Cairngorms National Park Local Development Plan Examination Report

Plan­ning and Envir­on­ment­al Appeals Division

Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment Riaghaltas na h‑Alba gov.scot

Tele­phone: 01324 696455 Fax: 01324 696444 E‑mail: [email protected]

Mr D Har­ris Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Sent By E‑mail

Our ref: LDP-001 – 2

24 August 2020

Dear Dan Harris

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK PRO­POSED LOC­AL DEVEL­OP­MENT PLAN THE TOWN AND COUN­TRY PLAN­NING (DEVEL­OP­MENT PLAN­NING) (SCOT­LAND) REG­U­LA­TIONS 2008

SUB­MIS­SION OF THE REPORT OF THE EXAMINATION

We refer to our appoint­ment by the Scot­tish Min­is­ters to con­duct the exam­in­a­tion of the above pro­posed plan. Hav­ing sat­is­fied ourselves that the Nation­al Park Authority’s con­sulta­tion and engage­ment exer­cises con­formed with their par­ti­cip­a­tion state­ment our exam­in­a­tion of the pro­posed plan com­menced on 31 Decem­ber 2019. We have com­pleted the exam­in­a­tion and now sub­mit our report.

In our exam­in­a­tion we con­sidered all 12 issues arising from unre­solved rep­res­ent­a­tions iden­ti­fied by yourselves to the Pro­posed Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan. In each case we have taken account of the ori­gin­al rep­res­ent­a­tions, as well as your sum­mar­ies of the rep­res­ent­a­tions and your responses to such, and we have set out our con­clu­sions and recom­mend­a­tions in rela­tion to each issue in our report.

The exam­in­a­tion pro­cess included site inspec­tions and requests for addi­tion­al inform­a­tion. We did not require to hold any hear­ing or inquiry sessions.

Some of the site inspec­tions asso­ci­ated with this exam­in­a­tion were delayed due to the travel restric­tions asso­ci­ated with the COV­ID 19 vir­us. As a res­ult of this the report­ers made some use of the pho­to­graph­ic resource avail­able on Google streetview dur­ing the course of their assess­ment. How­ever before the exam­in­a­tion was con­cluded each site referred to in the vari­ous Sched­ule 4s was vis­ited in per­son and the par­tic­u­lar cir­cum­stances at that loc­a­tion verified.

Sub­ject to the lim­ited excep­tions as set out in Sec­tion 19 of the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning (Scot­land) Act 1997 (as amended) and in the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning (Grounds for Declin­ing to Fol­low Recom­mend­a­tions) (Scot­land) Reg­u­la­tions 2009, you are now required to make the modi­fic­a­tions to the plan as set out in our recommendations.

You should also make any con­sequen­tial modi­fic­a­tions to the text or maps which arise from these modi­fic­a­tions. Sep­ar­ately, you will require to make any necessary

4 The Court­yard, Cal­l­en­dar Busi­ness Park, Falkirk, FK1 1XR DX 557005 Falkirk www​.dpea​.scot​land​.gov​.uk www.gov.scot/Topics/Planning/Appeals

adjust­ments to the final envir­on­ment­al report and to the report on the appro­pri­ate assess­ment of the plan.

All those who sub­mit­ted rep­res­ent­a­tions will be informed that the exam­in­a­tion has been com­pleted and that the report has been sub­mit­ted to yourselves. We will advise them that the report is now avail­able to view at the DPEA web­site and will also be pos­ted on your website.

The doc­u­ments relat­ing to the exam­in­a­tion should be retained on your web­site for a peri­od of six weeks fol­low­ing the adop­tion of the plan by yourselves.

It would also be help­ful to know when the plan has been adop­ted and we would appre­ci­ate being sent con­firm­a­tion of this in due course.

Yours sin­cerely

Elspeth Cook Timothy Bri­an REPORT­ER REPORTER

4 The Court­yard, Cal­l­en­dar Busi­ness Park, Falkirk, FK1 1XR DX 557005 Falkirk www​.dpea​.scot​land​.gov​.uk www.gov.scot/Topics/Planning/Appeals

Plan­ning and Envir­on­ment­al Appeals Division

REPORT TO CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY ON THE CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK PRO­POSED LOC­AL DEVEL­OP­MENT PLAN

Report­ers: Elspeth Cook BSc (Hons) MRTPI Timothy P W Bri­an BA(Hons) DipURP MRTPI

Date of Report: 24 August 2020

CON­TENTS

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK PRO­POSED LOC­AL DEVEL­OP­MENT PLAN

Exam­in­a­tion of Con­form­ity with Par­ti­cip­a­tion State­ment Page No 1

Issue

001 Gen­er­al 5 002 Intro­duc­tion, Vis­ion and Strategy 14 003 Policy 1 New Hous­ing Devel­op­ment 28 004 Policy 2 Sup­port­ing Eco­nom­ic Growth 92 005 Pro­tect­ing the envir­on­ment 112 006 Deliv­er­ing infra­struc­ture 174 007 Badenoch and Strath­spey stra­tegic set­tle­ments 194 008 Aber­deen­shire stra­tegic and inter­me­di­ate set­tle­ments 248 009 Badenoch and Strath­spey inter­me­di­ate set­tle­ments 297 010 Oth­er inter­me­di­ate set­tle­ments 350 011 Rur­al set­tle­ments 371 012 Oth­er issues 390

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK PRO­POSED LOC­AL DEVEL­OP­MENT PLAN

EXAM­IN­A­TION OF CON­FORM­ITY WITH PAR­TI­CIP­A­TION STATEMENT

Back­ground

In car­ry­ing out an exam­in­a­tion of a loc­al devel­op­ment plan under sec­tion 19 of the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning (Scot­land) Act 1997 (as amended), sec­tion 19(4) requires the appoin­ted report­ers firstly to examine:

“the extent to which the plan­ning authority’s act­ings with regard to con­sulta­tion and the involve­ment of the pub­lic at large as respects the pro­posed plan have con­formed with (or have been bey­ond the require­ments of) the par­ti­cip­a­tion state­ment of the author­ity which was cur­rent when the pro­posed plan was pub­lished under sec­tion 18(1)(a).”

