Item 11 Appendix 3: Nature Scot Comments Clune Windfarm 20250047PAC

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pairc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Agenda item 11

Appendix 3

2025/0047/PAC (ECU00005038)

NatureScot com­ments

Item 11 Appendix 3 29 August 2025 Page 1 of 23

NatureScot NadarAl­ba Scotland’s Nature Agency Buid­heann Nàdair na h‑Alba

Rebecca Hind­son Energy Con­sents Unit Response by email to [email protected]

27 June 2025 Your ref: ECU00005038 Our ref: CDM179372

Dear Rebecca Hindson

ELEC­TRI­CITY ACT 1989 THE ELEC­TRI­CITY WORKS (ENVIR­ON­MENT­AL IMPACT ASSESS­MENT) (SCOT­LAND) REG­U­LA­TIONS 2017 APPLIC­A­TION FOR SEC­TION 36 CON­SENT FOR CLUNE WIND FARM

Thank you for your con­sulta­tion on the above pro­pos­al dated 20 Feb­ru­ary 2025 and for allow­ing us addi­tion­al time to respond.

Sum­mary

This pro­pos­al will have sig­ni­fic­ant adverse effects on the spe­cial qual­it­ies of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park such that the object­ives of the des­ig­na­tion and over­all integ­rity of the area would be com­prom­ised. We there­fore object to this pro­pos­al. River Spey Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion (SAC): The pro­pos­al could affect inter­na­tion­ally import­ant nat­ur­al her­it­age interests and we there­fore object to this pro­pos­al until fur­ther inform­a­tion is provided. This will enable us to carry out an apprais­al of these effects and help you determ­ine this pro­pos­al. Kin­veachy Forest Site of Spe­cial Sci­entif­ic Interest (SSSI): The pro­pos­al could affect nation­ally import­ant nat­ur­al her­it­age interests and we there­fore object to this pro­pos­al until fur­ther inform­a­tion is provided. White-tailed eagle: We object to this pro­pos­al until fur­ther inform­a­tion is provided to allow an accur­ate assess­ment of the col­li­sion risk and impact on the nation­al pop­u­la­tion of this re- intro­duced pro­tec­ted spe­cies. Kin­veachy Forest Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Area (SPA) and SAC: This pro­pos­al could be pro­gressed with appro­pri­ate changes. How­ever, because it could affect inter­na­tion­ally import­ant nat­ur­al her­it­age interests, we object to this pro­pos­al unless it is amended so that the works are done strictly in accord­ance with the changes detailed in our apprais­al below.

Apprais­al of the impacts of the pro­pos­al and advice

1. Land­scape and visu­al impacts

Our advice on this pro­pos­al will focus on the poten­tial for sig­ni­fic­ant effects on the Spe­cial Land­scape Qual­it­ies (SLQs) of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park (CNP) and is provided in accord­ance with our Agreement

Fod­derty Way, Ding­wall Busi­ness Park, Ding­wall, IV15 9XB Sligh Fod­derty, Pàirc Gnìom­ha­chais Inbhir Pheof­harain, Inbhir Pheof­harain, IV15 9XB 01463 701610 nature.scot NatureScot is the oper­at­ing name of Scot­tish Nat­ur­al Heritage

2 on roles in advis­ory case­work between NatureScot and Scot­tish Nation­al Park Author­it­ies¹. This should not how­ever be inter­preted as mean­ing there are no oth­er sig­ni­fic­ant effects that need to be con­sidered when determ­in­ing the application.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park The pro­posed devel­op­ment site lies with­in the Mon­adh­liath, adja­cent to the Cairngorms Nation­al Park (CNP) with the closest tur­bine sited approx­im­ately 0.9km from the CNP boundary.

The Mon­adh­liath cur­rently forms an elev­ated moor­land sky­line enclos­ing the west­ern slopes of Strath­spey and provid­ing a back­drop from key slopes and sum­mits of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park (CNP). The loc­a­tion of the pro­posed wind farm with­in the north­east Mon­adh­liath would intro­duce vis­ib­il­ity of tur­bines to lower lying areas of the Park for the first time. The pro­pos­al indi­vidu­ally, and cumu­lat­ively with the pro­posed Bal­nespick Wind Farm, would sig­ni­fic­antly adversely affect five of the Spe­cial Land­scape Qual­it­ies (SLQs) of the CNP dur­ing the day and asso­ci­ated light­ing would extend these effects after dark. These impacts would be to a degree that would res­ult in evid­ent and notice­able mater­i­al changes to the SLQs of the CNP such that the object­ives of the des­ig­na­tion and over­all integ­rity would be compromised.

Account­ing for the site’s elev­a­tion and loc­a­tion imme­di­ately north­w­est of the CNP it is con­sidered unlikely that the sig­ni­fic­ant effects iden­ti­fied could be not­ably reduced through a reduc­tion in tur­bine height or num­ber. We there­fore con­sider that these effects are unlikely to be over­come through re-design or remov­al of turbines.

We have con­sidered oth­er interests and taken them into account in reach­ing our con­clu­sion on this proposal.

This pro­pos­al will have sig­ni­fic­ant adverse effects on the spe­cial qual­it­ies of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park such that the object­ives of the des­ig­na­tion and over­all integ­rity of the area would be com­prom­ised. We there­fore object to this proposal.

We provide fur­ther com­ments on the effects on the Spe­cial Land­scape Qual­it­ies in Annex 1 to this letter.

