APPROVED COM­MIT­TEE MINUTES

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

APPROVED MINUTES OF THE PLAN­NING COMMITTEE

held at The Com­munity Hall, Boat of Garten on 22 March 2019 at 11.00am

Mem­bers Present

Peter Argyle (Vice Con­vener) Wil­lie McKenna

Geva Black­ett lan McLaren

Car­o­lyn Cad­dick Fiona McLean

Pippa Had­ley Anne Rae Macdonald

John Lath­am Gaen­er Rodger

Elean­or Mack­in­tosh (Con­vener) Derek RosS

Douglas McAdam Judith Webb

Xan­der McDade

In Attend­ance:

Gav­in Miles, Head of Plan­ning & Communities

Emma Wilson, Plan­ning Man­ager (Devel­op­ment Management)

Kath­er­ine Don­nach­ie, Plan­ning Officer

Roslyn Mac­don­ald, Leg­al Adviser, Harp­er MacLeod LLP

Alix Hark­ness, Clerk to the Board

Dot Har­ris, Plan­ning Admin­is­tra­tion & Sys­tems Officer

Apo­lo­gies:

Janet Hunter, Wil­li­am Munro,

Deirdre Fal­con­er

Agenda Items I & 2: Wel­come & Apologies

1. The Con­vener wel­comed all present and repor­ted that a worth­while site vis­it had taken place that morning.

2. The Con­vener con­grat­u­lated Geva Black­ett, Wil­lie McK­enna and her­self on their recent re-elec­tion to the CNPA Board for terms to last four years. She repor­ted that

APPROVED COM­MIT­TEE MINUTES

the Board had sadly lost Dave Fal­lows who was a very con­scien­tious mem­ber of the Com­mit­tee and sug­ges­ted that she write to him to thank him for his con­tri­bu­tion over the years. This was agreed.

1. The Con­vener announced that fol­low­ing last night’s loc­al Elec­tions Deirdre Fal­con­er had been elec­ted to rep­res­ent Ward I and would under­go plan­ning com­mit­tee train­ing before sit­ting on the committee.

2. Apo­lo­gies were noted.

3. Action: i. Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Con­vener to write to Dave Fal­lows to thank him for his con­tri­bu­tion to the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee over the years.

Agenda Item 3: Minutes & Mat­ters Arising from the Pre­vi­ous Meeting

1. The minutes of the pre­vi­ous meet­ing, 22 Feb­ru­ary 2019, held in the Cairngorm Hotel Aviemore, were approved with no amendments.

2. There were no mat­ters arising.

3. The Con­vener provided an update on the Action Point from the pre­vi­ous meet­ing: a) Action Point at Para 19i) In Hand – Addi­tions as detailed in para­graph 18 are being added to the decision notice.

4. Action Point Arising: None.

Agenda Item 4: Declar­a­tion of Interest by Mem­bers on Items Appear­ing on the Agenda

1. Geva Black­ett declared a Dir­ect interest in: Item No. 6 Reas­on: Has fam­ily con­nec­tions to many of the object­ors to the development.

2. Peter Argyle declared an Indir­ect interest in: Item No. 6 Reas­on: Is a Board mem­ber of Vis­it Aber­deen­shire, but Vis­it Aberdeenshire’s rep­res­ent­a­tion was pri­or to him becom­ing a Board Member.

APPROVED COM­MIT­TEE MINUTES

Agenda Item 5: Applic­a­tion for Detailed Plan­ning Per­mis­sion (2018/0043/DET)

Erec­tion of 28 apart­ments with asso­ci­ated works (amended design) At devel­op­ment site on Former Fil­ing Sta­tion, Grampi­an Road, Aviemore, High­land Recom­mend­a­tion: Refuse

1. The Con­vener advised Scott Don­ald the Agent had reques­ted to be heard and would be rep­res­en­ted by Bri­an Muir of Rydens.

2. Kath­er­ine Don­nach­ie, Plan­ning Officer presen­ted the paper to the Com­mit­tee. She high­lighted that there had been a typ­ing error at para­graph 106 where it should read ‘…Because this applic­a­tion is recom­men­ded for approv­al, these issues form ancil­lary reas­ons for refus­al, but would be eas­ily addressed were the applic­a­tion to be approved.’

