DRAFT COM­MIT­TEE MINUTES

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

DRAFT MINUTES OF THE PLAN­NING COMMITTEE

held via Video Con­fer­ence on 10 Decem­ber 2021 at 9.30am

Mem­bers Present:

Dr Gaen­er Rodger (Con­vener)	Anne Rae Macdonald
Peter Argyle	Douglas McAdam
Geva Black­ett	Xan­der McDade
Car­o­lyn Caddick	Wil­lie McKenna
Deirdre Fal­con­er	Ian McLar­en
Pippa Had­ley	Dr Fiona McLean
Janet Hunter	Wil­li­am Mun­ro joined meet­ing at 09.40am
John Kirk	Derek Ross
John Lath­am	Judith Webb
Elean­or Mack­in­tosh (Deputy Convener)

In Attend­ance:

Gav­in Miles, Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning Mur­ray Fer­guson, Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning & Place Grant Moir, CEO Emma Bryce, Plan­ning Man­ager, Devel­op­ment Man­age­ment Stephanie Wade, Plan­ning Officer, Devel­op­ment Man­age­ment Katie Crerar, Plan­ning Officer, Devel­op­ment Plan­ning Peter Fer­guson, Harp­er McLeod LLP

Apo­lo­gies: None

Agenda Items 1 & 2: Wel­come & Apologies

1. The Con­vener wel­comed all present and noted she was joined by Elean­or Mack­in­tosh, the new Deputy Con­vener. There were no apo­lo­gies noted.

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

1. The minutes of the pre­vi­ous meet­ing, 12 Novem­ber 2021, held via video con­fer­en­cing were approved with no amendments.

2. Action Points arising:

   a) 23(i) in hand – there will be a devel­op­ment ses­sion for the Com­mit­tee in 2022 about land­scape effects inside and out­side the Nation­al Park. b) 12(a) closed c) 42(i) from 24 Septem­ber 2021 Plan­ning Com­mit­tee – closed – site vis­it to Aviemore Com­munity Hos­pit­al under­taken by some Com­mit­tee Members.

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

1. Wil­lie Mun­ro declared a (non-fin­an­cial) Interest in Item 5 and 6.

Reas­on: Knows the agent, but has con­sidered the pos­i­tion and is sat­is­fied no con­flict so would participate.

1. Deirdre Fal­con­er declared a (non-fin­an­cial) Interest in Item 5 and 6.

Reas­on: Is a neigh­bour of the Estate, but has con­sidered the pos­i­tion and is sat­is­fied no con­flict so would participate.

1. Geva Black­ett declared a (non-fin­an­cial) Interest in Item 5 and 6.

Reas­on: Knows the agent, but has con­sidered the pos­i­tion and is sat­is­fied no con­flict so would participate.

1. Fiona MacLean declared a (non-fin­an­cial) Interest in Item 7.

Reas­on: Is a Mem­ber of the Com­mit­tee for Scot­land for the Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund. They part fun­ded this applic­a­tion, so she will not take part in the dis­cus­sion and will leave the meet­ing for this item.

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Agenda Item 5: Detailed Plan­ning Per­mis­sion 2020/0220/DET (20/02963/FUL) Erec­tion of bothy and form­a­tion of access track At Land 515M SE of Farm­house, Kil­liehunty, Kingussie Recom­mend­a­tion: Approve Sub­ject to Conditions