Mon­adh­liath Wild Land Area (WLA 20) Although the site bound­ary over­laps slightly with the Mon­adh­liath Wild Land Area (WLA 20), the nearest tur­bine would be approx­im­ately 0.1km from WLA 20 and no asso­ci­ated infra­struc­ture would be sited with­in the Wild Land Area.

The pro­pos­al would intro­duce very obvi­ous forms of human influ­ence across a num­ber of sum­mits with­in WLA 20, detract­ing from the cur­rent awe-inspir­ing sim­pli­city of the roun­ded hills. In addi­tion, the tur­bines would intro­duce a new land­mark fea­ture at close prox­im­ity, provid­ing ori­ent­a­tion to views with­in the interi­or of the WLA, both along the glen floor and high­er up the side slopes, sub­stan­tially redu­cing the sense of risk. These effects would extend into the night as a res­ult of the tur­bine light­ing and would res­ult in a sig­ni­fic­ant effect on Wild Land Qual­it­ies (WLQs) 1 and 2.

We there­fore advise that the pro­posed devel­op­ment would res­ult in a sig­ni­fic­ant effect on Wild Land Qual­it­ies (WLQs) 1 and 2 of WLA20. We provide fur­ther com­ments in Annex 2 to this letter.

1 See: https://www.nature.scot/doc/agreement-roles-advisory-casework-between-naturescot-and-scottish-national- park-authorities.

Fod­derty Way, Ding­wall Busi­ness Park, Ding­wall, IV15 9XB Sligh Fod­derty, Pàirc Gnìom­ha­chais Inbhir Pheof­harain, Inbhir Pheof­harain, IV15 9XB 01463 701610 nature.scot NatureScot is the oper­at­ing name of Scot­tish Nat­ur­al Heritage

3

1. Pro­tec­ted areas a. European sites

River Spey Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion (SAC) Tur­bines 1 – 8 are with­in the catch­ment of the River Spey SAC which is pro­tec­ted for its Atlantic sal­mon, sea lamprey, fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sel and otter populations.

The site’s status means that the require­ments of the Con­ser­va­tion (Nat­ur­al Hab­it­ats, &c.) Reg­u­la­tions 1994 as amended (the ​‘Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions’) apply or, for reserved mat­ters, The Con­ser­va­tion of Hab­it­ats and Spe­cies Reg­u­la­tions 2017. Con­sequently, the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment is required to con­sider the effect of the pro­pos­al on the SAC before it can be con­sen­ted (com­monly known as Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al). Our web­site has a sum­mary of the legis­lat­ive requirements².

Our advice is that this pro­pos­al is likely to have a sig­ni­fic­ant effect on the interests of this SAC through the risk of sed­i­ment release to water­courses, and on otters from the poten­tial for dis­turb­ance. Con­sequently, the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment, as com­pet­ent author­ity, is required to carry out an appro­pri­ate assess­ment in view of the site’s con­ser­va­tion object­ives for its qual­i­fy­ing interests.

In rela­tion to the risk of sed­i­ment release to water­courses: To help you do this, we pro­pose to carry out an apprais­al to inform your appro­pri­ate assess­ment. To enable us to carry out this apprais­al, the fol­low­ing inform­a­tion is required:

Assess­ment of the poten­tial risk of peat and non-peat sed­i­ments (rego­lith) being released into water­courses con­nec­ted to the SAC. This should include:

• With­in the River Spey catch­ment, fur­ther peat depth prob­ing to be under­taken at a high­er res­ol­u­tion, cov­er­ing the reques­ted micros­it­ing lim­its around the pro­posed infra­struc­ture. This inform­a­tion should be con­sidered in the Peat and Land­slide Haz­ard Risk Assess­ment (PLHRA). This is to allow a finer scale assess­ment of the peat slide risk with­in the pro­posed micros­it­ing lim­its. • Where areas of medi­um or high peat slide risk are iden­ti­fied with­in the 100m micros­it­ing lim­it fur­ther assess­ment and details of appro­pri­ate loc­a­tion-spe­cif­ic mit­ig­a­tion will be required, so as to demon­strate how any risk to the SAC will be mit­ig­ated. Where infra­struc­ture is loc­ated close to the break in slope and use of the micros­it­ing lim­it could alter the pre­dicted dir­ec­tion it would travel, this should also be con­sidered in the assess­ment. • Pro­vi­sion of a basic geo­mor­pho­lo­gic­al assess­ment of the ter­rain (with accom­pa­ny­ing map) which focuses on poten­tial sed­i­ment sources in the vicin­ity of the pro­posed con­struc­tion works, and on slopes that drain into trib­u­tar­ies of the SAC. • Assess­ment of the risk to water­courses from both acute sed­i­ment release through loc­al­ised slope fail­ure events, and longer-term sed­i­ment release through erosion. Par­tic­u­lar atten­tion should be giv­en to the prox­im­ity of any loc­ally steep-sided gla­cial depos­its to pro­posed excav­a­tions; steep­er areas of hill slope to be crossed by new track construction/​upgraded track and tur­bine found­a­tions; and burn bank mor­pho­logy, com­pos­i­tion and sta­bil­ity at any water­course cross­ings of trib­u­tar­ies drain­ing into the SAC. • Demon­stra­tion of how the find­ings of this assess­ment have influ­enced the lay­out and design of infra­struc­ture and details of loc­a­tion-spe­cif­ic mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures that will be deployed to min­im­ise the risk of any sed­i­ments reach­ing the SAC.

