Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Draft Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Minutes 26 April 2024 Page 1 of 10

Approved Minutes of the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Meeting

Held at Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity HQ, Grant­own on Spey

Hybrid

26 April 2024 at 10.00am

Present

Chris Beat­tie (Plan­ning Con­vener) Elean­or Mack­in­tosh (Deputy Plan­ning Con­vener) Dr Peter Cos­grove Rus­sell Jones Bill Lob­ban Lauren Mac­Cal­lum Derek Ross

Sandy Brem­ner Kenny Deans John Kirk Steve Mickle­wright Duncan Miller

Vir­tu­al

Geva Black­ett Xan­der McDade Ann Ross

Paul Gibb Dr Fiona McLean

Apo­lo­gies

Dr Han­nah Girst.

In Attend­ance

Gav­in Miles, Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning Peter Fer­guson, Harp­er MacLeod LLP Emma Bryce, Plan­ning Man­ager (Devel­op­ment Man­ager) Katie Crerar, Plan­ning Officer (Devel­op­ment Man­age­ment) Kath­er­ine Don­nach­ie, Plan­ning Officer (Devel­op­ment Man­age­ment) Emma Green­lees, Plan­ning Sup­port Officer Alix Hark­ness, Clerk to the Board Kar­en John­stone, Clerk to the Board

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Agenda Item 1 and 2

Wel­come and Apologies

1. The Plan­ning Con­vener wel­comed all present includ­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic. Apo­lo­gies were noted.

Agenda Item 3

Declar­a­tions of Interest

1. John Kirk declared an interest in Item 6. His wife has a house near the cara­van park and he has done work for them over the years. He advised he would leave the meet­ing for the dur­a­tion of this item.

Agenda Item 4

Minutes of Pre­vi­ous Meet­ing and Mat­ters Arising

1. The minutes of the pre­vi­ous meet­ing on 8 March 2024 held at Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity, Grant­own on Spey, were approved with no amendments.

Agenda Item 5

Applic­a­tion for Detailed Plan­ning Per­mis­sion 2023/0245/DET (23/02451/FUL) Form­a­tion of tour­ing motorhome / cara­van site at Land 85M North of Birchview, Dal­whin­nie Recom­mend­a­tion: Approve sub­ject to conditions

1. Kath­er­ine Don­nach­ie, Plan­ning Officer, Devel­op­ment Man­age­ment presen­ted the paper to the committee.

2. The Com­mit­tee were invited to ask the Plan­ning Officer for clar­ity, and the fol­low­ing points were raised: a) Cla­ri­fic­a­tion sought that there was no pro­pos­al to provide an elec­tric vehicle (EV) char­ging points. It was con­firmed that this had been dis­cussed with the applic­ant who pro­posed that the EV char­ging points avail­able at the nearby Loch Erricht hotel) also owned by the applic­ant) could be used by vehicles from the pro­posed devel­op­ment. The Plan­ning Officer sug­ges­ted an inform­at­ive be added to any

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per­mis­sion recom­mend­ing that the applic­ant installs EV char­ging facil­it­ies on the site. b) A mem­ber sought reas­sur­ance that the pro­posed access route to and from the site would be safe. Plan­ning Officer advised that while access and egress was close to a pet­rol filling sta­tion, the council’s trad­ing stand­ards team as the Pet­ro­leum Enforce­ment Author­ity were sat­is­fied that appro­pri­ate safety meas­ures were being met. Gav­in Miles, Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning added that the Scot­tish Fire and Res­cue Ser­vice (SFRS) and Council’s Envir­on­ment­al Health team had been con­sul­ted and were also sat­is­fied with the arrange­ments pro­posed. c) Would the site be fenced to pre­vent any dogs access­ing the fields to the north wheth­er could be live­stock or wad­ing birds nest­ing? It was con­firmed that the site would have stock fen­cing on those boundaries.

1. The agent John Craig addressed the committee.

2. The Com­mit­tee were invited to ask for clar­ity. The fol­low­ing point was raised: a) Cla­ri­fic­a­tion was sought about why there were no EV char­ging points pro­posed on the site. Mr Craig advised that the cost of provid­ing the facil­it­ies on the site was pro­hib­it­ive at this point in time but noted that the applic­ant would encour­age any­one who needed to use the exist­ing EV char­ging point at the Loch Erricht hotel which was also in their ownership.

