APPROVED COM­MIT­TEE MINUTES

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

MINUTES OF THE PLAN­NING COMMITTEE

held Vir­tu­ally

on 11^th Novem­ber 2022 at 10:00am

Mem­bers Present:

Dr Gaen­er Rodger (Con­vener) Elean­or Mack­in­tosh (Deputy Con­vener) Chris Beat­tie Geva Black­ett Bill Lob­ban Derek Ross John Kirk Rus­sell Jones Ann Ross Janet Hunter

Xan­der McDade Doug McAdam Wil­lie McK­enna Dr Fiona McLean Wil­lie Mun­ro Judith Webb Deirdre Fal­con­er Anne Rae Macdonald

In Attend­ance:

Emma Bryce, Plan­ning Man­ager, Devel­op­ment Man­age­ment Stephanie Wade, Plan­ning Officer, Devel­op­ment Man­age­ment Gav­in Miles, Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning Peter Fer­guson, Harp­er McLeod LLP Emma Green­lees, Plan­ning Sup­port Officer Mari­aan Pita, Exec­ut­ive Sup­port Manager

Agenda Items I & 2: Wel­come & Apologies

1. The Con­vener wel­comed all present and no apo­lo­gies were noted.
2. The con­vener con­firm that this meet­ing is live streamed and wel­comed all those that joined the meeting.

Deirdre Fal­con­er joined the meet­ing at 10:08

Agenda Item 3: Declar­a­tion of Interest by Mem­bers on Items Appear­ing on the Agenda

1. Derek Ross declared an interest in item No. 6 and No. 7 Reas­on: He had com­men­ted in pub­lic about the Scot­tish Government’s decision to approve the Garb­et wind­farm con­trary to the decision of Moray Coun­cil plan­ning com­mit­tee which he is part of and he made fur­ther gen­er­al com­ments regard­ing wind farms and their effects on the landscape.

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Agenda Item 4: Minutes & Mat­ters Arising from the Pre­vi­ous Meeting

1. Minutes and con­fid­en­tial minutes of the pre­vi­ous meet­ing, 23^rd of Septem­ber 2022 were approved with no amendments.
2. Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning provided an update on Nation­al Park Frame­work 4 that was presen­ted before par­lia­ment earli­er this week. He noted that it would become part of the stat­utory devel­op­ment plan in future and explained that it did not have any sig­ni­fic­ant bear­ing on decisions being taken by the Com­mit­tee at this stage, but that it was pos­sible that the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment Energy Con­sents Unit or DPEA would ask the CNPA if it changed the CNPA’s response to any wind­farm con­sulta­tions out­side the Nation­al Park in future.

Agenda Item 5: Detailed Plan­ning Per­mis­sion 2022/0291/DET Erec­tion of tem­por­ary sales cab­in At Land 225M East of Carr Farm, Carr Road, Car­rbridge 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) Con­cerns about traffic calm­ing and road safety were raised on Carr Road of the pre­vi­ous 2019 applic­a­tion and ques­tioned if this has been installed pri­or to work on site. b) Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning con­firmed that it hadn’t yet been installed. The developer had attemp­ted to get the neces­sary per­mis­sion to under­take the work but had encountered prob­lems in the pro­cessing of those applic­a­tions with High­land Coun­cil. The council’s road engin­eers had con­firmed that devel­op­ment could start on site under the Con­struc­tion Traffic Man­age­ment Plan as the traffic calm­ing meas­ures were inten­ded to slow res­id­en­tial traffic once the devel­op­ment was com­pleted. The developer was now wait­ing for High­land Council’s 20mph traffic orders for Car­rbridge to be con­firmed and could then imple­ment the traffic calm­ing meas­ures. c) Ques­tions were asked about what CNPA are doing about com­plaints about traffic. d) Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning con­firmed that CNPA officers were rein­for­cing the meas­ures that the developer said they would do in their con­struc­tion man­age­ment traffic plan and were con­sid­er­ing what form­al action could be applied if neces­sary. e) Clar­ity was asked on how long it will be before the traffic calm­ing scheme is in place as the res­id­ents are con­cerned about this. f) Head of Stra­tegic plan­ning reminded mem­bers that we were talk­ing about the cur­rent plan­ning applic­a­tion for a tem­por­ary sales cab­in and not the previous

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one refer­ring to the main site and where there are issues. He explained that the developer was now wait­ing for High­land Council’s 20mph traffic orders for Car­rbridge to be con­firmed and would then be able to imple­ment the traffic calm­ing meas­ures. He poin­ted that the neither the developer nor the CNPA could influ­ence that pro­cess or timescales.

1. The Com­mit­tee were invited to dis­cuss the report, and no fur­ther points were raised.

2. The Com­mit­tee APPROVED Plan­ning Per­mis­sion for the applic­a­tion as per the recom­mend­a­tion in the Officer’s report.

3. Action Point arising: None.

Derek Ross left the meet­ing at 10:24

Agenda Item 6: FOR DECISION Craig Watch Wind Farm (2022/0217/PAC) (ECU00002177) RECOM­MEND­A­TION: No Objection

1. Stephanie Wade, Plan­ning Officer 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) A mem­ber wanted to know what the loc­al authority’s view was on this plan­ning applic­a­tion. The Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning advised that he was not aware of the loc­al authority’s opin­ion on the applic­a­tion but poin­ted out that it would’net be a rel­ev­ant con­sid­er­a­tion for the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee to take account of in reach­ing their decision.