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

2. The Com­mit­tee were invited to ask points of clar­ity, the fol­low­ing points were raised:

   a) A Mem­ber wished to check the length of the track and is this a new track? Katie Crerar, Plan­ning Officer con­firmed it would be a new path. It will be 230 metres. b) Two key policies, policy 5 and policy 2.2, does it pre­serve and enhance in terms of policy 5. Gav­in Miles, Head of stra­tegic Plan­ning con­firmed there would be addi­tion­al tree plant­ing to mit­ig­ate the loss of some trees. c) A Mem­ber quer­ied a refer­ral to volume rather than rooms. What is the dif­fer­ence between a Bothy, a hut and self-cater­ing accom­mod­a­tion? Officers explained that these were the term Bothy had been chosen by the applic­ant and that volume was archi­tec­tur­al term describ­ing the form of the build­ings. It was con­firmed that they were a form of self-cater­ing accom­mod­a­tion. d) A Mem­ber quer­ied the track, does the track go all the way down to the loch or the bothy? Katie Crerar, Plan­ning Officer con­firmed the track goes to the Bothy and not the loch. e) A Mem­ber quer­ied when does a path become a track or a road? In the applic­a­tion this is to be 1.8M wide, vehicles are going to be able to use it, with hand rails on part of the path and passing places, is there also to be light­ing? Katie Crerar, Plan­ning officer stated it will be able to accom­mod­ate a vehicle, for those with min­im­al mobil­ity. These pro­vi­sions are there for lim­ited mobil­ity. The passing places are rest­ing stops, they are not for vehicles. Vis­it­ors will be giv­en torches, there will be no light­ing. f) A Mem­ber quer­ied access rights, and how is the applic­ant going to man­age this? Gav­in Miles, Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning con­firmed every­body has access rights, the only rights they will not have is to gain access to the Bothy. g) A Mem­ber quer­ied the elec­tri­city. Katie Crerar, Plan­ning officer con­firmed the elec­tri­city would be laid at the same time as the path. h) A Mem­ber stated the build­ing is to be built with Siberi­an larch, is it not pos­sible to source larch in Scot­land? Gav­in Miles, Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning stated this is not the type of thing we can stip­u­late. i) A Mem­ber asked if it was a dry soakaway sys­tem? Katie Crerar, Plan­ning Officer con­firm it is to be a dry sys­tem for foul waste but that there was a water treat­ment sys­tem for grey water with an out­flow towards the lochan. SEPA have looked at this and have no con­cerns. j) A Mem­ber was sur­prised that the HRA did not men­tion Black Grouse as they had seen them fly­ing the area. Katie Crerar, Plan­ning Officer, stated eco­lo­gic­al sur­veys have been car­ried out, there would also be a require­ment for pre- con­struc­tion sur­veys. Nina Caudrey, Plan­ning Officer, cla­ri­fied that 6 mem­bers of CNPA staff had been on site vis­its at vari­ous times and there have been no sight­ings. That is not to say they do not fly over the area. There are also no records with­in Ikm of this site.

3. The Con­vener advised that Bob Reid (Agent) was not avail­able due to IT issues to give a present­a­tion. There­fore either Thomas Mac­Don­ell (Applic­ant) or Soph­ie Row­land (Agent) were invited. Soph­ie Row­land (Agent) con­firmed they would not give a present­a­tion but would be happy to answer any ques­tions that the Com­mit­tee may have but explained that this applic­a­tion was to inten­ded to be access­ible to as many people as possible.

