Draft Resources Non-statutory Guidance

PLAN­NING

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2020 Non-stat­utory guid­ance: Policy 10 Resources

Con­tents How to use this guid­ance ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..2 Intro­duc­tion and con­text…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………2 Water Resources……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..6 Sur­face Water……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………7 Water Sup­ply …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….8 Water Quant­ity…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………9 Water Qual­ity …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….9 Drain­age Require­ments ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..11 Flood­ing…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………|| Under­tak­ing a Flood Risk assess­ment ………………………………………………………………………………………..12 Flood risk man­age­ment meas­ures ………………………………………………………………………………………………..13 Con­nec­tion to Sew­er­age ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….13 Waste man­age­ment and min­im­isa­tion ……………………………………………………………………………………………14 Sus­tain­able waste man­age­ment in all new devel­op­ment ………………………………………………..14 Site Waste Man­age­ment plans (SWMp)…………………………………………………………………………………….15 Waste man­age­ment facil­it­ies ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….16 Land­fill …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..16 Min­er­als……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….16 Car­bon Rich Soils ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….17 Con­tam­in­ated Land ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..20

Use­ful sources of advice and inform­a­tion…………………………………………………………………………..20

How to use this guidance

This non-stat­utory guid­ance sup­ports 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/­loc­al-devel­op­ment-plan- 2020/ and should be read along­side this guidance.

This guid­ance should be used dur­ing the pre­par­a­tion and assess­ment of plan­ning applic­a­tions which have poten­tial impacts on resources and waste management.

Intro­duc­tion and context

Policy 10 of the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan’ provides the frame­work for con­sid­er­a­tion of how devel­op­ment would sup­port the sus­tain­able con­ser­va­tion, extrac­tion and use of resources whilst sup­port­ing the aims of the Nation­al Park.

Pro­pos­als will be assessed against all rel­ev­ant policies in the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan how­ever oth­er policies that may in par­tic­u­lar apply to resource and waste man­age­ment issues are those for Nat­ur­al Her­it­age, Land­scape, Cul­tur­al Her­it­age and Sup­port­ing Eco­nom­ic Growth.

10.1 Water resources All devel­op­ment should: a) min­im­ise the use of treated and abstrac­ted water; and b) treat sur­face water and foul water dis­charge sep­ar­ately and in accord­ance with the cur­rent CIRIA SUDS Manu­al; and c) have no sig­ni­fic­ant adverse impact on exist­ing or private water sup­plies or wastewa­ter treat­ment ser­vices; and d) not res­ult in the deteri­or­a­tion of the cur­rent or poten­tial eco­lo­gic­al status or pre­ju­dice the abil­ity to restore water bod­ies to good eco­lo­gic­al status; and e) not res­ult in the deteri­or­a­tion of water resources used for amen­ity or recre­ation; and

Note, policy word­ing may change fol­low­ing the exam­in­a­tion of the Pro­posed Plan.

f) avoid unac­cept­able det­ri­ment­al impacts on the water envir­on­ment and seek to improve the water envir­on­ment where pos­sible. Devel­op­ment should demon­strate any impacts (includ­ing cumu­lat­ive) can be adequately mit­ig­ated. g) Exist­ing and poten­tial impacts up and down­stream of the devel­op­ment, par­tic­u­larly in respect of poten­tial flood­ing, should be addressed; and h) avoid unac­cept­able det­ri­ment­al impacts on ground­wa­ter depend­ent ter­restri­al ecosystems.

There is a pre­sump­tion against the cul­vert­ing of water­courses and any unne­ces­sary engin­eer­ing works in the water envir­on­ment. An appro­pri­ately sized buf­fer strip will require to be retained around all water features.

10.2 Flood­ing All devel­op­ment should: a) be free from medi­um to high risk of flood­ing from all sources tak­ing into account pre­dicted impacts of cli­mate change; and b) not increase the risk of flood­ing else­where; and c) not add to the area of land that requires food pre­ven­tion meas­ures; and d) not affect the abil­ity of the func­tion­al flood­plain to store or move food waters.

In excep­tion­al cases where devel­op­ment is per­mit­ted in a medi­um to high risk area, water resi­li­ent mater­i­als and con­struc­tion may be required. This may also be neces­sary for devel­op­ment in low to medi­um risk areas. Devel­op­ments should incor­por­ate SuDS as pro­por­tion­ate to the scale and nature of development.

10.3 Con­nec­tion to sewerage All devel­op­ment should be con­nec­ted to the pub­lic sew­er­age net­work unless: a) it is in a small set­tle­ment where there is no, or a lim­ited col­lec­tion sys­tem, in which case a private sys­tem may be per­mit­ted where it does not pose or add to a risk of det­ri­ment­al effect, includ­ing cumu­lat­ive, to the nat­ur­al and built envir­on­ment, sur­round­ing uses or the amen­ity of the area; or b) it is in a lar­ger set­tle­ment where the con­nec­tion is cur­rently con­strained but is with­in the Scot­tish Water invest­ment pro­gramme. In such cases sys­tems must be designed and built: i. to a stand­ard to allow adop­tion by Scot­tish Water; and ii. to allow easy future con­nec­tion to the pub­lic sewer.

