220527PCDraftMinsV03

DRAFT COM­MIT­TEE MINUTES

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

DRAFT MINUTES OF THE PLAN­NING COM­MIT­TEE held in Spey/​Dee Meet­ing rooms, CNPA HQ, Grant­own on Spey (hybrid) on 27 May 2022 at 9.30am

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

In Attend­ance: Mur­ray Fer­guson, Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning & Place Emma Bryce, Plan­ning Man­ager, Devel­op­ment Man­age­ment Stephanie Wade, Plan­ning Officer, Devel­op­ment Man­age­ment Peter Fer­guson, Harp­er McLeod LLP Gav­in Miles, Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning Agent Bri­an Muir and Land Man­ager Jim Corn­foot – Agenda Item 5 Tessa Jones — Badenoch and Strath­spey Con­ser­va­tion Group – Agenda Item 5

Apo­lo­gies: Car­o­lyn Cad­dick Wil­lie Munro

Agenda Items I & 2: Wel­come & Apologies

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

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

1. The minutes of the pre­vi­ous meet­ing, 22 April 2022, held via video con­fer­en­cing were approved sub­ject to the fol­low­ing amend­ments: • At Para 15h on the 5^th line the word ​‘the’ be deleted from the sentence.

2. Out­stand­ing Actions from Pre­vi­ous Meetings

• At Para 13i) – Closed — The Plan­ning Officer would include an inform­at­ive note of the sug­ges­tion of a com­mem­or­ative plaque/​information board about the demol­ished build­ing, to the Applic­ant on the form­al decision of the com­mit­tee. • At Para 13ii) – Closed ‑The Plan­ning Officer would make the High­land Coun­cil aware of the his­tor­ic nature of the build­ing to be demol­ished. • At Para 18i) – In Hand — The for­ward plan­ning team will under­take mon­it­or­ing of com­muted sums for afford­able hous­ing and report to Com­mit­tee with mon­it­or­ing of LDP.

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

1. Doug McAdam declared an Interest in a Con­fid­en­tial Item b. under AOB. Reas­on: Pre­vi­ously declared a con­flict of interest. Leav­ing the meet­ing for this item.

Agenda Item 5: Detailed Plan­ning Per­mis­sion 2022/0046/DET (22/00029/FLL) Form­a­tion of bike track and related infra­struc­ture Ranger Base Office, Cairngorm Moun­tain, Glen­more, Aviemore Recom­mend­a­tion: Approve Sub­ject to Con­di­tions & Developer Contributions

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

2. The Com­mit­tee were invited to ask points of clar­ity, the fol­low­ing points were raised: a) Con­cern that bikers and walk­ers would be using the same path, was it wide enough that there would not be any con­flict? The plan­ning officer con­firmed that this would be for the bike ascent trail only, so speed would remain low, and the path would be a min­im­um of 2m in width. b) Dis­cus­sion about this and oth­er devel­op­ment on the site. Increase in driv­ing to this facil­ity a con­cern, espe­cially in view of cli­mate change. Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning con­firmed that in the longer term the Her­it­age Hori­zons Cairngorms 2030 pro­ject was work­ing to provide bet­ter pub­lic trans­port in the area but that there was also no cur­rent plan to stop vehicles using the pub­lic road. c) Dis­cus­sion around two oth­er moun­tain bike trails in the Park, if these are not used to capa­city should we be cre­at­ing a new one? Had there been a ​‘needs assess­ment done?’ Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning explained Cairngorms Moun­tains (CMSL) was work­ing with the organ­isa­tion Devel­op­ing Moun­tain Bik­ing in Scot­land (DMBS) and had car­ried out mar­ket assess­ments. This was an easy fam­ily mar­ket with more super­vi­sion than oth­er loc­a­tions cater­ing for a dif­fer­ent part of the mar­ket. Peter Fer­guson, Harp­er McLeod noted that ​‘needs assess­ment’ was rarely a con­sid­er­a­tion in plan­ning applic­a­tions. d) Con­cern about e‑bikes expressed? There was no plan to use elec­tric vehicles as far as the CNPA was aware, but if there was a prob­lem with speed­ing the applic­ant will need to man­age this. Noted this was not an open facil­ity but

was paid for which means great­er level of care and duty than oth­er cycle tracks. e) What would hap­pen when it was a ski area not a bike area? It would be under snow in the winter. It was con­firmed that it would remain part of the ski area in winter conditions.

1. Tessa Jones spoke on behalf of the Badenoch and Spey Con­ser­va­tion Group object­ing to the Application.

2. The Con­vener thanked Tessa Jones for her presentation.

3. The Com­mit­tee were invited to dis­cuss the report, the fol­low­ing points were raised: a) Con­cern expressed over the rela­tion­ship with HIE’s Cairngorm Mas­ter­plan. Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning con­firmed that the mas­ter­plan provides a back­ground and rationale for pro­pos­als that come for­ward as plan­ning applic­a­tions, but that it wasn’t a form­al plan­ning doc­u­ment adop­ted by the CNPA. b) It was noted that there was also a plan for it to be an edu­ca­tion­al facil­ity accom­mod­at­ing young people using trails. Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning advised this was not part of this applic­a­tion but was part of CMSL’s approach to explain­ing the reas­ons that dif­fer­ent parts of the area are man­aged dif­fer­ently to pro­tect the most spe­cial areas. Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning advised that the plan­ning applic­a­tion needs to be assessed against plan­ning policy and that officers con­sidered the pro­pos­als accept­able. He noted that the applic­ant had worked with the CNPA and NatureScot to cre­ate a pro­pos­al that would did not have impacts on the pro­tec­ted sites in the vicin­ity but still provided a diver­si­fic­a­tion oppor­tun­ity for the busi­ness on the hill. c) Oth­er con­cerns about the effect on the envir­on­ment of the applic­a­tion dis­cussed. d) Was this the right envir­on­ment for a starter facil­ity for young people in such an exposed site? Con­cerns about Health & Safety at this height. e) The fol­low­ing were noted; there was no des­ig­na­tion on this site; if the weath­er was bad people would not use the site; one of the aims of the Nation­al Park was to pro­mote recre­ation­al activ­ity, bene­fit to 1000s of young people; moun­tain bik­ing as an Olympi­an sport.

