24 April 2020 Approved Minutes of Meeting

APPROVED COM­MIT­TEE MINUTES

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

APPROVED MINUTES OF THE PLAN­NING COM­MIT­TEE held via Video/​Tele­phone Con­fer­ence on 24^th April 2020 at 10am

Mem­bers Present (by video unless stated otherwise)

Elean­or Mack­in­tosh (Con­vener) Douglas McAdam Peter Argyle (Deputy Con­vener) Xan­der McDade Geva Black­ett Wil­lie McK­enna Car­o­lyn Cad­dick Ian McLar­en Deirdre Fal­con­er Dr Fiona McLean Janet Hunter Wil­li­am Mun­ro John Kirk Dr Gaen­er Rodger John Lath­am Derek Ross via tele­phone Anne Rae Mac­don­ald Judith Webb

In Attend­ance:

Gav­in Miles, Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies Dan Har­ris, Plan­ning Man­ager, For­ward Plan­ning & Ser­vice Improve­ment Nina Caudrey, Plan­ning Officer, Devel­op­ment Plan­ning Stephanie Wade, Plan­ning Officer, Devel­op­ment Man­age­ment Alix Hark­ness, Clerk to the Board

Apo­lo­gies: Pippa Hadley

Agenda Items I & 2: Wel­come & Apologies

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

2. The Con­vener advised that it was a new way of work­ing (by video and phone con­fer­ence) and asked that Mem­bers be patient. She reminded Mem­bers that the Clerk to the Board had cir­cu­lated the video-con­fer­en­cing etiquette. She advised Mem­bers that if her inter­net con­nec­tion was to cut out the order of Chair­ing the meet­ing would be Deputy Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Con­vener, Board Con­vener and then

APPROVED COM­MIT­TEE MINUTES

Board Deputy Con­vener and if required, assum­ing the num­ber of mem­bers was still quor­ate, the Com­mit­tee would have to nom­in­ate anoth­er mem­ber to chair.

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

1. The record of the pre­vi­ous meet­ing, 20^th March 2020, held via elec­tron­ic cir­cu­la­tion were approved with no amendments.

2. Action Point arising: None.

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

1. There were no interests declared.

Agenda Item 5: Update on Applic­a­tions Approved by Com­mit­tee sub­ject to con­clu­sion of Developer Contributions

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

2. The Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper, the fol­low­ing quer­ies, com­ments and obser­va­tions were made: a) The Con­vener asked if the times­cales could be shortened to a month rather than a few months. Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies advised that with regards to the Dis­til­lery applic­a­tion, times­cales were unclear because Registers of Scot­land were not func­tion­ing as nor­mal. He explained that were cur­rently put­ting in place elec­tron­ic means of regis­ter­ing title deeds which might pre­vent fur­ther delay. With regards to the Phase 2 of the Spey Hous­ing devel­op­ment in the delay was related to freez­ing of com­mer­cial con­tracts and it was pos­sible that there would be no pro­gress until July 2020. b) Could reas­sur­ance be provided that the cur­rent COVID19 pan­dem­ic was the reas­on behind Albyn Hous­ing Society’s abil­ity to deliv­er? Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies con­firmed it was and advised that they are one of the biggest hous­ing asso­ci­ations in Scot­land who spend Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment fund­ing as well as rais­ing their own funds. He explained that they had assessed their cur­rent and future pro­jects and with con­struc­tion pro­jects cur­rently on hold they were wait­ing until there was more cer­tainty before agree­ing new con­struc­tion con­tracts. c) What was the reas­on­ing for the developer con­tri­bu­tions going towards edu­ca­tion in this case (Spey Houses Phase 2)? Head of Plan­ning & Communities

APPROVED COM­MIT­TEE MINUTES

advised that the policy cov­ers a range of poten­tial issues, all related to impacts of the devel­op­ment that can­not be resolved by plan­ning con­di­tions alone. Edu­ca­tion con­tri­bu­tions are fre­quently sought from hous­ing devel­op­ments but developer con­tri­bu­tions can be sought for oth­er infra­struc­ture or ser­vices that would be impacted.

