APPROVED COM­MIT­TEE MINUTES

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

APPROVED MINUTES OF THE PLAN­NING COMMITTEE held via Video Con­fer­ence on 11^th Decem­ber 2020 at 10am

Mem­bers Present:

Elean­or Mack­in­tosh (Con­vener) Peter Argyle (Deputy Con­vener) Geva Black­ett Car­o­lyn Cad­dick Deirdre Fal­con­er Pippa Had­ley Janet Hunter John Kirk John Latham

Anne Rae Mac­don­ald Douglas McAdam Xan­der McDade Wil­lie McK­enna lan McLar­en Dr Fiona McLean Wil­li­am Mun­ro Derek Ross Judith Webb

In Attend­ance:

Gav­in Miles, Head of Plan­ning and Com­munit­ies Mur­ray Fer­guson, Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning & Rur­al Devel­op­ment Grant Moir, CEO Stephanie Wade, Plan­ning Officer, Devel­op­ment Man­age­ment Dan Har­ris, Plan­ning Man­ager, Devel­op­ment Plan­ning Nina Caudrey, Plan­ning Officer, Devel­op­ment Plan­ning Peter Fer­guson, Harp­er McLeod LLP

Apo­lo­gies: Dr Gaen­er Rodger

Agenda Items I & 2: Wel­come & Apologies

1. The Con­vener wel­comed all present to the 289^th meet­ing of the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee and apo­lo­gies were noted.

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

1. The minutes of the pre­vi­ous meet­ing, 13 Novem­ber 2020, held video con­fer­en­cing were approved with no amendments/​the fol­low­ing amendments:

   • At Para 25h): Sug­ges­tion made to rewrite the para­graph as it did not make sense.

2. The Con­vener provided an update on the actions arising from the minutes of 13 Novem­ber 2020:

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a) At Para 19i): In hand – Any future tem­por­ary or oth­er­wise applic­a­tion for this per­mis­sion to be reques­ted to provide inform­a­tion on the snow machine usage. Will be asked at the time of the next applic­a­tion, pre-app dis­cus­sions on next applic­a­tion. The Con­vener reques­ted that the applic­ant be informed now that it will be expec­ted to be provided so that they can begin to col­lect it. Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies agreed to write to them. b) At Para 27i): In Hand — Plan­ning Com­mit­tee to be giv­en a brief­ing on plan­ning ser­vice and stat­ist­ics to help provide feed­back to any ques­tions or com­ments and to cor­rect inac­cur­ate claims. This would be sched­uled in 2021. c) At Para 31i): Closed — Addi­tion of ref­er­ence to Scot­tish Forestry policy in SG Con­sulta­tion response of per­mit­ted devel­op­ment rights.

1. There were no mat­ters arising.

2. Action Points arising:

   i. Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies to write to Cairngorm Mountain

   Scotland Ltd and ask them to provide information on the use of the
   Snowfactory machines to support any future applications for the
   temporary development.
   

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

1. Peter Argyle declared a Dir­ect Interest in Item 5. Reas­on: Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil mem­ber, while had no par­tic­u­lar interest, had

       the application not been Called-in by the CNPA, he would have been
       sat on the Aberdeenshire Planning Committee deciding on the
       outcome of this application. (Advice had been sought from CNPA
       Director of Corporate Services who was awaiting advice from the
       standards commission).
   

2. Geva Black­ett declared a Dir­ect Interest in Item 5 and AOB item (hous­ing at Kin­drochit court in Brae­mar) Reas­on: Per­son­al interest in Item 5 and had been cam­paign­ing for pro­ject over

       a number of years. AOB item - is part of the community group
       developing a housing project on the same land.
   

3. John Lath­am declared a Dir­ect Interest in Item 5. Reas­on: Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil mem­ber, while had no par­tic­u­lar interest, had

       the application not been Called-in by the CNPA, he would have been
       sat on the Aberdeenshire Planning Committee deciding on the
       outcome of this application. (Advice had been sought from CNPA
       Director of Corporate Services who was awaiting advice from the
       standards commission).
   

4. Wil­lie Mun­ro declared an Indir­ect interest in Item 5

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Reas­on: Former employ­ee of Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil how­ever had not had any involve­ment in this application.

1. Peter Argyle, John Lath­am and Geva Black­ett left the video con­fer­ence meet­ing for the dur­a­tion of the next item.

Agenda Item 5: Detailed Plan­ning Per­mis­sion 2020/0108/DET (APP/2020/0812) Con­struc­tion of A New Single Car­riage­way Road and Form­a­tion of Access and Erec­tion of Bridge At A939 Deeside At Tomin­toul Road, Gairn­shiel, Bal­later, AB35 5UQ Recom­mend­a­tion: Approve Sub­ject to Conditions

1. The Con­vener informed the Com­mit­tee that Graeme Fish­er and Don­ald MacPh­er­son (Applic­ant), Ben Addy (Archi­tect) were present to answer questions.

