PLAN­NING

Cairngorms Nation­al Park

Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021

Non-stat­utory guid­ance: Policy 3 – Design and Placemaking

Con­tents

How to Use this Guid­ance 1 Intro­duc­tion and con­text 1 Who is the guid­ance for 3 Key Design and Place­mak­ing Con­sid­er­a­tions 3 The right devel­op­ment in the right place 3 Devel­op­ment Plan policy and alloc­a­tions 3 Repla­cing or con­vert­ing exist­ing build­ing stock 4

DESIGN 5

The Design Pro­cess 6 Sub­mit­ting a pro­pos­al 7 Com­munity Engage­ment 7 Design State­ments 7 Design State­ment: Con­tent 7 Site Analysis/​Apprais­al 8 Con­text 8 Brief 8 Design Concept 8 Design Solu­tion 8 Site Apprais­al 9 Will the pro­posed devel­op­ment have adverse effects on the Spe­cial Land­scape Qual­it­ies (SLQ’s) of the Park….. 9 Site and Area Apprais­al to inform design 9 Apprais­al: Wider, Loc­al & Site 10 Wider Land­scape Apprais­al 11 Views / Visu­al Amen­ity 11 Land­scape char­ac­ter 11 Land form 11 Nat­ur­al her­it­age 11 Oth­er land­scape des­ig­na­tions 12 Con­ser­va­tion Areas, Lis­ted build­ings and oth­er cul­tur­al her­it­age includ­ing archae­ology 12 His­tor­ic Lay­outs 13 Water Envir­on­ment 13 Loc­al Area Apprais­al 14 Amen­it­ies and employ­ment oppor­tun­it­ies 14 Act­ive travel net­work and sus­tain­able trans­port options 14 Access and Roads 14 Util­it­ies Infra­struc­ture 14 Site Con­sid­er­a­tions 15 Waste Col­lec­tion 15 Cycle Stor­age 15 E‑Charging points 15 Site Ana­lys­is 16 Sit­ing 17 Sit­ing Integ­ra­tion 18

Site Lay­out 20 Scale and Mass­ing 21 Access and Park­ing 22 Bound­ar­ies 22 Infill Devel­op­ment 23

PLACE­MAK­ING 24

The Six Qual­it­ies of Suc­cess­ful Places 25 Dis­tinct­ive 26 Place Char­ac­ter with­in or adja­cent to Cairngorms Towns and Vil­lages 27 Safe and Pleas­ant 31 Wel­com­ing 33 Wel­com­ing: Nethy Bridge Afford­able Hous­ing 34 Adapt­able 35 Inclus­ive Places 36 Adapt­ab­il­ity: Am Fas­gadh 37 Resource Effi­cient 38 Renew­able Energy 39 Com­munity hydro-scheme: Resource Effi­cient 40 Easy to Move Around and Bey­ond 41 Spey­side Way: Easy to move around and bey­ond 42 Tim­ber merchant’s show­room and office: All Aspects 43 Dell­mohr Afford­able Hous­ing: All Aspects 44

How to Use this Guidance This non-stat­utory guid­ance forms part of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2020 and applies to all plan­ning applic­a­tions with­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. The Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan is avail­able via https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​p​l​a​n​ning- devel­op­ment/ldp-2021/ and should be read along­side this guidance.

This guid­ance should be used dur­ing the pre­par­a­tion and assess­ment of plan­ning applic­a­tions to ensure that the require­ments of Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing are met.

Intro­duc­tion and context Policy 3 of the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan applies to all devel­op­ment. It provides guid­ance to inform design and place­mak­ing for devel­op­ment pro­pos­als with­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park.

Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 Policy 3- Design and Placemaking 3.1 Place­mak­ing

All devel­op­ments must meet the six qual­it­ies of suc­cess­ful places, which in accord­ance with Scot­tish Plan­ning Policy para­graphs 41 to 46, are to be:

i. dis­tinct­ive; ii. safe and pleas­ant; iii. wel­com­ing; iv. adapt­able; v. resource effi­cient and vi. easy to move around and beyond.

3.2 Major developments

Major devel­op­ments of 50 or more homes, or 2 hec­tares or more of employ­ment, retail or mixed use devel­op­ment, will need to be sup­por­ted by a mas­ter­plan or devel­op­ment brief. Where a site is alloc­ated, this require­ment will be out­lined in the Com­munity Inform­a­tion sec­tion of the Plan. Mas­ter­plans and devel­op­ment briefs must demon­strate how the devel­op­ment meets the six qual­it­ies of suc­cess­ful places.

