240913Paper7 Annex1 Minutes

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Form­al Board Paper 7 Annex 1 13 Septem­ber 2024

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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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Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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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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Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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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.

4. Action Point arising: None

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Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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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 their 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.

4. 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

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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.

1. 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. 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.

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Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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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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Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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

	MOTION	AMEND­MENT	ABSTAIN
Chris Beat­tie	√
Geva Black­ett		√
Sandy Brem­ner	√
Peter Cos­grove	√
Kenny Deans		√
Paul Gibb		√
Rus­sell Jones
Bill Lob­ban		√
Lauren Mac­Cal­lum	√
Elean­or Mackintosh	√
Xan­der McDade	V
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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Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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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.

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Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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Minutes of the Resource Com­mit­tee Meet­ing Held at Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity and Vir­tu­ally 17 May 2024 at 02.30pm

Present Rus­sell Jones (Chair) Dr Fiona McLean (sub­sti­tute for Dr Han­nah Grist) Xan­der McDade

Sandy Brem­ner (Board Con­vener) Lauren McCal­lum (Deputy Chair) Derek Ross

In Attend­ance Grant Moir, CEO Dav­id Camer­on, Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and Deputy CEO Kate Christie, Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions Kar­en John­stone, Clerk to the Board

Apo­lo­gies Dr Han­nah Grist

Minutes from the pre­vi­ous meet­ing for approval

1. The minutes from the meet­ing on the 26 Janu­ary 2024 were approved with no amendments.

Mat­ters arising not covered from pre­vi­ous meeting

1. None

Declar­a­tions of interest

1. No declar­a­tions of interest were made.

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Budget Mon­it­or­ing

1. Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions, presen­ted the paper which sets out an over­view of the Park Authority’s budget man­age­ment pos­i­tion at the end of April — month one of the ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ fin­an­cial year. Louise high­lighted at this early stage in the year the pos­i­tion on payroll and staff salar­ies against budget is a key point of assess­ment. The month one fig­ures for actu­al costs are slightly below the phased budget pos­i­tion provid­ing some early con­firm­a­tion of the accur­acy of budget estim­ates for this sig­ni­fic­ant area of expenditure.

2. The Resources Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments: a) The chair of Resources Com­mit­tee thanked the Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions for her papers. b) Dav­id Camer­on, Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and Deputy CEO updated the Resources Com­mit­tee that there had just recently been a change in budget for the Com­munity Lead Loc­al Devel­op­ment (CLLD) com­munity devel­op­ment grant. This was for £258,000 inclus­ive of devel­op­ment and £57,000 of this is for staff costs.

3. The Resources Com­mit­tee noted the paper.

4. Action point arising: none

Estim­ated Outturn

1. Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions presen­ted the paper which estim­ated out­turn pos­i­tion for the ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ fin­an­cial year.

2. The Resources Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments: a) Com­mit­tee mem­bers sought cla­ri­fic­a­tion about the under­spend on the Peat­land res­tor­a­tion sites. Grant Moir, the CEO cla­ri­fied that the final costs of restor­ing a site depend on the nature of the work required: ditch block­ing costs less than the res­tor­a­tion of bare peat and a site may come in less expens­ive than anti­cip­ated depend­ing on the pro­por­tion of ditch block­ing work involved. b) Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions also com­men­ted that ini­tial budgets are set based on a grad­ing of com­plex­ity. The peat­land res­tor­a­tion has come in under budget owing to the pro­jects under­taken being less com­plex than anticipated.

3. The Resources Com­mit­tee noted the paper.

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1. Action point arising: i. Com­mit­tee would like updates about the peat­land res­tor­a­tion grants and more inform­a­tion of the dif­fer­ent types of res­tor­a­tion undertaken.

Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment and People Strategy 2024 – 2027

1. Kate Christie, Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment presen­ted the paper which sets out an over­view of the many changes that have taken place with­in the organ­isa­tion since the last Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy of 2019, and how these changes have informed the emer­ging Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment and People Strategy (ODPS), which is designed to give our staff the frame­work and sup­port to be able to deliv­er our ambi­tions around nature, people and place

2. The Resources Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments: a) Board mem­bers approved of adding the word ​“people” to the title of the strategy as it feels very per­son­able, and people focused. They reques­ted that feed­back on the out­comes of the val­ues and cul­ture comes back to the board at an appro­pri­ate time. b) A board mem­ber reques­ted the addi­tion of ​“extern­al stake­hold­ers” to the word­ing in the sec­tion about the over­arch­ing vis­ion of the ODPS. That being “…sup­ports staff to achieve excel­lence in their work, their beha­viour and their rela­tion­ships with each oth­er and extern­al stake­hold­ers”. This was agreed by officers.

Lauren joined 02.54pm c) A board mem­ber raised con­cerns about the value and word­ing of some of the ques­tions and res­ults in the sur­vey. The Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment replied that they have no capa­city to amend or change the ques­tions as this is pre­scribed by Best Com­pan­ies who design the Staff Sur­vey. She explained that the sur­vey does also include the oppor­tun­ity for staff to give open ended responses to sev­er­al ques­tions e.g. ​“what is great about the organ­isa­tion and what would you like to change about the organ­isa­tion”. These com­ments will be scru­tin­ised, and a report provided in due course. d) A board mem­ber noted the res­ults were really pos­it­ive across the major­ity of factors, with good res­ults in staff and man­age­ment rela­tion­ships. How­ever, they noticed there were some issues with work­load and bore­dom, what about their motiv­a­tions? Request­ing more back­ground on this at anoth­er stage.

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Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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e) A board mem­ber men­tioned the import­ance of staff liv­ing in the park and ques­tioned the dif­fi­culties around recruit­ment and hous­ing in the area. Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment noted the import­ance of staff liv­ing in the Nation­al Park com­munit­ies and explained that our Hybrid Work­ing Policy does not allow for per­man­ent home work­ing con­tracts, except in the cir­cum­stances of short term intern­ship con­tracts. As such our recruit­ment con­tin­ued to have an emphas­is on staff liv­ing in com­munit­ies with­in and around the Park. f) Dis­cus­sions were had around the new 35 hours work week and the effect this is hav­ing on staff and their work­load and pro­ductiv­ity. It was stated that there was a flex­ible work­ing policy in place to ensure staff are not over work­ing and man­agers mon­it­or this. In addi­tion, staff have reg­u­lar Per­form­ance Devel­op­ment Con­ver­sa­tions with their line man­agers, and work­load should be dis­cussed at these meet­ings g) A board mem­ber ques­tioned how indi­vidu­als are rewar­ded for going above and bey­ond to pro­gress in the organ­isa­tion or per­son­ally? Officers stated that we have a good mix of staff with some work­ing above and bey­ond the expect­a­tions of their roles, but also that it was equally accept­able that some staff simply do enough to deliv­er the require­ments of the role. A mem­ber com­men­ted staff should only be expec­ted to carry out their con­trac­ted hours and that should be val­ued and any­thing over that is their per­son­al choice as many people may have caring or oth­er com­mit­ments mean­ing they can­not work above and bey­ond. Officers stated that the organ­isa­tion main­tains a good train­ing budget, encour­aging employ­ees to under­take train­ing both on exist­ing skills and to devel­op new skills to allow them to work towards their future roles, advert­ising jobs intern­ally first. A Board mem­ber sug­ges­ted that there are pos­it­ive employ­ment stor­ies, which togeth­er with the sup­port for train­ing, and per­son­al devel­op­ment should be shared with the pub­lic as a good news story, this to be dis­cussed with Head of Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engage­ment. h) A board mem­ber ques­tioned what train­ing staff had for deal­ing with the pub­lic. It was high­lighted, there was lots of train­ing oppor­tun­it­ies pub­lished on Eólas, our intranet, and also that we have an excel­lent online train­ing portal, ELMS, which cov­ers a large vari­ety of train­ing. Officers repor­ted that we had arranged spe­cif­ic train­ing recently for cer­tain pro­jects, on ​“deal­ing with dif­fi­cult people”, and ​“safe and sound” train­ing is delivered for rangers to enhance their skills when deal­ing with the pub­lic and know­ing when to step back from a situ­ation, among many more.

