Cairngorms

Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pairc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Item 4 Appendix 5a

27 June 2025

Page 1 of 16

Agenda item 4

Appendix 5a

2025/0034/DET

Rep­res­ent­a­tions — general

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From: Rachel Mazzo­ne To: ePlan­ning Sub­ject: 25/00404/FUL Response Date: 06 March 2025 17:32:09

CAU­TION: This email was sent from out­side of the organ­isa­tion. Do not click links or open attach­ments unless you recog­nise the sender and know the con­tent is safe.

Dear Plan­ning Team, Please find below my com­ments on:

25/00404/FUL Land 160M South of Lyn­stock Park Nethy Bridge

Act­ive Travel

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2022 – 27 Policy C1 d) states that ​‘Plan­ning and improv­ing integ­rated and sus­tain­able loc­al trans­port net­works that allow for safe off-road travel and link with pub­lic trans­port; and e) Plan­ning and improv­ing integ­rated pub­lic trans­port that meets the needs of res­id­ents and vis­it­ors to the Nation­al Park.

The plan goes on to com­mit to:

Devel­op a rur­al approach to the 20-minute neigh­bour­hood concept in the Nation­al Park. Increase act­ive travel and pub­lic trans­port usage with­in the Nation­al Park.

To deliv­er these I think the devel­op­ment needs an off-road/segreg­ated walk­ing and cyc­ling route link­ing to the exist­ing route to the primary school.

As a teach­er and a moth­er of two grow­ing up in Nethy I have seen first hand the bene­fits of a safe route to school.

Policy C3 f) Pro­mot­ing act­ive travel and pub­lic trans­port pro­vi­sion and redu­cing the reli­ance on private motor vehicles, also sup­ports the need for an act­ive travel route.

Dark Skies

Nethy Bridge is west of the Tomin­toul and Glen­liv­et Dark Sky Park and dark­ness is very much part of the cul­ture of this vil­lage so any street light­ing should be down­ward facing so we can enjoy our night sky’s … retain­ing a chance of enjoy­ing see­ing North­ern lights.

Ms. R Crane Scotland’s Uni­ver­sity for Sport­ing Excel­lence The Uni­ver­sity of Stirl­ing is a char­ity registered in Scot­land, num­ber SC 011159

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From: Rachel Crane To: ePlan­ning Sub­ject: 25/00404/FUL Response Date: 06 March 2025 17:34:40

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Dear Plan­ners Hous­ing in Nethy Bridge I have a few com­ments that I hope will make the hous­ing applic­a­tion in Nethy better:

1. Nethy Bridge is a Forest Vil­lage, and any street light­ing should be down­ward facing to retain that sense of being a place in the woods
2. A safe walk­ing and cyc­ling path(s) needs to be built from the site to link to the exist­ing Primary School cycle­way: I used to bike to school so I know how good it is to travel ​‘act­ive’.
3. The Nation­al Park is said to be home to a quarter of our rare and endangered spe­cies, many of these are wood­land spe­cies. To look after these I think the strip of wood­land next to Lyn­stock Park should be much wider as it is the only dir­ect link to the old woods not going through the houses.

I hope these are useful,

Rachel Mazzo­ne

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From: Jo Crane To: ePlan­ning Sub­ject: 25/00404/FUL Response Date: 09 March 2025 09:42:41

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Dear Plan­ners,

Hous­ing in Nethy Bridge

I have a few com­ments that I hope will make the hous­ing applic­a­tion in Nethy better:

1. Nethy Bridge is a Forest Vil­lage, and any street light­ing should be down­ward facing to retain that sense of being a place in the woods.
2. A safe walk­ing and cyc­ling path needs to be built from the site to link to the exist­ing Primary School cycle­way. I used to bike to school so I know how good it is to travel ​‘act­ive’.
3. The Nation­al Park is said to be home to a quarter of our rare and endangered spe­cies, many of these are wood­land spe­cies. To look after these I think the strip of wood­land next to Lyn­stock Park should be much wider as it is the only dir­ect link to the old woods not going through the houses.