4. Elean­or Mack­in­tosh pro­posed an amend­ment to refuse this applic­a­tion on the grounds of Land­scape Impact:

“This devel­op­ment does not improve or enhance the land­scape there­fore was con­trary to Policy 5.1 and part of policy 2.3 which sup­ports tour­ism but states this should have no adverse impact on the land­scape. There­fore, this applic­a­tion does not sup­port or com­ply with the loc­al devel­op­ment plan as a whole.”

1. This was Seconded by Xan­der McDade.

2. Gaen­er Rodger pro­posed the motion in the officers’ recom­mend­a­tion, seconded by Peter Argyle.

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

NAME MOTION AMEND­MENT ABSTAIN Peter Argyle | Geva Black­ett | Deirdre Fal­con­er | Pippa Had­ley Janet Hunter | John Kirk | John Lath­am Elean­or Mack­in­tosh | Douglas McAdam | Xan­der McDade | Wil­lie McK­enna | Ian McLar­en Fiona McLean | Anne Rae Mac­don­ald | Gaen­er Rodger | Derek Ross | Judith Webb | TOTAL 9 7 1

1. The Com­mit­tee approved the applic­a­tion as per the recom­mend­a­tion in the Officer’s report.

2. Action Point arising: None

Agenda Item 6: Detailed Plan­ning Per­mis­sion 2021/0407/DET (21/05682/FUL) Change of use of land to form 3 staff (replace­ment), farm­houses includ­ing asso­ci­ated access, drain­age, land­scape, ground works, ser­vices and the demoli­tion of Lyn­voan Cot­tage and out­build­ings At Land 795M West of Garden Cot­tage, Kin­gussie Recom­mend­a­tion: Approve Sub­ject to Conditions

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

2. The Com­mit­tee were invited to ask points of clar­ity, the fol­low­ing points were raised: a) Would the CNPA be cre­at­ing a pre­ced­ent by allow­ing the demoli­tion of a cot­tage? Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning explained it does not cre­ate a precedent

b) in terms of plan­ning decisions; that every decision was take on its mer­its; and that there were cri­ter­ia in plan­ning policy on which to base decisions. Was this being forced on the estate by the new A9 dualling? Plan­ning Officer con­firmed the occu­pants were plan­ning to move dwell­ings fur­ther from the A9 and that the farm was mov­ing as a res­ult of the A9 dualling pro­gramme. c) As the pref­er­ence for this type of cot­tage was usu­ally res­tor­a­tion, why was it being demol­ished? Plan­ning Officer explained that in its cur­rent state it would not meet the stand­ards for let­ting a prop­erty, the cost was a con­sid­er­a­tion, and the new cot­tages would be more com­fort­able. d) With ref­er­ence to Hous­ing devel­op­ment and Policy 1.3 oth­er hous­ing in the coun­tryside para 34a, was there any way we can ensure through con­di­tion that it would not be sold as non-work­ers accom­mod­a­tion in the future? Peter Fer­guson, Harp­er McLeod explained the reas­on this has action has reduced since sig­ni­fic­ant change in policy in 2011. e) It was con­firmed there will be no impact to exist­ing access through the prop­erty. f) Ques­tion about the use of con­crete in the farm/​access tracks. Head of Plan­ning and Place explained that con­crete was pro­posed because of steep gradi­ents to be used by heavy agri­cul­tur­al vehicles, which would dam­age softer surfaces.

1. The Com­mit­tee were invited to dis­cuss the report, the fol­low­ing com­ment was made: a) Good to see agri­cul­tur­al houses built to a standard.

2. The Com­mit­tee approved the applic­a­tion as per the recom­mend­a­tion in the Officer’s report.

3. Action Point arising: None

Agenda Item 7: FOR INFORM­A­TION Plan­ning Ser­vice Per­form­ance Update Report

1. Gav­in Miles, Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning presen­ted the paper to the Com­mit­tee and explained a) They will be com­ing back to com­mit­tee to con­firm ser­vice pri­or­it­ies for this year. b) Look­ing at chan­ging the format to includ­ing some more inform­at­ive points to make it more incite­ful for future reports.

2. The Com­mit­tee were invited to dis­cuss the report, the fol­low­ing points were raised: a) a good report, praise giv­en for a com­plic­ated set of reports and com­ment made that a sim­pler way of present­a­tion would be good. b) The Con­vener expressed thanks to Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning and his team.

3. Action Points arising: (i) Con­firm­a­tion of Ser­vice Pri­or­it­ies to be brought back to a future Com­mit­tee meeting.

(ii) Change the format of future reports.

Agenda Item 8: AOB

1. Motion to take two items in con­fid­en­tial ses­sion which was accep­ted by the Committee.

Agenda Item 9: Date of Next Meeting

1. The date of the next meet­ing is Fri­day 24^th June 2022 at 10am via video/​telephone conference.

2. The pub­lic busi­ness of the meet­ing con­cluded at 11.30 hours.