Para­graph 110 of Plan­ning Cir­cu­lar 6/2013: Devel­op­ment Plan­ning envis­ages that, in car­ry­ing out the exam­in­a­tion of con­form­ity with the par­ti­cip­a­tion state­ment, the appoin­ted per­son will only refer to pub­lished doc­u­ments – e.g. the par­ti­cip­a­tion state­ment, the authority’s state­ment of con­form­ity, and rep­res­ent­a­tions about the authority’s con­sulta­tion and pub­lic involve­ment activities.

The Pro­posed Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (LDP2) was pub­lished on 25 Janu­ary 2019.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity (CNPA) pre­pared a state­ment of con­form­ity in August 2019, to meet the terms of sec­tion 18(4)(a)(i) of the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning (Scot­land) Act 1997 (as amended). These pro­vi­sions require the plan­ning author­ity to sub­mit a report on the extent to which it has con­sul­ted with and involved the wider pub­lic in pre­par­ing the Pro­posed LDP, and how this con­sulta­tion con­forms with the inten­tions out­lined in the cur­rent par­ti­cip­a­tion statement.

Par­ti­cip­a­tion statement

CNPA’s par­ti­cip­a­tion state­ment, which was con­tained in the Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme dated April 2018, set out the prin­ciples for com­munity engage­ment, who would be con­sul­ted, and how they would be con­sul­ted, dur­ing each stage of the process.

The par­ti­cip­a­tion state­ment out­lined the fol­low­ing objectives:

“1. Ensure people and com­munit­ies are aware of the pro­cess and the oppor­tun­it­ies to com­ment at key stages in the pro­duc­tion of LDP2. We will dis­trib­ute con­sulta­tion inform­a­tion to coun­cil offices, Nation­al Park Author­ity offices and will also dis­sem­in­ate inform­a­tion through Com­munity Coun­cils, our com­munity liais­on officers, and com­munity plan­ning networks.

1. Widely encour­age involve­ment using a range of meth­ods. We will pub­lish inform­a­tion on the CNPA web­site and pub­li­cise the con­sulta­tion pro­cesses through the media, news­pa­per adverts and articles.

2. Pro­duce doc­u­ments which are access­ible, trans­par­ent and writ­ten in jar­gon-free lan­guage which avoids tech­nic­al terms.

3. Pub­lish an updated Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme every year, set­ting out how and when people can get involved in the pre­par­a­tion process.”

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK PRO­POSED LOC­AL DEVEL­OP­MENT PLAN CNPA’s state­ment of conformity

Object­ive 1

CNPA sought to ensure that the Pro­posed LDP con­sulta­tion was pro­moted as widely as pos­sible across the Nation­al Park, by the fol­low­ing methods:

• dis­trib­ut­ing cop­ies of the Pro­posed LDP, Action Pro­gramme and response forms to all coun­cil offices, lib­rar­ies and CNPA offices with­in and on the edge of the Nation­al Park; • post­ing around 1,000 neigh­bour noti­fic­a­tion let­ters to inform all house­holds with­in 20 metres of alloc­ated sites; • liais­ing with com­munity devel­op­ment organ­isa­tions (Vol­un­tary Action Badenoch & Strath­spey and the Marr Area Part­ner­ship) which cir­cu­lated and pub­li­cised inform­a­tion through their net­works, pro­moted the con­sulta­tion events and provided sup­port to com­munit­ies on the con­sulta­tion pro­cess; • using the Plan­ning Rep­res­ent­at­ives Net­work, com­pris­ing com­munity coun­cils and com­munity devel­op­ment trusts, to inform and engage loc­al com­munity groups in the LDP pro­cess; • provid­ing cop­ies of the Pro­posed LDP to com­munity coun­cils and asso­ci­ations, and vis­it­ing them (to dis­cuss the plan) if reques­ted; • using CNPA’s web­site as the key meth­od to pro­mote the con­sulta­tion, provide inform­a­tion and receive responses. The con­sulta­tion webpages attrac­ted 11,271 views.

Object­ive 2

CNPA sought to widely encour­age involve­ment using a range of meth­ods, as fol­lows: • press releases in the Strath­spey Her­ald, the Press & Journ­al and the Perth­shire Cour­i­er; • a highly suc­cess­ful social media cam­paign through Face­book, Twit­ter and Ins­tagram (attract­ing 153,782 impres­sions across the 3 net­works), using video con­tent (includ­ing a fly-over of set­tle­ments, which employed Google Earth Stu­dio for the first time in spa­tial plan­ning), 3D mod­els and Infogram; • sev­en drop-in con­sulta­tion events across the Nation­al Park, atten­ded by over 200 indi­vidu­als, where people could dis­cuss the Pro­posed LDP with plan­ners on a one-to-one basis, togeth­er with a range of meet­ings with com­munity coun­cils and oth­er stake­hold­ers such as the Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship, and issu­ing three Nation­al Park e‑bulletins.