3. The Com­mit­tee were invited to dis­cuss the report, the fol­low­ing points were raised: a) Mem­bers agreed that they were happy to approve the proposal.

4. The Com­mit­tee agreed to the recom­mend­a­tion of NO OBJEC­TION in the Officer’s report.

5. Action Point arising: None.

Agenda Item 7: FOR DECISION Cloi­che Wind Farm (2020/0121/PAC) (ECU00002054) RECOM­MEND­A­TION: Objection

1. Emma Bryce, Plan­ning Man­ager (Devel­op­ment Man­age­ment) presen­ted the paper to the Committee.

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

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a) Cla­ri­fic­a­tion was asked on the pho­tos shown as one mem­ber did not see any dif­fer­ence in one. The Plan­ning Man­ager showed the pho­tos again explained the rel­ev­ant images.

1. The Com­mit­tee were invited to dis­cuss the report, the fol­low­ing points were raised: a) A mem­ber noted that at closest view­points, the change in impacts was prob­ably not sig­ni­fic­ant because of the exist­ing wind tur­bines, but acknow­ledged that the addi­tion­al impacts of te pro­pos­als on oth­er areas was sig­ni­fic­ant. b) Mem­bers agreed that they would object to the proposal.

2. The Com­mit­tee agreed to OBJECT to the pro­pos­al for the reas­ons set out in the Officer’s report.

3. Action Point arising: None.

Derek Ross joined the meet­ing 10:43

Agenda Item 8: FOR INFORMATION PRE/2022/0024 Pro­pos­al of Applic­a­tion Res­id­en­tial Devel­op­ment with Asso­ci­ated Access, Land­scap­ing, SUDS and Ancil­lary Works at Site HI, Mon­al­trie Park, Ballater

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

2. The Com­mit­tee were invited to ask ques­tions or com­ments the fol­low­ing points were raised: a) Could accom­mod­a­tion be alloc­ated for pub­lic or care sec­tor employ­ees? Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning advised that the developer had been speak­ing to Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil inform­ally as a hous­ing author­ity and that the developer was aware that Bal­later is one of the com­munit­ies where the CNPA was look­ing for 45% afford­able hous­ing and would be look­ing at the range of hous­ing options that could allow that. b) Clar­ity was asked on where the flood pro­tec­tion scheme is for Bal­later, as a mem­ber recalled there were cer­tain build­ings that showed to be relo­cated to the site like the fire sta­tion. Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning con­firmed that the study the mem­ber was refer­ring had recom­men­ded move­ment of built devel­op­ment but had not under­taken any assess­ment of the prac­tic­al­ity or viab­il­ity of such changes. c) A mem­ber ques­tioned how the rents are set and how real­ist­ic mid-mar­ket rent­als were as they thought they were too high. The Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning advised that it was too early to know what would be pro­posed at this stage and that he had referred to mid-mar­ket rent as a pos­sible example of the range of afford­able hous­ing options that might be proposed.

RECOM­MEND­A­TION: That the Plan­ning Committee a) Note the Pro­pos­al of Applic­a­tion Noti­fic­a­tion for b) Note the CNPA Officer’s advice on the issues to address; and

APPROVED COM­MIT­TEE MINUTES

c) Make com­ment on any addi­tion­al rel­ev­ant issues to be addressed in any future application.

1. The Com­mit­tee noted the officer’s report

2. Action Point arising: None.

Agenda Item 9: FOR INFORMATION Plan­ning Appeal Decision – 2021/0168/DET (PPA-001‑2025) Erec­tion of 8 hol­i­day lodges and plant/​storage build­ing, form­a­tion of vehicle access, park­ing and turn­ing areas, install­a­tion of sewage treat­ment plant and sur­face water soakaways, Land north-west of Glen Clova Hotel, Glen Clova, Angus, DD8 4QS

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

2. The Com­mit­tee were invited to ask ques­tions or com­ments and no points were raised.

3. The Com­mit­tee noted the officer’s report.

4. Action Point arising: None.

Agenda Item 10: AOB

1. Con­cern was raised by a mem­ber in response to item 9 because when they read the plan­ning appeal decision, they con­sidered there were incon­sist­en­cies between indi­vidu­al report­ers’ decisions. They con­sidered that the dif­fer­ent report­er decisions in sep­ar­ate plan­ning appeals had inter­preted policy dif­fer­ently and asked if the CNPA could do any­thing to improve the DPEA’s pro­cesses in decision-making.

2. The Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning respon­ded that both applic­a­tions were dif­fer­ent and that both appeals were dif­fer­ent. He explained that the report­ers had applied the same policies in the two cases in the same way, but that in one case (Item 9 of the agenda) the report­er had agreed with the CNPA’s assess­ment of sig­ni­fic­ant neg­at­ive land­scape impacts and that in the oth­er case (a hut beside the river Tromie) they had reached a dif­fer­ent con­clu­sion on the scale and sig­ni­fic­ance of land­scape impacts. That dif­fer­ence of opin­ion on the impacts in the Tromie appeal had res­ul­ted in a dif­fer­ent con­clu­sion through apply­ing the same policy tests. He advised that there wasn’t any­thing that the CNPA could do to change that.

Agenda Item 11: Date of Next Meeting

1. The date of the next meet­ing is Fri­day 9^th Decem­ber 2022 in person.

2. The pub­lic busi­ness of the meet­ing con­cluded at 11.04 hours.