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Draft Planning Committee Minutes 24 April

Draft Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Minutes 24 April 2026 Page 1 of 11

Draft minutes of the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee meeting

Held at Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity office, Grantown-on-Spey

In Per­son

24 April 2026 at 10.00am

Present in person

  • Rus­sell Jones (Con­vener)
  • Geva Black­ett
  • Jack­ie Brierton
  • Kenny Deans
  • Lauren Mac­Cal­lum
  • Ian McLar­en
  • Duncan Miller
  • Derek Ross
  • Paul Gibb (Deputy Convener)
  • Sandy Brem­ner
  • Dr Peter Cosgrove
  • Bill Lob­ban
  • Elean­or Mackintosh
  • Dr Fiona McLean
  • Ann Ross

Apo­lo­gies

  • Dr Han­nah Grist
  • Steve Mickle­wright
  • John Kirk
  • Michael Wil­li­am­son

In Attend­ance

  • Gav­in Miles, Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place
  • Dav­id Berry, Head of Plan­ning and Chief Plan­ning Officer
  • Emma Bryce, Plan­ning Man­ager, Devel­op­ment Management
  • Katie Crerar, Plan­ning Officer, Devel­op­ment Management
  • Kath­er­ine Don­nach­ie, Plan­ning Officer, Devel­op­ment Management
  • Scott Shanks, Eco­lo­gic­al Advice Officer
  • Emma Green­lees, Plan­ning Sup­port Officer
  • Peter Fer­guson, Harp­er MacLeod LLP
  • Alix Hark­ness, Clerk to the Board

Draft Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Minutes 24 April 2026 Page 2 of 11

Agenda Item 1

Wel­come and apologies

  1. Rus­sell Jones, the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Con­vener wel­comed all present includ­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic and apo­lo­gies were noted.

Agenda Items 2 and 3

Approv­al of minutes of pre­vi­ous meet­ings and Mat­ters arising

  1. The minutes of the pre­vi­ous meet­ing on 13 March 2026 held at Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity, Grant­own-on-Spey, were approved with no amendments.
  2. Mat­ters arising: a) In Hand — At para 14i) Inform­al Com­mit­tee / Board dis­cus­sion ses­sion to be con­sidered on how the Com­mit­tee / Board could sup­port deliv­ery of more com­munity-led ini­ti­at­ives such as this flood defence bund. Board Busi­ness Ses­sion on com­munity devel­op­ment tak­ing place later this after­noon. b) In Hand — At para 19i) Officers to fol­low up with the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment (SG) on poten­tial for review of exist­ing per­mit­ted devel­op­ment rights, using the wild­life ponds applic­a­tion as an example. Appro­pri­ate oppor­tun­it­ies are being taken to raise poten­tial case for review with the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment. c) In Hand — At para 19ii) Officers to con­sider pre­par­ing guid­ance note on what con­sti­tutes per­mit­ted devel­op­ment versus what requires full plan­ning per­mis­sion for ponds. Under con­sid­er­a­tion — will be taken for­ward as soon as pos­sible. d) In Hand — A para 30i) Officers to have con­ver­sa­tion with NatureScot about ensur­ing they assess SLQ 32 (dark skies) when apprais­ing future wind­farm applic­a­tions in and around Nation­al Park. Cor­res­pond­ence was under­way. e) In Hand — A para 38i) Plan­ning Com­mit­tee vis­it to bat­tery stor­age facil­ity in Boat of Garten to be con­sidered. Was being con­sidered as part of ongo­ing Board site vis­it / train­ing programme.

Agenda Item 4

Declar­a­tions of interest

  1. Dr Peter Cos­grove declared an interest in Item 7, as he and his com­pany (Alba Eco­logy) have under­taken rep­tile and bird sur­veys on the site and so he would leave the meet­ing for the dur­a­tion of this item.