Object­ive 3

CNPA has put extens­ive effort into deliv­er­ing a more access­ible and clear Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan. The Pro­posed LDP is much more visu­al, using pho­to­graphs to sup­port policies, as well as using aer­i­al imagery for the set­tle­ment maps and bright col­ours to high­light dif­fer­ent alloc­a­tions. This is inten­ded to make the inform­a­tion clear­er and more transparent.

In addi­tion, site spe­cif­ic inform­a­tion has been provided for each alloc­a­tion, using clear and visu­al maps along with key bul­let point inform­a­tion set­ting out the require­ments and con­straints for each site. Set­tle­ment inform­a­tion has been greatly enhanced; it is avail­able not only as a stand­ard pdf doc­u­ment, but has also been made into a Story Map avail­able on the CNPA web­site which enables users to nav­ig­ate through the Plan con­tent more easily.

Object­ive 4

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK PRO­POSED LOC­AL DEVEL­OP­MENT PLAN CNPA has pub­lished a Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme annu­ally, to keep people up to date about the anti­cip­ated deliv­ery of the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan.

CNPA’s con­clu­sion on conformity

Over­all, CNPA believes that it has achieved all of the object­ives set out in the par­ti­cip­a­tion state­ment, and that the con­sulta­tion on the Pro­posed LDP was effect­ive. Not­ably, CNPA sig­ni­fic­antly increased its reach and engaged with a far wider range of people than before. Whilst the total num­ber of responses was lower than for the Main Issues Report, this is largely because no peti­tion style responses were sub­mit­ted to the Pro­posed LDP.

CNPA believes that the con­sulta­tion suc­cess­fully provided clear­er inform­a­tion and cla­ri­fic­a­tion, which helped people to bet­ter under­stand the pro­pos­als and remit of the LDP and res­ul­ted in a great­er num­ber of people decid­ing that they did not need to respond. There­fore, while CNPA was able to engage with record num­bers of people, the num­ber of responses sug­gests that the major­ity of them do not object to the pro­posed LDP.

Rep­res­ent­a­tions on con­sulta­tion process

Cairngorms Busi­ness Partnership

Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship (CBP) com­plained that their com­ments to the Main Issues Report (MIR) in respect of Hous­ing and Afford­ab­il­ity of Hous­ing were not recor­ded in the ​‘Sum­mary of Responses and Recom­men­ded Actions’ which was taken to CNPA Board in June 2018. CBP sug­ges­ted that, by not tak­ing these views into account, the CNPA was in con­tra­ven­tion of the Plan­ning (Scot­land) Act 2006.

CBP also com­men­ted that the pro­cess for respond­ing to the con­sulta­tion is time con­sum­ing and com­plex, and is a bar­ri­er to engagement.

CNPA con­firms that the CBP’s rep­res­ent­a­tion on the MIR, which did not raise any unique issues, was taken into account but that due to an admin­is­trat­ive error their name was not recor­ded in rela­tion to MIR Issues 4 and 5.

CNPA acknow­ledges that the LDP con­sulta­tion pro­cess, which is stip­u­lated in the Plan­ning (Scot­land) Act 2006, can be com­plex, but advises that the response sur­vey was designed to obtain spe­cif­ic com­ments in line with the legis­lat­ive requirements.

Blair Atholl

E and J Mac­Gregor atten­ded the drop-in day at Blair Atholl, but felt that it might have been a waste of time. They gained the impres­sion that the event was simply a ​‘paper exer­cise’ and that everything had already been decided. In these days of social media and mod­ern com­mu­nic­a­tions it should have been far bet­ter pub­li­cised, as many loc­al people knew noth­ing about the event.

A McAle­ney found it very dif­fi­cult to get spe­cif­ic inform­a­tion about the Pro­posed LDP on the CNPA website.

CNPA responds that sig­ni­fic­ant effort was made to pub­li­cise the con­sulta­tion and the asso­ci­ated events, using social media and videos to raise aware­ness about the issues and

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK PRO­POSED LOC­AL DEVEL­OP­MENT PLAN to tell com­munit­ies about events. A record num­ber of people across the Nation­al Park used a vari­ety of social media chan­nels and the CNPA web­site. Cop­ies of the Pro­posed LDP and posters detail­ing the events were emailed and pos­ted to com­munity coun­cils to pub­li­cise them in their area.

The CNPA con­firms that noti­fic­a­tion let­ters were sent to all addresses with­in 20 metres of a pro­posed devel­op­ment, in accord­ance with the require­ments of the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning (Devel­op­ment Plan­ning) (Scot­land) Reg­u­la­tions 2008.

Tomin­toul

Mr and Mrs For­an com­plained that the meet­ing held in Tomin­toul was not advert­ised in the vil­lage (i.e. the post office). F Wien­and com­men­ted that only two res­id­ents of Tomin­toul were noti­fied of the pro­posed ​‘change of use’ at site T1, when pla­cing the notice on the board in the Glen­liv­et Estate car park would have made the many vil­la­gers using the site aware of the details of the proposal.

CNPA states that engage­ment events were advert­ised on social media and the CNPA web­site, and posters were sent to com­munity coun­cils and asso­ci­ations to dis­play in their loc­al area (though it is recog­nised that some did not do this). Let­ters were sent to forty addresses in Tomin­toul, includ­ing six with­in 20 metres of site T1. How­ever, there is no require­ment to dis­play site notices and CNPA did not com­mit to do so in its par­ti­cip­a­tion statement.

