241213DraftPlanningMinutes (1)

Draft Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Minutes 13 Decem­ber 2024 Page 1 of 6

Draft Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Meet­ing Minutes Held at Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity HQ, Grant­own on Spey Hybrid 13 Decem­ber 2024 at 11.1lam

Present Chris Beat­tie (Con­vener) Sandy Brem­ner Kenny Deans Bill Lob­ban Elean­or Mack­in­tosh Duncan Miller Michael Williamson

Paul Gibb (Deputy Con­vener) Dr Peter Cos­grove John Kirk Lauren Mac­Cal­lum Steve Mickle­wright Derek Ross

Vir­tu­al Geva Black­ett Dr Han­nah Grist Ann Ross

Jack­ie Brier­ton Dr Fiona McLean

Apo­lo­gies Rus­sell Jones

In Attend­ance Gav­in Miles, Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place Dav­id Berry, Head of Plan­ning and Chief Plan­ning Officer Peter Fer­guson, Harp­er MacLeod LLP Ed Swales, Mon­it­or­ing and Enforce­ment Officer Colin Bry­ans, Seni­or Plan­ning Officer Emma Green­lees, Plan­ning Sup­port Officer Alix Hark­ness, Clerk to the Board

Agenda Item 1 and 2 Wel­come and Apologies

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1. Chris Beat­tie, Plan­ning Con­vener wel­comed all present and apo­lo­gies were noted. He wel­comed Paul Gibb to the meet­ing in his capa­city as Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Deputy Convener.

2. The Con­vener advised that items 11 and 12 on the agenda would be swapped around and item 12 taken first, fol­lowed by item 11. This was accep­ted by the Committee.

Agenda Item 3 Declar­a­tions of Interest

1. Duncan Miller declared an interest in Item 11 as he had declared an interest the last time this applic­a­tion had come before the Com­mit­tee and would there­fore leave the room for this item.

Agenda Item 4 Minutes of pre­vi­ous meet­ing and mat­ters arising

1. The minutes of the pre­vi­ous meet­ing on 8 Novem­ber 2024 held at Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity, Grant­ow-on-Spey and Hybrid were approved with no amendments.

2. There were no mat­ters arising.

Agenda Item 5

1. Applic­a­tion for Detailed Plan­ning Per­mis­sion 2023/0455/DET (23/05597/FUL) Repair and upgrade of exist­ing estate track At Bal­avil House, Kin­gussie, PH21 1LU

2. Colin Bry­ans, Seni­or Plan­ning Officer and Devel­op­ment Man­ager presen­ted the paper to the committee.

3. The Com­mit­tee were invited to dis­cuss the report, and the fol­low­ing points were raised: a) A mem­ber quer­ied why there was no con­di­tion to ensure the track is repro­filed as pro­posed, the remain­ing unau­thor­ised sec­tion rein­stated, and the cent­ral grass strip imple­men­ted through­out? Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place explained that the grass strip was part of the applicant’s design so there was no need to con­di­tion that, and that if the unau­thor­ised sec­tion was not rein­stated enforce­ment action could be taken.

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b) It was quer­ied wheth­er there was a timeline asso­ci­ated with the rein­state­ment of the rel­ev­ant sec­tion of track? Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place con­firmed that officers would add a con­di­tion that secured the remov­al with­in a spe­cified time peri­od. c) A mem­ber quer­ied wheth­er the inclu­sion of a grass strip would stop the track func­tion­ing as a wild­fire break. Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place advised that in the con­text of this applic­a­tion, the estate have not said that they would be using the track as a fire man­age­ment break. He added that the estate could make case for a change to that require­ment in future if they con­sidered there was a need to. d) Mem­ber asked if there would be con­sid­er­a­tion made to wild­fire man­age­ment in Officer’s reports on estate tracks going for­ward? Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place said there was no plan­ning policy on that top­ic spe­cific­ally, so officers would be reli­ant on applic­ants advising why a green strip was or was not needed in the con­text of the over­all pur­pose of the track. e) Mem­ber asked for clar­ity on wheth­er the Com­mit­tee would be defin­ing a res­tor­a­tion scheme for the unau­thor­ised sec­tion. Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place con­firmed that a con­di­tion could be worded to require sub­mis­sion and approv­al of a res­tor­a­tion scheme with­in a spe­cified time peri­od, and its imple­ment­a­tion with­in a spe­cified time peri­od there­after. f) A mem­ber asked if there had been a dia­logue with the Estate regard­ing the ret­ro­spect­ive nature of the applic­a­tion? Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place con­firmed that the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Con­vener had writ­ten to the Applic­ant on behalf of the Com­mit­tee, in August of this year. g) Peter Fer­guson, Harp­er McLeod LLP con­firmed that the area to be restored was out with the red line of the applic­a­tion, how­ever it was still in con­trol of the applic­ant so a con­di­tion to require res­tor­a­tion of this area is appropriate.