2 See: https://www.nature.scot/professional-advice/protected-areas-and-species/protected-species/legal- frame­work/h­ab­it­ats-dir­ect­ive-and-hab­it­ats-reg­u­la­tions.

Fod­derty Way, Ding­wall Busi­ness Park, Ding­wall, IV15 9XB Sligh Fod­derty, Pàirc Gnìom­ha­chais Inbhir Pheof­harain, Inbhir Pheof­harain, IV15 9XB 01463 701610 nature.scot NatureScot is the oper­at­ing name of Scot­tish Nat­ur­al Heritage

4 This addi­tion­al inform­a­tion is required to cla­ri­fy the peat slide risk, and to ensure that the applic­ants have assessed the risk from non-peat sed­i­ments, in order that these can be effect­ively mit­ig­ated. We reques­ted assess­ment of these issues at scop­ing, and that the need for baseline sur­veys for fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sel, sal­mon and sea lamprey was con­sidered in accord­ance with our guidance.

In addi­tion, we note that the PLHRA has only con­sidered the impact of land­slide asso­ci­ated with the con­struc­tion phase of the devel­op­ment and has not con­sidered any risk that may arise from peat­land res­tor­a­tion (although out­side the foot­print there are areas of restored peat­land just to the west of tur­bine 8, and oth­er areas of res­tor­a­tion are pro­posed between tur­bines 2 and 3 as part of the pro­posed Out­line Hab­it­at Man­age­ment and Biod­iversity Enhance­ment Plan (OHM­BEP)). Peat­land Action guid­ance on best prac­tice for res­tor­a­tion of peat­land and assess­ment of peat­land instabil­ity dur­ing res­tor­a­tion should be con­sidered, so that any risks arising from this can be mitigated³.

Once this inform­a­tion has been provided, we will be able to give fur­ther con­sid­er­a­tion to this proposal.

In rela­tion to dis­turb­ance to otters: We advise that this pro­pos­al is also likely to have a sig­ni­fic­ant effect on SAC otters through the poten­tial for dis­turb­ance, par­tic­u­larly dur­ing the pro­posed OHM­BEP works. We advise that on the basis of the inform­a­tion provided, if the pro­pos­al is car­ried out strictly in accord­ance with the fol­low­ing mit­ig­a­tion, our con­clu­sion is that the pro­pos­al will not adversely affect the integ­rity of the site:

• A Spe­cies Pro­tec­tion Plan for otters is to be agreed with the con­sent­ing author­ity in con­sulta­tion with NatureScot. This should set out how impacts will be avoided and min­im­ised, fol­low­ing the prin­ciples out­lined in our stand­ing advice at: https://www.nature.scot/doc/standing-advice- planning-consultations-otters.

This is because the pro­posed devel­op­ment lies in close prox­im­ity to the SAC and the pro­posed hab­it­at enhance­ment meas­ures over­lap with parts of the SAC. There is poten­tial for dis­turb­ance to otters but this could be mit­ig­ated through an appro­pri­ate Spe­cies Pro­tec­tion Plan.

Kin­veachy Forest Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Area (SPA) and SAC The pro­posed devel­op­ment site lies 0.6km from this SPA and SAC, with the nearest tur­bine around 1km from the bound­ary. The SPA is pro­tec­ted for breed­ing caper­cail­lie and Scot­tish cross­bill. The SAC is pro­tec­ted for its Cale­do­ni­an forest and Bog woodland.

Although baseline con­di­tions indic­ate that the wind farm itself would be unlikely to affect the fea­tures of the SPA and SAC, the pro­posed expan­sion of wood­land into the wind farm site as part of the Out­line Hab­it­at Man­age­ment and Biod­iversity Enhance­ment Plan could cre­ate an increased risk of col­li­sion for caper­cail­lie. In addi­tion, although we recog­nise the poten­tial bene­fits of wood­land expan­sion, there are also poten­tial risks to the Cale­do­ni­an forest, par­tic­u­larly where plant­ing is pro­posed, which have not been con­sidered in the EIAR.

Our advice is that this pro­pos­al is likely to have a sig­ni­fic­ant effect on the SPA caper­cail­lie pop­u­la­tion and the SAC Cale­do­ni­an Forest. Con­sequently, the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment, as com­pet­ent author­ity, is required to carry out an appro­pri­ate assess­ment in view of the sites’ con­ser­va­tion object­ives for its qual­i­fy­ing interests. To help you do this, we advise that on the basis of the inform­a­tion provided, if the pro­pos­al is car­ried out

3 See: https://www.nature.scot/doc/naturescot-research-report-1259-risk-based-approach-peatland-restoration-and- peat-instability.

