230127PCMinutesV10

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

DRAFT MINUTES OF THE PLAN­NING COM­MIT­TEE Held in Dee/​Spey rooms, via Video Con­fer­ence on 27^th Janu­ary 2023 at 09.30 am

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 Man­ager Gav­in Miles, Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning Peter Fer­guson, Harp­er McLeod LLP Emma Green­lees, Plan­ning Sup­port Officer Edward Swales, Mon­it­or­ing and Enforce­ment Officer Dan Har­ris, Plan­ning Man­ager Alan Atkins, Plan­ning Officer, Devel­op­ment Man­age­ment James Ade, Clerk to the Board Catri­ona Strang, Clerk to the Board

Apo­lo­gies None

Agenda Items I & 2: Wel­come & Apologies

1. The Con­vener wel­comed all present and no apo­lo­gies were noted.

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

1. John Kirk noted for trans­par­ency in Item 5. Reas­on: A fin­an­cial interest as he has a per­man­ent res­id­en­tial let property.

Anne Rae Mac­Don­ald noted for trans­par­ency in Item 5.

Reas­on: A fin­an­cial interest as the fam­ily busi­ness in East­er Ross has a short-term let cot­tage, out­side the Nation­al Park. Busi­ness is also a mem­ber of Go-Rur­al Agri- Tourism.

Doug McAdam noted for trans­par­ency in Item 5. Reas­on: A fin­an­cial interest as he has a short-term let cot­tage out­side the Nation­al Park.

Bill Lob­ban noted for trans­par­ency in Item 5. Reas­on: A mem­ber of High­land Coun­cil that has dis­cussed and intro­duced the inten­tion to pro­duce a short-term let con­trol zone.

Rus­sell Jones noted for trans­par­ency in Item 5. Reas­on: A mem­ber of High­land Coun­cil that has dis­cussed and intro­duced the inten­tion to pro­duce a short-term let con­trol zone.

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

1. The minutes of the pre­vi­ous meet­ing, 9^th Decem­ber 2022, held video con­fer­en­cing were approved with no amendments.

Agenda Item 5: Badenoch and Strath­spey short-term let con­trol area policy consultation.

1. Gav­in Miles, head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning, presen­ted the paper to the Com­mit­tee on behalf of Dan Har­ris, Plan­ning Manager.
2. The Com­mit­tee were invited to ask points of clar­ity, the fol­low­ing point was raised: a) A mem­ber asked for cla­ri­fic­a­tion on wheth­er the policy needs to be linked to the Nation­al Park devel­op­ment plan. Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning cla­ri­fied that this was a non-stat­utory policy that would provide a frame­work for decision-mak­ing. He noted that the next Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan for the Nation­al Park would incor­por­ate neces­sary plan­ning on short-term let­ting. b) A mem­ber asked for cla­ri­fic­a­tion on wheth­er policy only applies to exist­ing prop­er­ties not new builds. Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning con­firmed that the policy could also be applied to a new build property.
3. The Com­mit­tee were invited to dis­cuss the report, the fol­low­ing points were raised: a) Mem­bers raised con­cern on con­flict arising from prop­er­ties in rur­al areas being over 800 metres away from act­ive travel links. Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning gave assur­ance that the cri­ter­ia with­in the policy need to be taken into con­sid­er­a­tion but are not an exhaust­ive list. Addi­tion­ally, the cri­ter­ia are things that would nor­mally be taken into con­sid­er­a­tion in plan­ning applic­a­tion and a prag­mat­ic approach is needed. b) A mem­ber raised con­cerns that a loc­al news­pa­per sug­ges­ted short-term let plan­ning applic­a­tions have already been approved though had believed that they would be stalled to later in the year. Addi­tion­ally, the news­pa­per sug­gests that ser­viced apart­ments might be cre­at­ing loop­holes to get round short-term let

c) licen­cing reg­u­la­tions. Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning explained that coun­cils will be under pres­sure to determ­ine plan­ning applic­a­tions, in some cases have giv­en tem­por­ary decisions and that some prop­er­ties already have a long-estab­lished use as short-term lets. He noted that ser­viced apart­ments were expli­citly excluded from the short-term let licen­cing require­ments A mem­ber ques­tioned how the CNPA will meas­ure the impact on vis­it­or num­bers and the loc­al eco­nomy. It was con­firmed that officers would be mon­it­or­ing changes in vis­it­or num­bers as well as plan­ning decisions about short- term let prop­er­ties and the stat­ist­ics that would come from the licens­ing require­ments. d) Mem­ber raised that they would like to see a review with­in the year. Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning agreed that officers would bring back inform­a­tion on the mon­it­or­ing of short term let con­trol area to Plan­ning Com­mit­tee with­in the year and wider mon­it­or­ing of impacts of a con­trol area and licens­ing to the Board.

1. The Com­mit­tee Agreed to officers sub­mit­ting response to the con­sulta­tion that wel­comes the pro­posed plan­ning policy.

Action Point arising:

1. i. Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning to add note to say a there may be con­flict in rur­al areas and prag­mat­ic approach will be taken in these cases.

Dan Har­ris arrived at 10.00

Agenda Item 6: Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment feed­back on CNPA plan­ning per­form­ance frame­work report 2021/2022

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

2. The Com­mit­tee were invited to dis­cuss the report, the fol­low­ing points were raised: A mem­bers asked how pre-applic­a­tion advise affected staff­ing resources and if it saved time later in the applic­a­tion pro­cess. Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning respon­ded that pre-applic­a­tion advice gen­er­ally improves the plan­ning pro­cess over­all and can improve the qual­ity of applic­a­tion that is made or that comes to the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee. He noted that pre-applic­a­tion advice was of most bene­fit to applic­ants in terms of cer­tainty and man­aging resources and that like full applic­a­tion case­work, there could be peaks and troughs for CNPA staff resources that were man­aged across the team.

3. Mem­bers thanked plan­ning team for their effort, and noted the pos­it­ive inde­pend­ent feed­back from the Scot­tish Government.

4. Action Point arising: None.

Agenda Item 8: AOB

1. Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning noted that Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 was approved by the Scot­tish Par­lia­ment earli­er in Janu­ary and is expec­ted to be adop­ted on 13^th Feb­ru­ary. There will then be fur­ther sec­ond­ary legis­la­tion to imple­ment all parts of it, but the Scot­tish Plan­ning Policy with­in NPF4 that is rel­ev­ant to decisions will be repor­ted with­in the papers to the next Plan­ning Committee.

2. The Con­vener noted that this was board mem­ber Judith Webb’s last Plan­ning Com­mit­tee and thanked her for her con­tri­bu­tions over the last 8 years of her two terms in the CNPA board.

Agenda Item 9: Date of Next Meeting

1. The date of the next meet­ing is Fri­day 10^th March 2023 Online.

2. The pub­lic busi­ness of the meet­ing con­cluded at 10.21 hours.