4. The Con­vener invited mem­bers to ask any points of clar­ity to the agent, Soph­ie Rowland:

   a) A Mem­ber asked in regards to Policy 2.2 where an applic­a­tion provided year round accom­mod­a­tion. The applic­a­tion states the accom­mod­a­tion would only be occu­pied by 2 people for up to 6 months of the year, so how does that con­trib­ute to a year round eco­nomy? Soph­ie Row­land stated this is due to the design of the Bothy, how it is man­aged, it is a struc­ture you would only want to stay a couple of days per week. This is to com­ple­ment the exist­ing accom­mod­a­tion at Kil­liehuntly. This will require addi­tion­al staff­ing and the estate would be employ­ing loc­ally to con­trib­ute to the eco­nomy. b) A Mem­ber stated this is a beau­ti­fully designed build­ing, why has this loc­a­tion been chosen rather than con­vert­ing one of the derel­ict build­ings on the estate? In terms of eco­nomy how many jobs would be cre­ated by this being built and what would be the bene­fits. Soph­ie Row­land stated the loc­a­tion was selec­ted allow access­ib­il­ity to all, as well as giv­ing people a per­cep­tion of being with nature. There would be a num­ber of jobs sup­por­ted dur­ing the con­struc­tion pro­cess and the facil­ity would require ser­vi­cing through­out its life­time. c) A Mem­ber asked with­in the applic­a­tion it is stated this is to com­pli­ment the main farm house. Would it be let to guests at the farm house who wanted to stay at the Bothy for a night or two or is it to be let totally sep­ar­ately? Soph­ie Row­land con­firmed it is expec­ted to com­pli­ment the accom­mod­a­tion as a whole and it could let sep­ar­ately or with the main house. d) A Mem­ber wished cla­ri­fic­a­tion on the how long the unit will be made avail­able for? Would it only be pos­sible for 6 months of the year? Soph­ie Roland con­firmed this is unknown at this stage, although com­pletely flex­ible, but thought to ini­tially be 6 months over spring and sum­mer but that it might be exten­ded if there was demand. e) A Mem­ber asked if this is to be built on a peat bog. Gav­in Miles, Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning con­firmed it would be built on the slope of a hill on rocky ground.

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

   a) A Mem­ber com­men­ted this is an excep­tion­al applic­a­tion. There are no issues raised by any con­sul­tees in the report. This is a very good applic­a­tion for accom­mod­a­tion for those who would nor­mally not be able to access such places. b) A Mem­ber stated this provides accom­mod­a­tion for those with lim­ited mobil­ity and the uniqueness.

6. Gav­in Miles, Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning read out a state­ment from an object­or, Mr John Barton.

7. The Con­vener car­ried on the meet­ing for any oth­er Mem­bers comments;

   a) Deirdre Fal­con­er pro­posed a site vis­it to see the con­text of the build­ing, This was seconded by Car­o­lyn Cad­dick. b) Peter Argyle noted it was is a com­pre­hens­ive applic­a­tion and that mem­bers had already had a long dis­cus­sion. He didn’t con­sider that a site vis­it would be an advant­age or add to what Mem­bers have in front of them today. He pro­posed an amend­ment not to have a site vis­it but to determ­ine at the meet­ing. The amend­ment was seconded by Elean­or Mack­in­tosh. c) Gav­in Miles, Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning cla­ri­fied a point from a mem­ber on the loc­a­tion of the site in rela­tion to defined wild­land areas, con­firm­ing that it was not loc­ated in a wild­land area (although the own­er of the estate was named Wild­land Ltd) and was with­in a few hun­dred metres of the Kil­li­ently farm­house and steadings.

8. The Con­vener sum­mar­ised the vote to be taken: The Motion was for Mem­bers to have a site vis­it before determ­in­ing the applic­a­tion; the Amend­ment was to determ­ine the applic­a­tion at the meet­ing. The res­ults were as follows:

NAME	MOTION	AMEND­MENT	ABSTAIN
Peter Argyle		X
Geva Black­ett	X
Car­o­lyn Caddick	X
Deirdre Fal­con­er	X
Pippa Had­ley		X
Janet Hunter		X
John Kirk	X
John Lath­am		X
Elean­or Mackintosh		X
Douglas McAdam	X
Xan­der McDade	X
Wil­lie McKenna	X
Ian McLar­en	X
Fiona McLean		X
Wil­li­am Munro	X
Anne Rae Macdonald	X
Gaen­er Rodger		X
Derek Ross		X
Judith Webb		X
TOTAL	10	9	0

1. The Com­mit­tee agreed the motion.

2. Action Point arising:

   (i) Site Vis­it to be arranged for this applic­a­tion before determ­in­a­tion can be made.