10.4 Waste man­age­ment and minimisation All devel­op­ment should: a) safe­guard the oper­a­tion of exist­ing stra­tegic waste man­age­ment facil­it­ies and all sites required to ful­fil the require­ments of the Zero Waste Plan; and b) ensure the min­im­isa­tion of waste from the con­struc­tion of the devel­op­ment and through­out the life of the devel­op­ment as defined in a site waste man­age­ment plan or statement.

New waste man­age­ment facil­it­ies must con­trib­ute towards the deliv­ery of the Zero Waste Plan and should be loc­ated on exist­ing waste man­age­ment sites, or land iden­ti­fied for gen­er­al indus­tri­al devel­op­ment, employ­ment land or stor­age and dis­tri­bu­tion devel­op­ment. All new waste man­age­ment facil­it­ies should also reflect the prin­ciples of the waste hierarchy.

10.5 Land­fill There will be a pre­sump­tion against the devel­op­ment of new land­fill sites and for amend­ments to, or exten­sions of exist­ing land­fill sites unless the devel­op­ment: a) includes appro­pri­ate meas­ures for site res­tor­a­tion; and b) has fully con­sidered site selec­tion to ensure rein­state­ment of derel­ict or despoiled land; and c) includes the prin­ciples of self suf­fi­ciency in terms of capa­city and loc­a­tion; and d) provides on site facil­it­ies to allow recycling/​waste treatment.

10.6 Min­er­als All devel­op­ment affect­ing min­er­al reserves should pro­tect future viable extrac­tion of a work­able min­er­al reserve unless: a) there is no altern­at­ive site; and b) the devel­op­ment is con­sidered to deliv­er the aims of the Park in a way which out­weighs its value as a min­er­al resource; and c) the oppor­tun­ity has been provided for extrac­tion of the min­er­al resource pri­or to devel­op­ment commencing.

Devel­op­ment to exploit min­er­al reserves will only be con­sidered favour­ably where: a) the developer can demon­strate the mar­ket with­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park where the min­er­al will be used; and b) any sig­ni­fic­ant adverse envir­on­ment­al impact can be suit­ably mit­ig­ated or is out­weighed by oth­er social or eco­nom­ic bene­fits; and c) full res­tor­a­tion details are incor­por­ated as part of the pro­pos­al; and d) no suit­able and reas­on­able altern­at­ives to the mater­i­al are available.

Pro­pos­als will be sup­por­ted 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.

The review of min­er­al per­mis­sions every 15 years will be used to apply up to date oper­at­ing and envir­on­ment­al standards.

10.7 Car­bon sinks and stores Devel­op­ment affect­ing car­bon sinks and stores, par­tic­u­larly soil and peat, should: a) pro­tect all soil and peat from com­mer­cial extrac­tion; and b) min­im­ise dis­turb­ance of soils, peat and any asso­ci­ated veget­a­tion; and c) include an assess­ment of the likely effects of devel­op­ment on car­bon diox­ide (CO2) emis­sions and identi­fy appro­pri­ate mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures to min­im­ise the release of stored car­bon as a res­ult of disturbance.

10.8 Con­tam­in­ated land Devel­op­ment affect­ing con­tam­in­ated land will be con­sidered favour­ably where: a) assess­ments are under­taken to identi­fy actu­al and poten­tial impacts, on site and off site, of all stages of devel­op­ment pro­pos­als on the risks to human health and also to the Park’s biod­iversity, geo­di­versity, hydro­logy and oth­er spe­cial qual­it­ies; and b) in the event of sig­ni­fic­ant risk, invest­ig­a­tions and assess­ments includ­ing site spe­cif­ic risk assess­ments are sub­mit­ted with plan­ning applic­a­tions to identi­fy actu­al or poten­tial sig­ni­fic­ant risks to human health and safety asso­ci­ated with the cur­rent con­di­tion of the site, and how con­tam­in­ants cur­rently inter­act with the sur­round­ing eco­sys­tem and the Park’s spe­cial qual­it­ies; and c) effect­ive remedi­al action, includ­ing con­trol and lim­it­a­tions of the release of con­tam­in­ant to the sur­round­ing envir­on­ment, is taken to ensure that the site is made suit­able for the devel­op­ment pro­posed and poten­tial reuse by oth­er devel­op­ment, and that there are no sig­ni­fic­ant det­ri­ment­al effects on the Park’s spe­cial qual­it­ies on or off site.

Water Resources

The water envir­on­ment is a key part of the Nation­al Park. It is mainly in a good, nat­ur­al con­di­tion and is mostly con­sidered to be of excel­lent qual­ity. How­ever, there are a num­ber of sig­ni­fic­ant risks posed to our water envir­on­ment includ­ing dif­fuse pol­lu­tion, river modi­fic­a­tion, catch­ment pro­cesses and flood man­age­ment. The avail­ab­il­ity of water for con­sump­tion must be ensured and the impacts of recre­ation and water abstrac­tion considered.