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  1. Rus­sell Jones declared an interest in Item 5, as he works for a com­pany who pur­chases wood from Pit­main estate and so he would leave the meet­ing for the dur­a­tion of this item.
  2. The Con­vener passed the chair­ing of the meet­ing to Paul Gibb, Deputy Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Convener.

Rus­sell Jones left the room at 10.07am

Agenda Item 5

Applic­a­tion for Detailed Plan­ning Per­mis­sion 2025/0167/DET

Con­struc­tion of forestry extrac­tion track, track upgrading

At Land 465M NW of Golden Acre, Glen Road, Newtonmore

Recom­mend­a­tion: Approve sub­ject to conditions

  1. Kath­er­ine Don­nach­ie, Plan­ning Officer (Devel­op­ment Man­age­ment) presen­ted the paper to the committee.
  2. The Com­mit­tee were invited to ask the Plan­ning Officer for clar­ity, and the fol­low­ing points were raised: a) A mem­ber quer­ied her under­stand­ing that there was a move away from a cent­ral veget­ated strip on a track because it could act as a step­ping stone for fire and asked shouldn’t policy be reas­sessed from a fire safety per­spect­ive? Plan­ning Officer explained that the track’s primary pur­pose was forestry, not fire man­age­ment. The applic­ant had not pro­posed it as a fire man­age­ment tool. Mem­ber com­men­ted that fire risk should be con­sidered in every applic­a­tion, par­tic­u­larly giv­en new tree plant­ing and open moor­land cre­at­ing a fire haz­ard. b) A mem­ber asked if the new bridge would remain after forestry oper­a­tions were com­pleted and would the site be rein­stated? Plan­ning Officer advised that the track and bridge would remain. c) A mem­ber asked how close was the pro­posed track to ancient wood­land? Plan­ning Officer advised that the track does not pass through ancient wood­land and reas­sur­ance was giv­en that there would be no impact on the ancient wood­land. d) A mem­ber asked if there had been fur­ther com­munity coun­cil com­ments bey­ond those lis­ted in Appendix 3? Plan­ning Officer con­firmed that the com­ments in Appendix 3 were the only response received.

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e) A member asked if the lack of further community council comments could be due to the timing between meetings? Planning Officer confirmed that the community council did not advise that meeting timing was an issue or request more time.
f) A member agreed with the earlier concern with regard to the vegetation strip and stated it should be better designed to help defend Newtonmore against wildfire. He asked if members disagreed with the central strip requirements could it be removed? Chief Planning Officer and Head of Planning confirmed that condition 6e could be removed if members considered it appropriate.
g) A member asked if timber lorries would use this track or would the timber be taken out by estate vehicles only? Planning Officer confirmed that timber lorries (HGVs) would use the track. Timber would be brought by forwarders to the western end of the track, where HGVs would load and transport it off-site, accessing the track from the east.
  1. The Agent Chris­toph­er Far­quhar addressed the Committee.
  2. The Com­mit­tee were invited to come back on points raised; the fol­low­ing points were raised: a) A mem­ber asked if the archae­olo­gic­al sur­vey was a stand­ard require­ment or was it some­thing they would be doing vol­un­tar­ily? Chris­toph­er Far­quhar con­firmed it would be as part of the con­di­tions. b) A mem­ber ques­tioned the men­tion of a reser­voir and asked if there would be any impact on that? Chris­toph­er Far­quhar advised that there would not be any impacts on the reser­voir. c) A mem­ber asked what mit­ig­a­tion would be put in place for loc­al res­id­ents dur­ing the con­struc­tion phase? Chris­toph­er Far­quhar advised that the nearest house was 400m away. Mem­ber went on to ask if the tim­ber would be extrac­ted on Sundays? Chris­toph­er Far­quhar advised that the extract­ing and col­lect­ing would take place Monday to Fri­days and were happy for it to be con­di­tioned, if neces­sary. d) A mem­ber asked for cla­ri­fic­a­tion wheth­er the wood­land pic­tured in Appendix 1a would be extrac­ted? Chris­toph­er Far­quhar con­firmed that it would be felled and replanted with nat­ive seed. e) A mem­ber asked what the impact would be on the land man­age­ment plan if the pro­pos­al was not approved. Euan Har­ris advised that tim­ber could not be extrac­ted without this track. f) A mem­ber asked why the wood­land could not be extrac­ted without the track. Chris­toph­er Far­quhar advised that it was because of con­straints on roads.