Agenda Item 6: Detailed Plan­ning Per­mis­sion 2020/0221/DET (20/02964/FUL) Erec­tion of bothy and Asso­ci­ated Ser­vice Route At Land 400M SW of Farm­house, Kil­liehuntly, Kingussie Recom­mend­a­tion: Approve sub­ject to conditions

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

2. The Con­vener advised that Bob Reid (Agent) was not avail­able due to IT issues to give a present­a­tion. There­fore either Thomas Mac­Don­ell (Applic­ant) or Soph­ie Row­land (Agent) would be avail­able for any ques­tions the com­mit­tee may have.

3. The Com­mit­tee were invited to ask points of clar­ity, the fol­low­ing points were raised:

   a) A Mem­ber asked regard­ing the access for ser­vi­cing the Bothy and how much ser­vi­cing a Bothy needs. Does it need vehicle access? Is this access also to be used for the con­struc­tion? Katie Crerar con­firmed this is to be a fully ser­viced self-cater­ing unit, so staff will need reas­on­able access. The ser­vice track would be con­struc­ted first and used in the con­struc­tion phase. This was all detailed with­in the con­struc­tion meth­od state­ment. b) A Mem­ber quer­ied the exist­ing foot path along the river bank, is this a river walk and will it be impeded? Katie Crerar con­firmed there was a small inform­al path along the river bank and that occa­sion­al use by people stay­ing at the bothy would not change its char­ac­ter. The Bothy itself would not pre­vent people walk­ing along the riverb­ank. c) A Mem­ber quer­ied the semi nat­ur­al wood­land, is any wood­land on the ancient wood­land invent­ory? Katie Crerar, Plan­ning Officer con­firmed it was not and that no trees have been marked for removal.

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

   a) Deirdre Fal­con­er pro­posed a motion that the Com­mit­tee have a site vis­it to view this applic­a­tion in its entirety. This was seconded by John Kirk. b) Peter Argyle pro­posed an amend­ment stat­ing that there was a very detailed report and that a site vis­it was not needed. This also opens up a risk of the applic­ant going for an appeal on the grounds of non-determ­in­a­tion. c) The Con­vener asked the Deputy Con­vener to com­ment. Vice Con­vener stated on this occa­sion she would wel­come a site vis­it, so would go with the motion. d) Derek Ross, con­firmed he would second the amendment.

5. The Con­vener pro­ceeded to a vote. The Motion is for Mem­bers to have a site vis­it. The res­ults were as follows:

NAME	MOTION	AMEND­MENT	ABSTAIN
Peter Argyle		X
Geva Black­ett	X
Car­o­lyn Caddick	X
Deirdre Fal­con­er	X
Pippa Had­ley		X
Janet Hunter	X
John Kirk	X
John Lath­am		X
Elean­or Mackintosh	X
Douglas McAdam	X
Xan­der McDade	X
Wil­lie McKenna	X
Ian McLar­en	X
Fiona McLean		X
Wil­li­am Munro	X
Anne Rae Macdonald	X
Gaen­er Rodger	X
Derek Ross		X
Judith Webb		X
TOTAL	11	8

1. The Com­mit­tee agreed the motion.

2. Action Point arising:

   (i) Site Vis­it to be arranged for this applic­a­tion before determ­in­a­tion can be made.

3. The Plan­ning Com­mit­tee had a com­fort break and recon­vened at 11.30 hours.

Agenda Item 7: Detailed Plan­ning Per­mis­sion 2021/0208/DET (21/02868/FUL) Erec­tion of Dis­cov­ery Hub, Learn­ing Hub and Hill­top Hub and alter­a­tions to vis­it­or centre at High­land Wild­life Park, Kin­craig, High­land, PH21 INL RECOM­MEND­A­TION: Approve Sub­ject to Conditions