3.3 Sus­tain­able Design

All devel­op­ment pro­pos­als must also be designed to:

a) min­im­ise the effects of the devel­op­ment on cli­mate change in terms of sit­ing and con­struc­tion and, once com­plete, achieve at least the min­im­um stand­ard in com­pli­ance with the Build­ing Stand­ards Tech­nic­al Handbook;

b) be sym­path­et­ic to the tra­di­tion­al pat­tern and char­ac­ter of the sur­round­ing area, loc­al ver­nacu­lar and loc­al dis­tinct­ive­ness, whilst encour­aging innov­a­tion in design and use of materials;

c) use mater­i­als and land­scap­ing that will com­ple­ment the set­ting of development;

d) make sus­tain­able use of resources, includ­ing the min­im­isa­tion of energy, waste and water usage, with­in the future main­ten­ance arrange­ments, and

for any decom­mis­sion­ing which may be necessary;

e) enable the stor­age, segreg­a­tion and col­lec­tion of recyc­lable mater­i­als and make pro­vi­sion for composting;

f) pro­mote sus­tain­able trans­port meth­ods and act­ive travel, includ­ing mak­ing pro­vi­sion for the stor­age of bicycles and redu­cing the need to travel;

g) improve or add to exist­ing pub­lic and amen­ity open space;

h) main­tain and max­im­ise all oppor­tun­it­ies for respons­ible out­door access, includ­ing links into the exist­ing path net­work and ensur­ing con­sist­ency with the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Core Paths Plan

i) pro­tect the amen­ity enjoyed by neigh­bours includ­ing min­im­isa­tion of dis­turb­ance caused by access to the devel­op­ment site;

j) include an appro­pri­ate means of access, egress, levels of private amen­ity ground, and space for off- street park­ing; and

k) cre­ate oppor­tun­it­ies for fur­ther biod­iversity and pro­mote eco­lo­gic­al interest.

3.4 Repla­cing exist­ing build­ing stock

Repla­cing exist­ing build­ing stock will be con­sidered favour­ably where:

a) the exist­ing build­ing is not a lis­ted build­ing or an unlis­ted build­ing that makes a pos­it­ive con­tri­bu­tion to the char­ac­ter of a con­ser­va­tion area; and

b) the ori­gin­al foot­print of the build­ing is incor­por­ated into the new devel­op­ment unless an altern­at­ive adja­cent site would min­im­ise any neg­at­ive envir­on­ment­al, land­scape or social effects of the development.

3.5 Con­vert­ing exist­ing build­ing stock

Con­vert­ing exist­ing build­ing stock will be con­sidered favour­ably where:

a) the build­ing is redund­ant for its ori­gin­al use, and is unlikely to have a com­mer­cial or eco­nom­ic future in its cur­rent form; and

b) the con­ver­sion works main­tain the style and char­ac­ter of the ori­gin­al build­ing in terms of form, scale, mater­i­als and detail­ing, where they con­trib­ute pos­it­ively to the con­text and set­ting of the area.

3.6 Alter­a­tions to exist­ing build­ing stock

Alter­a­tions to exist­ing build­ing stock will be con­sidered favour­ably where they:

a) respect the design, mass­ing, pro­por­tions and gen­er­al visu­al appear­ance of the build­ing and area; and

b) main­tain an appro­pri­ate level of private ground, includ­ing space for off- street parking.

Who is the guid­ance for

This doc­u­ment has been pro­duced to inform those who engage with the plan­ning pro­cess such as developers, archi­tects, agents, plan­ning officers and any­one pre­par­ing a plan­ning applic­a­tion as well as oth­er inter­ested parties.

Key Design and Place­mak­ing Considerations

The right devel­op­ment in the right place

Nation­al Plan­ning Policy stresses the import­ance of deliv­er­ing the right devel­op­ment in the right place. For example res­id­en­tial devel­op­ment on brown­field sites with­in set­tle­ments is likely to be com­pat­ible with sur­round­ing land use and also more inclined to be sup­por­ted. The first hurdle in the pro­cess will be to loc­ate a suit­able site. Care must be taken to care­fully con­sider the suit­ab­il­ity of the poten­tial site to ensure

prob­lems don’t arise dur­ing the design phase, which may ulti­mately make the scheme fin­an­cially unvi­able and unlikely to obtain plan­ning per­mis­sion. Import­ant ques­tions to con­sider at an early stage in the design pro­cess include:

• Will your pro­posed devel­op­ment be com­pat­ible with nearby land uses?
• Will this devel­op­ment at this loc­a­tion be resource efficient?
• Will the devel­op­ment cre­ate sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic oppor­tun­it­ies for example in util­ising loc­al pro­duce or sus­tain­able tour­ism, or by provid­ing houses near places of work?
• Are import­ant infra­struc­ture con­nec­tions avail­able? (poor infra­struc­ture con­nec­tions often com­prom­ise the live­ab­il­ity of a place and provid­ing the required infra­struc­ture can add sub­stan­tially to costs. Site con­sid­er­a­tion should include avail­ab­il­ity of infra­struc­ture includ­ing water, sew­er­age, energy, sus­tain­able trans­port, vehicu­lar access, broad­band and access for con­struc­tion traffic).

Devel­op­ment Plan policy and allocations

All plan­ning applic­a­tions will be assessed against the adop­ted Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan and sup­port­ing sup­ple­ment­ary and non-stat­utory guid­ance. For sites with­in or near set­tle­ments con­sid­er­a­tion should be giv­en to the spe­cif­ic set­tle­ment guid­ance in the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan. Any Com­munity Action Plans or Loc­al Place Plans for the area should also be consulted.

