Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Item 10 Plan­ning Com­mit­tee 29 August 2025 Page 1 of 13

Wind­farm com­mit­tee report

Devel­op­ment proposed:

Bal­nespick Wind Farm – applic­a­tion under Sec­tion 36 of the Elec­tri­city Act 1989 for the con­struc­tion and oper­a­tion of a wind­farm and energy stor­age facil­ity with­in the Plan­ning Author­ity of the High­lands Coun­cil, of 9 tur­bines with a tip height up to 200m. Anti­cip­ated gen­er­at­ing capa­city is 64.8MW with addi­tion­al 10MW of bat­tery stor­age mak­ing the total anti­cip­ated capa­city 74.8MW.

Con­sulta­tion from:

Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment Energy Con­sents Unit

Ref­er­ence:

2025/0040/PAC (ECU ref. ECU00004904)

Applic­ant:

Fred. Olsen Renewables

Date con­sul­ted:

20 Feb­ru­ary 2025

Recom­mend­a­tion:

Object

Case officer:

Emma Bryce, Plan­ning Man­ager (Devel­op­ment Management)

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Pur­pose of report

1. The pur­pose of this report is to inform the com­mit­tee decision and sub­sequent con­sulta­tion response to the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment Energy Con­sents Unit (ECU) on an applic­a­tion sub­mit­ted under Sec­tion 36 of the Elec­tri­city Act 1989 for a pro­posed wind­farm loc­ated to the north­w­est of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. The Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment are the determ­in­ing author­ity for this applic­a­tion as the out­put is more than 50MW. The applic­a­tion is accom­pan­ied by an Envir­on­ment­al Report (EIAR), which presents the find­ings of the applicant’s Envir­on­ment­al Impact Assess­ment (EIA).

2. The plan­ning issues to be con­sidered are con­fined to the effects of the pro­posed wind­farm on the land­scape char­ac­ter and Spe­cial Land­scape Qual­it­ies (SLQs) of the Nation­al Park. All oth­er mat­ters, such as eco­logy, noise, gen­er­al amen­ity, etc, are assessed by the decision maker (Scot­tish Min­is­ters) with advice from stat­utory consultees.

3. Under the cur­rent work­ing agree­ment on roles in land­scape case­work between NatureScot and the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity, NatureScot lead on the pro­vi­sion of advice on the effects on the SLQs caused by pro­pos­als out­with the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. Their advice has been used to inform this report.

Site descrip­tion and pro­posed development

1. The wind­farm will be loc­ated on the Strath­dearn Hills which is an elev­ated moor­land that provides a back­drop from key slopes and sum­mits from with­in the Nation­al Park. The site cov­ers an area of approx­im­ately 1,063 hec­tares. There are two prom­in­ent hill fea­tures sep­ar­ated by the Allt Lois­gte water­course. The site lies imme­di­ately adja­cent to the Nation­al Park with the red­line bound­ary adjoin­ing the Park bound­ary to the south, approx­im­ately 5km east of Tomat­in and 6km north­w­est of Car­rbridge, with the Cairngorms Nation­al Scen­ic Area (NSA) lying approx­im­ately 14km to the south. The nearest tur­bine would be approx­im­ately 0.6km from the Park bound­ary, with the oth­er tur­bines, tracks and asso­ci­ated infra­struc­ture loc­ated fur­ther away from the boundary.

2. The pro­posed devel­op­ment would com­prise 9 tur­bines with a max­im­um height of 200m to the tip of the blade in an upright pos­i­tion and a rotor dia­met­er of 162m.

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1. The asso­ci­ated infra­struc­ture includes a site access, access tracks, crane hard­stand­ings, under­ground cabling, on-site sub­sta­tion and main­ten­ance build­ing, energy stor­age facil­ity, extern­al trans­formers, tem­por­ary con­struc­tion com­pounds, lay­down area, batch­ing plant and poten­tial excav­a­tions / bor­row work­ings. It is expec­ted that the pro­posed wind­farm would have an estim­ated total installed capa­city of 74.8MW.