1. Fiona McLean left the room.

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

3. The Com­mit­tee were invited to ask points of clar­ity, the fol­low­ing points were raised:

   a) A Mem­ber quer­ied in regard to the Developer Con­tri­bu­tions. Also it has been asked for a con­tri­bu­tion towards real time inform­a­tion and its future main­ten­ance. The future main­ten­ance seems unusu­al. The Mem­ber stated nor­mally asso­ci­at­ing a developer con­tri­bu­tion with a cap­it­al con­tri­bu­tion and why would this be look­ing at ongo­ing costs. Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning con­firmed this is a sum of money factored in to the developer con­tri­bu­tion to main­tain the facil­ity in the longer term, but was a one off pay­ment. With regards the Event Man­age­ment Plan, this is required by High­land Council’s trans­port plan­ning team and was stand­ard prac­tice. b) A Mem­ber quer­ied the park­ing lay­out. With­in the plans there is an extens­ive park­ing area and also an area set aside for motor homes. Would this allow overnight park­ing for motor homes or just an area for when vis­it­ing dur­ing the day? Head of Stra­tegic plan­ning con­firmed park­ing is not being increased sub­stan­tially. With regards the camper­van park­ing, they are lar­ger more dif­fi­cult vehicles to park and there­fore have a sep­ar­ate area. This is not for overnight parking.

4. The Com­mit­tee were invited to dis­cuss the report and the fol­low­ing points were raised:

   a) Mem­bers com­men­ted this was a very good applic­a­tion, with inter­est­ing new build­ings and design. Over­all a fab­ulous attrac­tion. The cur­rent build­ing have been there a very long time and anti­quated. The Wild­life Park are a sig­ni­fic­ant employ­er and are act­ively involved in con­ser­va­tion through­out Scot­land. A fant­ast­ic upgrade and invest­ment for this area.

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

6. Action Point arising: none

7. Fiona McLean returned to the room.

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Agenda Item 8: Detailed Plan­ning Per­mis­sion 2021/0258/DET (APP/2021/1879)) Erec­tion of 8 Indus­tri­al Units (Class 4 – Busi­ness) Asso­ci­ated Infra­struc­ture and Form­a­tion of Access at Lions Face Quarry Depot, Brae­mar, Aberdeenshire Recom­mend­a­tion: Approve Sub­ject to Conditions

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

2. The Com­mit­tee were invited to ask points of clar­ity, the fol­low­ing points were raised:

   a) A Mem­ber quer­ied envir­on­ment­al issues spe­cific­ally around the sewage treat­ment plant. Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning con­firmed both SEPA and NatureScot were con­sul­ted on this issue and they were sat­is­fied. The sewage treat­ment facil­ity will be licensed by and meet the stand­ards required by SEPA for the sys­tems that drain into the River Dee. b) A Mem­ber quer­ied the foot­path and would this foot­path have to use a sec­tion of the new access road, branch­ing off through the trees. Is this also to be avail­able through­out con­struc­tion and there­after in per­petu­ity? The Mem­ber expec­ted to see the access to be sep­ar­ate from the access road. Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning con­firmed he would have to check the exact details. There would have to be meas­ures put in place to give access dur­ing con­struc­tion and it would have to be main­tained. c) A Mem­ber with loc­al know­ledge stated for inform­a­tion there had been forestry oper­a­tions with­in the area and the storm brought down a sig­ni­fic­ant amount of trees, so ima­gined the Estate would be look­ing at access around the whole area. d) A Mem­ber quer­ied what did hap­pen after a storm and trees are lost, in terms of tree screen­ing. Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning con­firmed there is mit­ig­a­tion pro­posed with this applic­a­tion. With trees lost dur­ing the storm, the applic­ant may come in with addi­tion­al land­scape pro­pos­als for that loss and also nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion will occur.

3. The Agent Etienne Murphy was present at the meet­ing but happy not to give a presentation.

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

   a) A Mem­ber stated they were very pleased to see this applic­a­tion come for­ward. The situ­ation of not hav­ing small units for busi­nesses has been raised over sev­er­al years and this is very wel­comed. b) Anoth­er Mem­ber stated there is a real loc­al need. A good applic­a­tion and design.