Any works on or near the water envir­on­ment can impact on water quant­ity and qual­ity and change its nat­ur­al beha­viour and/​or the hab­it­at it can provide. It is import­ant that the nature and scale of any impacts that may arise from pro­posed devel­op­ment are con­sidered and assessed. Water­courses and their catch­ments are dynam­ic sys­tems and in a state of con­stant change, for example flow and rate may change and rivers often need room to move pos­i­tion with­in their nat­ur­al flood­plains. Any devel­op­ment needs to ensure that it does not cause degrad­a­tion of a water­course or 2 Avail­able via https://​www​.sepa​.org​.uk/​r​e​g​u​l​a​t​i​o​n​s​/​w​a​t​e​r​/​g​round water/

exacer­bate bank erosion or depos­ition. Ground­wa­ter and wet­lands are also import­ant and impacts on these should also be fully con­sidered, includ­ing the impact of devel­op­ment on water levels. Fur­ther guid­ance can be found in the Ground­wa­ter Pro­tec­tion Policy for Scot­land² avail­able from the Scot­tish Envir­on­ment­al Pro­tec­tion Agency (SEPA).

Where engin­eer­ing activ­it­ies in the water envir­on­ment are required, appro­pri­ate mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures should be provided with an applic­a­tion. Where pos­sible this should include the remov­al of redund­ant struc­tures and the return of water bod­ies to their nat­ur­al state.

There are a num­ber of stat­utory and reg­u­lat­ory con­trols in addi­tion to plan­ning per­mis­sion, including:

• Nation­al and inter­na­tion­al nature con­ser­va­tion reg­u­la­tions (see Policy 4 Nat­ur­al Her­it­age and related non- stat­utory sup­ple­ment­ary guid­ance for fur­ther information).
• Water Envir­on­ment (Con­trolled Activ­it­ies) (Scot­land) Regulations

(CAR), which deal with engin­eer­ing activ­it­ies, pol­lu­tion, water flow, qual­ity and quantity.

River Basin Man­age­ment Plans provide inform­a­tion regard­ing the eco­lo­gic­al status of water­courses and should be taken into con­sid­er­a­tion through the plan­ning pro­cess. The grant­ing of plan­ning per­mis­sion does not remove the need to ensure oth­er licences, per­mis­sions or author­isa­tions are in place, which is the developer’s responsibility.

Pro­posed devel­op­ment must take account of the dir­ect and cumu­lat­ive effects of the pro­posed devel­op­ment on the water envir­on­ment. It must be demon­strated that any impacts on river hydro­logy, sed­i­ment trans­port and erosion, pro­tec­ted spe­cies and sens­it­ive hab­it­ats, areas pro­tec­ted for nature con­ser­va­tion, fish­er­ies, water qual­ity and quant­ity and flow rate, recre­ation, land­scape, amen­ity and eco­nom­ic or social impact can be adequately mit­ig­ated. You should util­ise oppor­tun­it­ies for enhance­ment and

res­tor­a­tion, or oth­er remedi­al works, wherever possible.

Plan­ning applic­a­tions must be accom­pan­ied by suf­fi­cient inform­a­tion to enable an assess­ment of the impacts on the water envir­on­ment. Depend­ing on the loc­a­tion, scale and poten­tial for adverse effects, some or all of the fol­low­ing inform­a­tion may be required:

• con­struc­tion and oper­a­tion meth­od state­ments detail­ing mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures and pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion includ­ing enhance­ment and res­tor­a­tion or oth­er remedi­al works that meet best prac­tice requirements
• details of and jus­ti­fic­a­tion for pro­pos­als, nature and scale of poten­tial impacts (includ­ing dir­ect and cumu­lat­ive) and meas­ures taken to avoid and/​or min­im­ise impacts
• drain­age assess­ment includ­ing foul drain­age and sur­face water drain­age includ­ing sus­tain­able drain­age sys­tems (SuDS) statement
• Flood Risk Assessment
• state­ment on water use and require­ments includ­ing minimisation,

3 See Policy 4 Nat­ur­al Her­it­age and accom­pa­ny­ing non-stat­utory sup­ple­ment­ary guid­ance for more inform­a­tion on HRA.

• demand man­age­ment and a risk assess­ment for private water supplies
• a hydro­logy sur­vey cov­er­ing both sur­face and ground­wa­ter includ­ing wet­land hab­it­ats and nat­ur­al flow régime, water qual­ity with ref­er­ence to exist­ing Water Frame­work Dir­ect­ive clas­si­fic­a­tion status, exist­ing pub­lic and private water sup­plies from abstrac­tions and springs and amen­ity and recre­ation­al water use
• suf­fi­cient inform­a­tion to enable the rel­ev­ant plan­ning author­ity to carry out a Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al (HRA)³

For lar­ger or more com­plex devel­op­ments, it is recom­men­ded that you dis­cuss your pro­pos­als with the rel­ev­ant plan­ning author­ity and oth­er rel­ev­ant bod­ies such as SEPA and Scot­tish Water in advance of sub­mit­ting your plan­ning application.