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g) A Member asked if timber could be transported elsewhere if estate vehicles used Glen Road? Euan Harris explained that using estate vehicles on Glen Road did not make operational or safety sense, and therefore timber extraction must rely on the forestry track and HGV access as proposed.
  1. The Com­mit­tee were invited to dis­cuss the report. The fol­low­ing points were raised: a) A mem­ber reit­er­ated con­cerns regard­ing wild­fire risk and pro­posed a poten­tial solu­tion whereby the south­ern sec­tion of the track, which provides pro­tec­tion to New­ton­more and was largely visu­ally screened by exist­ing wood­land, should oper­ate as a stra­tegic fire break without a cent­ral veget­ated strip. It was noted that the north-south sec­tion of the track was more visu­ally prom­in­ent, and that in this sec­tion the pres­ence of a cent­ral veget­ated strip would be more appro­pri­ate, par­tic­u­larly as the adja­cent water­course and bridge already provided an effect­ive fire break. b) Sev­er­al Mem­bers expressed dis­com­fort with the length of the track rel­at­ive to the volume of tim­ber to be extrac­ted and the use of large tim­ber lor­ries but acknow­ledged that Glen Road presents sig­ni­fic­ant safety and oper­a­tion­al con­straints, and that no viable altern­at­ive extrac­tion route had been iden­ti­fied. c) Oth­er mem­bers noted that the applic­ant had under­taken extens­ive engage­ment with officers, revised the pro­pos­al in response to advice, and that the scheme now rep­res­en­ted the best avail­able solu­tion. d) A sug­ges­tion was made that an addi­tion­al inform­at­ive or con­di­tion could be added to restrict tim­ber extrac­tion hours in line with con­struc­tion work­ing hours. Chief Plan­ning Officer and Head of Plan­ning advised that tim­ber felling and extrac­tion activ­it­ies are best con­trolled through the sep­ar­ate Scot­tish Forestry felling licence. e) Con­cerns were raised regard­ing peat dis­turb­ance, includ­ing ref­er­ence to a 30-metre buf­fer either side of the track. Plan­ning Officer cla­ri­fied that:
    i. The 30-metre area represented an assessment and mitigation buffer, not an area of excavation.
ii. The applicant would micro-site the track to avoid deep peat where possible and use floating road construction where appropriate.
iii. Any peat disturbance must be offset through new peatland restoration.

    f) Cla­ri­fic­a­tion was sought regard­ing the ref­er­ence to ​“wider estate pur­poses”. Plan­ning Officer advised that the track would remain in situ and sup­port ongo­ing estate man­age­ment pur­poses bey­ond tim­ber extrac­tion. g) Sev­er­al mem­bers expressed their sup­port for the applic­a­tion, com­mend­ing the applic­ant for the level of work under­taken to reach the cur­rent pro­pos­al. Sup­port was linked to inclu­sion of an addi­tion­al con­di­tion relat­ing to dif­fer­en­tial treatment

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of the cent­ral veget­ated strip. Head of Plan­ning and Chief Plan­ning Officer pro­posed rather than an addi­tion­al con­di­tion, to amend the recom­men­ded con­di­tion 6e. This was accepted.

  1. The Com­mit­tee approved the applic­a­tion as per the officer’s recom­mend­a­tion with the amended condition.
  2. Action Point arising: i. None.

