apo­lo­gies: Janet Hunter

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, 25 June 2021, held via video con­fer­en­cing were approved sub­ject to the fol­low­ing amend­ments: a) At Para 18c) 90% to be to 90 degrees b) From Para 30, para­graph num­ber­ing to be cor­rec­ted through­out c) ​‘Action points arising: None’ to be added to the end of Agenda Items 8 and 12.

2. Action Points arising: None.

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

1. Douglas McAdam declared an Indir­ect Interest in Item 6
2. Reas­on: As a mem­ber of the deer man­age­ment group in the area, he will leave the meet­ing for this item.

Gav­in Miles, Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning, noted an Indir­ect Interest in Item 5, record­ing that his moth­er was an object­or to the plan­ning applic­a­tion, but that this did not affect his role in over­sight of the plan­ning ser­vice or par­ti­cip­a­tion in the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee meeting.

Agenda Item 5: Detailed Plan­ning Per­mis­sion 2020/0201/DET (APP/2020/1566) Erec­tion of 16 Hut, 4 Com­post Toi­lets and Asso­ci­ated Access, Car Park­ing and Land­scap­ing, Land To The North And North East Of Tom­idhu, Crath­ie, Bal­later, Aber­deen­shire. Recom­mend­a­tion: Approve Sub­ject to Conditions

1. Katie Crerar, Plan­ning Officer, Devel­op­ment Man­age­ment, presen­ted the paper to the Committee

2. The Com­mit­tee were invited to ask points of clar­ity and the fol­low­ing points were raised: a) A mem­ber quer­ied wheth­er the units could be sold or lent to oth­ers by the lease. It was cla­ri­fied by the officer and the applic­ant that hut­ters would be named on the lease and would not be per­mit­ted to sublease.

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1. A mem­ber quer­ied wheth­er com­pli­ance with con­di­tions would fall to the estate or the hut­ters in the case of long-terms leases and any required enforce­ment. The Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning cla­ri­fied that enforce­ment action could be taken against either the estate or the indi­vidu­al hutters.
2. A mem­ber reques­ted cla­ri­fic­a­tion that the term remov­al of trees did not mean the remov­al of trees from the site; the officer con­firmed that those trees would be felled but retained in the loc­a­tion of felling and there­fore con­tin­ue to con­trib­ute to the wood­land habitat.
3. A mem­ber quer­ied the loc­a­tion of the nearest dis­pos­al point for waste water. The officer and applic­ant con­firmed that Bal­later Cara­van Park and Brae­mar Cara­van Park have dis­pos­al points; that the Glen­shee Ski Centre were plan­ning to install one, and that hut­ters could take waste home.
4. The Con­vener invited Angus McNicol, the Applic­ant (Inver­cauld Estate) and Richard Heg­gie, the Agent (Urb­an Anim­a­tion) to give a present­a­tion to the Committee.
5. The Com­mit­tee were invited to ask the speak­ers point of clar­ity: a) A mem­ber quer­ied the dis­tance to walk to loc­al facil­it­ies along the main road. The agent and applic­ant com­men­ted that the site is on a core path, which would be a safer foot route than walk­ing along the main road and estim­ated that the site is approx­im­ately 400m from Crath­ie which has lim­ited facil­it­ies includ­ing two cafes. b) A mem­ber quer­ied why this loc­a­tion was chosen. The applic­ant com­men­ted that the gen­er­al loc­a­tion was chosen due to demand in the area, and the spe­cif­ic site was chosen due to access from the main road and the char­ac­ter of the site. c) A mem­ber quer­ied who is going to ​‘police’ the site and enforce­ment of the con­di­tions of waste remov­al. The applic­ant cla­ri­fied that the estate will be vis­it­ing the site, par­tic­u­larly dur­ing the early stages when huts are being built, and the hut­ting com­munity on exist­ing sites have been shown to also be self- poli­cing. The estate expec­ted that the loc­al com­munity would also inform them of any per­ceived issues. d) A mem­ber quer­ied wheth­er the pro­pos­al had con­sidered any oth­er sites with exist­ing access around Inver­cauld Estate. The applic­ant com­men­ted that they only looked at the east­ern end of the estate for sites, oth­er sites may be pos­sible fur­ther west but this was not con­sidered under their cur­rent mod­el. e) A mem­ber quer­ied wheth­er there were plans to engage and edu­cate hut­ters on the spe­cial fea­tures of the site and encour­age own­er­ship of the pro­tec­tion of these fea­tures. The agent replied that they were keen to reflect the oppor­tun­it­ies to improve under­stand­ing and respect for the site with­in the hut­ters manu­al. f) A mem­ber quer­ied wheth­er hut­ting on this site could be done without a car, and wheth­er dis­pos­al facil­it­ies could be reached on foot. The agent commented

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g) that private trans­port would be needed to bring in water and remov­al of waste although this would not pre­clude the occa­sion­al stock­ing of the hut and the travel to the hut by pub­lic trans­port or bicycle at oth­er times. A mem­ber quer­ied how many oth­er hut­ting sites are on either SSIs or ancient wood­land. The agent stated that they do not know how may but were aware of at least one oth­er site on an SSSI.