I hope these are useful.

Kind Regards, Jo Crane

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From: Don­ald Maclean To: ePlan­ning Sub­ject: Plan­ning applic­a­tion 25/00404/FUL Nethy­Bridge Date: 08 March 2025 16:24:44

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8/3/2025

Thank you for the oppor­tun­ity to provide feed­back on the pro­posed hous­ing devel­op­ment at Lettoch/​Nethy Bridge 25/00404/FUL. The pro­vi­sion of new afford­able hous­ing is to be welcomed.

• Unfor­tu­nately the greatest con­cen­tra­tion of hous­ing has been placed right oppos­ite (indeed facing) Lyn­stock Park and it would have been good to see some innov­at­ive meas­ures to mit­ig­ate the adverse impact on the cur­rent house­hold­ers who will have a sig­ni­fic­ant loss of amen­ity. I am aware that this is of par­tic­u­lar con­cern to the community.
• The area between Lyn­stock Park and the new devel­op­ment could be use­fully improved by increase the dis­tance between the devel­op­ments. This could then become a more use­ful wild­life cor­ridor by improv­ing the plant­ing pro­vi­sion and intro­du­cing hedgerows instead of (or in addi­tion to) the planned post and wire fen­cing. This can be eas­ily done, in part by redistributing/​sharing the alloc­ated areas for each of the wild­life cor­ridors through­out the devel­op­ment; increas­ing the effect­ive cor­ridors from 2 to 3.
• The whole area will of course will need street and out­side house light­ing but per­haps light pol­lu­tion could be min­im­ised by using appro­pri­ate down­light­ing in all areas and this should be addressed.
• I am hope­ful that there are good plans to integ­rate the new devel­op­ment into the Nethy Bridge com­munity by pro­vi­sion of ded­ic­ated cyc­ling and walk­ing paths (espe­cially to the school).
• Of par­tic­u­lar note, Lettoch Road is a sub­stan­tial part of the ​“Lettoch Trail” a tour­ist attrac­tion advert­ised and sign­posted in the vil­lage, yet there is no ped­es­tri­an or cyc­ling pro­vi­sion. Demands on the trail will increase; per­haps a risk assess­ment should be car­ried out?

Regards to all, DMaclean

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From: Leonardo Mazzo­ne To: ePlan­ning Sub­ject: Con­sid­er­a­tions for the Nethy Bridge Hous­ing Devel­op­ment Date: 07 March 2025 16:36:59

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I would like to sub­mit the fol­low­ing recom­mend­a­tions regard­ing the hous­ing applic­a­tion in Nethy Bridge:

1. Down­ward-facing street light­ing through­out the devel­op­ment would pre­serve the wood­land char­ac­ter that defines our community.
2. The devel­op­ment requires prop­erly planned ped­es­tri­an and cyc­ling infra­struc­ture con­nect­ing to the exist­ing Primary School cycleway.
3. The wood­land buf­fer adja­cent to Lyn­stock Park should be expan­ded. This cor­ridor rep­res­ents the sole dir­ect wild­life pas­sage to the ancient wood­land that doesn’t inter­sect with res­id­en­tial areas.

Thank you for your con­sid­er­a­tion of these points.

Kind regards, Leonardo Mazzone

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From: Lor­na Crane To: ePlan­ning Sub­ject: 25/00404/FUL Date: 09 March 2025 20:27:08

CAU­TION: This email was sent from out­side of the organ­isa­tion. Do not click links or open attach­ments unless you recog­nise the sender and know the con­tent is safe.

Dear Team Planning

Please find below my com­ments on:-

25/00404/FUL Land 160M South of Lyn­stock Park Nethy Bridge

Act­ive Travel

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2022 – 27 Policy C1 d) states that ​‘Plan­ning and improv­ing integ­rated and sus­tain­able loc­al trans­port net­works that allow for safe off-road travel and link with pub­lic trans­port; and e) Plan­ning and improv­ing integ­rated pub­lic trans­port that meets the needs of res­id­ents and vis­it­ors to the Nation­al Park.