Fod­derty Way, Ding­wall Busi­ness Park, Ding­wall, IV15 9XB Sligh Fod­derty, Pàirc Gnìom­ha­chais Inbhir Pheof­harain, Inbhir Pheof­harain, IV15 9XB 01463 701610 nature.scot NatureScot is the oper­at­ing name of Scot­tish Nat­ur­al Heritage

5 strictly in accord­ance with the fol­low­ing changes, our con­clu­sion is that the pro­pos­al will not adversely affect the integ­rity of the site: i) Tur­bines 1 and 2 should not be micros­ited closer to the SAC/SPA bound­ary (they are cur­rently around 1km from the SPA/SAC bound­ary). ii) If the wind farm is con­sen­ted, the final Hab­it­at Man­age­ment and Biod­iversity Enhance­ment Plan should be agreed with the con­sent­ing author­ity in con­sulta­tion with NatureScot. The Plan should include the fol­low­ing mit­ig­a­tion: • There should be no tree plant­ing with­in 1km of the pro­posed tur­bines. • Tree regen­er­a­tion with­in 1km of the pro­posed tur­bines should be man­aged to ensure it does not increase the col­li­sion risk to caper­cail­lie. Details of how this would be achieved should be included in the final Plan. • There should be no addi­tion­al fen­cing with­in the Plan area. • A Spe­cies Pro­tec­tion Plan for caper­cail­lie. This should set out the mit­ig­a­tion that would be in place to avoid the risk of dis­turb­ance to caper­cail­lie dur­ing works asso­ci­ated with the Plan. • Expan­sion of pine wood­land with­in the com­bined regen­er­a­tion and buf­fer zone around the core Cale­do­ni­an Pine­wood Invent­ory area should be achieved by nat­ur­al regeneration.

The apprais­al we car­ried out con­sidered the impact of the pro­pos­als on the fol­low­ing factors:

Kin­veachy Forest SPA • There is a likely sig­ni­fic­ant effect for the fol­low­ing SPAs, pro­tec­ted for caper­cail­lie, which are with­in dis­pers­al dis­tance of the pro­posed devel­op­ment: Darnaway and Leth­en Forest SPA (loc­ated to the north-east of the pro­posed devel­op­ment); and Kin­veachy Forest, Aber­nethy Forest, Craigmore Wood, Anagach Woods and Cairngorms SPAs (loc­ated to the east and south-east of the pro­posed devel­op­ment). • The risk of col­li­sion and dis­turb­ance to caper­cail­lie from the pro­posed wind farm itself is likely to be low, provided tur­bines are not micros­ited closer to the SPA. This is due to the exist­ing baseline, includ­ing hab­it­ats on site, and dis­tance and loc­a­tion of the pro­posed wind farm in rela­tion to the above SPAs and caper­cail­lie records. • The pro­posed wood­land expan­sion with­in the Out­line Hab­it­at Man­age­ment and Biod­iversity Enhance­ment Plan could how­ever change this exist­ing baseline through increas­ing hab­it­at suit­ab­il­ity with­in and closer to the pro­posed wind farm. This could increase the col­li­sion risk to caper­cail­lie — although evid­ence sug­gests that caper­cail­lie are likely to be dis­placed by oper­a­tion­al tur­bines, there is also evid­ence that com­plete avoid­ance does not occur with obser­va­tions from main­land Europe indic­at­ing that caper­cail­lie col­li­sions with tur­bine bases do occur. This risk would need to be mit­ig­ated by ensur­ing there is no increase in tree cov­er with­in 1km of the pro­posed tur­bines. • Wood­land man­age­ment is pro­posed close to the SPA and oth­er areas of suit­able hab­it­at for caper­cail­lie. A Spe­cies Pro­tec­tion Plan would be required to set out the neces­sary mit­ig­a­tion to avoid the risk of dis­turb­ance to lekking and breed­ing caper­cail­lie. • There should be no addi­tion­al fen­cing with­in the Plan area as fen­cing close to suit­able caper­cail­lie hab­it­at could increase the risk of col­li­sion to caper­cail­lie. We recom­mend instead that any wood­land expan­sion pro­pos­als would need secured by an effect­ive Deer Man­age­ment Plan.

Fod­derty Way, Ding­wall Busi­ness Park, Ding­wall, IV15 9XB Sligh Fod­derty, Pàirc Gnìom­ha­chais Inbhir Pheof­harain, Inbhir Pheof­harain, IV15 9XB 01463 701610 nature.scot NatureScot is the oper­at­ing name of Scot­tish Nat­ur­al Heritage

6 Kin­veachy Forest SAC b. • Scot­tish Forestry guid­ance is that oppor­tun­it­ies for nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion should be max­im­ised in the core Cale­do­ni­an Pine­wood Invent­ory sites and their com­bined regen­er­a­tion and buf­fer zone. Although expand­ing the Cale­do­ni­an forest at this loc­a­tion through nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion would be bene­fi­cial and in line with exist­ing man­age­ment for the SAC, we con­sider that it would be inap­pro­pri­ate to plant trees at this loc­a­tion due to risk of intro­du­cing patho­gens such as Dothis­troma, and intro­du­cing trees of an inap­pro­pri­ate gen­o­type for the site.

Kin­veachy Forest Site of Spe­cial Sci­entif­ic Interest (SSSI) The pro­posed devel­op­ment site includes part of this SSSI, with the nearest tur­bine around 0.1km from the SSSI bound­ary. The SSSI is pro­tec­ted for its breed­ing bird assemblage and nat­ive pinewood.

