Minutes of the Form­al Board meeting

Held at Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity office, Grant­own-on-Spey Hybrid 13 March 2026 at 12.30pm

Present in person

Elean­or Mack­in­tosh (Deputy Con­vener) Peter Cos­grove Paul Gibb John Kirk Lauren Mac­Cal­lum Fiona McLean Duncan Miller Jack­ie Brier­ton Kenny Deans Rus­sell Jones Bill Lob­ban Ian McLaren

Present online

Han­nah Grist Steve Mickle­wright Ann Ross Derek Ross

In attend­ance

Grant Moir, Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer Dav­id Camer­on, Deputy Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices Andy Ford, Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change Gav­in Miles, Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place Dav­id Berry, Head of Plan­ning and Chief Plan­ning Officer Dan Har­ris, Plan­ning Man­ager (For­ward Plan­ning and Ser­vice Improve­ment) Nas­im Mehr­abi, Plan­ning Officer Jeff Pyrah, Seni­or Plan­ning Officer (For­ward Plan­ning) Dot Har­ris, Plan­ning Assist­ant Scott Shanks, Eco­lo­gic­al Advice Officer (Plan­ning) Heath­er Boswell, Seni­or Plan­ning Officer Kath­er­ine Don­nach­ie, Plan­ning Officer Katie Crerar, Plan­ning Officer Lauren Neil, Gradu­ate Plan­ner Lacquarn Rose, Gradu­ate Plan­ner Onya Beaton, Stu­dent Kar­en John­stone, Clerk to the Board Alix Hark­ness, Clerk to the Board

Apo­lo­gies

Sandy Brem­ner (Con­vener) Michael Wil­li­am­son Geva Blackett

Wel­come and introduction

1. Elean­or Mack­in­tosh, the Deputy Board Con­vener, wel­comed every­one to the meet­ing. Apo­lo­gies were noted.

Mat­ters arising not covered elsewhere

1. There were not mat­ters arising.

Declar­a­tions of interest

1. There were no declar­a­tions of interest.

Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan Evid­ence Report (Paper 1)

1. Dan Har­ris, Plan­ning Man­ager (For­ward Plan­ning and Ser­vice Improve­ment) intro­duced the paper which seeks approv­al of the Evid­ence Report, as set out in Annex 1, for sub­mis­sion to Scot­tish Min­is­ters for its ​“gat­echeck” review by the Divi­sion for Plan­ning and Envir­on­ment­al Appeals (DPEA).

