CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

DRAFT MINUTES OF THE BOARD MEETING

held by telephone/​video con­fer­ence on Fri­day 25^th Feb­ru­ary 2022 at 1.45pm

PRESENT

(By video con­fer­en­cing unless stated otherwise)

• Xan­der McDade (Con­vener)
• Peter Argyle until 1.55pm
• Geva Black­ett
• Car­o­lyn Cad­dick (Deputy Convener)
• Deirdre Fal­con­er
• Pippa Had­ley
• Janet Hunter
• John Kirk
• John Lath­am
• Douglas McAdam
• Elean­or Mackintosh
• Wil­lie McKenna
• Ian McLar­en
• Dr Fiona McLean
• Wil­li­am Munro
• Anne Rae Mac­don­ald from 2pm
• Dr Gaen­er Rodger
• Derek Ross
• Judith Webb

In Attend­ance:

• Grant Moir, Chief Executive
• Mur­ray Fer­guson, Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning & Place
• Gav­in Miles, Head of Stra­tegic Planning
• Oliv­er Dav­ies, Head of Communications
• Alix Hark­ness, Clerk to the Board

Apo­lo­gies: None.

Wel­come and Introduction

1. Xan­der McDade the Con­vener, wel­comed every­one to the meeting.
2. There were no apologies.

Mat­ters Arising

1. There were no mat­ters arising.

2. Action Points Arising: None

Declar­a­tions of Interest

1. Car­o­lyn Cad­dick declared a (fin­an­cial) Interest in Paper 1.

2. Pippa Had­ley declared a (non-fin­an­cial) Interest in Paper 1.

   Reas­on: One of High­land Coun­cil coun­cil­lors respons­ible for bring­ing this motion for­ward, will not take part in the discussion.

3. Doug McAdam declared a (fin­an­cial) Interest in Paper 1.

   Reas­on: Own­er of fur­nished hol­i­day let and mem­ber of Scot­tish Asso­ci­ation of Self-cater­ers agree with their pos­i­tion on the area and has respon­ded to the Gov­ern­ment Con­sulta­tion in some detail per­son­ally so would not par­take in the discussion.

4. John Kirk declared a (fin­an­cial) Interest in Paper 1.

   Reas­on: Has a half share on an Air B&B until end March 2022 and there­fore would not par­take in the dis­cus­sion on this item.

5. Deirdre Fal­con­er declared a (fin­an­cial) Interest in Paper 1.

   Reas­on: Man­ages self-cater­ing prop­er­ties in the Badenoch & Strath­spey area, a Mem­ber of the Scot­tish Asso­ci­ation of Self-caters and helps to run anoth­er self-cater­ing prop­erty for a fam­ily member.

6. Car­o­lyn Cad­dick, Pippa Had­ley, Doug McAdam, John Kirk and Deirdre Fal­con­er left the room.

CNPA Response to High­land Coun­cil Pro­pos­als for a Short Term Let Con­trol Area for Badenoch & Strath­spey (Paper I)

1. Gav­in Miles, Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning intro­duced Paper I which sum­mar­ises the High­land Council’s pro­pos­als for a Short Term Let Con­trol Area cov­er­ing Badenoch and Strath­spey and the pro­posed CNPA response to the form­al consultation.

2. The Board con­sidered the detail in the Paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the following:

   a) Resound­ing com­ments made endors­ing the pro­pos­al and sup­port­ing the prin­cip­al. Peter Argyle left the meeting.

   b) Com­ment made that the sig­ni­fic­ance to the NPA is likely to cumu­lat­ive as opposed to on a case by case basis and there­fore it was dif­fi­cult to envis­age what role the CNPA would have in imple­ment­ing it? Would struggle to see the Com­mit­tee refus­ing an applic­a­tion if it comes for­ward. Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning con­firmed that there may ini­tially be few cir­cum­stances that applic­a­tions could be refused. Examples could be :

   i. Where permission was granted for building affordable housing which in granting permission for the change of use to short term let would mean houses for people to live in would be removed, negatively impacting the supply
   
   ii. Where a community already has a very high proportion of short term lets, thresholds may need to be set and enforced.
   
   He added that further discussion with Highland Council on preparing planning guidance should help provide clarity.
   
   Anne Rae Macdonald joined the meeting and declared a financial interest in this Paper.
   Reason being that she owns and manages a self-catering property. She therefore left the discussion.
   

   c) Com­ment made on the need to seize every oppor­tun­ity to help address the sup­ply of afford­able hous­ing and address amen­ity issues that can affect per­man­ent res­id­ents if they live next door to a short term let. Cau­tion that this would not com­pletely solve the prob­lem how­ever was recog­nized as a tool to help bet­ter man­age the issue. A ques­tion was raised around the tim­ing of the LDP, giv­en that we have an LDP in place would we need to wait until the devel­op­ment of the next LDP to enable us to write policies to assist with this?

   d) Recog­ni­tion made that there would also be a neg­at­ive con­sequence of this con­trol where if a short term let was put on the mar­ket, as a short term let and if the buy­er wanted to change it back to res­id­en­tial accom­mod­a­tion, they would then have to apply for per­mis­sion to do so and at a cost to them. Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning con­firmed that change of use would be needed in both dir­ec­tions. CEO added that at present any house could be a short term let and so this is a small issue com­pared to what it is try­ing to con­trol. He provided reas­sur­ance that this con­trol ties in with draft NPPP. There is also time to draft guid­ance with the High­land Coun­cil and look to longer term solu­tions for the area.

   e) Gaen­er Rodger, Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Con­vener sup­por­ted the approach and wel­comed the future guid­ance describ­ing what the Plan­ning Committee’s role will be. She added that it would be import­ant that lim­its are to be set and would need to be made clear in the guidance.

   f) Clar­ity sought for cur­rent short term let prop­er­ties, would the per­mis­sion they be seek­ing need to be ret­ro­spect­ive? Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning advised that short term lets cur­rently oper­at­ing would need to apply for Plan­ning Per­mis­sion or a cer­ti­fic­ate of law­ful­ness. He added that there was no inten­tion to try to sweep aside short term lets in a ret­ro­spect­ive way and that the value was in using the tool in the longer term.

   g) Would this make a dif­fer­ence? Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning con­firmed that it would make a dif­fer­ence in the longer term but that it would take some years for the impact to be noticed.

3. The Con­vener pro­posed the motion which Gaen­er Rodger seconded which was:

   a) Wel­comed High­land Council’s pro­pos­als for a Short Term, Let Con­trol Area cov­er­ing Badenoch and Strath­spey as anoth­er tool to help man­age the avail­ab­il­ity of hous­ing for people work­ing in the Nation­al Park in the long term; and

   b) Noted the implic­a­tions for the CNPA when act­ing as the plan­ning author­ity and endorse officers con­tin­ued work with High­land Coun­cil col­leagues on the devel­op­ment of more detailed plan­ning policy to accom­pany proposals.

4. Action Point Arising: None.

5. Car­o­lyn Cad­dick, Pippa Had­ley, Doug McAdam, John Kirk, Anne Rae Mac­don­ald and Deirdre Fal­con­er returned to the meeting.

Date of Next Meeting

1. Next form­al Board meet­ing to be held on 25^th March 2022 in CNPA Offices as a hybrid meeting,

2. The meet­ing con­cluded at 2.14pm.