Sur­face Water

CAR reg­u­la­tions require all sur­face water from new devel­op­ment to be treated by SuDS before it is dis­charged into the *4 https://​www​.sepa​.org​.uk/

water envir­on­ment. The aim of SuDS is to mim­ic nat­ur­al drain­age, encour­age infilt­ra­tion and slow down both the speed of rain­wa­ter run­off and reduce pol­lut­ant impacts to min­im­ise adverse impacts on people and the envir­on­ment. In addi­tion to redu­cing pol­lu­tion, SuDS also plays a role in flood alleviation.

Devel­op­ment pro­pos­als should incor­por­ate SuDS to the appro­pri­ate level and should also demon­strate how these sys­tems will be main­tained in per­petu­ity. The level of SuDS treat­ment required is depend­ent on the nature of the pro­posed devel­op­ment and the envir­on­ment­al risk it poses. You should refer to the SEPA web­site for the most up-to-date inform­a­tion on the levels of treat­ment required for your spe­cif­ic devel­op­ment proposal.

Sur­face water drain­age meas­ures pro­posed as part of a plan­ning applic­a­tion should have a neut­ral or bet­ter effect on the risk of flood­ing both on and off the site. Where flood­ing is an issue, SuDS should be designed to mit­ig­ate the adverse effects of a storm inflow into the

water­course or sew­er. The SuDS do not pre­vent on-site flood­ing from water­courses, although some SuDS, such as reten­tion ponds, can slow the rate of run­off by tem­por­ar­ily stor­ing the water.

For detailed guid­ance on design cri­ter­ia for SuDS see the latest edi­tions of Sew­ers for Scot­land and the SuDS Manu­al (Con­struc­tion Industry Research and Inform­a­tion Asso­ci­ation (CIRIA). Gen­er­al Prin­ciples for deal­ing with sur­face water drain­age are provided in Scot­tish Water Sur­face Water Policy.

Water Sup­ply

Devel­op­ment pro­pos­als should have no sig­ni­fic­ant adverse impact on pub­lic or private water sup­plies. The European Drink­ing Water Dir­ect­ive’ sets the stand­ards for drink­ing water qual­ity at the tap (includ­ing micro­bi­o­lo­gic­al, chem­ic­al and organ­o­leptic para­met­ers). Private water can be sup­plied from sur­face water (rivers, burns, lochs) and this will nor­mally need some form of treat­ment before being suit­able for con­sump­tion, or from ground­wa­ter (springs, bore­holes or wells) 5 via https://​www​.scot​tish​wa​ter​.co​.uk/​H​e​l​p​-and- Resources/­Doc­u­ment-Hub/Busi­ness-and- Developer­s/­Con­nect­ing-to-Our-Net­work

which can provide very clean sources of water.

If the install­a­tion of a new private sup­ply is inten­ded for a devel­op­ment then this should be indic­ated as part of the plan­ning applic­a­tion. A risk assess­ment of the likely private water source to identi­fy any real or poten­tial con­tam­in­a­tion risks will need to be car­ried out i.e. micro-organ­isms and chem­ic­als and identi­fy steps or meas­ures to remove or reduce the risks.

The Scot­tish Government’s web­site provides gen­er­al guid­ance on private water sup­plies. The rel­ev­ant loc­al authority’s envir­on­ment­al health depart­ment should be con­tac­ted for fur­ther advice on private water sup­plies for spe­cif­ic developments.

New devel­op­ment must not have sig­ni­fic­ant adverse effects on water resources. In design­ing s devel­op­ment applic­ants must therefore:

• ensure the pro­pos­al min­im­ises water use and pre­vents pol­lu­tion of the water envir­on­ment 7 via www​.ciria​.org Trans­posed into the Water Resources Act 1991

• put in place sat­is­fact­ory sys­tems for foul and sur­face water drain­age and ensures that an allow­ance for any land- take required for this has been made

• identi­fy the source of any pro­posed water sup­ply (pub­lic or private)
• estab­lish wheth­er a flood risk assess­ment is required, and if so ensure that appro­pri­ate inform­a­tion is sub­mit­ted with your plan­ning application

While it is prefer­able that a pub­lic water sup­ply and drain­age sys­tem should be used, in some areas this is not pos­sible. Pro­pos­als for new houses in the wider rur­al area that can­not con­nect to a pub­lic ser­vice must be accom­pan­ied by adequate evid­ence to demon­strate that private facil­it­ies for water sup­ply and drain­age are avail­able. This may require you to under­take sur­vey work to test a water sup­ply or a soakaway drain­age sys­tem and demon­strate it is tech­nic­ally feas­ible to pro­ceed with the pro­pos­al. See the ​‘Con­nec­tion to sew­er­age’ sec­tion of this guid­ance for fur­ther inform­a­tion on foul drainage.