Rus­sell Jones returned to the room at 11.05 Paused for a 5min com­fort break. Meet­ing resumed at 11.13

  1. The Con­vener thanked Deputy Con­vener for hav­ing chaired the meet­ing in his absence.

Agenda Item 6

Applic­a­tion for Detailed Plan­ning Per­mis­sion 2025/0300/DET

Install­a­tion of hydro-elec­tric scheme and asso­ci­ated works

At Land 650 Metres South­w­est of Dalmun­zie Castle Hotel, Spit­tal of Glen­shee, Blair­gowrie, PH10 7QG

Recom­mend­a­tion: Approve sub­ject to conditions

  1. Kath­er­ine Don­nach­ie, Plan­ning Officer (Devel­op­ment Man­age­ment) presen­ted the paper to the committee.
  2. The Com­mit­tee were invited to ask the Plan­ning Officer for clar­ity, and the fol­low­ing points were raised: a) A mem­ber quer­ied when would the work be tak­ing place and would they be mind­ful of not dis­turb­ing deer in the area and on neigh­bour­ing estates? Plan­ning Officer advised that pro­posed work would take place at the end of the sum­mer and as deer man­age­ment was not some­thing that would usu­ally be con­sidered this part of the ques­tion was deferred to the applic­ant. b) A mem­ber raised a ques­tion regard­ing fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sel, not­ing that while the water­course itself does not con­tain the spe­cies, the lower catch­ment does, and that the water­course is access­ible to migrat­ory sal­mon, which may act as a vec­tor. It was sug­ges­ted that ref­er­ence to fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sel be added to

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the con­di­tion relat­ing to pro­tec­ted spe­cies sur­veys. It was emphas­ised that this would be a pre­cau­tion­ary addi­tion to avoid any poten­tial over­sight. Plan­ning Officer advised fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sel was not a qual­i­fy­ing interest of the rel­ev­ant Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion, and there­fore no sur­vey had been reques­ted by officers or NatureScot.

c) Scott Shanks, Ecological Advice Officer advised that while the presence of freshwater pearl mussel downstream could not be entirely ruled out, the existing mitigation measures for salmon and freshwater ecology would be sufficient to avoid adverse impacts if freshwater pearl mussel were present downstream.
d) Head of Planning and Chief Planning Officer confirmed that there would be no objection to amending the wording of the condition to include freshwater pearl mussel, should members wish this to be added for completeness and reassurance. The member confirmed satisfaction with this approach.
e) A member sought clarification on the wording of one of the recommended conditions regarding work during the bird breeding season. Planning Officer explained that the intention of the condition was to operate as an either/or requirement: works outside the bird breeding season would not require further action; whereas if works could not reasonably be undertaken outside the bird breeding season a pre-construction bird survey would be required, and appropriate mitigation implemented if necessary.
f) The member reiterated concern that the wording could be read as a prohibition on works during the bird breeding season and suggested that clarity could be improved by re-wording the condition. Planning Officer accepted that the wording could be clarified and confirmed that the condition would be re-worded to remove ambiguity and ensure it clearly reflected the intended either/or approach.
  1. The applic­ant, Dan New­combe was avail­able to answer ques­tions: a) A mem­ber asked if neigh­bour­ing estates would be con­sul­ted ahead of planned works? Dan New­combe provided reas­sur­ance that if the work was going to impact on deer they would not do it, as they stalk themselves.
  2. The Com­mit­tee were invited to dis­cuss the report. The fol­low­ing points were raised: a) Sup­port was expressed for the inclu­sion of renew­able energy pro­vi­sion for the hotel, with Mem­bers com­ment­ing that the con­tin­ued oper­a­tion of the hotel was import­ant for the loc­al area and that the pro­pos­al would provide wider bene­fits to Glen­shee. b) Pref­er­ence was expressed for this form of devel­op­ment over more visu­ally intrus­ive altern­at­ives, such as a large wind turbine.