1. Geva Black­ett was invited to speak by the con­ven­or. She noted that although Police Scot­land had respon­ded without objec­tion to the applic­a­tion, there had been no addi­tion­al response from the Police Scot­land VIP pro­tec­tion unit that Police Scotland’s response said had been intern­ally con­sul­ted. She said she had had spoken with a mem­ber of this unit who wasn’t aware of the plan­ning applic­a­tion and reques­ted that the Com­mit­tee defer decision on the applic­a­tion until that part of Police Scot­land had con­sidered it. She also reques­ted the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee under­take a site vis­it pri­or to determ­in­ing the application.

2. Gav­in Miles, Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning, was invited to com­ment and cla­ri­fied that a site vis­it might be pos­sible under cur­rent Cov­id rules, though he was not sure giv­en rising Cov­id case num­bers. He noted that Police Scot­land had been con­sul­ted by Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil when the plan­ning applic­a­tion was made as was routine for devel­op­ments around Bal­mor­al. He explained that Police Scotland’s response to the plan­ning applic­a­tion did not raise concerns.

3. The con­ven­or asked wheth­er any­one would like to second the motion to defer the applic­a­tion. There was a dis­cus­sion around the cor­rect Com­mit­tee procedure.

4. The CNPA’s leg­al advisor, Peter Fer­guson, of Harp­er MacLeod LLP, cla­ri­fied that In this instance the reas­on for defer­ral would not be cla­ri­fied through gen­er­al dis­cus­sion of the report and should be decided pri­or to the discussion.

5. The com­mit­tee took a recess at 11:55 until 12:15 to dis­cuss the points of pro­cess regard­ing the sub­mis­sion of a motion for deferral.

6. Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning, Gav­in Miles, was invited to speak and cla­ri­fied to mem­bers that the cor­rect pro­cess for con­sulta­tion on and noti­fic­a­tion of the applic­a­tion had been fol­lowed. Police Scot­land had been con­sul­ted; had form­ally respon­ded to the plan­ning applic­a­tion; and their response was on file. Officers were sat­is­fied that there was suf­fi­cient inform­a­tion to determ­ine the application.

7. Geva Black­ett was invited to present her motion and stated that as the Roy­al Pro­tec­tion Unit appeared to her not to have had oppor­tun­ity to respond to the

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applic­a­tion, she pro­posed to defer decision until they had done so. Deirdre Fal­con­er seconded the motion.

1. Plan­ning Com­mit­tee vice-con­vener, Peter Argyle, took over the chair­ing of the meet­ing when the convener’s audio con­nec­tion failed.

2. Fiona McLean pro­posed an amend­ment to pro­ceed with con­sid­er­a­tion of the applic­a­tion. Peter Argyle seconded the amendment.

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

Name	Motion	Amend­ment	Abstain
Peter Argyle		✓
Geva Black­ett	✓
Car­o­lyn Caddick		✓
Deirdre Fal­con­er	✓
Pippa Had­ley	✓
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

1. The Com­mit­tee approved the amend­ment and con­tin­ued with con­sid­er­a­tion of the application.

2. The Com­mit­tee were invited to dis­cuss the report, the fol­low­ing points were raised:

a) Mem­bers raised con­cerns about the impacts of the devel­op­ment and its scale on wood­land and ancient wood­land habitats.

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b) A mem­ber com­men­ted that the hut­ting cul­ture is some­thing to be encour­aged and it is good to see an estate bring­ing this oppor­tun­ity for­ward. They com­men­ted that they con­sidered the risks as hav­ing been mit­ig­ated and they were in favour of the pro­pos­al. c) A mem­ber raised con­cerns over the prac­tic­al­ity of the devel­op­ment with regards to remov­al of waste, the scale of the site, or wheth­er the mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures would be suf­fi­cient to pro­tect the spe­cial fea­tures of the site. They con­sidered it should be refused under Policy 4, Nat­ur­al Her­it­age of the LDP. d) A mem­ber com­men­ted that the jus­ti­fic­a­tion for a devel­op­ment in ancient wood­land needs to out­weigh the con­tri­bu­tion of the spe­cial fea­tures of the ancient wood­land and quer­ied how this is the case for this applic­a­tion. The plan­ning officer advised that apprais­al of the applic­a­tion was on the basis of the advice of the CNPA’s eco­lo­gic­al advisors and NatureScot, that the impacts on ancient wood­land could be mit­ig­ated and that there was poten­tial for improve­ment through actions such as fen­cing to pre­vent graz­ing from rab­bits. e) Geva Black­ett pro­posed a motion that a site vis­it should be held pri­or to determination.