3. The Com­mit­tee were invited to ask points of clar­ity. The fol­low­ing point was raised: a) The Con­vener asked that the pos­i­tion on afford­able hous­ing be explained. Gav­in Miles explained that the applic­ant had been in dis­cus­sions with the hous­ing author­ity (The High­land Coun­cil) at the point that they were devel­op­ing houses at Slug­gan Drive, Aviemore. The developer offered afford­able houses at Slug­gan Drive and the hous­ing author­ity accep­ted. He added that should this cur­rent applic­a­tion not pro­ceed the hous­ing provided at Slug­gan Drive would con­tin­ue to be a cred­it-note for the developer that could be used against afford­able hous­ing con­tri­bu­tions. b) With regards to the scal­ing of the plans, were the trees behind the build­ing to scale or just an artist’s impres­sion? Kath­er­ine Don­nach­ie sug­ges­ted that ques­tions be put to the Agent. c) With ref­er­ence to the visu­al­isa­tion, the descrip­tion states that the tallest build­ing would be double the height of the street lights where­as the visu­al­isa­tion does not por­tray this. Gav­in Miles sug­ges­ted that the ques­tion be put to the Agent. Kath­er­ine Don­nach­ie advised that the street lights were 8m high and the tallest build­ing would be 16m high. d) Could the height of the Happy Hag­gis build­ing be giv­en to help work out per­spect­ives? Kath­er­ine Don­nach­ie approx­im­ated that it was 5 meters high but sug­ges­ted the Agent be asked to con­firm. e) The street lights seemed to get short­er in height when near­ing the town centre. Kath­er­ine Don­nach­ie repor­ted that she had received the details on the street lights height from the High­land Coun­cil spe­cific­ally on that site.

4. Scott Don­ald (Archi­tect), Bri­an Muir of Ryden Plan­ning, (Agent) and Camer­on Mun­ro (Applic­ant) gave a presentation.

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1. The Com­mit­tee were invited to ask ques­tions of the speak­ers. The fol­low­ing were raised: a) With regards to the scal­ing of the plans, were the trees behind the build­ing to scale or just an artist’s impres­sion? Scott Don­ald advised that the dark green trees had been sur­veyed and drawn accur­ately to scale as had the chip shop build­ing. He added that the light­er trees pic­tured in the back­ground were not accur­ately drawn to scale. b) Had the street lights been drawn to scale? Scott Don­ald advised that the per­son who had cre­ated the 3D images was not present. He sug­ges­ted that he could go away and check that and then come back with the inform­a­tion. He added that regard­less of the images the wall height of the highest build­ing of the devel­op­ment would be the same height as the approved Premi­er Inn, 13 metres. He con­firmed that the pitched roof would increase the height to 16 meters. c) With ref­er­ence to the visu­al­isa­tion, if the Happy Hag­gis build­ing was 5 meters tall, the gable end of the pro­posed devel­op­ment next door did not look as if it was 16 meters tall. Bri­an Ryden agreed that this com­ment was val­id. He advised that he had per­mis­sion from his cli­ent to with­draw the visu­al­isa­tions from the Committee’s con­sid­er­a­tion of this applic­a­tion. Kath­er­ine Don­nach­ie agreed and asked the Com­mit­tee to focus on the pro­posed plans. d) With regards to the remov­al and reten­tion of trees, con­cern raised with regard to the impact of cut­ting back tree areas, caus­ing dam­age to the tree roots and sta­bil­ity prob­lems and there­fore lead­ing to fur­ther tree loss. Scott Don­ald repor­ted that his cli­ent had looked at dif­fer­ent ways of build­ing the car port area and that the cur­rent pile driv­en solu­tion reduced the num­ber of trees need­ing to be removed. He explained that a Tree Con­sult­ant had been hired to work with the developer. Trees on the site had been cat­egor­ised for qual­ity and bene­fit to the wider com­munity. He advised on site 11% are cat­egory A lis­ted, 32% are cat­egory B, well over half are C or U. He advised of the Cat­egory A trees, it was being pro­posed to remove 8% of the total.

2. Kath­er­ine Don­nach­ie was invited to come back on points that she had heard: a) Policy 5 Land­scape was clear it applied through­out the Nation­al Park and not just to the remote and wild areas. b) Policy 3 Sus­tain­able Design states that devel­op­ment must be sym­path­et­ic to the area, this policy also applies to that site. c) With regard to the com­par­is­on made to the Premi­er Inn devel­op­ment whereby a pre­ced­ent was set for devel­op­ment of this height she high­lighted that the topo­graphy dif­fers for each site. d) Tree pro­tec­tion and con­struc­tion of retain­ing wall – the High­land Coun­cil Forestry Officer shares the same con­cerns as CNPA officers and mem­bers and had reques­ted that an arbor­i­cul­tur­al state­ment be produced.