In rela­tion to the breed­ing bird assemblage fea­ture of the SSSI, there are nat­ur­al her­it­age interests of nation­al import­ance on the site, which could be affected by the pro­pos­al. We require fur­ther inform­a­tion (detailed below) to determ­ine if the pro­pos­al will affect the integ­rity of the SSSI. We there­fore object to the pro­pos­al until the fur­ther inform­a­tion detailed below is obtained from the applic­ant and con­sidered by the Energy Con­sents Unit: • A fur­ther year of bird sur­vey work is to be com­pleted across the pro­posed devel­op­ment site, fol­low­ing the meth­ods set out in our bird sur­vey guid­ance at: https://www.nature.scot/doc/recommended-bird-survey-methods-inform-impact-assessment- onshore-windfarms.

The breed­ing bird assemblage is a wood­land bird assemblage. The applic­ants should note that this includes a range of wood­land birds such as black grouse, osprey and red kite, and is not lim­ited to caper­cail­lie, Scot­tish cross­bill and cres­ted tit. We recom­mend that the applic­ants con­tact us to agree the scope of addi­tion­al sur­vey work required. Depend­ing on the out­come of the ini­tial res­ults fur­ther sur­vey work may be required. Fol­low­ing this, assess­ment of impacts will be required, which con­siders the poten­tial for col­li­sion risk, dis­turb­ance and dis­place­ment. We will com­ment fur­ther once the addi­tion­al inform­a­tion is available.

Our advice for the nat­ive pine­wood fea­ture is covered by the advice for the Kin­veachy Forest SAC above.

c. The Slo­chd Geo­lo­gic­al Con­ser­va­tion Review (GCR) Site Although the pro­posed wind farm itself will not affect this site, the EIAR has not assessed poten­tial impacts from the Out­line Hab­it­at Man­age­ment and Biod­iversity Enhance­ment Plan which includes pro­pos­als for wood­land expan­sion with­in the GCR site. This could obscure the ​“rock out­crops” which the GCR site is import­ant for. Should wood­land expan­sion be pro­posed with­in the Slo­chd GCR site we recom­mend that the final Hab­it­at Man­age­ment and Biod­iversity Enhance­ment Plan includes the fol­low­ing mit­ig­a­tion: • Should the wind farm be con­sen­ted, any pro­pos­als for wood­land expan­sion with­in The Slo­chd GCR site should fol­low the mit­ig­a­tion and man­age­ment meas­ures out­lined in NatureScot’s Geo­lo­gic­al Con­ser­va­tion Review Sites – Forestry and Wood­land Stand­ing Advice and Guidance.

4 See: https://www.nature.scot/doc/standing-advice-and-guidance-forestry-and-woodland-planning-geological- conservation-review-sites-and.

Fod­derty Way, Ding­wall Busi­ness Park, Ding­wall, IV15 9XB Sligh Fod­derty, Pàirc Gnìom­ha­chais Inbhir Pheof­harain, Inbhir Pheof­harain, IV15 9XB 01463 701610 nature.scot NatureScot is the oper­at­ing name of Scot­tish Nat­ur­al Heritage

7 Sec­tions 2.1.1 and 2.1.2 of the above guid­ance describes the mit­ig­a­tion and man­age­ment meas­ures that would be required to ensure that plant­ing and nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion does not affect the nation­ally import­ant geo­lo­gic­al fea­tures of the site. These refer to the ​“cru­cial” and ​“con­text” areas of the GCR site. A map of these areas is provided in Annex 3 to this letter.

1. Wider Coun­tryside birds Due to short­falls in the sur­vey and assess­ment under­taken, we advise that there is insuf­fi­cient inform­a­tion to assess the impacts of this pro­pos­al on Annex 1 birds in the wider coun­tryside, in par­tic­u­lar the Nat­ur­al Her­it­age Zone (NHZ) 10 and nation­al pop­u­la­tions of white-tailed eagles.

• In rela­tion to white-tailed eagle, we there­fore object to this pro­pos­al until fur­ther inform­a­tion is provided to allow an accur­ate assess­ment of the col­li­sion risk to white-tailed eagles. • In rela­tion to oth­er Annex 1 birds in the wider coun­tryside, we there­fore advise that a fur­ther year of bird sur­vey work is com­pleted across the pro­posed devel­op­ment site fol­low­ing our guidance5.

Fur­ther advice for white-tailed eagles The cal­cu­lated annu­al col­li­sion rate for white-tailed eagle from this pro­pos­al is very high. It would seem likely that flights recor­ded are the adults from a nearby ter­rit­ory and their off­spring, but the vant­age point sur­vey res­ults do not indic­ate if the flights recor­ded were adult or juven­ile birds. In addi­tion, only one year of sur­vey work has covered the south-east­ern part of the site (our guid­ance recom­mends 2 years); con­tex­tu­al inform­a­tion from the High­land Rap­tor Study Group has not been obtained; and the tim­ing of sur­vey work over a lim­ited tem­por­al range means that col­li­sion rate could have been under­es­tim­ated. There is there­fore insuf­fi­cient inform­a­tion to assess the col­li­sion risk to white-tailed eagles.

There is evid­ence from Europe that white-tailed eagle ter­rit­or­ies with 3km of oper­at­ing wind farms have lower occu­pancy and lower pro­ductiv­ity than nests bey­ond this dis­tance. It is unclear wheth­er this is the res­ult of col­li­sion mor­tal­ity to adults, which are then replaced by new birds, res­ult­ing in these ter­rit­or­ies becom­ing ​‘sinks’. We are only aware of one pair of white-tailed eagle with­in NHZ10. The pro­posed devel­op­ment could there­fore reduce the range of the recov­er­ing white-tailed eagle population.