Nat­ur­al her­it­age and land­scape con­sid­er­a­tions are import­ant to the spe­cial qual­it­ies of the area and in the stat­utory aims of the Nation­al Park – these factors are likely to have great­er sig­ni­fic­ance for devel­op­ment with­in the Park than out­side and there are spe­cif­ic policies and guid­ance relat­ing to these factors. Rel­ev­ant inform­a­tion and guid­ance is provided in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan and asso­ci­ated sup­ple­ment­ary guid­ance, which

can be found on the Plan­ning pages of the Park Author­ity website:

https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​p​l​a​n​ning- devel­op­ment/ldp-2021/

Early engage­ment with plan­ners is encour­aged to avoid unex­pec­ted costs, delays or issues dur­ing the plan­ning applic­a­tion pro­cess. Ini­tial con­tact should be with the Plan­ning Author­ity in which the devel­op­ment would be loc­ated, e.g. High­land, Moray, Angus, Aber­deen­shire or Perth and Kinross Council.

Repla­cing or con­vert­ing exist­ing build­ing stock

Where pos­sible, mater­i­als should be reused in the replace­ment build­ing, being recycled where this is not possible.

Pro­pos­als are encour­aged that enable a high­er pro­por­tion of sec­ond­ary aggregate/​recycled mater­i­als to sub­sti­tute for the con­sump­tion of primary aggreg­ates, includ­ing facil­it­ies for stor­ing, pro­cessing and recyc­ling con­struc­tion, demoli­tion and excav­a­tion mater­i­als (Policy 10.6: Minerals).

DESIGN

The Design Process

[Dia­gram of the design process]

Sub­mit­ting a proposal

When sub­mit­ting a pro­pos­al for devel­op­ment in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park applic­a­tions must demon­strate a regard for the spe­cial built and nat­ur­al envir­on­ment of the Nation­al Park’s dis­tinct­ive char­ac­ter and location.

This guid­ance is just one of a range of sup­ple­ment­ary doc­u­ments that should be con­sidered at the earli­est stage of the design pro­cess. Poten­tial applic­ants should seek pre-applic­a­tion advice from the Plan­ning Author­ity rel­ev­ant to the loc­a­tion of the pro­posed devel­op­ment, being Aber­deen­shire, Angus, Moray, High­land or Perth and Kinross Coun­cil. Advice should be sought at the earli­est oppor­tun­ity to help identi­fy con­straints and opportunities.

Com­munity Engagement

Effect­ive com­munity engage­ment can reveal import­ant loc­al inform­a­tion, for example about the key assets that any new devel­op­ment should use, pro­tect and/​or enhance, con­straints that may not be obvi­ous to those not liv­ing in the loc­a­tion (such as traffic issues), and chal­lenges facing the com­munity that the devel­op­ment could help to address.

Effect­ive com­munity engage­ment informs the iter­at­ive sit­ing and design pro­cess, and demon­strates that com­munity views have been taken into account. It should provide great­er under­stand­ing about what is pro­posed and help avoid mis­in­form­a­tion where pro­pos­als are controversial.

Design State­ments

In line with the Plan­ning Advice Note 68 (PAN 68) applic­a­tions for devel­op­ment in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park will be expec­ted to include Design State­ments for cer­tain types of devel­op­ment. Applic­a­tions will be determ­ined, in part, based on the inform­a­tion put for­ward in the Design State­ment so it is import­ant that poten­tial applic­ants and design­ers are aware of the con­tent expec­ted to be included.

Early engage­ment with the rel­ev­ant Plan­ning Author­ity should help identi­fy the site spe­cif­ic inform­a­tion that needs to be included in the Design State­ment. Planning

Officers will assess the applic­a­tion against rel­ev­ant Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan policies.

The Design State­ment does not have to be a lengthy doc­u­ment. The use of dia­grams, illus­tra­tions and pho­to­graphs along­side text is encour­aged to provide an over­view of the pro­pos­al and how it meets the require­ments of the rel­ev­ant Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan policies.

Design State­ment: Content

To ensure the Plan­ning Officer assess­ing the applic­a­tion can make an informed decision the Design State­ment should demon­strate how the pro­posed devel­op­ment responds to the exist­ing land­form, char­ac­ter, built, cul­tur­al and nat­ur­al envir­on­ment of the site and sur­round­ing area, as well as a clear under­stand­ing of the effects of the pro­posed devel­op­ment and how sit­ing and design have been used to address them. If mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures are required to address adverse effects, out­line detail of these should also be included. (The best place to describe effects and mitigation

meas­ures in detail will be in oth­er doc­u­ments sup­port­ing a plan­ning applic­a­tion, such as an eco­lo­gic­al sur­vey report or land­scape and visu­al impact assessment.).

The pro­posed devel­op­ment site loc­a­tion, bound­ary and lay­out will need to be clearly defined on a map (or maps) with a suit­ably scaled Ord­nance Sur­vey backdrop.