2. Stephanie Wade, Plan­ning Officer presen­ted the paper to the Committee.

3. The Com­mit­tee were invited to ask points of clar­ity, the fol­low­ing points were raised: a) Query around wheth­er the space between the bot­tom of the pro­posed bridge and the water was suf­fi­cient when com­pared against the design of the exist­ing bridge. Plan­ning Officer con­firmed that SEPA were con­tent that the design meets their cri­ter­ia and the design had also met the cri­ter­ia of the flood assess­ment. b) Query around what weath­er­ing steel would look like. Ben Addy (Archi­tect) explained that the sur­face lay­er oxid­ises as a pro­tect­ive coat­ing that imme­di­ately turns orange and quickly becomes a dark­er shade. c) The Con­vener asked the Archi­tect to con­firm that the bridge would be low main­ten­ance. Bed Addy (Archi­tect) con­firmed that the struc­ture would not need main­ten­ance and this was the reas­on for the design, but that the car­riage­way sur­fa­cing will require nor­mal road sur­face low main­ten­ance. d) Query on the bright­ness of the col­our of the rust­ing pro­cess and how long would it be a dis­tinct­ive col­our for? Ben Addy (Archi­tect) advised that by 5 – 6 years it would be appear dark and after 10 – 12 years it would be evn dark­er and remain that col­our for the rest of its lifespan. e) Could any­thing be done to speed up the rust­ing pro­cess? Ben Addy (Archi­tect) advised that the struc­ture could be left in a field to be exposed to the atmo­sphere and by the time the bridge is being installed it will have begun to oxid­ise. f) A plan­ning Com­mit­tee mem­ber thanked Geva Black­ett for her efforts and cam­paign­ing over the past 8.5 years driv­ing this devel­op­ment on, to get it to this point.

4. The Com­mit­tee agreed these applic­a­tions as per the con­di­tions stated in the report.

5. Action Point arising: None.

6. Peter Argyle, John Lath­am and Geva Black­ett returned to the meeting.

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Agenda Item 6: Berry­burn Wind­farm Exten­sion Consultation Recom­mend­a­tion: No Objection

1. Nina Caudrey, Plan­ning Officer presen­ted the paper to the Committee.

2. The Com­mit­tee were invited to ask points of clar­ity, the fol­low­ing points were raised: a) Cla­ri­fic­a­tion sought into the height and elev­a­tion of the front of the pro­posed wind­farm. Plan­ning Officer con­firmed that the exist­ing wind­farm meas­ured 144m high and the pro­posed devel­op­ment would mean a sig­ni­fic­ant dif­fer­ence in height and would not be set with­in the same type of topo­graphy. b) Hav­ing had a look at the visu­al provided on the NatureScot web­site from the view point of the Crom­dale hills look­ing at closely at the height dif­fer­ence. Was the incre­ment­al dif­fer­ence between what is exist­ing and what is being pro­posed? Plan­ning Officer advised that applic­a­tion had to be assessed on the exist­ing and the level of change the pro­pos­al cre­ated. The level of effect would increase the more struc­tures were erec­ted. c) Cla­ri­fic­a­tion sought into the term used on the assess­ment that there was ​‘no sig­ni­fic­ant impact’ was there any oth­er level of affects, could there be neg­li­gible or slight affect, what were the avail­able grad­ings? Officer explained this was a pro­fes­sion­al judge­ment made by land­scape staff. d) Com­ment made the recom­mend­a­tions appeared a bit back­wards, recom­mend­ing no objec­tion how­ever sup­port­ing the mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures. Plan­ning Officer explained that officers’ advice not to object was based on the policy tests in the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan. Peter Fer­guson, Leg­al Advisor con­firmed that the pos­i­tion had been summed up cor­rectly and that the key test was the two policies in the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan. e) Com­ment made that the recom­mend­a­tion of No Objec­tion sug­ges­ted that the CNPA were con­tent with the pro­posed devel­op­ment how­ever the caveat of sup­port­ing the mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures implied that the CNPA were not con­tent. f) Con­cern raised that if only look­ing at the incre­ment­al dif­fer­ence in tip height and then next year anoth­er applic­a­tion is received which pro­poses anoth­er incre­ment­al dif­fer­ence in tip height, there would be a risk of end­ing up with some­thing that the CNPA would not want. Plan­ning Officer agreed with the sen­ti­ment how­ever advised that any future applic­a­tion would be judged on its mer­its and the cumu­lat­ive effects would be con­sidered. g) The Con­vener sensed a level of con­fu­sion amongst mem­bers and invited the Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies to provide clar­ity. Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies advised that NatureScot were look­ing at the applic­a­tion from a nation­al per­spect­ive, where impacts on the spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies of the Nation­al Park were one part of their assesse­ment. They had iden­ti­fied that the impacts on the Nation­al Park that were not sig­ni­fic­ant (the devel­op­ment would be seen from the Nation­al Park) but that there were sig­ni­fic­ant impacts else­where. The mit­ig­a­tion they sought in rela­tion to those sig­ni­fic­ant effects would also make the pro­pos­al less obvi­ous from the Nation­al Park so should be sup­por­ted. Being able to see a wind­farm from the Nation­al Park was not the same as one hav­ing sig­ni­fic­ant effects on the Nation­al Park’s spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies. The recom­mend­a­tion was to sup­port NatureScot’s advice on

