Good practice - design and landscape issues

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 1 of 2

Good prac­tice — design and land­scape issues

Good design is a part­ner­ship between well-informed cli­ents and cus­tom­ers, archi­tects and design­ers, and skilled build­ers and contractors.

It’s import­ant to achieve the highest qual­ity of design pos­sible in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. This means com­mit­ting to good qual­ity at every stage of the design pro­cess, from start to completion.

Well-designed devel­op­ments sup­port good place­mak­ing, can act­ively help to enhance the envir­on­ment and biod­iversity, man­age expos­ure to air, noise and light pol­lu­tion and reduce over­all emis­sions. In con­trast, oth­er new devel­op­ments may increase the emis­sion of pol­lut­ants that are harm­ful to human health and impact on the qual­ity of life.

Deliv­er­ing good design

In the Cairngorms Nation­al Park, the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan requires that all devel­op­ment, not just the expens­ive or icon­ic, deliv­ers high stand­ards of design and con­trib­utes to the sense of place.

The dis­tinct­ive char­ac­ter and iden­tity of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park’s nat­ur­al and built her­it­age and set­tle­ments con­trib­ute to the qual­it­ies that make it spe­cial. The con­tri­bu­tion that built devel­op­ment makes to our sense of place and qual­ity of life is import­ant to those who live, work and vis­it the Nation­al Park. Good design is key to achiev­ing devel­op­ment fit for a Nation­al Park.

The Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan is sup­por­ted by non-stat­utory guid­ance, which provides addi­tion­al inform­a­tion on the pro­duc­tion of design state­ments and con­sid­er­a­tions to take account of when plan­ning new development.

Land­scape and spe­cial land­scape qualities

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 2 of 2

The unique land­scape of the Nation­al Park and its spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies should always be con­sidered when design­ing new devel­op­ments in the Nation­al Park. There are sev­er­al tools to help with this.

Cairngorms land­scape toolkit

The Cairngorms land­scape toolkit is a resource to help developers and pro­fes­sion­als, and any­one with an interest in learn­ing more about the land­scapes of the Nation­al Park.

Our land­scapes are import­ant, and devel­op­ment should fit with and enhance them.

In the land­scape toolkit you’ll find:

• Baseline land­scape char­ac­ter inform­a­tion in the land­scape areas section.

• The sens­it­iv­ity of land­scape char­ac­ter to some forms of devel­op­ment, and devel­op­ment-spe­cif­ic guid­ance in the land­scape sens­it­iv­ity section.

• Descrip­tions and maps of the char­ac­ter­ist­ics and qual­it­ies in the spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies section.

Explore the land­scape toolkit here.

• Land­scape Char­ac­ter Areas

• Spe­cial Land­scape Qualities

• Guid­ance for land­scape change

Guid­ance on assess­ing effects

Guid­ance has been pro­duced to assist developers to assess the effects of their devel­op­ment on the spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies of the Nation­al Park. Find out more here.