1. The Com­mit­tee noted the paper.

2. Action: None.

Agenda Item 6: Nat­ur­al Her­it­age, Land­scape, Cul­tur­al Her­it­age and Renew­able Energy Non- Stat­utory Guid­ance Recom­mend­a­tion: Approve For Consultation

1. Nina Caudrey, Plan­ning Officer presen­ted the paper to the Committee.

2. The Con­vener reminded the Com­mit­tee that this was not an oppor­tun­ity to change policy.

3. The Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the Paper, the fol­low­ing points were dis­cussed: a) Praise giv­en for the format and present­a­tion of the doc­u­ments and the uni­form style. b) Sug­ges­tion made to make ref­er­ence to the Cairngorms Wood­land Strategy in the Nat­ur­al Her­it­age Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance. Plan­ning Officer advised that ref­er­ence to it must have been lost in edit­ing and agreed to ensure that it was ref­er­enced in the doc­u­ment. (AI) c) Sug­ges­tion made to refer to SNH as SNH or Nature Scot con­sist­ently through­out the Nat­ur­al Her­it­age Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance and the Renew­able Energy Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance. Plan­ning Officer agreed to ensure con­sist­ency through­out the doc­u­ments. (A2) d) Does any­one reg­u­larly check that the links in the doc­u­ments work dur­ing the life of the plan? Plan­ning Officer advised that she had linked to the pages the doc­u­ments were found with­in rather than the doc­u­ments them­selves to avoid this issue as much as pos­sible. The guid­ance could be updated in future should it be brought to CNPA’s atten­tion that any of the links no longer worked. e) Is 6 weeks in the cur­rent cir­cum­stances suf­fi­cient time for part­ner organ­isa­tions to be able to respond in time? Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies advised that this was not policy that was being con­sul­ted on, it was an explan­a­tion on how to com­ply with policy. He added that the con­sulta­tion peri­od could be exten­ded if the Com­mit­tee wished but that he doubted it would make a dif­fer­ence to the

APPROVED COM­MIT­TEE MINUTES

f) With regards to wood­land replace­ment, should we indic­ate how close the num­ber of responses received. The Com­mit­tee agreed to keep the con­sulta­tion peri­od at 6 weeks. wood­land should be? Plan­ning Officer advised that the replace­ment wood­land policy does not set out that stip­u­la­tion only that it should be with­in the Nation­al Park as that is where the policy applies. g) In the renew­ables guid­ance, sug­ges­tion made to change the word­ing ​‘should be’ okay for wind tur­bines under 30m to ​‘may be’ okay under 30m, and sug­ges­tion made to be clear­er to define if that was 30m to hub or to blade tip. Plan­ning Officer advised that the 30m to blade tip was meant and that she was happy to look at it again to check that the word­ing reflects that. (A3) h) Query as to why the Renew­able Energy policy makes no ref­er­ence to bat­tery stor­age? Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies advised that bat­tery stor­age would essen­tially be large sheds, which would be adequately con­sidered under exist­ing policies. i) Sug­ges­tion made to look at includ­ing some­thing in the guid­ance on the size and scale of sol­ar farms, which are likely to become more com­mon in the future. Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies advised that the crit­ic­al ana­lys­is of a sol­ar farm would be under the land­scape policy rather than renew­able energy policy, so the advice that was most rel­ev­ant was already con­tained the land­scape guidance.

1. The Com­mit­tee agreed to approve the pub­lic­a­tion of the Nat­ur­al Her­it­age, Renew­able Energy, Land­scape and Cul­tur­al Her­it­age Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance for pub­lic con­sulta­tion for a peri­od of 6 weeks sub­ject to the amend­ments (A1-A3) being made to the documents.

2. Action Point arising: i. Amend­ments to be made pri­or to going out for Pub­lic Consultation.

Agenda Item 8: AOB

1. Gav­in Miles, Head of Plan­ning and Com­munit­ies repor­ted that they had received a notice that the hous­ing applic­a­tion in Nethy Bridge which was heard by the Com­mit­tee in Janu­ary 2020 was being appealed.

2. A mem­ber asked about the pro­gress of the Car­rbridge Hous­ing appeal. Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies advised that no fur­ther inform­a­tion had been forthcoming.

3. The Plan­ning Com­mit­tee praised the Con­vener for the man­age­ment of the meet­ing and repor­ted that it had worked very well in a demo­crat­ic, open and trans­par­ent way.

APPROVED COM­MIT­TEE MINUTES

1. Action Points arising: None.

Agenda Item 9: Date of Next Meeting

1. Fri­day 22 May 2020 at 10am via video/​tele­phone conference.

2. The pub­lic busi­ness of the meet­ing con­cluded at 10.40am