Reporter’s con­clu­sions

Whilst I acknow­ledge the loc­al con­cerns expressed above, I am sat­is­fied that CNPA has met or exceeded the con­sulta­tion object­ives set out in its par­ti­cip­a­tion state­ment. As well as pur­su­ing the tra­di­tion­al meth­ods to pub­li­cise the Pro­posed LDP, using lib­rar­ies, coun­cil offices, press releases, drop in ses­sions, loc­al meet­ings, neigh­bour noti­fic­a­tion, and liais­on with com­munity coun­cils and oth­er rep­res­ent­at­ive organ­isa­tions, CNPA has made extens­ive use of its ded­ic­ated web­site and a range of social media plat­forms to make people aware of the Plan, its pro­pos­als and how to engage with the LDP process.

The evid­ence indic­ates that this has been very suc­cess­ful in encour­aging people to become involved in the pro­duc­tion of the Plan, and I do not con­sider that the reduced num­ber of rep­res­ent­a­tions to the Pro­posed LDP indic­ates any defi­ciency in the approach which CNPA has adop­ted, which I regard as extens­ive and innovative.

In sum­mary, I con­clude that the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity has con­duc­ted a wide-ran­ging con­sulta­tion exer­cise on the Pro­posed Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan as envis­aged by Scot­tish Min­is­ters, and in doing so has ful­filled the terms of the par­ti­cip­a­tion statement.

We there­fore pro­ceed to exam­ine the Pro­posed Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan.

Timothy Bri­an Report­er 31 Decem­ber 2019

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK PRO­POSED LOC­AL DEVEL­OP­MENT PLAN

Issue 1

Gen­er­al

Prin­ciple of devel­op­ment Trans­port Devel­op­ment plan Site alloc­a­tion require­ments ref­er­ence: Pro­cess Gen­er­al Policy approach Eco­nom­ic growth Report­er: Timothy Brian

Body or person(s) sub­mit­ting a rep­res­ent­a­tion rais­ing the issue (includ­ing ref­er­ence number):

006 S Dick­ie 124 Anonym­ous 141 J Mil­ne 148 R Loc­a­telli and J Brem­ner 165 Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship (CBP) 180 J and M For­bes Leith Part­ner­ship 181 Scot­tish Wild­land Group 186 Cairngorms Campaign

Pro­vi­sion of the Prin­ciple of devel­op­ment devel­op­ment plan Trans­port to which the issue Site alloc­a­tion require­ments relates: Pro­cess Gen­er­al Policy approach Eco­nom­ic growth

Plan­ning authority’s sum­mary of the representation(s):

Prin­ciple of devel­op­ment with­in the Nation­al Park

S Dick­ie (006) is of the view that devel­op­ment should not be per­mit­ted out­with town and vil­lage bound­ar­ies. The focus should be on con­ser­va­tion, ser­vice pro­vi­sion, town and loc­al facil­ity improve­ments (car parks, toi­lets) for vis­it­ors and encour­age loc­al busi­nesses to sup­port these services.

Trans­port

Anonym­ous (124) and J Mil­ne (141) believe that all policies are affected/​underpinned by trans­port issues and Anonym­ous (124) requests that the need for afford­able pub­lic trans­port, car-shar­ing schemes and bike bor­row­ing schemes are added to each policy.

J Mil­ne (141) feels that trans­port and mobil­ity (includ­ing access­ib­il­ity, afford­ab­il­ity and choice) is under-rep­res­en­ted in the Pro­posed Plan and des­pite the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan ​‘pro­mot­ing act­ive travel and pub­lic trans­port pro­vi­sion and redu­cing the reli­ance on private motor vehicles’ (Part­ner­ship Plan Policy 3.5 f) repeated in para­graph 4.52 of the Pro­posed Plan on page 40) there is no con­sid­er­a­tion of how this will hap­pen and what the bar­ri­ers to achiev­ing this are. It is also raised that there is only one men­tion of the A95 trunk road which is a key route.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK PRO­POSED LOC­AL DEVEL­OP­MENT PLAN

Site alloc­a­tion Requirements

R Loc­a­telli and J Brem­ner (148) con­tend that all devel­op­ment alloc­a­tions in the LDP should not require to pre­pare any form of site assess­ment such as pro­tec­ted spe­cies, flood, con­tam­in­a­tion or oth­er reports. They are of the view that the Plan­ning Author­ity (CNPA) should under­take rel­ev­ant sur­veys pri­or to the alloc­a­tion of the sites and adop­tion of the Pro­posed Plan to demon­strate effectiveness.

Pro­cess

CBP (165) raised con­cern that their com­ments to the Main Issues Report in respect of Main Issue 4: Hous­ing and Issue 5: Afford­ab­il­ity of hous­ing were not recor­ded in the ​‘Sum­mary of Responses and Recom­men­ded Actions’ which was taken to CNPA Board in June 2018. By not tak­ing these com­ments into account, CNPA is con­tra­ven­tion of the Plan­ning (Scot­land) Act 2006.

CBP (165) also added that respond­ing to the con­sulta­tion accord­ing to the pro­cess is time con­sum­ing and com­plex and is a bar­ri­er to engagement.

Gen­er­al Policy approach

J and M For­bes Leith Part­ner­ship (180) express sup­port for polices that allow appro­pri­ately scaled devel­op­ment across the Nation­al Park to encour­age devel­op­ment and help to deliv­er the import­ant out­comes set out in the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan.

Eco­nom­ic Growth

Scot­tish Wild­land Group (181) sug­gests amend­ing ref­er­ence in the Pro­posed Plan to ​‘Sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic growth’ to ​‘equit­able growth’ as this will likely be the term used in the new Plan­ning Act and Scot­tish Plan­ning Policy. This term is more ​‘future-proofed’ and suit­able for the LDP.