The pre­dicted col­li­sion risk would also add sig­ni­fic­antly to a grow­ing cumu­lat­ive col­li­sion risk at a nation­al level. Tak­ing into account oth­er recent wind farm applic­a­tions, across Scot­land the cumu­lat­ive annu­al col­li­sion risk for white-tailed eagle is cur­rently more than 14 birds per year. This is likely to res­ult in sig­ni­fic­ant impacts on the growth rate of the nation­al pop­u­la­tion of this re-intro­duced pro­tec­ted spe­cies, which will slow the rate of range expan­sion and hinder pro­gress towards restor­ing its former range across Scotland.

We advise that in the first instance the applic­ants con­tact the High­land Rap­tor Study Group to request desk study inform­a­tion on any white-tailed eagle ter­rit­or­ies with­in 6km of the site as well as any avail­able satel­lite tag data. If satel­lite tag data is avail­able we recom­mend that a Ker­nel Dens­ity ana­lys­is is under­taken to identi­fy the core areas of use of any ter­rit­or­ies. Although this will not provide a col­li­sion risk estim­ate it will help to indic­ate how much the pro­posed devel­op­ment site is used by white-tailed eagle and the require­ment for fur­ther sur­vey work. At this stage we advise that one fur­ther year of vant­age point sur­vey work is likely to be required across the whole of the pro­posed devel­op­ment site, with an additional

5 See: https://www.nature.scot/doc/recommended-bird-survey-methods-inform-impact-assessment-onshore- windfarms.

Fod­derty Way, Ding­wall Busi­ness Park, Ding­wall, IV15 9XB Sligh Fod­derty, Pàirc Gnìom­ha­chais Inbhir Pheof­harain, Inbhir Pheof­harain, IV15 9XB 01463 701610 nature.scot NatureScot is the oper­at­ing name of Scot­tish Nat­ur­al Heritage

8 year (i.e. two fur­ther years in total) cov­er­ing the south-east part of the site in which tur­bines 1 to 8 are located.

Fur­ther advice on Annex 1 birds in the wider coun­tryside There is cur­rently insuf­fi­cient inform­a­tion to assess the poten­tial impacts to Annex 1 birds in the wider coun­tryside. This is due to the sur­vey lim­it­a­tions lis­ted in Tech­nic­al Appendix 8.1 of the EIAR, not­ably the lack of sur­vey cov­er­age out­side the red line applic­a­tion bound­ary which does not fol­low our guid­ance; short­falls in the tim­ing of breed­ing bird sur­veys with­in the wind farm site itself; because the eight tur­bines in the south-east sec­tion of the pro­posed devel­op­ment site have only been covered by one year of sur­vey work (con­trary to our guid­ance which recom­mends two years of sur­vey work); and because the applic­ants do not appear to have accessed data held by the High­land Rap­tor Study Group which could have aided their assess­ment. The tim­ing of vant­age point sur­veys dur­ing the 2023 breed­ing sea­son also provides lim­ited tem­por­al spread and may have under­es­tim­ated flight activ­ity. Giv­en the scale of the pro­pos­al and sens­it­iv­ity of this site we con­sider that sur­vey under­taken to date is inad­equate to com­plete an assess­ment of the impacts to Annex 1 birds in the wider countryside.

For both of these issues, we recom­mend that the applic­ants con­tact us to agree the scope of sur­vey work required. Depend­ing on the out­come of the ini­tial res­ults fur­ther sur­vey and assess­ment may be required. Assess­ment of impacts will be required to con­sider the poten­tial for col­li­sion risk, dis­turb­ance and dis­place­ment both from the pro­posed devel­op­ment on its own (includ­ing the pro­posed OHM­BEP) and in com­bin­a­tion with oth­er devel­op­ments (at the NHZ10 scale). Again, we recom­mend that the applic­ants con­tact us to agree the scope of this assess­ment. We will com­ment fur­ther once the addi­tion­al inform­a­tion is available.

1. Pri­or­ity peat­land hab­it­ats We have assessed the qual­ity and sens­it­iv­ity of the peat­land on the site using our frame­work and tem­plate in Annex 1 of our peat­land guid­ance, the inform­a­tion presen­ted in the EIAR and our back­ground know­ledge of the location.

We are largely in agree­ment with the assess­ment car­ried out by the applic­ants, which indic­ates that most of the site has been mod­i­fied for sport­ing or live­stock pur­poses, and indic­at­ors of near nat­ur­al con­di­tion are lim­ited. The site does not appear to con­tain indic­at­ors of a high qual­ity hab­it­at with­in the devel­op­ment area, and we there­fore advise that pre­dicted impacts could be off­set by adequate peat­land restoration.

The EIAR indic­ates that there will be dir­ect loss of 17.69ha of peat­land hab­it­ats, and com­bined dir­ect and with indir­ect losses of around 116ha. The Out­line Hab­it­at Man­age­ment and Biod­iversity Enhance­ment Plan provided with the applic­a­tion pro­poses peat­land res­tor­a­tion through ground works and peat­land enhance­ment through plug plant­ing, but it lacks detail, the area of res­tor­a­tion pro­posed is not clear, and some of the meth­ods pro­posed may not fol­low best prac­tice. It there­fore appears that the res­tor­a­tion pro­posed is cur­rently not suf­fi­cient to off­set the impacts to peat­land hab­it­ats from the devel­op­ment. We would be look­ing for a plan for this site to fol­low our guidance6 and for the amount of off­set­ting pro­posed to be in the region of 1:10.