2. The­or­et­ic­al vis­ib­il­ity of the pro­posed wind­farm from with­in the Nation­al Park is shown by the applicant’s EIAR Fig­ure 6.2 (Appendix 1). When con­sid­er­ing cumu­lat­ive visu­al effects, the applicant’s Fig­ure 6.2.8 Cumu­lat­ive – ZTV (Appendix 2) demon­strates the vis­ib­il­ity of the pro­posed wind­farm and the oper­a­tion­al wind­farms loc­ated to the north­w­est of the Park bound­ary (Tom nan Clach, Moy, Farr and Glen Kyl­lachy wind­farms). The blue areas show the increase in vis­ib­il­ity of wind tur­bines with the intro­duc­tion of the Bal­nespick Wind Farm and the green areas cumu­lat­ively with these exist­ing windfarms.

3. Visu­al­isa­tions from 14 view­points were provided in the applicant’s EIAR to demon­strate the pre­dicted level of vis­ib­il­ity that would be had from with­in / on the bound­ary of the Nation­al Park – refer to Appendix 1 (Fig­ure 6.2 Blade Tip ZTV to 45km with View­points) for the locations:

   • VP1: Charn Glas-Choire
   • VP5: Cre­ag Ealraich
   • VP6: Beinn Mhor
   • VP7: Carrbridge/​Droichaid Charr
   • VP8: Nethy Bridge
   • VP9: Auchgourish
   • VP10: Carn nam Bain-tighearna
   • VP16: Cairngorm
   • VP18: Carn Sleamhuinn
   • VP19: Carn Sleam­huinn NE Slopes
   • VP21: B9007
   • VP22: Meall a’ Bhuachaille
   • VP23: Crom­dale Hills
   • VP24: Craiggowrie

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1. Com­mit­tee mem­bers should famil­i­ar­ise them­selves with the above visu­al­isa­tions online before the meet­ing. The visu­al­isa­tions asso­ci­ated with each view point are avail­able to the pub­lic by search­ing the applic­a­tion doc­u­ments on the Energy Con­sents Unit web­site for the rel­ev­ant fig­ures with­in the EIAR — Volume 3b, Fig­ures 6.36 to Fig­ure 6.59.

Rel­ev­ant plan­ning history

1. Novem­ber 2022 – the Park Author­ity respon­ded to a pre-applic­a­tion con­sulta­tion from the High­land Council.

2. August 2023 – the Park Author­ity respon­ded to a scop­ing con­sulta­tion from ECU for the cur­rent application.

Plan­ning policy context

1. The pro­posed devel­op­ment is loc­ated wholly out­with the Nation­al Park and there­fore the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan policies do not apply. How­ever, an assess­ment of the pro­pos­al must be made in accord­ance with Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 (NPF4) and have regard to the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP).

Nation­al policy

1. Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 (NPF4) sets out nation­al plan­ning policies that reflect Scot­tish Min­is­ters’ pri­or­it­ies for the devel­op­ment and use of land, as well as for oper­a­tion of the plan­ning sys­tem. It also iden­ti­fies a series of ​‘nation­al devel­op­ments’. The con­tent of NPF4 forms the nation­al ele­ment of the stat­utory devel­op­ment plan, which also includes the rel­ev­ant Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan. Decisions on plan­ning applic­a­tions (and Sec­tion 36 applic­a­tions) are to be made in accord­ance with the devel­op­ment plan, and as such NPF4.

2. Policy spe­cific­ally relat­ing to Nation­al Parks and devel­op­ment man­age­ment can be found in NPF4 Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Places and Policy 11: Energy. In gen­er­al terms, Policy 4 a) cites that devel­op­ment pro­pos­als which by vir­tue of type, loc­a­tion or scale will have an unac­cept­able impact on the nat­ur­al envir­on­ment, will not be supported.

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1. NPF4 Policy 4 c) spe­cific­ally applies to a Nation­al Park and states that ​“devel­op­ment pro­pos­als that will affect a Nation­al Park… will only be sup­por­ted where: i. The object­ives of des­ig­na­tion and the over­all integ­rity of the area will not be com­prom­ised; or ii. Any sig­ni­fic­ant adverse effects on the qual­it­ies for which the area has been des­ig­nated are clearly out­weighed by social, envir­on­ment­al or eco­nom­ic bene­fits of nation­al importance.”