The applic­a­tion site will need to be clearly defined and should be presen­ted in the Design State­ment so that third parties con­sult­ing on the pro­pos­al can glean all the required inform­a­tion without hav­ing to vis­it the site. A suc­cess­ful design state­ment will include:

Site Analysis/​Apprais­al

Thor­ough site ana­lys­is is key to devel­op­ing a pro­pos­al that responds to the sites unique char­ac­ter­ist­ics. A good site ana­lys­is will identi­fy, amongst oth­er things, how the land­form, built envir­on­ment and eco­logy of the site and sur­round­ing area presents con­straints and oppor­tun­it­ies, the con­nec­tion options for ser­vices, what

infra­struc­ture is likely to be required, how the devel­op­ment could con­nect to exist­ing paths, roads and pub­lic transport.

Con­text

A com­pre­hens­ive ana­lys­is of the con­text in which the pro­posed devel­op­ment would be loc­ated should con­sider the land­scape char­ac­ter and form, built, cul­tur­al and nat­ur­al her­it­age of both the devel­op­ment site and sur­round­ing area. Fail­ing to respond in a sens­it­ive man­ner is likely to lead to the pro­pos­al fail­ing to meet the require­ments of Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan policies.

Brief

A short brief should be included to out­line the pro­ject type, deliv­ery and object­ives. This is the oppor­tun­ity to explain why the devel­op­ment is being pro­posed and what need its cre­ation is going to meet. It should also high­light key con­straints that will be over­come by the design solu­tion. This will not be a lengthy piece of text, it should be short and concise.

Design Concept

The Site Ana­lys­is, Con­text and Brief should inform the design concept put for­ward for the devel­op­ment. Address­ing the oppor­tun­it­ies and con­straints iden­ti­fied in the site ana­lys­is, while respond­ing to the con­tex­tu­al ana­lys­is find­ings and adher­ing to the brief a suit­able design concept will emerge.

This will help read­ers of the Design State­ment under­stand how the pro­posed devel­op­ment has min­im­ised adverse effects and optim­ised oppor­tun­it­ies to deliv­er enhancements.

Design Solu­tion

The Design Solu­tion should bring togeth­er the pre­ced­ing Site Appraisal/​Ana­lys­is, Con­text, Brief and Concept with the six qual­it­ies of place out­lined in this guid­ance. The Design Solu­tion should high­light how the pro­pos­al responds and con­trib­utes to the qual­it­ies of place out­lined in the Place­mak­ing sec­tion of this guidance.

Site Apprais­al

Will the pro­posed devel­op­ment have adverse effects on the Spe­cial Land­scape Qual­it­ies (SLQ’s) of the Park

The Cairngorms Nation­al Park was des­ig­nated as such because of its out­stand­ing spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies and the sens­it­ive eco­sys­tems that exist there. The Nation­al Park’s com­munit­ies each have their own char­ac­ter and qual­it­ies and these con­trib­ute to the over­all spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies of the over­all Park.

High qual­ity devel­op­ment can con­trib­ute to mak­ing the Park an attract­ive place for loc­al people, vis­it­ors and investors.

Good devel­op­ment also util­ises the exist­ing assets of a loc­a­tion – for example by cre­at­ing build­ings and streets that util­ise nat­ur­al fea­tures such as mature trees or enhance import­ant views that char­ac­ter­ise places in the Park.

Site and Area Apprais­al to inform design

Apprais­al and design are integ­ral to each oth­er. Site apprais­al should be an early stage of any devel­op­ment pro­pos­al and should inform any pre-applic­a­tion discussions.

Apprais­al needs to be aware of the big­ger pic­ture but also be com­pre­hens­ive enough so that prob­lem­at­ic con­straints are not dis­covered late in the design and devel­op­ment process.

Apprais­al can be con­cep­tu­al­ised as hav­ing three stages relat­ing to the dif­fer­ent scales with­in which the devel­op­ment will be situated:

• Wider land­scape context.
• The loc­al area (char­ac­ter / environment.)
• The spe­cif­ic site itself (site analysis).

The factors that should typ­ic­ally be assessed are out­lined on the next page how­ever the unique char­ac­ter­ist­ics of the site and the devel­op­ment pro­pos­al will dic­tate any par­tic­u­lar areas of focus. The devel­op­ment apprais­al will form part of the design state­ment sub­mit­ted as part of any plan­ning application.

Apprais­al: Wider, Loc­al & Site

Wider Land­scape Context

[Dia­gram of Wider Land­scape Context]

Loc­al Area Appraisal

[Dia­gram of Loc­al Area Appraisal]

Site Apprais­al

[Dia­gram of Site Appraisal]

Wider Land­scape Appraisal

Views / Visu­al Amenity

What are the import­ant views from the site and towards the site, par­tic­u­larly from loc­al view­points or well-used places?

Land­scape character

What are the land­scape set­ting, fea­tures and topo­graphy with­in which the devel­op­ment will be situated?

Are there any spe­cif­ic land­scape or scen­ic des­ig­na­tions that apply?