3. The object­ors Anja Arm­strong and Eileen Fei­len presen­ted to the committee.

4. The Com­mit­tee were invited to ask for clar­ity. The fol­low­ing points were raised: a) Clar­ity sought on wheth­er the object­ors wanted the pro­posed devel­op­ment to be refused or simply reduced in size and scale. The object­ors con­firmed that they would prefer the applic­a­tion to be refused and relo­cated to a dif­fer­ent site in Dal­whin­nie. b) A mem­ber asked why it was their opin­ion that the pro­posed devel­op­ment would pre­vent the remain­ing part of the hous­ing alloc­a­tion from being developed. Ms Arm­strong explained that in their opin­ion it would not be pos­sible to access the remainder of the site because vehicles could not turn on the track. c) Could it be con­firmed who owns the track down to Birchview? Ms Arm­strong repor­ted that it they had not been able to trace the own­er, it was unadop­ted and covered in potholes with no room for con­struc­tion vehicles to turn.

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1. The Com­mit­tee were invited to ask for clar­ity from the Plan­ning team. The fol­low­ing points were raised: a) Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning advised that part of the hous­ing site alloc­ated in the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan that over­lapped the pro­posed devel­op­ment was imme­di­ately adja­cent to the pet­rol sta­tion. He noted that Dal­whin­nie was not a loc­a­tion where developers seemed likely to want to under­take spec­u­lat­ive devel­op­ment of num­bers of units so it was more likely that any hous­ing devel­op­ment would be under­taken by indi­vidu­als buy­ing par­cels of land and build­ing them­selves. b) Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning advised that if the applic­a­tion was approved and the devel­op­ment under­taken, there would still be space on the remainder of the alloc­ated hous­ing site for a num­ber of units that would be dic­tated by their size. c) The Plan­ning Officer con­firmed that con­trary to a state­ment made by the agent, the wood­land on the site was not iden­ti­fied in the ancient wood­land invent­ory but was open birch wood­land. d) The Plan­ning officer con­firmed that the tech­nic­al con­sul­tees were sat­is­fied with the pro­posed drain­age and that the Scot­tish Fire and Res­cue Ser­vice and appro­pri­ate part of High­land Coun­cil were sat­is­fied with the pro­posed vehicle access arrangements.

2. The Com­mit­tee were invited to dis­cuss the report. The fol­low­ing points were raised: a) It was noted that the loss of part of an iden­ti­fied hous­ing site was a neg­at­ive but that but that the eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment con­tri­bu­tion of the pro­pos­al would be pos­it­ive for Dal­whin­nie. b) Cla­ri­fic­a­tion sought that no fixed stat­ic cara­vans or cab­ins were pro­posed, only stances for tour­ing cara­vans and motorhomes. Plan­ning Officer con­firmed that this was the case. c) A mem­ber asked if it would be a simple pro­cess to return the site to its ori­gin­al state should the own­er want to. Plan­ning Officer con­firmed that this would be the case. d) Com­ment made that this was a good use of land for a rur­al vil­lage in need of the uplift that this devel­op­ment could bring them.

3. The Com­mit­tee approved the applic­a­tion as per the officer’s recom­mend­a­tion ad sub­ject to the con­di­tions detailed in the report.

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1. Action Point arising: None

John Kirk left the room, at 11.05 am

Agenda Item 6

Applic­a­tion for Detailed Plan­ning Per­mis­sion 2023/0380/DET (23/03948/FUL) Exten­sion to cara­van site with 16No. stat­ic hol­i­day cara­vans at Grant­own on Spey Cara­van and Motorhome Club, Seafield Aven­ue, Grant­own on Spey, PH26 3JQ Recom­mend­a­tion: Approve sub­ject to conditions