1. The Com­mit­tee approved the applic­a­tion as per the officer’s report with the addi­tion­al con­di­tion requir­ing approv­al of a res­tor­a­tion scheme for the unau­thor­ised sec­tion, and its sub­sequent imple­ment­a­tion, with­in defined time periods.

2. Action Points arising: None.

Agenda Item 6

1. Plan­ning Enforce­ment Charter Review

2. Ed Swales, Mon­it­or­ing and Enforce­ment Officer presen­ted the paper to the committee.

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1. The Com­mit­tee were invited to dis­cuss the report. No points were raised.

2. The Com­mit­tee approved the Plan­ning Enforce­ment Charter.

3. Action Points arising: None.

Agenda Item 7

1. Elec­tri­city Infra­struc­ture con­sent­ing in Scot­land – Pro­pos­als for reform­ing the con­sent­ing pro­cess in Scot­land under the Elec­tri­city Act 1989

2. Dav­id Berry, Head of Plan­ning and Chief Plan­ning Officer presen­ted the paper to the committee.

3. The Com­mit­tee were invited to dis­cuss the report. The fol­low­ing points were raised: a) A mem­ber expressed sup­port for the pro­pos­al to move away from using pub­lic inquir­ies as they are dif­fi­cult for com­munit­ies to engage in and are costly. Head of Plan­ning and Chief Plan­ning Officer advised that the draft response was broadly sup­port­ive of that pro­pos­al but noted that there may be oth­er views. b) Anoth­er Mem­ber felt that remov­ing pub­lic inquir­ies would dimin­ish the demo­crat­ic pro­cess. Mem­bers dis­cussed the bar­ri­ers for com­munit­ies, one of them being the adversari­al nature of the pub­lic inquiry sys­tem, and a sug­ges­tion was made to see the cre­ation of a middle ground format that would be less form­al than a pub­lic inquiry but still retain demo­crat­ic account­ab­il­ity. c) There was agree­ment that the onshore / off­shore, three months / six weeks judi­cial review peri­ods, if brought to match each oth­er, should be brought to three months rather than six weeks as pro­posed. One of the reas­ons for this was that com­munity coun­cils do not meet monthly. d) It was agreed that Head of Plan­ning and Chief Plan­ning Officer would draft word­ing to be agreed by the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Con­vener and Deputy Con­vener fol­low­ing the meet­ing, which reflects the con­sensus of the Com­mit­tee on the points above, to be included in the con­sulta­tion response pri­or to submission.

4. The Com­mit­tee approved the Park Authority’s pro­posed response to the con­sulta­tion (as set out in Appendix 1 of the report) sub­ject to the above additions.

5. Action Points arising: i. Head of Plan­ning and Chief Plan­ning Officer to draft word­ing to be agreed by the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Con­vener and Deputy Con­vener fol­low­ing the meet­ing to

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reflect the con­sensus of the Com­mit­tee on pub­lic inquir­ies and the times­cales for leg­al chal­lenges, to be included in the con­sulta­tion response pri­or to sub­mis­sion. Agenda Item 8 21.2022/0305/DET: Erec­tion of 21 Dwell­ings at Nethy Bridge Sta­tion Yard, Sta­tion Road, Nethy Bridge – Scot­tish Min­is­ters’ Decision

1. Dav­id Berry, Head of Plan­ning and Chief Plan­ning Officer presen­ted the paper to the committee.

2. The Com­mit­tee noted the decision.

3. Action Points arising: None.

Agenda Item 9 AOCB

1. Dav­id Berry, Head of Plan­ning and Chief Plan­ning Officer provided the fol­low­ing updates: a) The Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment Chief Plan­ner vis­it on 25 Novem­ber 2024 had been suc­cess­ful and dis­cus­sions had taken place on a range of mat­ters includ­ing afford­able hous­ing needs and deliv­ery chal­lenges, and pres­sures on com­munit­ies in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. It also provided an oppor­tun­ity to raise the shared rur­al net­work pro­gramme and some of the chal­lenges this has presen­ted for the Park Author­ity in terms of deal­ing with plan­ning applic­a­tions. b) A dis­cus­sion paper would be brought to the Com­mit­tee in the New Year which presents pro­pos­als for the review of the Call-In Cri­ter­ia and Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Stand­ing Orders. c) Trans­port Scot­land – Pub­lic­a­tion of Made Orders for Dalraddy to Slo­chd sec­tion of A9 had been pub­lished on 6 Decem­ber 2024.

2. Chris Beat­tie, the Con­vener raised a motion to move to a con­fid­en­tial session.

Date of next meeting

1. The pub­lic busi­ness of the meet­ing con­cluded at 11.10am

2. Date of the next meet­ing is 24 Janu­ary 2025.