2. NPF4 Policy 4 c) cla­ri­fies that the policy test applies where devel­op­ment pro­pos­als may affect a nation­ally des­ig­nated land­scape and so can be applied to devel­op­ment pro­pos­als out­with the Nation­al Park bound­ary but poten­tially affect­ing it. Of rel­ev­ance to the gen­er­a­tion of wind energy devel­op­ment nation­ally, and there­fore to the pro­posed development:

3. NPF4 Nation­al Devel­op­ment 3 ​‘Stra­tegic Renew­able Elec­tri­city Gen­er­a­tion and Trans­mis­sion Infra­struc­ture’ con­firms that this class of nation­al devel­op­ment sup­ports renew­able elec­tri­city gen­er­a­tion, repower­ing and expan­sion of the elec­tri­city grid. It incor­por­ates three types of devel­op­ment, includ­ing on and off­shore elec­tri­city gen­er­a­tion, includ­ing elec­tri­city stor­age, from renew­ables exceed­ing 50 mega­watts capa­city. The Bal­nespick Wind Farm pro­pos­al falls with­in the scope of Nation­al Devel­op­ment 3.

4. NPF4 Policy 11: Energy fur­ther cla­ri­fies that: ​“b) Devel­op­ment pro­pos­als for wind farms in Nation­al Parks… will not be sup­por­ted; and d) Devel­op­ment pro­pos­als that impact on inter­na­tion­al or nation­al des­ig­na­tions will be assessed in rela­tion to Policy 4”.

Stra­tegic policy

1. The Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP) 2022 – 2027 is required under sec­tion 11 of the Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000. It is the man­age­ment plan for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park approved by Scot­tish Min­is­ters. The NPPP sets out how all those with a respons­ib­il­ity for the Nation­al Park will coordin­ate their work to tackle the most import­ant issues. There is a duty for decision makers

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to have regard to the NPPP, a require­ment set out in Sec­tion 14 of the Act. As such, the NPPP is a mater­i­al con­sid­er­a­tion in plan­ning decisions.

1. The NPPP iden­ti­fies that the land­scapes of the Nation­al Park are val­ued by many and under­pin the area’s eco­nomy. It con­tains policies to safe­guard land­scape interests. Of rel­ev­ance to wind­farm devel­op­ment pro­pos­als are policies A4 and C2 α).

2. Policy A4 seeks to con­serve and enhance the SLQs of the Nation­al Park. Policy C2 a) seeks to sup­port devel­op­ment of a low car­bon eco­nomy and increase renew­able energy gen­er­a­tion where this is com­pat­ible with con­serving the SLQs. In rela­tion to wind­farm devel­op­ment, the policy states that ​“large scale wind tur­bines are not com­pat­ible with the land­scape char­ac­ter or spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies of the Nation­al Park. They are inap­pro­pri­ate with­in the Nation­al Park or in areas out­side the Nation­al Park where they adversely affect its land­scape char­ac­ter or spe­cial land­scape qualities”.

Con­sulta­tions NatureScot advice

1. In accord­ance with the NatureScot / Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity case­work agree­ment, NatureScot have provided the Park Author­ity with advice in rela­tion to the effects on the Nation­al Park of the pro­posed wind­farm, both alone and cumu­lat­ively with oth­er exist­ing and con­sen­ted wind­farms in the sur­round­ing area see Appendix 3. This advice focusses on the effects of the pro­posed wind­farm on the SLQs of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park.

2. The wind­farm would be sited in the Strath­dearn Hills just bey­ond the north­ern edge of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. These are a pro­nounced line of hills lying to the east of the A9, extend­ing to approx­im­ately 650m AOD which rise to an undu­lat­ing plat­eau. In terms of the baseline con­di­tions, oper­a­tion­al wind­farms that lie along the north­west­ern edge of the Park (Glen Kyl­lachy, Farr, Moy and Tom nan Clach) are vis­ible from some elev­ated areas. How­ever, these do not sig­ni­fic­antly affect the SLQs giv­en the less­er height (all below 125m to blade tip), screen­ing from exist­ing land­forms and great­er dis­tance from the Park. From high­er elevations

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with­in the Park, these oper­a­tion­al wind­farms are per­ceived as dis­tant fea­tures again due to tur­bine height and great­er dis­tance from the Park. From the major­ity of lower elev­a­tions, no oper­a­tion­al wind­farms are cur­rently visible.