1. Katie Crerar, Plan­ning Officer, Devel­op­ment Man­age­ment presen­ted the paper to the committee.

2. The Com­mit­tee were invited to ask for clar­ity, and the fol­low­ing points were raised: a) A mem­ber com­men­ted that the stat­ic cara­vans would be fixed and could be lived in all year round. Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning advised that per­man­ent occu­pa­tion of the stat­ic cara­vans could be pro­hib­ited. b) It was noted that this was a ret­ro­spect­ive plan­ning applic­a­tion and that devel­op­ment had taken place pre­vi­ously without per­mis­sion on the same site. Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning reminded the Com­mit­tee that the fact that the applic­a­tion was ret­ro­spect­ive was not rel­ev­ant to their decision. He acknow­ledged that ret­ro­spect­ive applic­a­tions were frus­trat­ing the pub­lic and for staff and mem­bers, not­ing that the cur­rent applic­a­tion only covered part of the unau­thor­ised works that had taken on the site. c) Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning explained that the applic­ant would have to work hard to dis­charge the con­di­tion requir­ing biod­iversity enhance­ments and that the exten­sion to the site would not be per­mit­ted to oper­ate until the con­di­tion had been dis­charged. d) Sug­ges­tion made by the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Deputy Con­vener that the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Con­vener write to the applic­ant to con­vey the Committee’s frus­tra­tion and anger that the applic­a­tion was ret­ro­spect­ive. They also pro­posed that the com­mit­tee give the plan­ning team author­ity to issue stop notices via the con­vener and deputy con­vener rather than seek­ing approv­al of the entire committee.

3. The object­or Tessa Jones on behalf of Badenoch and Strath­spey Con­ser­va­tion Group addressed the committee.

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1. The Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning advised mem­bers that a num­ber of points made by the object­or were not dir­ectly rel­ev­ant to the devel­op­ment pro­posed, but rather the Badenoch and Strath­spey Con­ser­va­tion Group’s con­cerns about the man­age­ment of oth­er land nearby that was not con­nec­ted to the pro­posed devel­op­ment or con­trolled by the applicant.

2. The Com­mit­tee were invited to dis­cuss the report. The fol­low­ing points were raised: a) There was unan­im­ous frus­tra­tion and anger at the ret­ro­spect­ive nature of the applic­a­tion and sup­port for the Con­vener writ­ing to camp­site own­ers to explain the Committee’s con­cerns at the ret­ro­spect­ive applic­a­tions and del­eg­a­tion of author­ity to the plan­ning team to enforce without com­ing back to the Com­mit­tee. b) A mem­ber raised con­cern around the envir­on­ment­al impact on biod­iversity that they con­sidered the devel­op­ment would have on its environs should it be approved. c) A mem­ber asked what would hap­pen if the Com­mit­tee refused the applic­a­tion would the applic­ant then have to rein­state the ground? Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning advised that the applic­ant would be likely to appeal a refus­al and in this case, he con­sidered it likely that an appeal would be suc­cess­ful, lead­ing to per­mis­sion being gran­ted. Con­cern raised that the cara­vans could become per­man­ent homes. In the past, as part of plan­ning con­di­tions, the Com­mit­tee have asked cara­van sites to keep a register who is in the cara­vans dic­tat­ing that they can only be lived in so many months dur­ing the course of a year and the rest of the time unin­hab­ited. Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning advised that they are not inten­ded to be inhab­ited all year round and con­firmed that a con­di­tion could be added to lim­it the num­ber of days per year the cara­van can be occu­pied for by the same people and lim­it­ing the dur­a­tion if any single stay as well as requir­ing a register to be kept. d) Ques­tion around the implic­a­tions for waste dis­pos­al and were any mit­ig­a­tion pro­posed. Plan­ning Officer advised that the infra­struc­ture for waste dis­pos­al was already on site and con­nec­ted to the exist­ing cara­van park. She added that there was no wider impact as a res­ult of this. e) Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning con­firmed that officer would add a con­di­tion pro­hib­it­ing the use of the stat­ic cara­vans as per­man­ent res­id­en­cies and pro­hib­it both num­ber of days in a year an indi­vidu­al could stay in them as well as the dur­a­tion of any peri­ods use ad requir­ing the pro­vi­sion of a register.

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f) A mem­ber sought assur­ance from Peter Fer­guson, Harp­er McLeod LLP that the con­di­tions imposed would be adhered to. Peter Fer­guson advised that the con­di­tion is enforce­able and can be read­ily used.