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e) Applic­ants have tried to address con­cerns by cut­ting back on car park­ing through the reduc­tion of flats, and the con­struc­tion meth­od of the retain­ing wall which has reduced the dis­turb­ance to trees.

1. The Con­vener thanked the speakers.

2. The Com­mit­tee were invited to dis­cuss the report, the fol­low­ing points were raised: a) Did the High­land Coun­cil Forestry Officer still have con­cerns? Kath­er­ine Don­nach­ie con­firmed that he did. b) Agree that it was an ideal site for res­id­en­tial hous­ing how­ever the con­cern with this pro­pos­al was the height of the build­ing next to the chip shop. Had the build­ing been three and a half storey rather than four and half, would have been more sup­port­ive. c) Praise for the Agent’s present­a­tion how­ever dis­agree­ment with the con­clu­sions drawn. d) Gen­er­al con­cern raised around the scale and size of the pro­posed devel­op­ment. e) Sug­ges­tion made that poles to indic­ate pro­posed build­ing heights could have been erec­ted for this morning’s site vis­it to aid with visu­al­isa­tion. Kath­er­ine Don­nach­ie advised that the Applic­ant had been asked to provide this but were not able to.

3. The Com­mit­tee agreed to refuse the applic­a­tion as per the Officer’s recommendation.

4. The Con­vener added that there was strong sup­port for some form of hous­ing on the site if developers want to rethink the scale.

5. The meet­ing paused for short com­fort break.

6. Action Point arising: None.

7. Geva Black­ett left the room.

Agenda Item 6: Applic­a­tion for Detailed Plan­ning Per­mis­sion (2018/0043/DET)

Erec­tion of 12 Hol­i­day Cab­ins and Asso­ci­ated Ancil­lary Plant Build­ing, Ground Moun­ted sol­ar pan­els and form­a­tion of park­ing area At Lagh­lass­er, Cor­garff, Strath­don, AB36 8YP Recom­mend­a­tion: Approve Sub­ject to Conditions

1. The Con­vener advised that Rachel Gray (Agent), A J Walk­er (Object­or) and Paul Too­hey (Com­munity Coun­cil) had reques­ted to be heard.

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1. Emma Wilson, Plan­ning Man­ager presen­ted the paper to the Com­mit­tee. She high­lighted that the Council’s Roads Depart­ment sub­mit­ted addi­tion­al com­ments and have reques­ted that should the applic­a­tion be sup­por­ted fur­ther con­di­tions be attached to any con­sent. These were received after the com­mit­tee report was pre­pared and relate to: a) The spe­cific­a­tion of the vis­ib­il­ity splay at the junc­tion of the site with the A939; b) The gradi­ent and fin­ish of the access: c) The ser­vi­cing arrange­ments and vehicle man­oeuv­rab­il­ity with­in the site.

2. It was also recom­men­ded that an addi­tion­al con­di­tion was required to ensure the pro­posed Private Water Supply’s pro­vi­sion will be fit for human con­sump­tion and evid­ence be provided to demon­strate this.

3. The Com­mit­tee were invited to ask the Plan­ning Man­ager points of clar­ity. The fol­low­ing were raised: a) The Con­vener asked if there would be more felling required should the devel­op­ment be giv­en the go ahead? Emma Wilson sug­ges­ted that the ques­tion be put to the Agent. b) Con­cern raised that in Aber­deen­shire lots of water sup­plies were private and reg­u­larly run dry dur­ing dry spells, could reas­sur­ance be giv­en as to the adequacy of the private water sup­ply? Emma Wilson sug­ges­ted adding that as a require­ment pri­or to devel­op­ment start­ing. c) Could reas­sur­ance be giv­en that the private water sup­ply had capa­city to ser­vice all 12 pro­posed build­ings and would not have an adverse impact on oth­er water sup­plies in the area? Emma Wilson sug­ges­ted that the ques­tion be dir­ec­ted to the Agent. d) Would the sur­round­ing wood­land become an amen­ity forest for the devel­op­ment? Emma Wilson advised that it would remain com­mer­cial with plans to restock it as per the wood­land man­age­ment plan. e) Cla­ri­fic­a­tion sought on the light­ing arrange­ments at night. Emma Wilson advised that there would be low key light­ing around the cab­ins and on the drive. f) What was the estim­ated employ­ment dir­ectly as a res­ult of the devel­op­ment? Emma Wilson advised that there would be oppor­tun­it­ies dur­ing the con­struc­tion phases, they planned to build 2 struc­tures at a time over 6 years. She added that once the struc­tures were built there would be employ­ment oppor­tun­ity for 2 to 3 mem­bers of staff to ser­vice the cab­ins. g) With regards to the light­ing was there a restric­tion in place to ensure that it would be down­ward point­ing? Emma Wilson sug­ges­ted the Agent be asked to con­firm the light­ing pro­posed. h) With ref­er­ence to the trees in the wood­land the report sug­gests best prac­tise on larch trees? Gav­in Miles advised that the applic­a­tion was not look­ing to bring the

