Formal board meeting - paper 2 - revision of Planning Committee standing orders - 26 September 2025

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Form­al Board Paper 2 26 Septem­ber 2025 Page 1 of 4

For Decision Title: Revi­sion of Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Stand­ing Orders Pre­pared by: Dav­id Berry, Head of Plan­ning and Chief Plan­ning Officer and Gav­in Miles, Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place

Pur­pose This paper seeks form­al approv­al and adop­tion of pro­posed updates to the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Stand­ing Orders. It fol­lows con­sid­er­a­tion and agree­ment of updates to the Stand­ing Orders at the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee meet­ing on 29 August 2025.

Recom­mend­a­tions The Board is asked to: a) Approve and adopt the updated Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Stand­ing Orders set out in Annex 1 to this paper.

Back­ground and stra­tegic context

1. The Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Stand­ing Orders out­line the pro­ced­ures which apply to meet­ings of the Park Authority’s Plan­ning Com­mit­tee. The cur­rent Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Stand­ing Orders were adop­ted in Septem­ber 2019.
2. Updated Stand­ing Orders for meet­ings of the Board were adop­ted in Novem­ber 2024, and it is neces­sary to review the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Stand­ing Orders to ensure con­sist­ency between the two sets of pro­ced­ures. The cur­rent Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Stand­ing Orders also pre-date the sig­ni­fic­ant changes to work­ing prac­tices that were intro­duced dur­ing the Cov­id-19 pan­dem­ic, and which have been main­tained sub­sequently – for example, online and hybrid meet­ings. There is a need to review the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Stand­ing Orders to reflect these and oth­er changes to work­ing prac­tices in the inter­ven­ing period.
3. Accord­ingly, the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee con­sidered and agreed updates to the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Stand­ing Orders at its meet­ing on 29 August 2025. This paper

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Form­al Board Paper 2 26 Septem­ber 2025 Page 2 of 4

presents the Committee’s agreed updates to the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Stand­ing Orders for approv­al and adop­tion by the Board.

Pro­posed updates to the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Stand­ing Orders

1. The pro­posed updated Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Stand­ing Orders, incor­por­at­ing all updates agreed by the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee at its meet­ing on 29 August 2025, are presen­ted in Annex 1.
2. Table 1 below provides a sum­mary of the updates that are pro­posed under each sub-head­ing of the Stand­ing Orders.

Table 1: Sum­mary of pro­posed updates to Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Stand­ing Orders: | Sub-head­ing title | Pro­posed change/​s | | —- | —- | | Fre­quency and loc­a­tion of meet­ings | Meet­ing fre­quency updated from four to six weekly. Cla­ri­fic­a­tion that spe­cial meet­ings may be called by the Com­mit­tee Con­vener when it appears that an item of busi­ness requires urgent atten­tion. Cla­ri­fic­a­tion that com­mit­tee meet­ings will nor­mally be held in hybrid format, hos­ted from the Park Authority’s offices in Grant­own-on-Spey, but that com­mit­tee meet­ings may be held in-per­son at a loc­a­tion close to the site of pro­posed devel­op­ments that raise issues of par­tic­u­lar sig­ni­fic­ance. Dele­tion of ref­er­ence to can­cel­la­tion of com­mit­tee meet­ings due to adverse weath­er cir­cum­stances. | | Pre-agenda brief­ing meet­ings | Minor updates for cla­ri­fic­a­tion but no sig­ni­fic­ant changes. | | Notice of meet­ings | Dele­tion of ref­er­ence to dis­play of meet­ing notices in loc­al author­ity offices, as this is now done online. No oth­er sig­ni­fic­ant changes. | | Agenda papers | Cla­ri­fic­a­tion that, as well as being sent to Board mem­bers, all agenda papers are pub­lished online sev­en days before each |

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Form­al Board Paper 2 26 Septem­ber 2025 Page 3 of 4

Sub-head­ing title	Pro­posed change/​s
	meet­ing oth­er than where there are con­fid­en­ti­al­ity considerations.
Quor­um	Addi­tion­al text to cla­ri­fy that quor­um require­ments apply irre­spect­ive of any vacan­cies in mem­ber­ship and to out­line the pro­ced­ures that apply if the num­ber of mem­bers reduces below quor­um dur­ing a meet­ing – for example, due to mem­bers leav­ing the meet­ing because of declar­a­tions of interest.
Plan­ning applic­a­tions: writ­ten representations	Amend­ments to allow longer peri­ods for writ­ten rep­res­ent­a­tions where appro­pri­ate. A min­im­um peri­od of 28 days for writ­ten rep­res­ent­a­tions is main­tained, and a new cut- off point bey­ond which rep­res­ent­a­tions can­not be included in com­mit­tee papers is included (21 days pri­or to the date on which the applic­a­tion will be repor­ted to committee).
Plan­ning applic­a­tions: oral representations	Minor updates for cla­ri­fic­a­tion but no sig­ni­fic­ant changes.
Writ­ten and oral rep­res­ent­a­tions on oth­er agenda items	Minor updates for cla­ri­fic­a­tion but no sig­ni­fic­ant changes.
Site vis­its	Cla­ri­fic­a­tion that the Plan­ning Con­vener / Deputy Con­vener, in con­sulta­tion with the Head of Plan­ning, nor­mally identi­fy instances where site vis­its are required and arrange these in advance of com­mit­tee meet­ings (although the abil­ity for mem­bers to pro­pose a motion for a site vis­it where they deem this neces­sary for the effect­ive determ­in­a­tion of a plan­ning applic­a­tion is retained). Intro­duc­tion of a man­dat­ory require­ment for mem­ber attend­ance at all plan­ning site visits.
How motions and amend­ments are moved and decided on	Minor updates for cla­ri­fic­a­tion but no sig­ni­fic­ant changes.
What hap­pens if votes are equal?	Minor updates for cla­ri­fic­a­tion but no sig­ni­fic­ant changes.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Form­al Board Paper 2 26 Septem­ber 2025 Page 4 of 4

Sub-head­ing title	Pro­posed change/​s
Adjourn­ing a meeting	Minor updates for cla­ri­fic­a­tion but no sig­ni­fic­ant changes.
Del­eg­a­tion of responsibilities	Addi­tion of ref­er­ence to mon­it­or­ing and enforce­ment pro­cesses (except those which involve serving form­al enforce­ment notices), and the nego­ti­ation and con­clu­sion of sec­tion 75 leg­al agree­ments post-Com­mit­tee in the sec­tion on oper­a­tion­al decision-making.

1. The Board is asked to approve and adopt the updated Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Stand­ing Orders.

Stra­tegic risk management

1. Main­tain­ing up to date Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Stand­ing Orders will help to mit­ig­ate the risk of suc­cess­ful leg­al chal­lenge to decisions of the Park Authority’s Plan­ning Com­mit­tee on a pro­ced­ur­al basis.

Implic­a­tions

1. There are no dir­ect stra­tegic resource implic­a­tions asso­ci­ated with this item of business.

Sup­port­ing information

1. The pro­posed updated Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Stand­ing Orders are presen­ted in Annex 1 to this paper.

Dav­id Berry 08 Septem­ber 2025 davidberry@​cairngorms.​co.​uk