8 https://www.mygov.scot/housing-local- ser­vices/wa­ter-sup­plies-sew­er­age/private-water- supplies/

Water Quant­ity

Min­im­ising the need for water abstrac­tion will help reduce the impacts of devel­op­ment on the water envir­on­ment. This can be achieved by improv­ing water effi­ciency through the con­ser­va­tion, re-use and reclam­a­tion of water such as the col­lec­tion and recyc­ling of water, the use of water effi­cient appli­ances, pro­mo­tion of rain­wa­ter har­vest­ing and sus­tain­able drain­age sys­tems (SuDS). Under the Con­trolled Activ­it­ies Reg­u­la­tions (CAR) there is a duty for all abstract­ors to take reas­on­able steps to secure the effi­cient and sus­tain­able use of water.

Plan­ning sub­mis­sions should demon­strate how you have sought to min­im­ise water resource use and ensure that there is no deteri­or­a­tion in the qual­ity of the Nation­al Park’s water resource. This means man­aging the demand for a con­tinu­ing sup­ply of good qual­ity water while bal­an­cing the needs of wild­life and the envir­on­ment that rely on suf­fi­cient water levels.

Water Qual­ity

Plan­ning applic­a­tions should demon­strate how you have addressed water qual­ity issues, includ­ing pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion. This should include meth­od state­ments for any devel­op­ment that is pro­posed with­in or near to a water­course that should explain how SEPA’s pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion guidelines will be adhered to dur­ing con­struc­tion and oper­a­tion of the site, includ­ing the man­age­ment of sur­face water run­off from con­struc­tion. Engin­eer­ing activ­it­ies in the water envir­on­ment such as water cross­ings, bridges and cul­verts will

Per­mis­sion will not nor­mally be gran­ted that would res­ult in the deteri­or­a­tion of the cur­rent or poten­tial eco­lo­gic­al status of a water­body or that could have an adverse effect on the integ­rity of a European site pro­tec­ted for nature con­ser­va­tion’. Suf­fi­cient inform­a­tion should be provided with plan­ning applic­a­tions to enable the plan­ning author­ity to under­take rel­ev­ant assess­ments. Applic­ants should also demon­strate how demand man­age­ment has been taken into account.

require a licence under CAR, which is reg­u­lated by SEPA.

A devel­op­ment pro­pos­al should demon­strate that it pre­vents or lim­its the input of pol­lut­ants, includ­ing sed­i­ment, into water­courses and ground­wa­ter so that it does not res­ult in the deteri­or­a­tion of the cur­rent or poten­tial eco­lo­gic­al status or pre­ju­dice the abil­ity of res­tor­a­tion to achieve such status.

Pol­lu­tion lead­ing to the deteri­or­a­tion of water qual­ity can be from one of two sources; point source or dif­fuse source. Point source pol­lu­tion is asso­ci­ated with dis­charges from pipe sys­tems such as indus­tri­al dis­charges and sew­er­age works. Dif­fuse sources of pol­lu­tion include run­off from roads, houses and com­mer­cial areas, run­off from farm­land and seep­age into ground­wa­ter from developed land­scapes of all kinds. Dif­fuse sources are often indi­vidu­ally minor, but col­lect­ively sig­ni­fic­ant. Dif­fuse pol­lu­tion from both rur­al and urb­an sources is one of the major causes of poor water qual­ity in Scot­land today.

9 See Policy 4 Nat­ur­al Her­it­age and accom­pa­ny­ing non-stat­utory sup­ple­ment­ary guid­ance for more inform­a­tion on European sites.

Devel­op­ment pro­pos­als should not res­ult in the deteri­or­a­tion of the cur­rent or poten­tial hydro­mor­pho­lo­gic­al status of a water body, i.e. the phys­ic­al char­ac­ter­ist­ics of the shape, bound­ar­ies and its content.

The eco­lo­gic­al clas­si­fic­a­tion sys­tem required under the Water Frame­work Dir­ect­ive describes hydro­mor­pho­lo­gic­al ele­ments as ​‘sup­port­ing the bio­lo­gic­al ele­ments’. These con­sist of the hydro­lo­gic­al régime (quant­ity and dynam­ics of flow, con­nec­tion to ground­wa­ter); con­tinu­ity (abil­ity of sed­i­ment and migrat­ory spe­cies to pass freely up/​down rivers and lat­er­ally with­in the flood­plain); mor­pho­logy (i.e. phys­ic­al hab­it­at — com­pos­i­tions of sub­strate, width/​depth vari­ation, struc­ture of bed, banks and ripari­an zone).

Developers may be required to make improve­ments to the water envir­on­ment as part of their devel­op­ment. Where a Water Frame­work Dir­ect­ive (WFD) water body spe­cif­ic object­ive is with­in the devel­op­ment bound­ary, or in close prox­im­ity, developers will need to address this with­in the plan­ning sub­mis­sion. Where there is no WFD object­ive, the applic­ant should still invest­ig­ate the

poten­tial for water­course res­tor­a­tion. See SEPA guid­ance for fur­ther information:

• https://​www​.sepa​.org​.uk/​r​e​g​u​l​ation s/​water/​

There are a num­ber of areas pro­tec­ted for nature con­ser­va­tion with­in the Park that rely on fresh and ground water to sup­port their hab­it­ats and spe­cies. More inform­a­tion about pro­tec­ted areas can be found via Site Link:

• https://sitelink.nature.scot/home

Policy 4 Nat­ur­al Her­it­age of the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan and the accom­pa­ny­ing non-stat­utory sup­ple­ment­ary guid­ance should be referred to for more inform­a­tion and advice.