Cairngorms Cam­paign (186) express con­cern that there is no pro­cess for assess­ing the eco­nom­ic bene­fits of devel­op­ment. They claim that no ana­lys­is is car­ried out in respect of the poten­tial eco­nom­ic bene­fits and there­fore how can CNPA give great­er weight to the first aim of the Nation­al Park. They are of the view that fur­ther assess­ment /​analysis at the plan­ning applic­a­tions stage is needed and con­sid­er­a­tion of altern­at­ives pro­pos­als that would be more beneficial.

Modi­fic­a­tions sought by those sub­mit­ting representations:

Prin­ciple of devel­op­ment with­in the Nation­al Park

• Do not per­mit devel­op­ment out­with town and vil­lage bound­ar­ies (S Dick­ie, 006); • Focus on con­ser­va­tion, ser­vice pro­vi­sion and loc­al facil­ity improve­ments for vis­it­ors (S Dick­ie, 006).

Trans­port

• Add a require­ment for afford­able pub­lic trans­port, car-shar­ing schemes and bike bor­row­ing schemes to each policy (Anonym­ous, 124); • Give great­er prom­in­ence in the Pro­posed Plan to the pro­vi­sion of trans­port, the key

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK PRO­POSED LOC­AL DEVEL­OP­MENT PLAN

chal­lenges and how it will be delivered (J Mil­ne, 141); • Make great­er ref­er­ence to the A95 (J Mil­ne, 141)

Site alloc­a­tion Requirements

• Remove the require­ment for any assess­ments or sur­veys for alloc­ated sites (R Loc­a­telli and J Brem­ner, 148).

Eco­nom­ic Growth

• Amend ref­er­ences to ​‘Sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic growth’ to ​‘equit­able growth’ (Scot­tish Wild­land Group, 181). • Require more rig­or­ous assess­ment / ana­lys­is of eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment pro­pos­als (Cairngorms Cam­paign, 186).

Sum­mary of responses (includ­ing reas­ons) by plan­ning authority:

Prin­ciple of devel­op­ment with­in the Nation­al Park

CNPA do not agree that devel­op­ment should not per­mit­ted out­with set­tle­ments. While con­ser­va­tion is a key aim of the Nation­al Park, the devel­op­ment strategy for (set out on page 16) aims to focus the major­ity of devel­op­ment with­in set­tle­ments how­ever acknow­ledges the need for smal­ler scale devel­op­ment to sup­port hous­ing, includ­ing afford­able hous­ing and rur­al busi­nesses out­with defined set­tle­ments (page 16, para­graph 3.11). Once adop­ted, all pro­pos­als will be sub­ject to rel­ev­ant policies in the LDP to ensure that devel­op­ment does not have adverse impacts. There­fore no modi­fic­a­tion is pro­posed (S Dick­ie, 006).

The pro­vi­sion or main­ten­ance of loc­al ser­vices such as pub­lic car parks, toi­lets and vis­it­ors facil­it­ies can­not be influ­enced or informed by the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan and it is not con­sidered that this should be the only focus of devel­op­ment with­in the Nation­al Park as set out above. No modi­fic­a­tion pro­posed (S Dick­ie, 006).

Trans­port

The LDP can­not influ­ence or inform pub­lic trans­port pro­vi­sion, car shar­ing schemes or bike bor­row­ing, how­ever can ensure that the pro­vi­sion of neces­sary trans­port infra­struc­ture is incor­por­ated with­in a devel­op­ment. Policy 3: Sus­tain­able Design, part 3.3 f) requires the pro­mo­tion of ​‘sus­tain­able trans­port meth­ods and act­ive travel, includ­ing mak­ing pro­vi­sion for the stor­age of bicycles and redu­cing the need to travel’. CNPA do not agree that trans­port is rel­ev­ant to all policies, how­ever Policy 3 applies to all devel­op­ments and there­fore no modi­fic­a­tion is required (Anonym­ous, 124).

While the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan and Pro­posed Plan seek to sup­port and improve trans­port infra­struc­ture and par­tic­u­larly the pro­vi­sion of act­ive travel, the LDP can­not dir­ectly influ­ence or inform pub­lic trans­port pro­vi­sion or improve the afford­ab­il­ity or choice of pub­lic trans­port. How­ever, it can seek to ensure that trans­port pro­vi­sion is taken into account in new devel­op­ments and oppor­tun­it­ies to incor­por­ate act­ive travel are util­ised. All devel­op­ment pro­pos­als with­in the Nation­al Park are sub­ject to all rel­ev­ant policies includ­ing Policy 3 (stated above) to ensure that appro­pri­ate trans­port options are sup­por­ted as far as pos­sible with­in the para­met­ers of plan­ning. CNPA are not the roads or trans­port author­ity so is required to con­sult and work with rel­ev­ant body where necessary.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK PRO­POSED LOC­AL DEVEL­OP­MENT PLAN

CNPA is of the view that the Pro­posed Plan makes appro­pri­ate ref­er­ence to sup­port and encour­age more sus­tain­able trans­port meth­ods, and takes a pro­por­tion­ate approach con­sid­er­ing the lim­ited influ­ence plan­ning and the LDP can have of trans­port pro­vi­sion and infra­struc­ture. No modi­fic­a­tion pro­posed (J Mil­ne, 141).

In rela­tion to mak­ing ref­er­ence to the A95, while this is a key route, it is not clear from the response what the pur­pose of increas­ing ref­er­ence to it is. CNPA do not con­sider there is a com­pel­ling argu­ment to make great­er ref­er­ence to the A95. No modi­fic­a­tion pro­posed (J Mil­ne, 141).