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h) mit­ig­a­tion was not neces­sary but if applied, it would mean a bet­ter devel­op­ment across a large area. i) Com­ment made that this devel­op­ment would cause a cumu­lat­ive impact on the land­scape and the view from the Park, not a silo and do see things out­side the Nation­al Park. Ques­tion around the recom­mend­a­tion of no objec­tion in view of this. j) Com­ment made that it was reas­on­able for the Com­mit­tee to ask for redesign of the devel­op­ment to mit­ig­ate against the pos­sible neg­at­ive impacts the devel­op­ment will have on the spe­cial qual­it­ies of the Nation­al Park. Clar­ity sought into wheth­er the Com­mit­tee are obliged to respond objec­tion or no objec­tion, it seemed con­tra­dict­ory to say x,y,z would be bet­ter. Peter Fer­guson explained that where there is an objec­tion by Loc­al Author­ity or the Plan­ning Author­ity this can trig­ger a pub­lic enquiry. It is dif­fer­ent for a con­sul­tee which is what the Nation­al Park Author­ity falls under. k) Sym­path­ies with the pro­lif­er­a­tion argu­ment on the table, how­ever this wind­farm was not in the Nation­al Park and there­fore sug­ges­tion made to go along with the officer’s recom­mend­a­tion l) Peter Argyle put for­ward a motion to sup­port the officer’s recom­mend­a­tion (No Objec­tion) and this was seconded by Doug McAdam. m) Derek Ross put for­ward an Amend­ment to Object the applic­a­tion in terms of policy 3.3 stat­ing it was con­tra­dict­ory to be recom­mend­ing its approv­al and then adding caveats. This was seconded by Geva Blackett.

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

Name	Motion	Amend­ment	Abstain
Peter Argyle	√
Geva Black­ett		√
Car­o­lyn Caddick	√
Deirdre Fal­con­er			√
Pippa Had­ley	√
Janet Hunter	√
John Kirk	√
John Lath­am	√
Elean­or Mackintosh	√
Douglas McAdam	√
Xan­der McDade			√
Wil­lie McKenna			√
Ian McLar­en	√
Fiona McLean			√
Wil­li­am Munro	√
Anne Rae Macdonald	√
Derek Ross		√
Judith Webb	√
TOTAL	12	2	4

1. The Com­mit­tee agreed to approve the Officer’s recom­mend­a­tion of No Objec­tion but sup­port­ing NatureScot’s mit­ig­a­tion measures.

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1. Action Point arising: None.

Agenda Item 7: Plan­ning Ser­vice Per­form­ance Update

1. Gav­in Miles, Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies presen­ted the paper to the Com­mit­tee which provides an update on the stat­ist­ic­al per­form­ance of the CNPA Plan­ning ser­vice to Quarter 2 of 2020 – 21 and wider plan­ning work deliv­ery. He high­lighted that through the Cairngorms Youth Group they were tri­al­ling an engage­ment pro­ject using the com­puter game Mine­craft and that depend­ing on its suc­cess, the map might be released for oth­er edu­ca­tion­al uses.

2. The Con­vener invited the Com­mit­tee to dis­cuss the report, the fol­low­ing points were raised: a) Was the Mine­craft game some­thing that we have designed, or is it bespoke mine­craft game we are using? Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies advised that the team had cre­ated a map of the Nation­al Park in Mine­craft which allows people to play out dif­fer­ent scen­ari­os. The mem­ber com­men­ded staff for this and said it was fant­ast­ic for enga­ging young people. b) Com­ment made that fig­ure I and 2 was help­ful in show­ing that we were not com­par­ing like for like, more com­plic­ated applic­a­tions we call in which was import­ant to note. c) Query around the ongo­ing work was there a more detailed work plan of goals and out­comes behind it? Oth­er­wise how would it be known if they had been achieved? Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies advised that the detail was in officers work plans but that pro­gress is repor­ted to the Com­mit­tee at the appro­pri­ate times. d) Com­ment made that the Author­ity determ­ine a very small num­ber of applic­a­tions com­pared to Loc­al Authority’s. e) Praise for the Mine­craft map, com­ment made that it was good to piggy back on some­thing really suc­cess­ful and may tempt more vis­it­ors to the area as a result.