1. The tur­bines in the pro­posed loc­a­tion would be vis­ible across large areas of lower lying parts of Strath­spey, the Dul­nain Strath, Aber­nethy and Rothiemurchus, and from elev­ated points includ­ing the Crom­dale Hills, Strath­dearn Hills, the Craiggowrie – Meall a’ Bhua­chaille ridge, the Mon­adh­liath and key sum­mits and north-west facing slopes of the Cairngorms cent­ral mas­sif – refer to Appendix 1. It is con­sidered that the tur­bine height and prox­im­ity of the pro­posed devel­op­ment to the Park would rep­res­ent a sub­stan­tial shift in wind­farm devel­op­ment baseline around the north­west­ern edge of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park.

2. NatureScot advise that there would be a sig­ni­fic­ant adverse effect on five SLQS dur­ing the day and asso­ci­ated light­ing would extend these effects after dark. The SLQs affected, in order of rel­ev­ance are as follows:

   • SLQ6 – Land­scapes both cul­tur­al and natural
   • SLQ10 – The sur­round­ing hills
   • SLQ30 – Grand pan­or­a­mas and framed views
   • SLQ32 – Dark skies
   • SLQ28 – Wildness

3. SLQ6-Land­scapes both cul­tur­al and nat­ur­al and SLQ10 – The sur­round­ing hills, are con­sidered togeth­er giv­en their sim­il­ar char­ac­ter­ist­ics relat­ing to upland moor­land hill and their per­ceived wild­ness. Fol­low­ing assess­ment of the devel­op­ment on these SLQs, NatureScot con­clude the pro­posed tur­bines would intro­duce incon­gru­ous struc­tures to the bare, unin­hab­ited uplands, rep­res­ent­ing a sub­stan­tial change to the dis­tinct pat­tern of devel­op­ment and erod­ing the dis­tinc­tion between cul­tur­al (settled strath) and nat­ur­al (moor­land hills) land­scapes from both elev­ated and lower lying areas of Strath­spey. The pro­pos­al would dimin­ish the sense that sur­round­ing hills are ​‘under the domin­ion of nature’ and reduce the con­tri­bu­tion of the Strath­dearn Hills to the ​‘wild, untamed appear­ance of the area’. The adverse effects on these SLQs are con­sidered to be significant.

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1. SLQ 30 – Grand pan­or­a­mas and framed views relates to a range of views ​‘from broad pas­tor­al straths of green, over rolling hills of brown heath­er moor, with wood­land at lower levels: and far, dis­tant exposed moun­tain ter­rain’. NatureScot con­clude there would be sig­ni­fic­ant adverse effects on this SLQ as appre­ci­ated from a num­ber of loc­a­tions, routes and sum­mits with­in the Cairngorm mas­sif, due to the proposal’s ver­tic­al scale, prox­im­ity, and loc­a­tion with­in key framed views.

2. SLQ 32 – Dark Skies notes ​‘at night, even the com­plete absence of col­our, a pitch black sky bespeckled only with the light of stars, is a dis­tinct­ive fea­ture as dark skies become increas­ingly rare in Bri­tain’. The pro­posed tur­bine light­ing would add a new lay­er of obvi­ous bright red lights to uplands, incon­gru­ous with the cur­rent devel­op­ment pat­tern of light­ing con­tained to the straths and erod­ing the char­ac­ter­ist­ics of the SLQ. It is con­cluded there would be sig­ni­fic­ant adverse effects on this SLQ across both upland and lower lying areas of the Nation­al Park.

3. SLQ 28 – Wild­ness notes that ​‘Oth­er areas of the Park are less remote, but the pre­pon­der­ance of near nat­ur­al veget­a­tion, togeth­er with dis­tinct­ive wild­life and the gen­er­al lack of devel­op­ment, can still give a per­cep­tion of the dom­in­ance of nature. This includes the man­aged grouse moors, and the ancient, man­aged woods and plant­a­tions’. The pro­pos­al would res­ult in a sub­stan­tial shift in the prox­im­ity, prom­in­ence and visu­al intru­sion of wind­farm devel­op­ment, intro­du­cing prom­in­ent mod­ern struc­tures in the imme­di­ate land­scape, and in pan­or­amic views, in par­tic­u­lar from the Strath­dearn Hills, hav­ing a sig­ni­fic­ant adverse effect on this SLQ. Avi­ation light­ing would draw atten­tion to the struc­tures which would oth­er­wise not be vis­ible after dusk redu­cing the sense of risk and tran­quil­lity. There would there­fore be sig­ni­fic­ant day­time and night-time effects on the Wild­ness SLQ from the Strathdearn.