2. The Board con­sidered the detail in the Paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the fol­low­ing: a) Board Mem­bers praised staff for the level of hard work, time and effort that the team have put into the report and gath­er­ing the volume of evid­ence. b) Dis­cus­sions were had around the hous­ing require­ments in Table 3 of Annex 1.13, not­ing the estim­ated exist­ing hous­ing need of 52 homes seems low. Seni­or Plan­ning Officer explained these fig­ures were pro­duced by the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment (SG), not the Park Author­ity, not­ing that it was just one ele­ment of the evid­ence in cal­cu­lat­ing the hous­ing land require­ment of 889 new homes is needed over the 10 years of the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (LDP). c) A Board Mem­ber ques­tioned if there should be men­tion of the pos­sib­il­ity of implic­a­tions on second homes, empty homes and vacant dwell­ings relat­ing to triple coun­cil tax. Plan­ning Man­ager explained this can be added for inform­a­tion, how­ever this would not have any implic­a­tions on the Pro­posed LDP as it is not a plan­ning mat­ter. d) A Board Mem­ber com­men­ted on the cul­tur­al her­it­age not­ing it is prom­ising to see it is up to date in terms of the approach and recog­nising the impact of the sales of churches and the impact on the com­munit­ies who want to buy them. It was also high­lighted that it was pos­it­ive to see the con­sulta­tion evid­ence with trav­el­ing com­munit­ies and their responses and how the Park Author­ity can address their desire to have their cul­tur­al her­it­age addressed. e) A Board Mem­ber ques­tioned the Com­munity Coun­cil engage­ment and how effect­ive that has been as part of the LDP as it seems there was no con­tri­bu­tion for a lot of sched­ules. Plan­ning Man­ager explained it is hard for com­munit­ies to engage with cer­tain con­tent unless is it rel­ev­ant to them spe­cific­ally, as they are often not experts in these areas. How­ever, the team have atten­ded Com­munity Coun­cil meet­ings when reques­ted as well as emails, face to face dis­cus­sions, attend­ing road shows and gath­er­ings and inter­act­ing with people and com­munity coun­cils. It was noted that the best engage­ment came from Com­munity Action Plan meet­ings, allow­ing the team to explain the pro­cess and how their input will influ­ence the LDP. Plan­ning Man­ager con­firmed this was not an issue for the gat­echeck, as Report­ers are look­ing for engage­ment and the oppor­tun­it­ies for engage­ment which have taken place, not the volume or qual­ity of responses. f) A board mem­ber raised an issue around drought and where trees were being planted. Plan­ning Man­ager explained LDP does not dir­ect forestry, how­ever drought and water scarcity is recog­nised in Sched­ule 19. g) Dis­cus­sions were had around con­sulta­tion fatigue. Plan­ning Man­ager under­stood the dif­fi­culties of con­sulta­tion fatigue and the team try to reduce this by com­bin­ing with oth­er con­sulta­tions that are already ongo­ing, such as Com­munity Action Plans. CEO com­men­ted that the next phase is when loc­al com­munit­ies will be more inter­ested in giv­ing their feed­back. The Park Author­ity have expressed con­cern to SG about the volume of con­sulta­tions that the evid­ence report stage requires. h) A Board Mem­ber ques­tioned if some­thing is not spe­cific­ally men­tioned in the evid­ence report, does this mean it will not be included in the policy. Plan­ning Man­ager explained this would depend, a top­ic would not be pre­cluded if the issues have been taken into account, how­ever, if a top­ic has not been taken into account and it has not been engaged upon, then it would not be able to be part of a policy. How­ever, it was noted that implic­a­tions are designed to include a degree of flex­ib­il­ity. i) Dis­cus­sions were had around land use and scale of car­bon mar­kets and cap­it­al invest­ments and how this can be shaped for com­munity bene­fits. Plan­ning Man­ager explained that unless it requires plan­ning per­mis­sion, it would not be included in the LDP, this could be included in the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP). CEO noted that NPPP and Cairngorms 2030 (C2030) are work­ing with estates and com­munity bene­fits from land use. j) Dis­cus­sions were had around trans­port strategy and pri­or­it­ising sus­tain­able trans­port, not­ing the paper men­tions the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ments strategy to reduce the use of private cars. A Board Mem­ber men­tioned that in rur­al areas there is not enough pub­lic trans­port to get from one vil­lage to anoth­er there­fore a private car is essen­tial. Plan­ning Man­ager explained the LDP needs to be con­sist­ent with nation­al legis­la­tion and policy and the Evid­ence Report must demon­strate that the Park Author­ity are tak­ing this into account. It was how­ever acknow­ledged that there are issues in rur­al com­munit­ies and that most house­holds rely on private motor vehicles. It was high­lighted that the key implic­a­tions for the Pro­posed Plan relate to the spa­tial strategy and how they influ­ence where devel­op­ment is con­cen­trated. This is already set out in in the NPPP, which iden­ti­fies Aviemore, Grant­own-on-Spey, New­ton­more, Bal­later and Kin­gussie as Stra­tegic Set­tle­ments. k) Dis­cus­sions were had around liv­ing loc­ally and 20-minute neigh­bour­hoods and how inform­a­tion is gathered from those com­munit­ies as a key theme for towns / vil­lages is they want to be eco­nom­ic­ally thriv­ing to help improve their lives and their towns / vil­lages. Plan­ning Manger explained that Com­munity Action Plans are developed and refreshed, the team ana­lyse each one pulling out key actions, pre­pare the pro­posed plan high­light­ing these key areas for prop­er­ties, areas or actions for the spa­tial strategy. Fur­ther dis­cus­sions will hap­pen again with com­munit­ies before final actions plans are put in place. l) Dis­cus­sions were had around com­munit­ies without Com­munity Action Plans in areas such as Tomin­toul and Glen­liv­et and how these com­munit­ies are brought on board and how they can be helped. Plan­ning Man­ager explained that the Park Author­ity has the inform­a­tion for areas that have a Com­munity Action Plans in place. For areas that do not have these in place, the team will vis­it the com­munity dur­ing the pre­par­a­tion of the Pro­posed Plan to allow them to con­trib­ute in a dir­ect way. It was noted that com­munity actions plans are not a stat­utory require­ment and do not require a Com­munity Coun­cil to cre­ate them. How­ever, it is good for areas to have Com­munity Action Plans in place where pos­sible. m) A Board Mem­ber com­men­ted that there needs to be a hol­ist­ic report when cre­at­ing the Action Plan, cross cut­ting to high­light oppor­tun­it­ies across dif­fer­ent areas, espe­cially in the eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment areas. Plan­ning Man­ager agreed.

3. The Board noted the paper and agreed to the recom­mend­a­tions: a) Approve the Evid­ence Report for sub­mis­sion to Scot­tish Min­is­ters via the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment Divi­sion of Plan­ning and Envir­on­ment­al Appeals (DPEA) for its ​‘gat­echeck’ review. b) Del­eg­ate author­ity to the Head of Plan­ning and Chief Plan­ning Officer to respond to any request for fur­ther inform­a­tion or amend­ment as a res­ult of the gat­echeck process.

4. Action Points Arising: None.

AOCB

1. None.

Date of Next Meeting

1. The date of the next meet­ing is 27 March 2026 in person.

2. The meet­ing con­cluded at 01.19pm