1. Derek Ross noted his view that the applic­a­tion should be refused and Bill Lob­ban noted that he would second an amend­ment for refusal.

2. The Con­vener adjourned the meet­ing for 10 minutes to allow the pre­par­a­tion of amend­ments to the motion cre­ated by the Officer’s recommendation.

3. The meet­ing recom­menced at 12:00pm.

4. The Con­vener reminded mem­bers of the motion to approve the applic­a­tion as per the officer recom­mend­a­tion in the plan­ning paper with the addi­tion­al con­di­tion lim­it­ing occupation.

5. It was noted that Steve Mickle­wright left the room for part of the dis­cus­sion on this item so could not take part in the vote on the item.

6. Derek Ross put for­ward an amend­ment to refuse the applic­a­tion, on the basis that if gran­ted, the devel­op­ment would have a det­ri­ment­al effect on the nat­ur­al envir­on­ment, due to neg­at­ive effects on biod­iversity and lead to unac­cept­able pres­sure on the sur­round­ing area, con­trary to Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4: Policy 3 Nat­ur­al Her­it­age. This was seconded by Bill Lobban.

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1. The Com­mit­tee pro­ceeded into a vote. The res­ults were as follows:

Chris Beat­tie	MOTION	AMEND­MENT	ABSTAIN
	√
Geva Black­ett		√
Sandy Brem­ner	√
Peter Cos­grove	√
Kenny Deans		√
Paul Gibb		√
Rus­sell Jones		√
Bill Lob­ban		√
Lauren Mac­Cal­lum	√
Elean­or Mackintosh	√
Xan­der McDade	√
Fiona McLean			√
Duncan Miller		√
Ann Ross	√
Derek Ross		√
TOTAL	8	6	1

1. The Com­mit­tee approved the applic­a­tion sub­ject to the con­di­tions stated in the report and an addi­tion­al con­di­tion to pre­vent cara­vans becom­ing per­man­ent homes.

2. Action Points arising: i. Author­ity del­eg­ated to officers to take enforce­ment action to pre­vent fur­ther unau­thor­ised devel­op­ment of the site if required. ii. Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Con­vener to write to the applic­ant to con­vey the committee’s sig­ni­fic­ant dis­ap­point­ment at the ret­ro­spect­ive nature of the application.

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Agenda Item 7

For Inform­a­tion EIA Screen­ing determ­in­a­tion in rela­tion to applic­a­tion 2023/0004/DET Change of use of land for sit­ing of 25 lodges, access road and land­scap­ing at Site of Dry Ski Slope, Grampi­an Road, Aviemore

1. Gav­in Milles, Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning presen­ted the paper to the committee.

2. The Com­mit­tee noted the paper.

3. Action Point arising: None

Agenda Item 8

For Inform­a­tion Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment Plan­ning Sys­tem Con­sulta­tions Intro­duced by: Gav­in Miles, Head of Stra­tegic Planning

1. Gav­in Milles, Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning presen­ted the paper to the committee.

2. The Com­mit­tee noted the paper.

3. Action Point arising: None

AOCB

1. Reas­sur­ance was sought as to how the staff would report the enforce­ment pro­gress to the com­mit­tee going for­ward giv­en that they had been del­eg­ated the author­ity to take action. Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning advised that in the lim­ited instances where this would be rel­ev­ant, the notices would be con­firmed via the con­vener and vice con­vener. The com­mit­tee would be noti­fied in the nor­mal way with form­al updates at Plan­ning Com­mit­tee meet­ings, either in pub­lic or con­fid­en­tial ses­sions depend­ing on the nature of the update.

2. A mem­ber noted that in their loc­al author­ity, com­mit­tee mem­bers were required to attend any site vis­its in order to par­ti­cip­ate in the determ­in­a­tion of applic­a­tions. The dif­fer­ent prac­tice of dif­fer­ent loc­al author­ity stand­ing orders for plan­ning com­mit­tee busi­ness was noted.

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1. The Com­mit­tee Con­vener raised a motion to move to a con­fid­en­tial session.

2. The pub­lic busi­ness of the meet­ing con­cluded at 12.16 pm

3. Date of next meet­ing 14 June 2024.