3. The Com­mit­tee noted the intern­al plan­ning ser­vice mon­it­or­ing res­ults out­lined in the report.

4. Action Point arising: None.

5. Geva Black­ett left the meet­ing for the dur­a­tion of the dis­cus­sion on the next item.

Agenda Item 8: AOB

1. Gav­in Miles, Head of Plan­ning and Com­munit­ies presen­ted to the Com­mit­tee ask that they con­sider agree­ing to a small change to the S75 agree­ment that covered two hous­ing sites in (Kin­drochit Court and St Andrews Ter­race) in Brae­mar. The S75 Agree­ment allows for land at Kin­drochit Court (with plan­ning per­mis­sion for afford­able hous­ing) to be trans­ferred to Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil or a Hous­ing Asso­ci­ation. The change to the agree­ment that parties want to make is to allow the

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land at Kin­drochit Court to be trans­ferred to the com­munity for the pur­pose of cre­at­ing afford­able hous­ing. Oth­er­wise, the agree­ment will remain the same and the Kin­drochit Court afford­able hous­ing will provide the con­tri­bu­tion required from hous­ing devel­op­ment at St Andrews Terrace.

1. He explained he wanted to make the fol­low­ing changes: a) to a change in the body who the land will be trans­ferred to for the pur­poses of cre­at­ing afford­able hous­ing (from RSL or Coun­cil to Brae­mar Com­munity Lim­ited or oth­er com­munity vehicle); and sub­ject to that trans­fer of land b) to the remov­al of any fur­ther fin­an­cial con­tri­bu­tions for the site in rela­tion to the act­ive con­sent on Kin­drochit Court (this is likely to become a point of delay for the com­munity pro­ject); c) to the remov­al of the require­ment for the site to be cleared and ser­viced (this has been factored into the com­munity project’s budgets but more import­antly , was likely to become a fur­ther point of delay if it remained); d) to the waiv­ing of the require­ment for an afford­able hous­ing con­tri­bu­tion from a new con­sent for devel­op­ment of hous­ing on the St Andrew’s Ter­race site. The num­ber of units pro­posed by the com­munity on the Kin­drochit Court site will be close to or more likely exceed the 45% we would seek from the sites as one devel­op­ment. Oth­er con­tri­bu­tions would be cal­cu­lated on the basis of policy and jus­ti­fic­a­tion at the time of determination.

2. The Com­mit­tee agreed with the proposal.

3. Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies provided an update on the Gyn­ack Flood alle­vi­ation scheme: a) Noth­ing form­al had been received yet but a new scheme was being designed and cos­ted. b) The own­ers will be ask­ing com­pan­ies to tender that work to gain a cost estim­ate. c) There would be two poten­tial implic­a­tions from this: either that a new scheme comes for­ward to Plan­ning Com­mit­tee; or, if too expens­ive, the applic­ant will need to under­take works to rein­state the land.

4. The Com­mit­tee noted the update.

5. Action Points arising: None.

Agenda Item 9: Date of Next Meeting

1. Fri­day 22^nd Janu­ary 2021 at 10am via video/​telephone conference.

2. The Board Con­vener said a few words of thanks to mark the last meet­ing con­vened by the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Con­vener, Elean­or Mack­in­tosh who was step­ping down. He made the fol­low­ing points: a) Praise for her ded­ic­a­tion in the role of Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Con­vener for the best part of a decade.

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b) She is hugely respec­ted by her fel­low board mem­bers and the staff here at the Park Author­ity. c) As Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Chair, Elean­or was ground break­ing in a num­ber of respects – both as the first woman elec­ted to a seni­or Board pos­i­tion and as the first dir­ectly elec­ted Board Mem­ber to speak on behalf of the Author­ity at a pub­lic inquiry. d) She has also over­seen the reform of our Plan­ning Com­mit­tee, mak­ing it more effi­cient and effect­ive. e) She is one of the best com­mit­tee chairs he had ever experienced.

1. The Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Con­vener thanked the Board Con­vener for the kind words.

2. The pub­lic busi­ness of the meet­ing con­cluded at 11.30 hours.