6 See: https://www.nature.scot/doc/advising-peatland-carbon-rich-soils-and-priority-peatland-habitats-development- management.

Fod­derty Way, Ding­wall Busi­ness Park, Ding­wall, IV15 9XB Sligh Fod­derty, Pàirc Gnìom­ha­chais Inbhir Pheof­harain, Inbhir Pheof­harain, IV15 9XB 01463 701610 nature.scot NatureScot is the oper­at­ing name of Scot­tish Nat­ur­al Heritage

9

1. Pro­tec­ted spe­cies We ful­fil our advis­ory role on pro­tec­ted spe­cies through the pro­vi­sion of stand­ing advice and do not expect to be con­sul­ted oth­er than in excep­tion­al cir­cum­stances not covered by the rel­ev­ant stand­ing advice avail­able on our web­site. Where a licence from NatureScot will be required by the applic­ant before they can pro­ceed with the devel­op­ment, you would need to sat­is­fy your­self that the licens­ing tests set out in those reg­u­la­tions are likely to be met before an applic­a­tion can be approved.

At scop­ing we advised that the EIAR should demon­strate that all sur­vey, assess­ment and mit­ig­a­tion has fol­lowed our stand­ing advice for pro­tec­ted spe­cies. It is not clear from the EIAR wheth­er all sur­vey work has fol­lowed our guid­ance (e.g. water vole sur­veys do not seem to have been done at the recom­men­ded time of year, and sur­vey cov­er­age for otters is unclear). There is also no con­sid­er­a­tion of moun­tain hare as a pro­tec­ted spe­cies, which we iden­ti­fied as a con­sid­er­a­tion at scop­ing. We recom­mend that all fur­ther sur­vey work should fol­low the stand­ing advice on our web­site, and should also cov­er areas pro­posed for hab­it­at enhance­ment, see: https://www.nature.scot/professional-advice/planning-and- devel­op­ment/­plan­ning-and-devel­op­ment-advice/­plan­ning-and-devel­op­ment-pro­tec­ted-spe­cies.

Bats Some of the guid­ance ref­er­enced in the bat assess­ment is now out of date and the proxy weath­er data source is some dis­tance from the site. Des­pite these short com­ings, we agree that under the cur­rent baseline con­di­tions bat activ­ity levels would be expec­ted to be low over the site most of the time, but there could be activ­ity spikes dur­ing warm sum­mer nights. We would there­fore recom­mend that the applic­ants imple­ment the fol­low­ing addi­tion­al mit­ig­a­tion for bats: • Pitch­ing the blades out of the wind (“feath­er­ing”) to reduce rota­tion speeds below 2rpm while idling.

The reduc­tion in speed res­ult­ing from feath­er­ing com­pared with nor­mal idling may reduce fatal­ity rates by up to 50%. As this option does not res­ult in any loss of out­put, as best prac­tice, it is recom­men­ded wherever it is prac­tic­ally pos­sible and there remains uncer­tainty over the risk posed to bats. It can be applied at any site with a blade pitch con­trol sys­tem which can be auto­mated using SCADA data. Pro­posed hab­it­at enhance­ment meas­ures could also increase the site suit­ab­il­ity for bats and man­age­ment may be required to reduce the col­li­sion risk to bats. For fur­ther advice see: https://www.nature.scot/doc/bats- and-onshore-wind-turbines-survey-assessment-and-mitigation.

Scot­tish wild­cat Appar­ently suit­able areas of scrub exist in ripari­an areas with­in the pro­posed devel­op­ment site, and there are wild­cat records in the wider area. We there­fore recom­mend that, should the pro­posed devel­op­ment be con­sen­ted, a cam­era sur­vey is under­taken around the scrub hab­it­ats with­in 200m of any pro­posed works, in advance of con­struc­tion start­ing. If evid­ence is found of wild­cat using the wider area, we advise that fur­ther fol­low-up cam­era sur­veys would be required imme­di­ately before work com­mences because wild­cats are very mobile and can move den sites. This is par­tic­u­larly import­ant if the works are to be done between April to August inclus­ive (the female den­ning sea­son). If a wild­cat is recor­ded it should be assumed that it is den­ning or rest­ing with­in the scrub unless fur­ther sur­vey work is under­taken to estab­lish the fre­quency and tim­ing of activ­ity as evid­ence the loc­a­tion is not used for rest­ing. The applic­ants should

7 See: https://www.nature.scot/professional-advice/planning-and-development/planning-and-development- advice/­plan­ning-and-devel­op­ment-pro­tec­ted-spe­cies. 8 The applic­ants should fol­low our guid­ance for iden­ti­fic­a­tion at: https://www.nature.scot/doc/definition-wildcat- updated-guidance.

Fod­derty Way, Ding­wall Busi­ness Park, Ding­wall, IV15 9XB Sligh Fod­derty, Pàirc Gnìom­ha­chais Inbhir Pheof­harain, Inbhir Pheof­harain, IV15 9XB 01463 701610 nature.scot NatureScot is the oper­at­ing name of Scot­tish Nat­ur­al Heritage

10 also note that if apply­ing for a licence, mit­ig­a­tion should include car­ry­ing out works out­side the female den­ning sea­son (i.e. work should avoid April to August inclus­ive). For fur­ther advice see: https://www.nature.scot/doc/standing-advice-planning-consultations-wildcats. If wild­cat hab­it­at could be affected by the pro­posed devel­op­ment we would also recom­mend com­pens­a­tion measures.