4. Con­sid­er­a­tion has been giv­en to the cumu­lat­ive effect the pro­pos­al has with the cur­rent applic­a­tion for the adja­cent Clune Wind Farm (on the agenda for this plan­ning com­mit­tee as item 11). There is also a cur­rent applic­a­tion for the High­land Wind Farm (on the agenda for this plan­ning com­mit­tee as item 12), although this has not been con­sidered in cumu­lat­ive effects as NatureScot had not com­pleted their apprais­al of this wind­farm on its own at the time of this apprais­al. Clune Wind Farm would com­prise 26 tur­bines (200m to blade tip) on the northeastern

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Mon­adh­liath (0.9km from the Park bound­ary). Bal­nespick would be loc­ated 9.5km north­east of Clune. The intro­duc­tion of these wind­farms would intensi­fy the pres­ence and influ­ence of wind­farm devel­op­ment in close prox­im­ity to the Nation­al Park. Bale­nespick would intro­duce a ver­tic­al man-made focal point to the north­ern, simple ridgeline and when viewed along with Clune on the west­ern sky­line would intensi­fy the erosion of con­trast between the settled strath and unin­hab­ited upland of the sur­round­ing hills. The addi­tion of Bal­nespick Wind Farm would intensi­fy sig­ni­fic­ant adverse effects found on SLQs 6, 10, 30 and 32 as a res­ult of the Clune Wind Farm.

Apprais­al

1. The policies of NPF4 and the NPPP set out how pro­pos­als out­with the bound­ary of the Nation­al Park should be con­sidered in terms of effects on the Nation­al Park.

2. NPF4 Policy 11: Energy cla­ri­fies that ​“b) Devel­op­ment pro­pos­als for wind farms in Nation­al Parks… will not be sup­por­ted; and d) Devel­op­ment pro­pos­als that impact on inter­na­tion­al or nation­al des­ig­na­tions will be assessed in rela­tion to Policy 4”.

3. NPF4 Policy 4 a) cites that devel­op­ment pro­pos­als which by vir­tue of type, loc­a­tion or scale will have an unac­cept­able impact on the nat­ur­al envir­on­ment, will not be supported.

4. Policy C2 a) of the NPPP sets out a test for con­sid­er­ing effects on the land­scapes of the Nation­al Park, in that large scale wind tur­bines are inap­pro­pri­ate out­side the Nation­al Park where they ​‘adversely affect its land­scape char­ac­ter or spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies’. If a pro­pos­al fails policy C2 a), it would also be in con­flict with NPPP policy A4 which seeks to con­serve and enhance the SLQs of the Nation­al Park.

5. The pro­posed wind­farm is loc­ated with­in the Strath­dearn Hills, on an elev­ated ridge in close prox­im­ity to the Nation­al Park bound­ary. It would intro­duce vis­ib­il­ity of tur­bines to lower lying areas of the Nation­al Park for the first time. The pro­pos­al both indi­vidu­ally and cumu­lat­ively with the pro­posed Clune Wind Farm, would affect five of the SLQs of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park dur­ing the day and asso­ci­ated light­ing would extend these effects after dark. These impacts would

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res­ult in evid­ent and notice­able mater­i­al changes to these SLQs such that the object­ives of the des­ig­na­tion and over­all integ­rity would be compromised.

1. The nature, extent and level of sig­ni­fic­ant adverse effects caused by the addi­tion of Bal­nespick Wind Farm to the baseline of oper­a­tion­al and con­sen­ted wind farms is there­fore con­sidered to fail to meet the require­ments of NPPP policies C2 a) and A4, and in turn NPF4 Policies 4 and 11. It is there­fore recom­men­ded that the Nation­al Park Author­ity should object to the pro­posed Bal­nespick Wind Farm.

Recom­mend­a­tion That mem­bers of the com­mit­tee con­firm that Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity OBJECT to the applic­a­tion for the pro­posed Bal­nespick Wind Farm.

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