1. The Resources Com­mit­tee noted the paper.

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Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Form­al Board Paper 7 Annex 1 13 Septem­ber 2024

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1. Action points arising: i. An update on the val­ues and cul­tures work to be brought to a future meet­ing. ii. A change in the word­ing in the paper to ​“sup­ports staff to achieve excel­lence in their work, their beha­viour and their rela­tion­ships with each oth­er and extern­al stake­hold­ers” iii. Issues raised on approaches to staff motiv­a­tion in the con­text of the sur­vey res­ults, more back­ground on this to come back to the Board. iv. Good employ­ment stor­ies, train­ing, and per­son­al devel­op­ment to be shared with the pub­lic as a good news story, this to be dis­cussed with Head of Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engagement.

Health and Safety Com­mit­tee Minutes

1. Kate Christie, Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment, intro­duced this paper and noted that this is a stand­ard item that comes to the Com­mit­tee to provide over­sight of the meet­ing and of Health and Safety mat­ters generally.

2. The Resources Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ment: a) A board mem­ber raised a ques­tion regard­ing lone work­ing, ensur­ing all staff know the policy and have the cor­rect equip­ment. Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment stated that we are in the pro­cess of upgrad­ing approach and com­mu­nic­a­tions around lone work­ing and aim to deliv­er work­shops for staff on lone work­ing options once the upgrade is com­pleted. Board mem­bers reques­ted a fol­low up ensur­ing staff were fol­low­ing procedures.

3. The Resources Com­mit­tee noted the paper.

4. Action point arising: i. Fol­low up on lone work­ing, ensur­ing staff are fol­low­ing pro­ced­ures to be brought to a future meeting.

Draft Staff Con­sultat­ive For­um Minutes

1. Kate Christie, Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment, intro­duced this paper and noted that this is a stand­ard item that comes to the Com­mit­tee to provide over­sight of the meet­ing and of Staff Con­sultat­ive For­um mat­ters generally.

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Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Form­al Board Paper 7 Annex 1 13 Septem­ber 2024

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1. The Resources Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ment: a) Lots of pos­it­ive feed­back for the Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment on the pro­gress­ive policies being put in place such as Preg­nancy Loss and Neurodi­ver­gence. A board mem­ber reques­ted to see all policies avail­able, which the Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment con­firmed are all online as we have moved away from hav­ing paper cop­ies of the staff hand­book. It was high­lighted the Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Development’s policy devel­op­ment has been recog­nised extern­ally and she has been invited to speak at sev­er­al nation­al con­fer­ences on key policy topics

2. The Resources Com­mit­tee noted the paper.

3. Action point arising: i. Board mem­bers would like to see Eólas to read through the policies avail­able or have a hand­book avail­able for Board Mem­bers to read.

AOCB

1. None.

Date of next meet­ing: 9 August 2024 Motion for con­fid­en­tial ses­sion to be set out will be to pro­tect con­fid­en­ti­al­ity of staff pay and con­di­tions pro­pos­als pri­or to form­al negotiations.

1. Meet­ing con­cluded at 03.38pm

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Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Form­al Board Paper 7 Annex 1 13 Septem­ber 2024

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Minutes of the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Meet­ing Held at Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity HQ, Grant­own on Spey Hybrid 14 June 2024 at 10.00am

Present: Chris Beat­tie (Plan­ning Con­vener) Elean­or Mack­in­tosh (Deputy Plan­ning Con­vener) Kenny Deans Rus­sell Jones Lauren MacCallum

Vir­tu­al Geva Black­ett Xan­der McDade Steve Mickle­wright Derek Ross Peter Fer­guson, Harp­er MacLeod LLP