River and oth­er water­course cor­ridors with their asso­ci­ated bank­side bor­ders and veget­a­tion can provide valu­able hab­it­ats for a wide range of flora and fauna. The sus­tain­able man­age­ment of these areas as ripari­an zones to con­serve or enhance water qual­ity, hab­it­at and spe­cies diversity is encour­aged. Such man­age­ment may also provide suit­able altern­at­ives to hard engin­eer­ing solu­tions, for bank rein­force­ment for example.

The pro­vi­sion of buf­fer strips in all devel­op­ments which are adja­cent to, or con­tain a water­body is encour­aged. The pro­vi­sion of buf­fer strips around or along water bod­ies can have mul­tiple bene­fits includ­ing allow­ing for the main­ten­ance of water­courses, redu­cing the risk of flood­ing, mit­ig­at­ing dif­fuse water pol­lu­tion, provid­ing valu­able wild­life cor­ridors and provid­ing space for lat­er­al move­ment of water­courses. They can also help to reduce soil erosion and help adapt­a­tion to cli­mate change and flood risk. Water bod­ies and buf­fer strips can also con­trib­ute to cre­at­ing qual­ity places by enhan­cing Blue and Green net­works fur­ther inform­a­tion is provided under Policy 3 Design and Place­mak­ing and related guidance.

The optim­um width of a buf­fer strip adja­cent to a water­body will be affected by the width of the water course/​size of water body, site con­di­tions, topo­graphy and addi­tion­al func­tions. They should nor­mally be a min­im­um of 6m but could be wider than 20m on major rivers or dynam­ic water courses to allow them to fol­low their nat­ur­al course. Where there are oppor­tun­it­ies to under­take res­tor­a­tion of straight­en or realigned water­courses, a wider buf­fer may also be

required. Fur­ther inform­a­tion is avail­able via SEP­AO You should con­sider the inclu­sion of buf­fer strips as part of your applic­a­tion and provide reas­on­ing for your pro­pos­al where this option has been discounted.

Drain­age Requirements

Applic­ants may be required to sub­mit a Drain­age Assess­ment. Fur­ther inform­a­tion on this is provided in the Water Assess­ment and Drain­age Assess­ment Guide”. A drain­age assess­ment is site- spe­cif­ic and inten­ded to clearly out­line the impact that the pro­posed devel­op­ment has in both sur­face water and foul drain­age terms. It should also con­sider flood risk where appropriate.

Applic­ants will need to make appro­pri­ate pro­vi­sion for the col­lec­tion, treat­ment, decon­tam­in­a­tion and dis­pos­al of all sur­face and foul water arising from your pro­posed devel­op­ment and the site with­in which it sits. Sep­ar­ate sys­tems must be employed for the treat­ment of sur­face water and foul drain­age. Adequate con­sid­er­a­tion must also be giv­en to the impact of the 10 https://​www​.sepa​.org​.uk/

pro­posed devel­op­ment on the drain­age catch­ment area.

Flood­ing

Flood­ing is a nat­ur­al pro­cess which is influ­enced by human activ­ity includ­ing veget­a­tion loss and works that affect water­courses or sur­face water drain­age. Flood­ing can occa­sion­ally be haz­ard­ous to people, prop­erty and infra­struc­ture, with cli­mate change pre­dicted to increase the fre­quency of extreme rain­fall events. All water­courses are sus­cept­ible to flood­ing and func­tion­al flood­plains should be expec­ted to flood peri­od­ic­ally. Devel­op­ment pres­sures often arise on vul­ner­able, low lying areas, which are prone to flood­ing, or where devel­op­ment could exacer­bate prob­lems which exist else­where with­in the same water catch­ment area

In gen­er­al, devel­op­ment should avoid flood risk. How­ever, in excep­tion­al cir­cum­stances, where the risk can­not be avoided, appro­pri­ate mitigation/​alle­vi­ation meas­ures will be required. It should be

noted that flood risk can­not be elim­in­ated, only man­aged or avoided.

Flood­ing in the Nation­al Park is a mater­i­al plan­ning con­sid­er­a­tion, and the prob­ab­il­ity of flood­ing from a num­ber of sources flu­vi­al (water­courses) and plu­vi­al (sur­face water) — and the risks must be taken into account when determ­in­ing your plan­ning applic­a­tion. Scot­tish Plan­ning Policy (2014) states that ​‘Devel­op­ment which would have a sig­ni­fic­ant prob­ab­il­ity of being affected by flood­ing or would increase the prob­ab­il­ity of flood­ing else­where’ should be pre­ven­ted. A pre­cau­tion­ary prin­ciple must there­fore be taken in decisions when flood risk is an issue. A piece­meal reduc­tion of the flood­plain must be avoided because of the cumu­lat­ive effects of redu­cing flood stor­age capacity.