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sur­round­ing wood­land into the applic­a­tion site, the sur­round­ing wood­land was under a forest man­age­ment plan that Forestry Com­mis­sion Scot­land would approve. i) Sug­ges­tion made that it would have been use­ful to have a visu­al­isa­tion look­ing down from the Watch­ers. Gav­in Miles agreed and took that point going for­ward. j) Con­cern raised that the park­ing area in the middle lacked screen­ing. Emma Wilson advised that the park­ing area would be screened by land­scape plant­ing and that a con­di­tion covered the sub­mis­sion of a land­scape plan for approval.

1. Rachel Gray (Agent) addressed the Com­mit­tee. The Com­mit­tee were invited to ask ques­tions of the speak­er: a) If approved what would the vis­it­or see where the wood­land would be seen from the Watcher’s at the moment? Rachel Gray advised that a land­scape and visu­al apprais­al had been com­mis­sioned and it con­cluded that at the begin­ning the devel­op­ment would inev­it­ably be vis­ible how­ever with replant­ing, over time the devel­op­ment would be screened. b) How could you guar­an­tee that the devel­op­ment would not affect oth­er water sup­plies? Rachel Gray advised that they had had done a pro­fes­sion­al water sup­ply report that found that it had capa­city. c) Were any oth­er prop­er­ties rely­ing on the same water sup­ply? Rachel Gray con­firmed that cur­rently the water source sup­plied the applicant’s one bed­room cot­tage. d) Com­ment made that it would have been use­ful to see the visu­al impact of the devel­op­ment, had oth­er meas­ures to screen the car park­ing area been invest­ig­ated? Rachel Gray advised that they wanted trees and not arti­fi­cial struc­tures. She added that the car park had been designed cir­cu­lar to tie in with the top of a moun­tain. e) Con­cern raised around the reflect­ive clad­ding caus­ing bird strike issues and the increase in light pol­lu­tion. Rachel Gray advised that they had worked with the archi­tect on 3D arti­fi­cial renders to reduce glare on sunny days. She added that the clad­ding design would blend in with the trees because it reflec­ted them. f) If the forest is pro­duct­ive, more felling would be likely and may cause fur­ther wind blow, had the impact of that been assessed? Rachel Gray explained that this was the pur­pose of the phased approach. She added that the forest man­age­ment plan’s aim is to main­tain forest cov­er and that addi­tion­al plant­ing that is car­ried out would strengthen the forest cov­er. g) Could cla­ri­fic­a­tion be giv­en on the impact of the light­ing in an isol­ated area? Rachel Gray explained that they need to make the site safe for people arriv­ing, took out major­ity of light­ing, and took out on track and instead pro­pose reflect­ive bol­lards. Path light­ing would be below knee height and point­ing down­wards. Their inten­tion was to keep light­ing to a min­im­um while being safe to access.

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1. Mr AJ Walk­er (Object­or) was invited to address the Committee.

2. Paul Too­hey from the Don­side Com­munity Coun­cil rep­res­ent­ing Strath­don addressed the Committee.

3. The Con­vener invited Emma Wilson to come back on points that she had heard: a) Reflect­ive clad­ding, would be sub­ject to con­di­tion, sample clad­ding would be reques­ted and tested and approved. b) Vis­ib­il­ity splay did sat­is­fy coun­cil stand­ards, would be sub­ject to con­di­tion to ensure road safety rules are addressed.