Site alloc­a­tion Requirements

CNPA does not sup­port the sug­ges­tion to remove the require­ment for site assess­ments and sur­veys for devel­op­ment alloc­a­tions. The LDP cur­rently takes a num­ber of years to pre­pare and runs for a 5 year plan peri­od. Site con­di­tions and cir­cum­stances change over time so an assess­ment car­ried out 2 years pri­or to a devel­op­ment com­ing for­ward will not accur­ately reflect the cur­rent cir­cum­stances. It is more appro­pri­ate to under­take site assess­ments and sur­veys at the time of the plan­ning applic­a­tion to determ­ine if the pro­pos­al is accept­able. Dif­fer­ent devel­op­ments will impact on the envir­on­ment, infra­struc­ture and oth­er factors in dif­fer­ent ways and there­fore may require dif­fer­ent mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures. For example waste and water infra­struc­ture capa­cit­ies change depend­ing on the pro­gress of oth­er devel­op­ments in the area and there­fore can­not be con­firmed pri­or to the adop­tion of the LDP.

In addi­tion, it is a sig­ni­fic­ant under­tak­ing for the author­ity to spend time and money under­tak­ing assess­ment for all sites when they will be pro­gressed at dif­fer­ent rates and not always with­in the Plan Peri­od. There­fore this would have to be repeated at the time devel­op­ment is being pro­posed. No modi­fic­a­tion is pro­posed (R Loc­a­telli and J Brem­ner, 148).

Pro­cess

CNPA have invest­ig­ated the absence of CBP being omit­ted as a respond­ent in rela­tion to Main Issues 4 and 5 and can con­firm that their response, which did not raise any unique issues, was taken into account but their name was omit­ted as an admin­is­trat­ive error in record­ing the respond­ents. No modi­fic­a­tion pro­posed (CBP, 165).

In respect of the LDP pre­par­a­tion pro­cess, this is stip­u­lated in Plan­ning Legis­la­tion (Plan­ning (Scot­land) Act 2006) which CNPA are required to adhere to. Due to the more lim­ited nature of the Pro­posed Plan con­sulta­tion, which spe­cific­ally requires respond­ents to sup­port or object to spe­cif­ic parts of the Pro­posed Plan, it can be more com­plex. The response sur­vey was designed to obtain spe­cif­ic com­ments in line with the legis­lat­ive require­ments. No modi­fic­a­tion or action pro­posed (CBP, 165).

Gen­er­al policy approach

CNPA are of the view that the Pro­posed Plan’s devel­op­ment strategy and policies do sup­port appro­pri­ate devel­op­ment out­with alloc­ated sites. No modi­fic­a­tion pro­posed (J and M For­bes Leith Part­ner­ship, 180).

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK PRO­POSED LOC­AL DEVEL­OP­MENT PLAN

Eco­nom­ic Growth

While CNPA note the sug­ges­ted amend­ment of ​‘Sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic growth’, it is not con­sidered essen­tial on the basis that the new Plan­ning Act and Scot­tish Plan­ning Policy have not yet been imple­men­ted. How­ever CNPA would not object if the Report­er is minded to sup­port it (Scot­tish Wild­land Group, 181).

CNPA notes the request for more rig­or­ous assess­ment of eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment pro­pos­als, par­tic­u­larly where in con­flict with the first aim of the Nation­al Park to ​‘con­serve and enhance the nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age of the area’. How­ever, the cur­rent eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment policy (Policy 2) sets out the require­ments that pro­pos­als must meet (as well as being sub­ject to all oth­er rel­ev­ant policies with­in the LDP), which require evid­ence and jus­ti­fic­a­tion demon­strat­ing how they meet these require­ments (Cairngorms Cam­paign, 186).

Giv­en the small pop­u­la­tion and scale of set­tle­ments, it can be dif­fi­cult to obtain a rep­res­ent­at­ive pic­ture of need and demand for eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment land as well as to accur­ately determ­ine the true eco­nom­ic impact of a pro­pos­al, par­tic­u­larly as there are more loc­al­ised pres­sures which may not be appar­ent or prop­erly rep­res­en­ted through research and avail­able evid­ence. The data used to inform the Pro­posed Plan’s approach has been the most up to date available.

In addi­tion, CNPA have a stat­utory require­ment to alloc­ate sites for eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment and include an eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment policy with­in the LDP to sup­port busi­ness and employ­ment in the Nation­al Park. The Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 3 (para­graphs 1.6 & 2.25) and Scot­tish Plan­ning Policy (2014) recog­nise ​‘the con­tinu­ing need for diver­si­fic­a­tion of our rur­al eco­nomy to strengthen com­munit­ies and retain young people in remote areas. Plan­ning should address the devel­op­ment require­ments of busi­nesses and enable key oppor­tun­it­ies for invest­ment to be real­ised. It can sup­port sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic growth by provid­ing a pos­it­ive policy con­text for devel­op­ment that deliv­ers eco­nom­ic bene­fits’ (Scot­tish Plan­ning Policy, para­graph 92, page 24).

In some cases, fur­ther assess­ments such as a retail impact assess­ment may be required how­ever the net eco­nom­ic bene­fit of a pro­pos­al to the loc­al eco­nomy is not a mater­i­al plan­ning con­sid­er­a­tion. There­fore, no modi­fic­a­tion is pro­posed (Cairngorms Cam­paign, 186).

Reporter’s con­clu­sions:

Prin­ciple of devel­op­ment with­in the Nation­al Park

1. The Cairngorms Nation­al Park Pro­posed Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (Pro­posed Plan) 2020 sets out the policies for land use plan­ning with­in the Nation­al Park, and alloc­ates land to deliv­er appro­pri­ate devel­op­ment with­in the Park. It is the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2017 – 2022, the man­age­ment plan for the Park, that addresses the vis­it­or exper­i­ence, includ­ing pub­lic infra­struc­ture pri­or­it­ies for vis­it­or infra­struc­ture (one of which is the Strath­spey Rail­way extension).