Land form

Look at the topo­graphy of the land for the site and sur­round­ing area. How could your devel­op­ment be sited to util­ise shel­ter from pre­vail­ing wind, enable pass­ive sol­ar gain and appre­ci­ate any views without being visu­ally dis­rupt­ive in a way that neg­at­ively affects the area? Policy 5 of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan and the sup­port­ing Land­scape non-stat­utory guid­ance provide

more detail about on what needs to be con­sidered and how to assess the land­scape interest of a site and sur­round­ing area. Both should be read along­side this guid­ance and are avail­able via https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​p​l​a​n​ning- devel­op­ment/ldp-2021/

Nat­ur­al heritage

In line with the stat­utory aims of the Nation­al park, nat­ur­al her­it­age fea­tures are a key part of any devel­op­ment apprais­al and pro­pos­als should, where pos­sible, make a pos­it­ive con­tri­bu­tion to the nat­ur­al envir­on­ment by pro­mot­ing and cre­at­ing oppor­tun­it­ies for biod­iversity. Meas­ures should respond to the exist­ing hab­it­ats and spe­cies found on site and in the sur­round­ing area, rather than being identikit meas­ures that are repeated at every devel­op­ment. Examples of simple meas­ures that could be incor­por­ated into the design of devel­op­ment where appro­pri­ate to the site include (but at not lim­ited to): design­ing and plant­ing SUDs ponds and blue-green infra­struc­ture to cre­ate diverse hab­it­ats as well as attractive

fea­tures for people; con­nect­ing green spaces in the devel­op­ment with those sur­round­ing the devel­op­ment, to allow wild­life to move through the devel­op­ment; includ­ing areas of amen­ity space that are less man­aged, such as wild­flower areas, to provide insects and oth­er wild­life with an undis­turbed place to live as well as attract­ive fea­ture for people; retain­ing exist­ing trees and mosa­ic of veget­a­tion rather than cre­at­ing a grassed mono­cul­ture; nat­ive tree plant­ing to com­ple­ment and enhance exist­ing areas of wood­land; provid­ing bird and bat boxes in spe­cies appro­pri­ate loc­a­tions; using hedges as bound­ary treat­ments to soften, or as an altern­at­ive to, fences or walls.

Devel­op­ment apprais­al should assess nat­ur­al her­it­age fea­tures in or near the site, including;

• mature trees or wood­land in or near the site (par­tic­u­larly ancient/​semi-ancient woodland),
• green net­work fea­tures in or near the site,

• nat­ur­al her­it­age des­ig­na­tions such

• as SSSIs, SACs, SPAs etc,

• the pos­sible pres­ence of pro­tec­ted spe­cies, and
• areas with­in or near the site that have or could have a par­tic­u­lar abund­ance of flora and fauna.

Policy 4 of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan and the sup­port­ing Nat­ur­al Her­it­age non-stat­utory guid­ance provide fur­ther inform­a­tion on what needs to be con­sidered when assess­ing the eco­lo­gic­al interest of a site. Both should be read along­side this guid­ance and are avail­able at: https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​p​l​a​n​ning- devel­op­ment/ldp-2021/

Oth­er land­scape designations

Devel­op­ment should be informed by any addi­tion­al des­ig­na­tions; for example devel­op­ment with­in a dark sky park is likely to require light­ing pro­vi­sion that does not cre­ate extens­ive ​‘light pol­lu­tion’. Policy 5 Land­scape and sup­port­ing non- stat­utory guid­ance provides more

inform­a­tion on land­scape related requirements.

Con­ser­va­tion Areas, Lis­ted build­ings and oth­er cul­tur­al her­it­age includ­ing archaeology

Con­sid­er­a­tion should be giv­en to cul­tur­al her­it­age interests in the vicin­ity of the pro­posed devel­op­ment. Some interests, such as lis­ted build­ings and con­ser­va­tion areas, require spe­cif­ic con­sid­er­a­tion to com­ply with the legis­la­tion that des­ig­nates and pro­tects them.

Policy 9 of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan and Cul­tur­al Her­it­age non-stat­utory guid­ance provide fur­ther inform­a­tion on dif­fer­ent cul­tur­al her­it­age interests in the Nation­al Park and what needs to be con­sidered. Both should be read along­side this guid­ance and are avail­able at: https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​p​l​a​n​ning- devel­op­ment/ldp-2021/

His­tor­ic Layouts

The his­tor­ic street pat­terns and rhythm con­trib­ute to the sense of place, along with older land­mark build­ings reflect­ing the cul­tur­al her­it­age of the set­tle­ment, such as rail­way sta­tions, churches, civic build­ings and hotels.

Such his­tor­ic build­ings may be lis­ted or form part of a con­ser­va­tion area. Their set­ting and views of them should be respected.

Water Envir­on­ment

It is import­ant to take into con­sid­er­a­tion any exist­ing water fea­tures, such as water­courses, ponds, field drain­age, pipes, sew­ers and water table information.

Exist­ing veget­a­tion can be an indic­at­or of how wet the ground is and areas of the site that may be prone to flooding.

Giv­en the increased incid­ence of extreme rain­fall events, flood­ing is of increas­ing sig­ni­fic­ance. SEPA flood maps may give some indic­a­tion of risk how­ever pro­fes­sion­al assess­ment may be advis­able and a Flood Risk Assess­ment or Drain­age Impact Assess­ment may be required.

Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan Policy 10: Resources and its sup­port­ing non- stat­utory guid­ance provides fur­ther inform­a­tion on the require­ments regard­ing water resources, flood­ing and deal­ing with foul drainage.

Loc­al Area Appraisal

Amen­it­ies and employ­ment opportunities

What loc­al amen­it­ies and ser­vices are in the vicin­ity of the pro­posed devel­op­ment, and what capa­city do they have for the poten­tial increase in people asso­ci­ated with the pro­posed devel­op­ment? Will new facil­it­ies be required? Policy 11 of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan and Developer Oblig­a­tions guid­ance provide fur­ther inform­a­tion on what needs to be con­sidered. They should be read along­side this guid­ance and are avail­able at https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​p​l​a​n​ning- devel­op­ment/ldp-2021/

Are there loc­al employ­ment oppor­tun­it­ies that would reduce the need for com­mut­ing or could eco­nom­ic / employ­ment ini­ti­at­ives and spaces be included as part of the development?

Act­ive travel net­work and sus­tain­able trans­port options

Are there cycle paths, core path or act­ive travel links in the vicin­ity that could provide a healthy and pleas­ant options to arrive at pop­u­lar des­tin­a­tions? Lar­ger devel­op­ments in par­tic­u­lar should con­sider how they can include and con­nect to the act­ive travel and pub­lic trans­port networks.

[image of Signposting]

Access and Roads

Design­ers need to con­sider how the pro­posed devel­op­ment will link to the exist­ing road net­work (if neces­sary). Sep­ar­ate restric­tions gen­er­ally apply to the use of private access tracks but all con­nec­tions to a pub­lic road need to be accept­able in terms of vis­ib­il­ity splays to allow safe access and egress.

Util­it­ies Infrastructure

Util­it­ies con­nec­tions need to be con­sidered from the out­set of the sit­ing and design pro­cess, as they can incur sub­stan­tial costs, cre­ate con­straints to the lay­out as well as be influ­enced by oth­er con­straints such as topo­graphy, ground con­di­tions and eco­logy. Off-grid solu­tions require research and detailed con­sid­er­a­tion to identi­fy the most appro­pri­ate options for the site.

Site Con­sid­er­a­tions

Waste Col­lec­tion

New devel­op­ment should include appro­pri­ate space for bins to store waste and recyc­lable mater­i­als, as well as provid­ing suit­able access for their col­lec­tion. Where struc­tures are required to store bins, the design and mater­i­als of the struc­tures should reflect oth­er build­ings on site.

Cycle Stor­age

Appro­pri­ate space should also be provided for covered and secure cycle stor­age. It should be loc­ated in areas of nat­ur­al sur­veil­lance and provide safe access to routes in and out of the development.

E‑Charging points

Giv­en the need to enable the switch away from vehicles powered by fossil fuels, the pro­vi­sion of char­ging points for elec­tric vehicles should also be included in the design and lay­out of pro­posed devel­op­ments. Where prac­tic­al, this should be linked to onsite renew­able elec­tri­city gen­er­a­tion and stor­age to reduce demands on the nation­al grid.

Site Ana­lys­is

To inform a meas­ured and appro­pri­ate design to the chosen site it is import­ant to carry out a site ana­lys­is. This will vary from site to site but the main fea­tures will remain con­stant and will present oppor­tun­it­ies and bar­ri­ers for the design of the building.

[dia­gram of a site]

Every site will be unique and may con­tain exist­ing mature trees, water­ways, dif­fer­ing topo­graphy, exist­ing hab­it­ats and site spe­cif­ic eco­logy and weath­er pat­terns. The final design will need to respond to these ele­ments as well as the exist­ing built envir­on­ment and the nat­ur­al her­it­age in the area.

Pro­tec­ted spe­cies will need to con­sidered, mature trees may need to be retained and the design will have to adapt to accom­mod­ate them. Pre­vail­ing winds will provide the oppor­tun­ity for nat­ur­al vent­il­a­tion but also need to be con­sidered when design­ing sheltered out­door spaces.

As men­tioned, good design starts with an appre­ci­ation of all the import­ant aspects of a site and the sur­round­ing areas. These can then be con­sidered togeth­er to deliv­er devel­op­ment that makes the best use of site and area assets plus the syn­er­gies between them. As part of the design and place­mak­ing pro­cess, early and ongo­ing engage­ment with Plan­ners in the Plan­ning Author­ity in which the pro­posed devel­op­ment would be loc­ated (e.g. Aber­deen­shire, Angus, Moray, High­land or Perth and Kinross Coun­cil) is strongly recom­men­ded to ensure rel­ev­ant con­sid­er­a­tions are included from the out­set and avoid costly delays later on in the plan­ning and devel­op­ment process.

Sit­ing

When select­ing your site there are many con­sid­er­a­tions you need to take into account to ensure its suit­ab­il­ity and the prob­ab­il­ity of obtain­ing plan­ning permission.

This sec­tion will explore site con­sid­er­a­tions, but is not inten­ded to be a fully inclus­ive guide cov­er­ing every scen­ario, as this would be imprac­tic­al. Instead it is inten­ded to act as a guide to best prac­tice and high­light ​‘best avoided’ scen­ari­os that will be unlikely to be appropriate.