Apo­lo­gies Jack­ie Brier­ton Duncan Miller

Sandy Brem­ner Peter Cos­grove Paul Gibb John Kirk

Dr Han­nah Grist Dr Fiona McLean Ann Ross

Bill Lob­ban

In Attend­ance Gav­in Miles, Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place Emma Bryce, Plan­ning Man­ager, Devel­op­ment Man­ager Sarah Fletch­er, Plan­ning Officer, Devel­op­ment Plan­ning and Envir­on­ment­al Advice Dan Har­ris, Plan­ning Man­ager, For­ward Plan­ning and Ser­vice Improve­ment Kar­en John­stone, Clerk to the Board

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Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Form­al Board Paper 7 Annex 1 13 Septem­ber 2024

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Agenda Item 1 and 2 Wel­come and Apologies

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

Agenda Item 3 Declar­a­tions of Interest

1. Rus­sell Jones declared an interest on Item 6 as it has been dis­cussed at High­land Coun­cil Plan­ning Com­mit­tee which he also sits on.
2. Derek Ross declared an Interest on Item 6 as pre­vi­ously made com­ments in nation­al press about the cumu­lat­ive effect and impact of wind farms on the landscape.

Agenda Item 4 Minutes of Pre­vi­ous Meet­ing and Mat­ters Arising

1. The minutes of the pre­vi­ous meet­ing on 26 April 2024 held at Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity, Grant­own on Spey and Hybrid were approved with no amendments.
2. Mat­ters Arising: a) Author­ity del­eg­ated to officers to take enforce­ment action to pre­vent fur­ther unau­thor­ised devel­op­ment of the site if required. b) Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Con­vener to write to the applic­ant to con­vey the committee’s sig­ni­fic­ant dis­ap­point­ment at the ret­ro­spect­ive nature of the applic­a­tion. Completed

Agenda Item 5 Applic­a­tion for Detailed Plan­ning Per­mis­sion 2024/0005/DET (29/05974/FUL) Erec­tion of 6 no. hous­ing units (3 blocks of semi-detached hous­ing) at Land 65M South of 22 Ker­row Drive, Kingussie.

1. Item 5 was not con­sidered as officers had been informed of a change to the con­text of the applic­a­tion that would change the con­tent of the papers prepared.

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Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Form­al Board Paper 7 Annex 1 13 Septem­ber 2024

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10.05am Rus­sell Jones and Derek Ross left the room ahead of Item 6.

Agenda Item 6 Dell 2 Wind­farm, 2024/0068/PAC (ECU00003440) Recom­mend­a­tion: no objection

1. Sarah Fletch­er, Plan­ning Officer, Devel­op­ment Plan­ning and Envir­on­ment­al Advice presen­ted the paper to the committee.

2. The Com­mit­tee were invited to ask for clar­ity, and the fol­low­ing points were raised: a) A board mem­ber sought clar­ity on the impacts of the lights. Sarah Fletch­er, Plan­ning Officer explained that the lights are 200 can­delas, how­ever they will be dimmed auto­mat­ic­ally if they are seen bey­ond 5km. As the Park is 8km away, this should have very little effect on our dark skies.

3. The Com­mit­tee were invited to dis­cuss the report. The fol­low­ing points were raised: a) Board Mem­bers thanked the officer for the clar­ity in the report and for the break­down of the effects and impacts this would have on us.

4. The Com­mit­tee approved the application.

5. Action Points arising: none

10.31am Derk Ross and Rus­sell Jones returned to join the committee.

Agenda Item 7 AOCB

1. Gav­in Miles, Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place noted that they had received noti­fic­a­tion of an appeal against the enforce­ment notice served by the Park Author­ity on unau­thor­ised devel­op­ment in Tolquhonie woods near Car­rbridge. Officers will be respond­ing to the appeal with the help of our leg­al advisers.

2. Gav­in Miles, Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place updated the board that both new Seni­or Plan­ners have star­ted in the posts since the last plan­ning com­mit­tee. Colin Bryans

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Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Form­al Board Paper 7 Annex 1 13 Septem­ber 2024

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star­ted a few weeks ago in the Devel­op­ment Man­age­ment team and Jeff Pyrah star­ted this week in the For­ward Plan­ning team, both were welcomed.

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

1. The pub­lic busi­ness of the meet­ing con­cluded at 10.33am

2. Date of the next meet­ing is 9 August 2024