2. Non­ethe­less, the Pro­posed Plan con­tains rel­ev­ant policies (e.g. Policy 2.2 Tour­ist accom­mod­a­tion, Policy 2.3 Oth­er tour­ism and leis­ure devel­op­ments, and Policy 8.1 New devel­op­ment) which set the policy con­text for the pro­vi­sion of improved facil­it­ies and ser­vices for vis­it­ors. In par­tic­u­lar, Para­graph 2.3 states that the Plan will make sure that

9

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK PRO­POSED LOC­AL DEVEL­OP­MENT PLAN new or improved vis­it­or infra­struc­ture is sup­por­ted where appro­pri­ate and integ­rated with oth­er vis­it­or sites, ser­vices and communities.

1. The Pro­posed Plan also has an over­arch­ing focus on con­serving and enhan­cing the nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age of the area, which is one of the stat­utory aims of Scotland’s Nation­al Parks. I am sat­is­fied that this emphas­is is reflec­ted in the Intro­duc­tion and Vis­ion of the Pro­posed Plan and the sub­sequent policies.

2. How­ever, in an isol­ated rur­al area with a dis­persed pop­u­la­tion such as the Cairngorms Nation­al Park it would be more dif­fi­cult ​“to pro­mote sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic and social devel­op­ment of the area’s com­munit­ies”, anoth­er of the stat­utory aims of the Nation­al Park, if no devel­op­ment were to be per­mit­ted out­with town and vil­lage bound­ar­ies. The devel­op­ment strategy focuses most devel­op­ment on the ​‘main’, ​‘inter­me­di­ate’ and ​‘rur­al’ set­tle­ments of the Park, but acknow­ledges that some import­ant activ­it­ies need to be pur­sued out­with the defined settlements.

3. Those poten­tial excep­tions include Hous­ing devel­op­ment in exist­ing rur­al groups (Policy 1.2), Oth­er hous­ing in the coun­tryside (Policy 1.3), Afford­able hous­ing excep­tion sites (Policy 1.6), Con­ver­sions (Policy 1.8) and the devel­op­ment of new and diver­si­fied rur­al busi­nesses (Para­graph 3.11).

4. I con­clude that the Pro­posed Plan is right not to impose a pro­hib­i­tion on all types of devel­op­ment out­with town and vil­lage bound­ar­ies in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park, and that there is no reas­on to modi­fy the Pro­posed Plan in response to rep­res­ent­a­tions on these matters.

Trans­port

1. Scot­tish Plan­ning Policy (SPP) 2014 advises that devel­op­ment plan spa­tial strategies ​“should sup­port devel­op­ment in loc­a­tions that allow walk­able access to loc­al amen­it­ies and are also access­ible by cyc­ling and pub­lic trans­port. Plans should identi­fy act­ive travel net­works and pro­mote oppor­tun­it­ies for travel by more sus­tain­able modes in the fol­low­ing order of pri­or­ity: walk­ing, cyc­ling, pub­lic trans­port, cars. The aim is to pro­mote devel­op­ment which max­im­ises the extent to which its travel demands are met first through walk­ing, then cyc­ling, then pub­lic trans­port and finally through use of private cars. Plans should facil­it­ate integ­ra­tion between trans­port modes.” (Para­graph 273)

2. I accept that the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan and the Nation­al Park Author­ity have lim­ited influ­ence in the pro­vi­sion of pub­lic trans­port, and car shar­ing and bike bor­row­ing schemes. I also appre­ci­ate the par­tic­u­lar chal­lenges in requir­ing all devel­op­ments to be served by sus­tain­able modes of trans­port in a rur­al area with a dis­persed pop­u­la­tion and lim­ited pub­lic trans­port options.

3. How­ever, the policy prin­ciples in SPP, includ­ing the need to reduce reli­ance on private cars and pri­or­it­ise sus­tain­able and act­ive travel choices, have wide applic­a­tion. Indeed, the need for bet­ter co-ordin­a­tion and pro­mo­tion of pub­lic trans­port and act­ive travel is acknow­ledged in the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan, which notes that pub­lic trans­port links can be lim­ited due to the rel­at­ively small and sparse population.

4. The Pro­posed Plan does not attach a sus­tain­able trans­port require­ment to each policy in the Plan; instead it relies on the over­arch­ing Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing, which imposes a series of require­ments on all devel­op­ments. Policy 3.3 Sustainable

10

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK PRO­POSED LOC­AL DEVEL­OP­MENT PLAN Design part f) requires that all devel­op­ment pro­pos­als must be designed to pro­mote sus­tain­able trans­port meth­ods and act­ive travel, includ­ing mak­ing pro­vi­sion for the stor­age of bicycles and redu­cing the need to travel.

1. That is not the only ref­er­ence to sus­tain­able travel in the Plan. Para­graph 4.53, entitled ​‘Apply­ing the policy’, sum­mar­ises the Six Qual­it­ies of Suc­cess­ful Places iden­ti­fied in SPP, one of which is ​“Easy to move around and bey­ond: Devel­op­ment that con­siders place and pri­or­it­ises the needs of people before the move­ment of motor vehicles. This could include pri­or­it­ising sus­tain­able and act­ive travel choices, and includ­ing paths and routes which are well con­nec­ted with the wider envir­on­ment bey­ond the site boundary.”