5. The Com­mit­tee agreed this applic­a­tion as per the con­di­tions stated in the report.

6. Action Point arising:

   (i) Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning to con­firm the exact details for the foot­path, dur­ing con­struc­tion and thereafter.

Agenda Item 9: AOB

1. Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning provided the fol­low­ing updates:

   a) Plan­ning Per­form­ance Frame­work Feed­back for ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁, there will be a Plan­ning Per­form­ance Paper for Mem­bers at the Janu­ary Com­mit­tee. The feed­back we have is for the PPF ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁ from Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment. It shows we have main­tained a good stand­ard of per­form­ance. Those applic­a­tions we have been marked as amber for, we are a little behind the nation­al aver­age for determ­in­a­tion, but over­all this is a good report. b) Last Week the High­land Coun­cil agreed their pro­pos­als for a Short Term Let Con­trol Area cov­er­ing Badenoch and Strath­spey. High­land Coun­cil Officers are work­ing up the details and a Con­sulta­tion on this Short Term Let Con­trol Area. This con­sulta­tion will be for a peri­od of 6 weeks from 10 Janu­ary 2022 until 25 Feb­ru­ary 2022. A Paper will there­after be brought to Com­mit­tee with a pro­posed response to the con­sulta­tion. As Officers we will also be required to work closely with High­land Council.

2. The Com­mit­tee were invited to raise items, the fol­low­ing was raised:

   a) A Mem­ber asked if there had been any update from Sco­trail on the area at the new Hos­pit­al for access. Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning did not have an update but would invest­ig­ate, sup­port­ing High­land Coun­cil in their work with Sco­trail. b) A Mem­ber stated he had received com­ments on the new Dis­til­lery out­side Grant­own in rela­tion to the design of the build­ing and lack of sig­nage. Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning con­firmed this was a devel­op­ment the Com­mit­tee had approved and that sig­nage would be installed as the devel­op­ment pro­gressed. c) A Mem­ber raised on the 7 Decem­ber 2021, the Stand­ards Com­mis­sion pro­duced updated guid­ance for the Code of Con­duct for Coun­cil­lors, with par­tic­u­lar ref­er­ence in declar­ing interests. Is this some­thing that would be on the hori­zon for Board Mem­bers? Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning con­firmed he would bring this up with Dav­id Camer­on, Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices. Zander McDade con­firmed there is a new Code for Pub­lic Bod­ies, where we have been giv­en approx­im­ately 6 months to adopt and this would be pro­gressed. d) The Con­vener raised con­cerns regard­ing the mes­saging func­tion with­in our meet­ing room and par­tic­u­larly the use of it today. The Con­vener asked that Mem­bers only use this func­tion if you are hav­ing dif­fi­culties. This is not a facil­ity to ask ques­tions. A request was also to pass this on to applic­ants and agents, it is not a for­um to answer, ask ques­tions or com­ment. Applic­ants and Agents would made aware of this in future. e) A Mem­ber quer­ied IT issues and when num­bers are above 30 this is where Mem­bers are being kicked off the sys­tem. When num­bers are below 30, the sys­tem seems ok. Can this be looked at? Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning con­firmed he will have this looked at.

3. Action Points arising:

   (i) Doc­u­ment on Com­mit­tee meet­ing Etiquette to be pro­duced for applicants/​agents and speak­ers attend­ing Plan­ning Com­mit­tee meet­ings. (ii) Lifes­ize IT issues to be looked at and monitored.

Agenda Item 10: Date of Next Meeting

1. The Con­vener wished every­body and Happy Christ­mas and the date of the next meet­ing is Fri­day 28^th Janu­ary 2022 at 10am via video/​telephone conference.

2. The pub­lic busi­ness of the meet­ing con­cluded at 12.18 hours.