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  1. The Com­mit­tee approved the applic­a­tion as per the officer’s recom­mend­a­tion sub­jec­ted to the con­di­tions as amended and agreed.
  2. Action Points arising: i. None.

Dr Peter Cos­grove left the room at 11.41am

Agenda Item 7

Applic­a­tion for Detailed Plan­ning Per­mis­sion 2026/0095/DET

Change of house type (Plot 17)

At Nethy­bridge Sta­tion Yard, Sta­tion Road, Nethy Bridge

Recom­mend­a­tion: Approve sub­ject to conditions

  1. Emma Bryce, Plan­ning Man­ager (Devel­op­ment Man­age­ment) presen­ted the paper to the committee.
  2. The applic­ant, Ron Laing addressed the Committee.
  3. The Com­mit­tee were invited to dis­cuss the report. The fol­low­ing points were raised: a) A mem­ber com­men­ted that this was a sens­ible pro­pos­al and that it was routine for build­ing com­pan­ies to change their makeup of a devel­op­ment. b) A mem­ber com­men­ded the excel­lent ini­tial application.
  4. The Com­mit­tee approved the applic­a­tion as per the officer’s recommendation.
  5. Action Points arising: i. None.

Dr Peter Cos­grove returned to the room at 11.51am

Agenda Item 8

Applic­a­tion for Detailed Plan­ning Per­mis­sion 2025/0238/DET

Demol­ish estate lar­der and erect a single storey steel portal framed replace­ment lar­der with gen­er­al pur­pose area

At Kyl­nad­rochit Lodge, Tomin­toul, Ballindal­loch, Moray, AB37 9HJ

Recom­mend­a­tion: Approve sub­ject to conditions

Draft Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Minutes 24 April 2026 Page 9 of 11

  1. Katie Crerar, Plan­ning Officer (Devel­op­ment Man­age­ment) presen­ted the paper to the committee.
  2. The Com­mit­tee were invited to ask the Plan­ning Officer for clar­ity, and the fol­low­ing points were raised: a) A mem­ber asked for clar­ity around the loc­a­tion of the pro­posed com­pens­at­ory plant­ing to SE of Tomin­toul? Plan­ning Officer con­firmed it would be on the edge, where the pods are. The mem­ber raised con­cern as there had been issues pre­vi­ously in that loc­a­tion with com­pens­at­ory plant­ing and wondered if the same issue would arise? Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place provided reas­sur­ance that it was a dif­fer­ent area of ground to be planted. b) Mem­ber quer­ied con­di­tion 4 (cov­er­ing work dur­ing the bird breed­ing sea­son) to ensure the word­ing was enforce­able and clear to the applic­ant. Plan­ning Officer noted this and provided reas­sur­ance that this would be taken for­ward. c) Head of Plan­ning and Chief Plan­ning Officer added that he would ensure that an addi­tion­al con­di­tion around com­pens­at­ory plant­ing is added.
  3. The Com­mit­tee were invited to dis­cuss the report. The fol­low­ing point was raised: a) A mem­ber praised the applic­a­tion; the devel­op­ment would be con­tained with­in its own site and not vis­ible to the public.
  4. The Com­mit­tee approved the applic­a­tion as per the officer’s recom­mend­a­tion with addi­tion­al con­di­tion around com­pens­at­ory plant­ing and amend­ment of word­ing in con­di­tion 4.
  5. Action Points arising: i. None.

Agenda Item 9

AOCB

  1. Dav­id Berry, Head of Plan­ning and Chief Plan­ning Officer gave the fol­low­ing update: a) Update on next Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan
    i. LDP Evidence Report has now been submitted to the DPEA and a Reporter has been assigned to undertake its 'gatecheck'. Will provide further progress update at next committee.
  2. The Com­mit­tee Con­vener raised a motion to move to a con­fid­en­tial session.

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Date of next meeting

  1. The pub­lic busi­ness of the meet­ing con­cluded at 12.09
  2. Date of next meet­ing 12 June 2026.