The man­age­ment of flood­plains is one of the key issues in the Nation­al Park. In cer­tain loc­a­tions rivers have been cut off from their river sys­tems by flood walls, dykes or bunds. This res­ults in flow being chan­nelled in a much more intens­ive way than is nat­ur­al, lead­ing to erosion of river

https://​www​.sepa​.org​.uk/​m​e​d​i​a​/​1​6​3​4​7​2​/​w​a​t​e​r​_asse ssment_and_drainage_assessment_guide.pdf

beds and loss of finer sed­i­ments. It also leads to the loss of wet­land hab­it­ats that help to sup­port the diversity and viab­il­ity of the river sys­tems. Flood waters that can­not spread out in the upper catch­ments can cause severe flood­ing downstream.

Like­li­hood of a site flood­ing is meas­ured in terms of prob­ab­il­it­ies per annum, which range from little or no risk (less than 0.1 per cent prob­ab­il­ity) to Medi­um to High risk (annu­al prob­ab­il­ity is great­er than 0.5%). For plan­ning pur­poses the func­tion­al flood­plain will gen­er­ally have a great­er than 0.5 per cent (1:200 year) prob­ab­il­ity of flood­ing in any year.

Devel­op­ment which would have a medi­um to high risk of being affected by flood­ing (i.e. is with­in or adjoin­ing the medi­um to high risk prob­ab­il­ity area), or would increase the prob­ab­il­ity of flood­ing else­where, will not be per­mit­ted. Any devel­op­ment which requires meas­ures (such as land rais­ing or under-build­ing) to address flood risk is only likely to be 12 https://​www​.sepa​.org​.uk/​e​n​v​i​r​o​n​m​e​n​t​/​w​a​t​e​r​/​f​loodi ng/­flood-maps/

accept­able out­side or adjoin­ing these areas.

Flood­ing: what you need to consider

Alter­a­tions and small-scale exten­sions are gen­er­ally out­with the scope of the policy, provided they are unlikely to have a sig­ni­fic­ant effect on the stor­age capa­city of the func­tion­al flood­plain or affect loc­al flood­ing problems.

You should con­sult SEPA’s Flood Risk maps 12 to indic­ate what action you need to take and wheth­er you will be required to sub­mit a Flood Risk Assess­ment in sup­port of your plan­ning application

These maps show indic­at­ive flood risk areas that should be avoided wherever pos­sible. They provide a guide and assist in identi­fy­ing areas where more detailed inform­a­tion is required.

You must con­sult SEPA and the loc­al flood pre­ven­tion author­ity (typ­ic­ally the loc­al author­ity) for pro­pos­als for new devel­op­ment with­in iden­ti­fied or adja­cent to, poten­tial flood risk areas. If the plan­ning author­ity is con­sid­er­ing approv­ing *13 Avail­able from: https://​www​.sepa​.org​.uk/​e​n​v​i​r​o​n​m​e​n​t​/​w​a​t​e​r​/​f​loodi ng/​and https://​www​.sepa​.org​.uk/​m​e​d​i​a​/​1​6​2​6​0​2/ss-

an applic­a­tion con­trary to the advice of SEPA, or the loc­al flood pre­ven­tion author­ity, the applic­a­tion will be noti­fied to Scot­tish Ministers.

Under­tak­ing a Flood Risk assessment

Sub­mit­ted inform­a­tion should indic­ate if your pro­posed devel­op­ment lies with­in or is adja­cent to areas of flood risk iden­ti­fied on SEPA’s indic­at­ive flood map. If any part of your pro­pos­al lies with­in or is adja­cent to medi­um to high risk areas you must com­mis­sion a Food Risk Assess­ment (FRA) to be car­ried out by a qual­i­fied pro­fes­sion­al. Flood Risk Assess­ments may some­times be required for devel­op­ments in low risk areas. Your FRA should be done as early as pos­sible in the pro­cess to inform the pro­posed devel­op­ment and identi­fy con­straints which may impact on:

• the develop­able area;
• achiev­able capacity;
• eco­nom­ic feasibility;
• lay­out, scale and design.

Flood Risk Guid­ance for Stake­hold­ers, is avail­able from SEPA13.

nfr-p-002-tech­nic­al-flood-risk-guid­ance-for- stakeholders.pdf

Your Flood Risk Assess­ment should adhere to the Tech­nic­al Flood risk Guid­ance for Stake­hold­ers’ Pre­lim­in­ary or scop­ing stud­ies may be under­taken pri­or to a fuller assess­ment. In excep­tion­al cir­cum­stances, sup­port­ing inform­a­tion that demon­strates that the site is free from flood risk can be accep­ted. Dis­cus­sions with the plan­ning author­ity and SEPA pri­or to this are recom­men­ded. to advise on pre­ven­tion and alle­vi­ation meas­ures such as flood defences. You will need to include this detail with your plan­ning submission.

Flood risk man­age­ment measures

Flood pro­tec­tion meas­ures are designed to pro­tect against a spe­cified height of flood water. The meas­ures can reduce the prob­ab­il­ity of flood­ing in a par­tic­u­lar area but can­not elim­in­ate it entirely.