4. The Con­vener thanked the speak­ers and invited the Com­mit­tee to dis­cuss the report, the fol­low­ing points were raised: a) With ref­er­ence to Policy 10 Exist­ing private water sup­plies, would it be fair to have a con­di­tion that states it should be bot­tomed out before the devel­op­ment starts on site? Emma Wilson con­firmed that it was appro­pri­ate that they would have to demon­strate upfront how it would be addressed from the out­set. Roslyn Mac­Don­ald con­firmed that would be pos­sible to impose the con­di­tion before com­mence­ment of the devel­op­ment. b) Com­ment made that the concept was pos­it­ive and the enthu­si­asm of the applic­ant was applauded how­ever con­cern raised that it was in the wrong loc­a­tion, as this was an unspoiled part of the Nation­al Park with spec­tac­u­lar land­scapes. c) Could the applic­ant be asked to provide some long term reas­sur­ance with regards to the sur­round­ing wood­land to the site? Gav­in Miles advised that it would involve seek­ing the Applic­ants agree­ment and would remove their abil­ity to receive wood­land grants. d) Resound­ing agree­ment that the set­ting was crit­ic­al espe­cially with the risk of adversely impact­ing on the land­scape set­ting. e) Con­cern raised on the lack of screen­ing on the car park­ing area. f) Unfor­tu­nate not hav­ing an aer­i­al view of the site and set­ting. g) Com­ment made that they liked the design of the units. h) Request made for visu­al­isa­tions to be cre­ated show­ing the wood­land if felled. Gav­in Miles advised that while officers could cre­ate a fly through of the site using aer­i­al pho­to­graphy, it could only give a sense of the site, not an accur­ate pic­ture. i) Recog­ni­tion for the enthu­si­asm of the applic­ant and con­cern raised of the num­ber of con­di­tions; insuf­fi­cient evid­ence water sup­plies, use of reflect­ive mater­i­al, health and safety of road and access and lim­ited job cre­ation. Gav­in Miles con­firmed that the coun­cil were con­tent with the vis­ib­il­ity splay. j) A mem­ber indic­ated that they the inten­ded to pro­pose a motion to refuse the applic­a­tion for a vari­ety of reas­ons includ­ing the land­scape and visu­al impacts, and

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lim­ited eco­nom­ic bene­fits. A second mem­ber indic­ated that they would second such a motion. k) A mem­ber pro­posed a site vis­it to bet­ter under­stand the site and issues before mak­ing a decision on the plan­ning application.

1. The Com­mit­tee agreed to defer the applic­a­tion to allow for a site vis­it, fur­ther work to be car­ried out on the fol­low­ing: a) To estab­lish the water sup­ply and its effect on the neigh­bours b) On the wood­land man­age­ment c) Visu­al­isa­tion of the devel­op­ment site.

2. Action Point arising: i. Site vis­it to be programmed.

3. Geva Black­ett returned to meeting.

Agenda Item 7: Any Oth­er Business

1. Gav­in Miles provided the fol­low­ing updates: a) The S75 agree­ment for An Camas Mor had been issued for sign­ing by all parties. b) Note that the LDP MIR Con­sulta­tion Report had an error where the CBP were not ref­er­enced as hav­ing com­men­ted on all the issues that they had actu­ally com­men­ted on. How­ever their detailed com­ments were taken into account and were addressed in the detailed ana­lys­is in the report. The report has now been updated to cor­rectly ref­er­ence their com­ments. c) The CNPA has been asked to attend a hear­ing ses­sion for Pub­lic Inquiry into right of way diver­sion order at Pit­main Lodge Kin­gussie. Mem­bers may recall a pre­vi­ous plan­ning applic­a­tion for diver­sion­ary track here – need to divert right of way was high­lighted then and this led to the diver­sion order. Kath­er­ine Don­nach­ie, Plan­ning Officer and Doug Stew­art, Out­door Access Officer will attend. d) The next Plan­ning Rep­res­ent­at­ives Net­work and Developers for­um meet­ing will take place next Wed­nes­day 27^th March 2019. e) The Spit­tal of Glen­shee hotel site should be tidied up by the fol­low­ing week and if not, the CNPA would serve an amen­ity notice.

2. Action Point arising: None.

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Agenda Item 8: Date of Next Meeting

1. Fri­day 26^th April 2019 at The Com­munity Hall, Nethy Bridge.

2. Com­mit­tee Mem­bers are reques­ted to ensure that any Apo­lo­gies for this meet­ing are sub­mit­ted to the Clerk to the Board, Alix Harkness.

3. The pub­lic busi­ness of the meet­ing con­cluded at 13.46.