2. Para­graph 4.59 (Trans­port and sus­tain­able travel) devel­ops this point, and Policy 11: Developer Oblig­a­tions indic­ates that developers may be required to con­trib­ute to trans­port pro­vi­sion and infra­struc­ture includ­ing act­ive travel. Para­graph 4.159 affirms that some pro­pos­als may be required to make a con­tri­bu­tion towards pub­lic trans­port pro­vi­sion, com­munity trans­port ser­vices and infrastructure.

3. I note that the Stra­tegic Envir­on­ment­al Assess­ment (SEA) of sites to be alloc­ated for devel­op­ment in the Pro­posed Plan con­sidered wheth­er they are ​“with­in easy walk­ing dis­tance of pub­lic trans­port, oth­er loc­al facil­it­ies and hous­ing, which reduces the need to travel by private motor vehicle.” One of the set­tle­ment object­ives for Aviemore, Grant­own- on-Spey, Blair Atholl, Boat of Garten, Carr-Bridge and many oth­er set­tle­ments is to sup­port act­ive travel pro­pos­als in and around these towns and vil­lages in the Nation­al Park.

4. I con­clude that the Pro­posed Plan adequately recog­nizes the import­ance of sus­tain­able trans­port and pro­motes act­ive travel choices with­in its rel­ev­ant policies and set­tle­ment object­ives, and that there is no need to modi­fy the Plan to fur­ther emphas­ise the point.

5. Sep­ar­ately, I can see no reas­on why the Pro­posed Plan requires to high­light the import­ance of the A95 trunk road.

Site alloc­a­tion requirements

1. I note that the site alloc­a­tions in the Pro­posed Plan were informed by a num­ber of assess­ments, includ­ing a Hab­it­at Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al, Stra­tegic Envir­on­ment­al Assess­ment and Stra­tegic Flood Risk Assessment.

2. How­ever, I do not con­sider that it would be real­ist­ic or desir­able to expect the Nation­al Park Author­ity to con­duct all of the detailed tech­nic­al sur­veys and apprais­als for each site to be alloc­ated for devel­op­ment in the Pro­posed Plan. Many of these assess­ments (e.g. flood risk, con­tam­in­ated land or pro­tec­ted spe­cies) would require spe­cial­ist expert­ise which may not be avail­able in-house, and some would depend on the pre­cise nature of the devel­op­ment pro­posed. The find­ings of such invest­ig­a­tions are likely to change over time, and could be out of date by the time a plan­ning applic­a­tion is lodged.

3. In any case, I con­sider that it would be unreas­on­able to impose on the Nation­al Park Author­ity the bur­den of con­duct­ing detailed pre-applic­a­tion sur­veys and assess­ments, which would cause delay and are appro­pri­ately the respons­ib­il­ity of the poten­tial developer. There­fore, I am not con­vinced that a modi­fic­a­tion to the Plan is war­ran­ted here.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK PRO­POSED LOC­AL DEVEL­OP­MENT PLAN

Pro­cess

1. Cairngorms Busi­ness Partnership’s com­plaints about the Nation­al Park Authority’s fail­ure to record cer­tain of their com­ments at the Main Issues Report stage, and about the wider con­sulta­tion pro­cess, are con­sidered else­where in the Par­ti­cip­a­tion Report as they do not relate to the con­tent of the Pro­posed Plan which is dis­cussed here.

Gen­er­al policy approach

1. The rep­res­ent­a­tion regard­ing the gen­er­al policy approach of the Pro­posed Plan, made in the con­text of Policy 1, New Hous­ing Devel­op­ment, sup­ports non-site spe­cif­ic policies that allow for appro­pri­ately scaled hous­ing devel­op­ment of all ten­ures to take place across the Park on appro­pri­ate and well-ser­viced sites. I agree with the Nation­al Park Author­ity that no modi­fic­a­tion is required, as the Pro­posed Plan secures that object­ive through its Vis­ion and Spa­tial Strategy, and through the ele­ments of Policy 1 which sup­port hous­ing out­with set­tle­ment bound­ar­ies in suit­able cir­cum­stances (which are iden­ti­fied in the dis­cus­sion above on the prin­ciple of devel­op­ment in the Nation­al Park).

Eco­nom­ic growth

1. Para­graph 1 of Scot­tish Plan­ning Policy refers to the Scot­tish Government’s Pur­pose of cre­at­ing a more suc­cess­ful coun­try, with oppor­tun­it­ies for all of Scot­land to flour­ish, through increas­ing sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic growth (defined as build­ing a dynam­ic and grow­ing eco­nomy that will provide prosper­ity and oppor­tun­it­ies for all, while ensur­ing that future gen­er­a­tions can enjoy a bet­ter qual­ity of life too).

2. I see no need to change the ref­er­ence to ​‘sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic growth’ in the Plan’s gloss­ary, as this term is used extens­ively in cur­rent Gov­ern­ment policy set out in SPP and Scotland’s Third Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 3 (NPF3). The Nation­al Park Author­ity would be able to amend the Pro­posed Plan in the future if the nation­al policy con­text (and recog­nised ter­min­o­logy) altered in that regard.

3. The rep­res­ent­a­tion from the Cairngorms Cam­paign high­lights the dif­fi­culty in assess­ing the eco­nom­ic bene­fits of a pro­posed devel­op­ment and bal­an­cing them against any poten­tial neg­at­ive impacts. This issue is par­tic­u­larly per­tin­ent when con­sid­er­ing the eco­nom­ic bene­fits of a pro­pos­al against the first stat­utory aim of the Nation­al Park to con­serve and enhance the nat­ur­al and cultural