A devel­op­ment which requires addi­tion­al flood pro­tec­tion meas­ures will nor­mally only be accept­able out­side or adjoin­ing the bound­ary of medi­um to high risk areas. Where flood pro­tec­tion meas­ures are needed, full details should be provided 14 Avail­able from: https://​www​.sepa​.org​.uk/​e​n​v​i​r​o​n​m​e​n​t​/​l​a​n​d​/​p​l​a​nning /guid­ance-and-advice-notes/

includ­ing a thor­ough jus­ti­fic­a­tion and an exam­in­a­tion of altern­at­ive options. Elev­ated build­ings on struc­tures such as stilts are unlikely to be acceptable.

Flood risk man­age­ment meas­ures should tar­get the sources and path­ways of flood waters and the impacts of flood­ing. Where pos­sible, nat­ur­al fea­tures includ­ing wood­land and trees and char­ac­ter­ist­ics of catch­ments should be restored to slow, reduce or oth­er­wise man­age flood waters. Flood risk man­age­ment meas­ures should avoid or min­im­ise det­ri­ment­al effects on the eco­lo­gic­al status of the water envir­on­ment. In all cases, oppor­tun­it­ies for hab­it­at res­tor­a­tion or enhance­ment should be sought. Fur­ther inform­a­tion on Nat­ur­al Flood Man­age­ment is avail­able from SEPA 15 Land rais­ing, which involves per­man­ently elev­at­ing a site above the func­tion­al flood­plain, may have a role in some cir­cum­stances where oth­er altern­at­ives are not prac­tic­al. Pro­pos­als for landrais­ing should be linked to the pro­vi­sion and main­ten­ance of com­pens­at­ory flood water *15 https://​www​.sepa​.org​.uk/​m​e​d​i​a​/​1​6​3​5​6​0​/​sepa- natural-flood-management-handbook1.pdf

stor­age. This should replace the lost capa­city of the func­tion­al flood­plain and have a neut­ral or bet­ter effect on the prob­ab­il­ity of flood­ing elsewhere.

Once com­plete, the land cre­ated by landrais­ing will no longer be part of the func­tion­al flood­plain. Engin­eer­ing oper­a­tions for landrais­ing are a con­trolled activ­ity under the Water Envir­on­ment and Water Ser­vices (Scot­land) Act 2003 and approv­al is required from SEPA before works can commence.

Con­nec­tion to Sewerage

Where the pro­posed devel­op­ment is in, or close to an area where there is a pub­lic sew­er­age sys­tem, foul drain­age from the devel­op­ment should be dir­ec­ted to that sys­tem. All new devel­op­ment should con­tact Scot­tish Water at the pre- applic­a­tion stage to con­firm if there is capa­city and con­nec­tion poten­tial. If the sys­tem has insuf­fi­cient capa­city, you should con­tact Scot­tish Water to identi­fy any pro­grammed works which will address the issue(s). Altern­at­ively, Scot­tish Water may

advise on net­work mit­ig­a­tion and invest­ment required by you as the developer. Fur­ther inform­a­tion on Scot­tish Water’s Deliv­ery and Invest­ment Plan can be found on their website”.

Devel­op­ment that can­not be con­nec­ted to the pub­lic sew­er­age sys­tem will only be per­mit­ted if it is not pos­sible or is unreas­on­able to con­nect, due to lack of capa­city or oth­er con­straints with­in the pub­lic sys­tem. Alter­at­ive or inter­im pro­pos­als must be jus­ti­fied in your sub­mit­ted inform­a­tion and may be per­mit­ted if they com­ply with rel­ev­ant SEPA and Scot­tish Water stand­ards and best prac­tice. This is rel­ev­ant in lar­ger set­tle­ments (pop­u­la­tion equi­val­ent over 2,000) where con­nec­tion is cur­rently con­strained but is with­in the Scot­tish Water invest­ment pro­gramme and in small set­tle­ments (pop­u­la­tion equi­val­ent under 2,000) where there is no, or a lim­ited pub­lic sys­tem. In these cases a private or inter­im sys­tem may be per­mit­ted where it does not pose or add to a risk of det­ri­ment­al effect, includ­ing cumu­lat­ive, to the nat­ur­al and built envir­on­ment, sur­round­ing uses, or the amen­ity of the area. Sys­tems must be designed and built 16 https://​www​.scot​tish​wa​ter​.co​.uk/

to a stand­ard to allow con­nec­tion to the pub­lic sew­er and/​or adop­tion by Scot­tish Water at a later date.

If the pro­pos­al is for a large-scale devel­op­ment in an area already con­strained or is oth­er­wise prob­lem­at­ic, your Drain­age Assess­ment should include a com­pre­hens­ive sec­tion on waste water drain­age. This should exam­ine the avail­ab­il­ity, both in terms of loc­a­tion and capa­city, of pub­lic sew­ers and their abil­ity to carry wastewa­ter from the devel­op­ment. Where a pub­lic sew­er is not