Moun­tain hare Should this pro­pos­al be con­sen­ted a Spe­cies Pro­tec­tion Plan will be required for moun­tain hares. This should include details of the meas­ures pro­posed to min­im­ise impacts on moun­tain hares; a sum­mary of any resid­ual impacts once these meas­ures are taken into account; and details of any licens­ing require­ments, includ­ing the pro­posed meth­od for detect­ing and pro­tect­ing any young hares ahead of ground­works com­men­cing. This should fol­low our stand­ing advice at: https://www.nature.scot/doc/standing-advice- planning-consultations-mountain-hare.

The Out­line Hab­it­at Man­age­ment and Biod­iversity Enhance­ment Plan sug­gests moun­tain hare con­trol for wood­land man­age­ment. As moun­tain hare are a pro­tec­ted spe­cies a licence would be required from NatureScot if this is pro­posed. We advise that con­trol should not be con­sidered unless mon­it­or­ing shows that hares are hav­ing a meas­ur­able effect on nat­ur­al regeneration.

Please let Kar­en Reid ([email protected]) know if you or the applic­ants require any fur­ther inform­a­tion or advice from us in rela­tion to this proposal.

The advice in this let­ter is provided by NatureScot, the oper­at­ing name of Scot­tish Nat­ur­al Heritage.

Yours sin­cerely

Chris Don­ald Head of Oper­a­tions, Cent­ral Highland

Cc Roddy Dow­ell, High­land Coun­cil; Emma Bryce, Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

Fod­derty Way, Ding­wall Busi­ness Park, Ding­wall, IV15 9XB Sligh Fod­derty, Pàirc Gnìom­ha­chais Inbhir Pheof­harain, Inbhir Pheof­harain, IV15 9XB 01463 701610 nature.scot NatureScot is the oper­at­ing name of Scot­tish Nat­ur­al Heritage

11 Annex 1 — Cairngorms Nation­al Park

Assess­ment Baseline

The pro­posed devel­op­ment would be situ­ated just out­side the north-west­ern bound­ary of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park, to the west of the A9 and south of Strath­dearn, across an area of elev­ated moor­land that forms part of the north-east­ern Mon­adh­liath mountains.

The Mon­adh­liath com­prise a long range of rolling moor­land hills and plat­eaux with sum­mits of 550 to 850m AOD. The land­scape is homo­gen­ous and almost fea­ture­less, with no dis­tinct sum­mits or pat­terns. Much of the area lies with­in the Mon­adh­liath Wild Land Area (WLA 20) for which the descrip­tion reads: ​‘The hills appear stun­ning in their sim­pli­city, open­ness and immense scale, offer­ing from their tops elev­ated views across a suc­ces­sion of sweep­ing land­form hori­zons that often seem to con­tin­ue infin­itely in every dir­ec­tion’. The Cairngorms Nation­al Park bound­ary fol­lows the east­ern ridge of the hills. Described as form­ing a ​‘visu­al back­drop and a more secluded hin­ter­land to the land­scape char­ac­ter areas with­in Strath­spey, the back­drop seems ​‘to merge into an undu­lat­ing sky­line without any clearly iden­ti­fi­able features’10, appear­ing ​‘remote and formidable11’ from the closer, settled lower ground.

The Land­scape Char­ac­ter Type (LCT) descrip­tion for host LCT 221 – Rolling Uplands – Inverness iden­ti­fies: ​‘a strong sense of open­ness and expos­ure’ from hill­tops and plat­eaux and an unin­hab­ited interi­or with ​‘a strong per­cep­tion of remote­ness’ form­ing an extens­ive area of rolling hills ​‘extend­ing far bey­ond the dis­trict bound­ary and into the Cairngorms Nation­al Park’ where the LCT merges across the bound­ary into LCT 125 Rolling Uplands — Cairngorms. The open nature of this land­scape affords a high level of inter­vis­ib­il­ity across the hills, WLA 20 and Cairngorms Nation­al Park, which are of a high sens­it­iv­ity to wind development.

LCT 221 accom­mod­ates a num­ber of exist­ing wind farms. Oper­a­tion­al and con­sen­ted wind farms¹2 broadly form five clusters, the major­ity of which are loc­ated in visu­ally dis­creet lower-lying basins. Dun­ma­glass Wind Farm is an excep­tion due to the loc­a­tion of tur­bines on more elev­ated ground res­ult­ing in increased prom­in­ence from the Mon­adh­liath WLA. The closest oper­a­tion­al wind farms to the pro­pos­al are Farr and Glen Kyl­lachy although, from the edge of the Park, Farr, Glen Kyl­lachy and Dum­na­glass have a lim­ited influ­ence appear­ing as rel­at­ively dis­tant and com­pact fea­tures in the wider land­scape. This is illus­trated from View­point (VP) 8 – Carn Sleamhuinn13, VP 10 – Track near Geal Charn Mor¹4, and VP 16 — Carn an Fhreicaedain Summit15. At 5.8km, Tom nan Clach is the closest oper­a­tion­al wind farm to the Park bound­ary, how­ever, like Moy, it appears as a rel­at­ively com­pact fea­ture in the wider land­scape due to its height (125m to blade tip)