1. The vice-con­ven­or paused the dis­cus­sion to con­sider the motion pro­posed by Geva Black­ett to defer the applic­a­tion to allow for a site vis­it, John Kirk seconded the motion.

2. A mem­ber quer­ied wheth­er a defer­ral for a site vis­it could mean the applic­ant could appeal non-determ­in­a­tion of the applic­a­tion. Gav­in Miles, Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning, con­firmed that under the pro­cessing agree­ment with the applic­ant, the com­mit­tee were expec­ted to take a decision to approve or refuse the applic­a­tion today, so if a decision was deferred it would be open to applic­ant to appeal a deemed refus­al from non-determination.

3. Pippa Had­ley pro­posed an amend­ment to determ­ine the applic­a­tion without a site vis­it, Peter Argyle seconded the amendment.

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

Name	Motion	Amend­ment	Abstain
Peter Argyle		✓
Geva Black­ett	✓
Car­o­lyn Caddick	✓
Deirdre Fal­con­er	✓
Pippa Had­ley		✓
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	7	11

1. The Com­mit­tee approved the amend­ment and con­tin­ued with con­sid­er­a­tion of the application.

2. The com­mit­tee was invited to con­tin­ue the dis­cus­sion and the fol­low­ing points were raised: a) A mem­ber referred to Scot­tish Plan­ning Policy and said that in their view, the pro­pos­al would cause irre­vers­ible dam­age to nation­ally sig­ni­fic­ant nat­ur­al her­it­age resource. They com­men­ted on Policy 2 of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park LDP and their view that the devel­op­ment would cause unac­cept­able change; that the addi­tion­al cars would be a neg­at­ive change; and that tour­ism would not be sup­por­ted as the huts could be used by loc­als not tour­ists. b) A mem­ber com­men­ted that they con­sidered the detail of the applic­a­tion made it accept­able, par­tic­u­larly giv­en the light foot­print of huts, the cur­rent usage of the site and the oppor­tun­it­ies for improve­ment to the grass­land as well as giv­ing the hut­ters a con­nec­tion with nature and sense of guard­i­an­ship of it. They were minded to approve the application.

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c) A num­ber of mem­bers expressed sup­port for the prin­ciple of hut­ting but con­cern over the scale and loc­a­tion of the pro­pos­al. d) A mem­ber com­men­ted that the loc­a­tion of the huts in the SSSI was on the loc­a­tion of exist­ing cara­vans and the loc­a­tion of new huts with­in the ancient wood­land comes with mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures. They noted the effect­ive man­age­ment of 13 huts on dif­fer­ent parts of land by the applicant.

1. The vice-con­vener, Peter Argyle pro­posed that the Com­mit­tee approve the applic­a­tion as per the officer recom­mend­a­tion. Doug McAdam seconded him.

2. Geva Black­ett pro­posed an amend­ment to refuse the applic­a­tion, Car­o­lyn Cad­dick seconded the amendment.

3. A recess was taken to determ­ine the word­ing of the amend­ment and the com­mit­tee broke for lunch from 13:15 to 14:00

4. The com­mit­tee recon­vened and the vice con­vener explained that giv­en time con­straints, Item 8 on the agenda would be deferred to a future meeting.

5. Geva Black­ett pro­posed an amend­ment as follows:

“I have con­sid­er­able con­cerns about the devel­op­ment in terms of the fol­low­ing policies:

Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Her­it­age, of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan states that there is a strong pre­sump­tion against the remov­al of semi-ancient wood­land includ­ing sites in the Ancient Wood­land invent­ory and only in excep­tion­al cir­cum­stances will it be per­mit­ted where the jus­ti­fic­a­tion for the devel­op­ment out­weighs the loc­al, nation­al, or inter­na­tion­al con­tri­bu­tion of the wood­land; or it can be clearly demon­strated that the ancient semi-nat­ur­al wood­land site has low eco­lo­gic­al value.

Part of the site is a SSSI. This speaks for itself in terms of its high eco­lo­gic­al value. How­ever, the ancient wood­land part is con­tigu­ous with the SSSI. This should also speak for itself. It is all one wood­land, the eco­lo­gic­al value of which does not sud­denly drop off at the track.