The first hurdle in the pro­cess will be to loc­ate a suit­able site. Care must be taken to care­fully con­sider the suit­ab­il­ity of the poten­tial site to ensure prob­lems don’t arise dur­ing the design phase, which may ulti­mately make the scheme fin­an­cially unvi­able and/​or unlikely to obtain plan­ning permission.

Key Con­sid­er­a­tions

• Loc­a­tion and con­nectiv­ity with areas pro­tec­ted for nature con­ser­va­tion, of archaeological
• import­ance or affect­ing the built heritage.
• Wheth­er the site is suit­able for devel­op­ment in rela­tion to ground con­di­tions and the amount of earth works that may be required, the sens­it­iv­ity of the exist­ing hab­it­ats and spe­cies that use the site.
• Is there a flood risk and if so, can this be mitigated.
• Does the pro­posed devel­op­ment; a) Provide a sheltered area, tak­ing into con­sid­er­a­tion pre­vail­ing winds, b) avoid cre­at­ing issues for exist­ing devel­op­ment around the site, such as over­look­ing or block­ing day­light, c) take into con­sid­er­a­tion shad­ing from exist­ing veget­a­tion, d) provide good views out of the prop­erty to take advant­age of the nat­ur­al assets, e) include exist­ing trees and shrubs that can be retained to enhance the even­tu­al land­scap­ing of the site, f) have an estab­lished or suit­able loc­a­tion for access, including
• space for the neces­sary vis­ib­il­ity splays, g) have pro­vi­sion for the con­nec­tion to mains util­it­ies such as water, elec­tri­city and broadband.
• Does the site already have plan­ning per­mis­sion for what you want to build? If not, you will have to apply for new plan­ning per­mis­sion. If there is plan­ning per­mis­sion for what you want to build, what are the plan­ning con­di­tions for that permission?
• Is the site suit­able in terms of size rel­at­ive to the pro­posed design, build­ing reg­u­la­tions and oth­er require­ments? Large build­ings with addi­tion­al out­build­ings will need more space.
• In addi­tion to con­sid­er­ing the ratio of building(s) to plot size, oth­er con­sid­er­a­tions such as foul water treat­ment may need to be con­sidered if the site is in a remote loc­a­tion (i.e. the require­ment for a sep­tic tank and/​or per­col­a­tion fil­ter beds).

Sit­ing Integration

In the Cairngorms Nation­al Park the land­scape is made up of hills, moun­tains and val­leys and as a con­sequence, sites with slop­ing gradi­ents will inev­it­ably be put for­ward in hous­ing and oth­er devel­op­ment proposals.

Integ­rat­ing the devel­op­ment into the land­scape and lan­form should be an early con­sid­er­a­tion in the design pro­cess. Build­ings tra­di­tion­ally situ­ated on a slope will be sited with the short axis per­me­dicu­lar to the gradi­ent and this meth­od will be most effect­ive when:

• the build­ing is well integ­rated with the sur­round­ing land­scape form,
• not exceed 6m min­im­ising the need for excess­ive excav­a­tion of the hillside,
• ensure build­ing heights remain appro­pri­ate to the set­ting, sur­round­ing struc­tures and fea­tures, and
• ensure land­scap­ing and struc­tur­al plant­ing around new build­ings integ­rates them with the nat­ur­al envir­on­ment, using nat­ive plant spe­cies appro­pri­ate to the location.

Best prac­tice for design­ing on slop­ing sites will be to;

• avoid excess­ive land­scap­ing that will look out of place in the land­scape, includ­ing the need for high retain­ing walls,
• avoid build­ings sited on the top of a hill as it will poten­tially neg­at­ively impact on the nat­ur­al skyline.

A poten­tial option for sit­ing and design­ing build­ings on slopes is to use the nat­ur­al gradi­ent with­in the intern­al lay­out, as shown in the draw­ing below. Build­ings that ​‘step down’ with the nat­ur­al gradi­ent per­pen­dic­u­lar to the con­tours are likely to have reduced land­scape and visu­al effects.

The sit­ing and design of devel­op­ments should respect and respond to their imme­di­ate and sur­round­ing land­scape and hab­it­ats. For example, in val­leys, flat or open spaces, low and small scale devel­op­ments are likely to have less effects on visu­al amen­ity. Large bulky build­ings are unlikely to be appro­pri­ate in such loc­a­tions. How­ever, lar­ger build­ings may be more eas­ily accom­mod­ated if seen in the con­text of land­scape fea­tures of a

sim­il­ar scale, for example mature trees or a hillside.

All pro­pos­als should seek to integ­rate with the nat­ur­al land­forms and fea­tures of the site. Where changes to the land­form or remov­al of nat­ur­al fea­tures (such as trees) is con­sidered neces­sary to accom­mod­ate pro­posed devel­op­ment, a land­scap­ing plan should be included with the applic­a­tion. The plan should demon­strate how such changes have firstly been min­im­ised through care­ful sit­ing and design, and secondly mit­ig­ated through ground pro­fil­ing and appro­pri­ate plant­ing of plant spe­cies nat­ive to the sur­round­ing area.

