CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

MINUTES OF THE PLAN­NING COMMITTEE

held Vir­tu­ally and Cairngorm Nation­al Park HQ, Grant­own On Spey on 9^th Decem­ber 2022 at 09.30 am

Mem­bers Present:

Dr Gaen­er Rodger (Con­vener) Elean­or Mack­in­tosh (Deputy Con­vener) Chris Beat­tie Fiona McLean Bill Lob­ban Derek Ross John Kirk Janet Hunter Anne Rae Mac­don­ald Xan­der McDade Doug McAdam Wil­lie McK­enna Ann Ross Wil­lie Mun­ro Judith Webb Deirdre Fal­con­er Geva Blackett

In Attend­ance:

Emma Bryce, Plan­ning Man­ager, Devel­op­ment Man­age­ment Stephanie Wade, Plan­ning Officer, Devel­op­ment Man­age­ment Gav­in Miles, Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning Dan Har­ris, Plan­ning Man­ager, For­ward Plan­ning & Ser­vice Improve­ment Ed Swales, Mon­it­or­ing and Enforce­ment Officer Nas­im Mehr­abi, Gradu­ate Plan­ner Peter Fer­guson, Harp­er McLeod LLP Alan Atkins, Plan­ning Officer, Devel­op­ment Man­age­ment Emma Green­lees, Plan­ning Sup­port Officer Mari­aan Pita, Exec­ut­ive Sup­port Manager

Apo­lo­gies: Rus­sell Jones

Agenda Items I & 2: Wel­come & Apologies

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

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

1. Bill Lob­ban declared an interest in Item 5 Reas­on: Had pre­vi­ously objec­ted to the wider hous­ing devel­op­ment and would with­draw from this item.

2. Derek Ross declared an interest in item 6 Reas­on: He sits on the Moray Coun­cil plan­ning com­mit­tee loc­al review body and declared for reas­ons of trans­par­ency and would still take part in discussions.

3. John Kirk declared an interest in item 5 Reas­on: His com­pany under­takes snow clear­ing for Scot­tish Water and declared this for reas­on of trans­par­ency but would still take part in discussions.

4. Chris Beat­tie declared an interest in item 6 Reas­on: He sits on the Angus Coun­cil plan­ning com­mit­tee loc­al review body and declared for reas­ons of trans­par­ency and would still take part in discussions.

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

1. The Com­mit­tee approved the minutes of the pre­vi­ous meet­ing of 9 Novem­ber 2022.

2. There were no Mat­ters Arising from the Pre­vi­ous Meeting.

Bill Lob­ban left the meet­ing at 9:39am

Agenda Item 5: Detailed Plan­ning Per­mis­sion 2022/0167/DET (22/01893/FUL) Re-loc­a­tion of sew­er pump­ing sta­tion At Land North­w­est of Dal­faber Farm, Dal­faber Drive, Aviemore

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: a) A mem­bers asked why the red line includes down to Cor­rour Drive. b) Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning con­firmed that the red line in the plan­ning applic­a­tion linked to the exist­ing pub­lic road net­work rather than the road net­work that would be present once the hous­ing devel­op­ment was completed.

3. The Com­mit­tee were invited to dis­cuss the report, the fol­low­ing points were raised: a) A mem­ber noted this was a neces­sary part of the development.

4. The Com­mit­tee APPROVED Plan­ning Per­mis­sion for the applic­a­tion as per the recom­mend­a­tion in the Officer’s report and sub­ject to conditions.

5. Action Point arising: None.

Agenda Item 6: FOR DECISION: Plan­ning Enforce­ment Charter Review

1. Edward Swales, Mon­it­or­ing and Enforce­ment officer presen­ted the paper to the Com­mit­tee and explained it was improved in Septem­ber 2020 and is still fit for purpose.

Bill Lob­ban joined at 10:00

1. The Com­mit­tee were invited to dis­cuss the report, the fol­low­ing points were raised: a) A mem­bers asked if all six plan­ning author­it­ies with­in the park, are all the loc­al author­it­ies con­sist­ent or doing some­thing dif­fer­ent. Does the Enforce­ment Charter need to be reviewed every three years? b) Head of Plan­ning con­firmed that the Enforce­ment Charter is brough to com­mit­tee every year. All enforce­ment is a dis­cre­tion depend­ing on the author­ity and prop­er­ties case work dif­fer­ently. A lot of enforce­ment comes down to big­ger more con­tro­ver­sial sites, pro­cess the same across Scot­land. c) A mem­ber com­ments that the Charter ser­vice us well we have enforce­ment cases fre­quently and would have received feed­back if amend­ments were needed.

Recom­mend­a­tion That the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee approve the Plan­ning Enforce­ment Charter for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority.