The pre­cau­tion­ary prin­ciple should apply. It is clear that there are no excep­tion­al cir­cum­stances in this case and there­fore it fails to the policy.

In addi­tion, the tests for CNP LDP Policy 2: Sup­port­ing Eco­nom­ic Growth ‑Tour­ism and leis­ure devel­op­ment, are that a) it [the devel­op­ment] has no adverse envir­on­ment­al impacts on the site; b) it makes a pos­it­ive con­tri­bu­tion to the exper­i­ence of the vis­it­ors; c) it adds to or extends the core tour­ist season.

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How­ever, the pro­pos­al does have adverse envir­on­ment­al impacts by tak­ing down an unac­cept­ably high pro­por­tion of trees in ancient wood­land. What about the cur­rent res­id­ents and busi­ness own­ers? And the vis­it­ors to those busi­nesses? 16 more cars going past the door. People won’t make a pos­it­ive con­tri­bu­tion to them — quite the reverse. These aren’t for tour­ists — they are for reg­u­lar vis­it­ors who will lease the hut.

I there­fore am mov­ing an amend­ment to the recom­mend­a­tion to refuse on these grounds

1. The Com­mit­tee pro­ceeded to a vote. The res­ults were as fol­lows: (Motion 7 Amend­ment 10 Absten­tion 1. Amend­ment passed).

Name	Motion	Amend­ment	Abstain
Peter Argyle		✓
Geva Black­ett	✓
Car­o­lyn Caddick		✓
Deirdre Fal­con­er		✓
Pippa Had­ley	✓
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	7	10	1

1. The Com­mit­tee agreed to refuse the application.

2. Action Point arising: None.

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Agenda Item 6: Detailed Plan­ning Per­mis­sion 2021/0172/DET (21/00323/FULL) Form­a­tion, Main­ten­ance and Upgrad­ing of Vehicu­lar Access Track (Part Ret­ro­spect­ive) Land At Glen Clova Estate, Glen Clova Recom­mend­a­tion: Approve Sub­ject to Conditions

1. Douglas McAdam left the meeting

2. Ed Swales, Mon­it­or­ing & Enforce­ment Officer presen­ted the paper to the Committee.

3. The Com­mit­tee were invited to ask points of clar­ity. No points were raised.

4. The Com­mit­tee were invited to dis­cuss the report. No points were raised.

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

6. Action Point arising: None

Agenda Item 7: Con­sulta­tion on Draft Design and Place­mak­ing Guid­ance Recom­mend­a­tion: Approve for Consultation

1. Dan Har­ris, Plan­ning Man­ager, Devel­op­ment Plan­ning presen­ted the paper to the Committee.

2. Douglas McAdam re-joined the meeting

3. The Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the report. The fol­low­ing points were raised: a) Mem­bers com­men­ted that they liked this piece of guid­ance and the addi­tion of draw­ings and designs made it very clear and com­pre­hens­ive. b) The vice-con­ven­or asked that thanks be passed to the gradu­ate plan­ner, Nas­im, and the rest of the team for their work on this guidance.

4. The Com­mit­tee agreed to approve the Draft Design and Place­mak­ing Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance to sup­port the 2021 Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan for consultation.

5. Action Point arising: None.

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Agenda Item 8: Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015 Mon­it­or­ing Report RECOM­MEND­A­TION: Approve Sub­ject to Conditions

1. Item 8 was deferred to the next plan­ning committee.

2. Action Point arising: None

Agenda Item 9: AOB

1. The Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning provided the fol­low­ing update: a) The new Board Portal for papers would be tested for the next Plan­ning Com­mit­tee meet­ing in Septem­ber. b) Applic­a­tions on Cairngorm Moun­tain – the CNPA had called in an applic­a­tion for a 5yr exten­sion of time for oper­a­tion slides at the car park the pre­vi­ous week, with a sim­il­ar applic­a­tion likely to be called in on the fol­low­ing Monday. He explained he did not intend to call in an applic­a­tion to extend the tem­por­ary con­sent of the Snow Fact­ory at the base sta­tion for a fur­ther year. He also noted that because there was no Plan­ning Com­mit­tee in Octo­ber, one of the 5- year exten­sion applic­a­tions could not be determ­ined until after the date its cur­rent tem­por­ary con­sent expired, but that there would be no harm from its pres­ence that required the CNPA to take enforce­ment action in that period.

2. Action Points arising: None

Agenda Item 14: Date of Next Meeting

1. Fri­day 24^th Septem­ber 2021 at 10am via video/​telephone conference.

2. The pub­lic busi­ness of the meet­ing con­cluded at 14:20 hours.