A large build­ing or build­ings seen in isol­a­tion that do not integ­rate with the land­scape are unlikely to be appropriate.

Sit­ing and design also needs to con­sider oth­er issues, such as drain­age and flood risk. Build­ings situ­ated in hol­lows can face chal­lenges with drain­age and can be at risk of flood­ing from sur­face water.

Where there is a poten­tial risk of flood­ing accord­ing to SEPA’s flood risk map­ping, a flood risk assess­ment in line with SEPA guid­ance should be sub­mit­ted with the plan­ning applic­a­tion. It must identi­fy the level of risk and how the risk has been mit­ig­ated through care­ful sit­ing and design. How­ever devel­op­ment is unlikely to be appro­pri­ate in loc­a­tions at high risk of flooding.

It may be neces­sary for a devel­op­ment to incor­por­ate soak away drain­age, for example an under­ground gravel pit to allow rain water from roof gut­ters and drive­ways to drain away into the ground,

or where con­nec­tion to mains sew­er­age is not pos­sible and waste water treat­ment sys­tem need to dis­charge cleaned water into the ground.

The loc­a­tion of soakaways should be informed by per­col­a­tion tests, to ensure the ground provides suf­fi­cient drain­age. Care should be taken with their sit­ing to ensure that tree roots are pro­tec­ted dur­ing cre­ation, and excess­ive ground excav­a­tions are avoided so that effects on sur­face veget­a­tion and nat­ur­al land­form are min­im­ised, and to avoid areas pro­posed for amen­ity becom­ing water logged and unusable.

Site Lay­out

Once the site has been selec­ted the next con­sid­er­a­tion will be pla­cing the building(s) in the best loc­a­tion on the site to take advant­age of the nat­ur­al assets, envir­on­ment­al con­sid­er­a­tions and pro­tect­ing visu­al amenity.

The illus­tra­tions are gen­er­ic examples demon­strat­ing the bene­fits of good site lay­out, they are not an exhaust­ive list rather inten­ded to prompt best prac­tice by con­sid­er­ing the scenarios.

When con­sid­er­ing the site lay­out with regard to exist­ing trees it is import­ant to con­sider the sun path implic­a­tions of shad­ing on the pro­posed build­ing loc­a­tion. Situ­at­ing the build­ing too close to exist­ing trees will affect the amount of nat­ur­al light avail­able for intern­al spaces.

The build­ing will also cause addi­tion­al shad­ing on the site and reduce the usab­il­ity of the adja­cent spaces.

It is import­ant to con­sider the effects of shad­ing to max­im­ise sol­ar gain and the avail­ab­il­ity of nat­ur­al light in both the build­ing and the adja­cent spaces.

Pla­cing the build­ing on the north­ern side of the site will increase the qual­ity of the usable out­door space and max­im­ise the poten­tial for nat­ur­al light and sol­ar gain in the build­ing, avoid­ing the effect of the exist­ing trees.

Park­ing, gar­ages and access can also be placed on the north­ern edge as this area will not be used as extern­al recre­ation space and there­fore will not suf­fer from a lack of nat­ur­al light.

Pos­i­tion­ing the build­ings away from trees will also have eco­lo­gic­al bene­fits; pro­tect­ing their roots and increas­ing their lifespan and growth potential.

Addi­tion­ally by pla­cing the build­ing appro­pri­ately on the site will increase the poten­tial for future exten­sions to meet chan­ging needs of the occu­pants that will also be able to bene­fit from nat­ur­al light.

Sim­il­ar con­sid­er­a­tions should be taken into account in rela­tion to pre­vail­ing winds on the site to optim­ise the poten­tial for nat­ur­al vent­il­a­tion to inform the build­ing design.

Views

When pos­i­tion­ing the build­ing on the site early con­sid­er­a­tion should be giv­en to the poten­tial views from the prop­erty to avoid over­look­ing neigh­bour­ing build­ings and their private amen­ity space.

Sit­ing and design should avoid over­look­ing of private space, such as liv­ing spaces and rear gar­dens, and oth­er adverse effects (such as noise, dis­turb­ance and light­ing) on the amen­ity of neighbours.

Plan­ning applic­a­tions are less likely to receive objec­tions from neigh­bour­ing prop­er­ties when adverse effects on their amen­ity have been avoided through sym­path­et­ic sit­ing and design.

Scale and Massing

All build­ings need to be in keep­ing with the sur­round­ing built envir­on­ment, land­form and nat­ur­al fea­tures. This includes being of an appro­pri­ate scale. Cram­ming as many build­ings as pos­sible into a site or squeez­ing an over­sized build­ing into a small plot leav­ing little amen­ity space is unlikely to be appropriate.

Very large build­ings should be sited on plots appro­pri­ate to their scale. Land­scap­ing should respond to the site and sur­round­ing area in terms of land­form, nat­ur­al fea­tures, trees and oth­er vegetation.

Mass­ing should also be con­sidered; large bulky build­ings that stand out on the hori­zon or break the nat­ur­al sky­line are unlikely