1. The Com­mit­tee Agreed the enforce­ment charter.

2. Action Point arising: None.

Agenda Item 7: FOR INFORM­A­TION Plan­ning Ser­vice Per­form­ance Update

1. Gav­in Miles, Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning presen­ted the paper to update and inform the Com­mit­tee on the stat­ist­ic­al per­form­ance of the CNPA plan­ning ser­vice to Quarter 2 of ²⁰²²⁄₂₃ for CNPA stat­ist­ics, enforce­ment activ­ity, and wider plan­ning ser­vice improve­ment work.

2. The Com­mit­tee were invited to dis­cuss the report, the fol­low­ing points were raised: a) A mem­ber asked wheth­er there were times­cales for com­ple­tion of the actions described in the table on page 4. b) Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning replied that officers would dis­cuss at Con­veners meet­ings and sched­ule an update for the com­mit­tee in the 2023.

Recom­mend­a­tion That the Com­mit­tee: i. Note the intern­al plan­ning ser­vice mon­it­or­ing res­ults out­lined in this report.

1. The com­mit­tee noted the paper, and that update will be made in 2023.

2. Action Point arising: None.

Agenda Item 8 FOR INFORM­A­TION: Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 Update

1. Dan Har­ris, Plan­ning Man­ager presen­ted the paper to update and inform the Com­mit­tee on the cur­rent status of Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4’ (NPF4).

2. The Com­mit­tee were invited to dis­cuss the report, the fol­low­ing points were raised: a) A mem­ber asked about rur­al revital­isa­tion against the 10-year min­im­um hous­ing require­ment and what does this mean for CNPA for land require­ments and looks a great­er than the pre­vi­ous num­ber. b) The Plan­ning Man­ager respon­ded that it is not a great increase in num­bers as the time­frame had increased from 5 years to 10 years. c) A mem­ber asked if Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment had more sup­port for loc­al account­ab­il­ity and demo­cracy in the plan­ning sys­tem. d) Plan­ning Man­ager respon­ded that there was no big change in rep­res­ent­a­tion on plan­ning author­it­ies or sup­port for com­munity coun­cils but that NPF4 provided a frame­work for Loc­al Place Plans. e) A mem­ber noted para twelve high­lighted five areas of Nation­al devel­op­ment and wondered how pro­act­ive the CNPA should be on them and how they linked to the Nation­al Park’s eco­nom­ic strategy. f) Plan­ning Man­ager noted that the LDP would be expec­ted to provide sup­port if any of those top­ics were iden­ti­fied as being par­tic­u­larly rel­ev­ant by the agen­cies respons­ible for lead­ing on them. Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning added that the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan provided the eco­nom­ic strategy for the Nation­al Park. g) A mem­ber noted that Para 28 men­tions policy thirty strengthens the pos­i­tion on Short Term Lets. They asked if NPF4 provided any sup­port to con­vert exist­ing build­ings for long term res­id­en­tial rent. h) Plan­ning Man­ager noted that with­in con­text of the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan there was a require­ment for the CNPA to set out a state­ment how the plan­ning author­ity have con­sidered these things but that there didn’t appear to be any resource iden­ti­fied with­in NPF4 to enable such con­ver­sion i) Plan­ning Man­ager con­cluded that officers would provide an update on NPF4 once adop­ted – expec­ted to be around March 2023. j) Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning con­firmed that once adop­ted NPF4 becomes part of Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan and that Plan­ning Com­mit­tee reports would reflect the changed policy.

3. The com­mit­tee noted the paper

4. Action Point arising: None.

Agenda Item 9: AOB

1. Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning noted that the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment were plan­ning to delay the date on which exist­ing prop­er­ties can apply for their Short Term Let Licences. The require­ment had been set at April 2023 but was expec­ted to be delayed for 6 months end of Octo­ber 2023. This would not change the require­ments for new oper­at­ors to apply for the licence.

2. Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning noted that at the Novem­ber 2022 Plan­ning Com­mit­tee meet­ing, mem­bers had dis­cussed plan­ning enforce­ment mat­ters in rela­tion to a hous­ing devel­op­ment at Car­rbridge and con­struc­tion traffic related to it. Officers had under­taken fur­ther mon­it­or­ing and iden­ti­fied clear breaches of the approved Con­struc­tion Traffic Man­age­ment Plan. Officers had been in con­tact with the developer on these issues fre­quently and con­sidered that unless the mat­ters improved quickly, a form­al notice to require com­pli­ance would be appro­pri­ate in early 2023. He noted that he had atten­ded the Car­rbridge Com­munity Coun­cil earli­er in the week and that they had been very clear in their con­cerns about the con­struc­tion traffic.

Agenda Item 10: Date of Next Meeting

1. The date of the next meet­ing is Fri­day 27 Janu­ary 2023 and will be online.

2. The pub­lic busi­ness of the meet­ing con­cluded at 10.15 hours.