220225CNPABdPaper1Annex1ShortTermLetBandS

The High­land Council

Com­hairle na Gàidhealtachd

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY Form­al Board Paper | Annex 1 | 25^th Feb­ru­ary 2022

Short Term Let Con­trol Area for Badenoch And Strathspey Sgìre Smachd Màil Gheàrr-ùine air­son Bhàideanach is Shrath

State­ment of Reasons Aith­ris Adhbharan

Back­ground

Cùl-fhios­rachadh

The des­ig­na­tion of a Short Term Let Con­trol Area requires to be sup­por­ted by a State­ment of Reas­ons. The fol­low­ing doc­u­ment and attach­ments make up the High­land Coun­cil (there­after called ​‘the Coun­cil’) State­ment of Reas­ons for the estab­lish­ment of a Short Term Let Con­trol Area across Badenoch & Strathspey.

Part 1 — Inten­tion to Promote

Intro­duc­tion

Ro-ràdh

The suc­cess of web­sites such as Airb­nb and book​ing​.com has res­ul­ted in a big rise of houses and flats being used for tem­por­ary hol­i­day accom­mod­a­tion across the United King­dom and much of the world. The Coun­cil is now con­cerned that the num­ber of houses and flats being lost to this sec­tor in Badenoch & Strath­spey is such that it is unduly restrict­ing house sup­ply for full time res­id­ents and increas­ing loc­al house prices, all to the det­ri­ment of our loc­al communities.

Sec­tion 26B of the Town & Con­trol Plan­ning (Scot­land) Act 1997 as amended provides the Coun­cil the power to des­ig­nate a ​‘Short Term Let Con­trol Area’ across all or part of its region. The Town and Coun­try Plan­ning (Short-term Let Con­trol Areas) (Scot­land) Reg­u­la­tions 2021 sets out the defin­i­tion of a short-term let and the pro­cess for des­ig­nat­ing a ​‘Con­trol Area’. Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment Cir­cu­lar 1/2021 provides guid­ance on the imple­ment­a­tion of the legislation.

Com­ply­ing with the above legis­la­tion and guid­ance, the Coun­cil is pro­pos­ing to estab­lish a Short Term Let Con­trol Area for Ward 20: Badenoch & Strath­spey, includ­ing the Coun­cil area with­in the Cairngorm Nation­al Park.

Once estab­lished, with­in the Short Term Let Con­trol Area, the use of a dwell­ing­house¹ for sec­ond­ary let­ting will be deemed to be a ​‘mater­i­al change of use’ which will require plan­ning approv­al. How­ever, a Short Term Let Con­trol Area is not a ban on Short Term Lets, instead it will allow plan­ning policies to be used to assess applic­a­tions which change the use of a dwell­ing­house to this form of use and allow com­munit­ies and indi­vidu­als the right to make rep­res­ent­a­tions through the plan­ning applic­a­tion process.

It will not change the plan­ning require­ments around long-term rent­als, Bed & Break­fasts, rent­ing out indi­vidu­al rooms/​annexes if the owner/​occupier resides in the dwell­ing­house, second homes where no sec­ond­ary let­ting is done or accom­mod­a­tion built spe­cific­ally for hol­i­day pur­poses, such as pods, annexes and hol­i­day chalets.

The Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment is how­ever, bring­ing in sep­ar­ate legis­la­tion to licence all forms of Short Term Lets. The draft reg­u­la­tions for this were laid before Scot­tish Min­is­ters in late Novem­ber 2021 and if the draft legis­la­tion is passed as cur­rently pro­posed, all short-term lets in Scot­land, irre­spect­ive of type, will require to be licensed by 1 April 2024. The estab­lish­ment of a Short Term Let Con­trol Area across Badenoch & Strath­spey is not related to these new licen­cing require­ments and is instead being advanced only to con­trol dwell­ing­houses being used for sec­ond­ary letting.

¹ means, for these pur­poses, an inde­pend­ent dwell­ing (with its own front door, kit­chen and bath­room) being accom­mod­a­tion which ordin­ar­ily affords the facil­it­ies required for day-to-day private domest­ic exist­ence such as a house, flat, cot­tage. See also Annexe A of the Circular

Part 2 — State­ment of Reasons

The Need for a Short Term Let Con­trol Area in Badenoch & Strathspey

Feu­malachd air­son Sgìre Smachd Màil Gheàrr-ùine ann am Bàideanach & Srath Spè

At the Coun­cil meet­ing on 9^th Septem­ber 2021 at the spe­cif­ic request of all Ward 20 Mem­bers, it was agreed that the Coun­cil would pur­sue the con­sid­er­a­tion of estab­lish­ing a Short-term let Con­trol Area across Badenoch & Strathspey.

This detailed con­sid­er­a­tion was under­taken at the ECI Com­mit­tee Meet­ing on 2^nd Decem­ber 2021, where a detailed report (Item 16) out­lining the issues sec­ond­ary let­ting is hav­ing across Badenoch & Strath­spey was presen­ted. Mem­bers thereby agreed to pur­sue the estab­lish­ment of the Short-term let Con­trol Area for Ward 20: Badenoch & Strathspey.

In sum­mary the evid­ence, presen­ted to ECI Com­mit­tee in Decem­ber 2021 demon­strated that:

• Qual­it­at­ive evid­ence high­lights that loc­al people struggle to be able to access or afford to buy or rent hous­ing in their loc­al area.
• Qual­it­at­ive evid­ence high­lights that busi­nesses are strug­gling to attract staff due to the lim­ited avail­ab­il­ity of hous­ing to let or buy.
• In 2018, (latest data avail­able) house prices in Badenoch and Strath­spey were on aver­age £42,600 high­er than High­land aver­age and £42,756 high­er than Scot­land aver­age (Statistics.gov.scot).
• Over 17% of poten­tial hous­ing stock has been lost to ​‘tour­ist’ accom­mod­a­tion in Badenoch & Strath­spey (cal­cu­lated on Non Domest­ic Rates Self-Cater­ing Units and Coun­cil Tax Second Homes with­in the Badenoch and Strath­spey Hous­ing Mar­ket Area [HMA]).
• The Coun­cil Hous­ing Wait­ing List for Badenoch and Strath­spey HMA area has increased by 40% in the past 5 years. This is con­sid­er­ably high­er than across the rest of Highland.
• Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 has increased the afford­able hous­ing require­ment for new devel­op­ments to 45% in Aviemore to deal with the loss of hous­ing to sec­ond­ary let­ting and rising house prices related to it.
• Intens­ity of Short Term Lets has dis­pro­por­tion­ately affected the amen­ity of sev­er­al com­munit­ies across Badenoch & Strathspey.
• Sup­ports the Scot­tish Government’s repop­u­la­tion agenda by help­ing to ensure the avail­ab­il­ity of res­id­en­tial prop­er­ties for full time res­id­en­tial use.

To address these issues the estab­lish­ment of a Short Term Let Con­trol Area across Badenoch & Strath­spey will allow the Coun­cil (and CNPA) to ensure new and exist­ing dwell­ing­houses are avail­able and afford­able for loc­al work­ers and res­id­ents, by man­aging high con­cen­tra­tions of Short Term Let across the Ward area and ensur­ing homes and land is used to best effect. Addi­tion­ally, it will allow the Coun­cil (and CNPA) to con­trol sec­ond­ary let­ting of dwell­ing­houses to pro­tect neigh­bour­ing res­id­en­tial amen­ity and pri­vacy and affords loc­al com­munit­ies and res­id­ents the oppor­tun­ity to make rep­res­ent­a­tions through the plan­ning applic­a­tion process.

Assess­ment of Short Term Let Plan­ning Applic­a­tions Across Badenoch & Strath­spey Con­trol Area

Meas­adh lar­rtas­an Dealbhaidh Màil Gheàrr-ùine thar Sgìre Smachd Bhàideanach & Shrath Spè

The major­ity of the Short Term Let Con­trol Area in Badenoch & Strath­spey will be with­in the Cairngorm Nation­al Park Author­ity (CNPA) area. With­in which, applic­a­tions for the change of use of a dwell­ing­house to a Short Term Let prop­erty will be con­sidered and determ­ined in accord­ance with the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan and Cairngorms Nation Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021.

Out-with the CNPA area, applic­a­tions for the change of use of a dwell­ing­house to a Short Term Let prop­erty will be con­sidered and determ­ined in accord­ance with the High­land Coun­cil High­land-wide Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan and Area Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plans.

To provide a con­sist­ent policy frame­work to con­sider and determ­ine applic­a­tions for the change of use of a dwell­ing­house to a Short Term Let prop­erty across the High­land Coun­cil and Cairngorm Nation­al Park area, the pub­lic­a­tion of joint non-stat­utory plan­ning guid­ance will be con­sidered. This would be sub­ject to sep­ar­ate con­sulta­tion in due course.

Part 3 — Map

Pro­posed Bound­ary of Short Term Let Con­trol Area Across Badenoch & Strathspey

Crìoch ga Mol­adh air­son Sgìre Smachd Màil Gheàrr-ùine thar Bhàideanach & Shrath Spè

The bound­ary of the Short Term Let Con­trol Area across Badenoch & Strath­spey fol­lows the Ward 20 Bound­ary Line and includes the High­land Coun­cil area with­in the Cairngorm Nation­al Park. Doing so provides clar­ity on the geo­graph­ic­al area where plan­ning per­mis­sion for a change of use of a dwell­ing­house to a Short Term Let prop­erty is required, ensures the impact of Short Term Lets with­in the most affected towns and vil­lages with­in Badenoch & Strath­spey are not dis­persed to the imme­di­ate sur­round­ing rur­al areas and the Ward 20 polit­ic­al bound­ary closely fol­lows the Badenoch and Strath­spey Hous­ing Mar­ket Area bound­ary, which is used to assess hous­ing need across the Badenoch & Strath­spey area.

An inter­act­ive ver­sion of this map is avail­able on our web­site – www​.high​land​.gov​.uk