The plan goes on to com­mit to:

Devel­op a rur­al approach to the 20-minute neigh­bour­hood concept in the Nation­al Park. Increase act­ive travel and pub­lic trans­port usage with­in the Nation­al Park.

To deliv­er these I think the devel­op­ment needs an off-road/segreg­ated walk­ing and cyc­ling route link­ing to the exist­ing route to the primary school. As a teach­er and a moth­er of two grow­ing up in Nethy I have seen first hand the bene­fits of a safe route to school for my own fam­ily and many others.

Policy C3 f) Pro­mot­ing act­ive travel and pub­lic trans­port pro­vi­sion and redu­cing the reli­ance on private motor vehicles, also sup­ports the need for an act­ive travel route.

Dark Skies

Nethy Bridge is west of the Tomin­toul and Glen­liv­et Dark Sky Park and dark­ness is very much part of the cul­ture of this vil­lage so any street light­ing should be down­ward facing so we can con­tin­ue to enjoy our night sky’s … retain­ing a chance of enjoy­ing see­ing North­ern lights

Con­nect­ing Nature

Ever since I moved here Nethy Bridge has pro­moted itself as ​‘The Forest Vil­lage’ https://​nethy​bridge​.com/ . The vil­lage is on the edge of Aber­nethy Nation­al Nature Reserve and nature thrives in our woodland.

Build­ing on this I think the Nature Net­work of nat­ive wood­land planned next to the exist­ing houses in Lyn­stock Park should be much wider.

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This is sup­por­ted by CNPPP 2022 – 27 Policy A3 c) Encour­aging new wood­land cre­ation that com­ple­ments oth­er land uses and the land­scapes of the Nation­al Park. This should sup­port forest hab­it­at connectivity..

If this is to deliv­er sup­port for forest hab­it­at con­nectiv­ity it needs to be both nat­ive wood­land and much wider than five metres. A wide con­nec­tion to the exist­ing nat­ive wood­land would also meet the NatureScot Nature Net­works Frame­work NPF4requirements:-

Policy 3 LDPs should facil­it­ate the cre­ation and con­ser­va­tion of Nature Net­works and strengthen con­nec­tions between them so as to sup­port improved eco­lo­gic­al con­nectiv­ity. Devel­op­ment pro­pos­als will be required to con­trib­ute to the enhance­ment of biod­iversity, includ­ing by restor­ing degraded hab­it­ats and build­ing and strength­en­ing Nature Networks.

Policy 4 Spa­tial strategies, whilst pro­tect­ing and restor­ing import­ant nat­ur­al assets, should estab­lish and grow Nature Networks.

Policy 6 LDPs, as well as identi­fy­ing and pro­tect­ing exist­ing wood­lands, should identi­fy their poten­tial for enhance­ment and improved eco­lo­gic­al con­nectiv­ity through help­ing to sup­port and expand Nature Networks.

Policy 8 Where green belts are in use, or pro­posed, they should sup­port Nature Net­works where appropriate.

If, as ​‘head­lined’ in CNPPP the Cairngorms is to be ​“An out­stand­ing Nation­al Park, enjoyed and val­ued by every­one, where nature and people thrive togeth­er” then I think these few changes to this plan­ning pro­pos­al will make a sig­ni­fic­ant difference.

Kind regards, Lor­na Crane Sent from my iPhone

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From: Susan John­son To: ePlan­ning Sub­ject: Devel­op­ment south of Lyn­stock Park Nethy Bridge Date: 06 March 2025 17:04:16

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Hi Plan­ning Team

Pro­posed Houses on Land 160M South of Lyn­stock Park Nethy Bridge

I don’t live in Nethy Bridge but I love the vil­lage and reg­u­larly vis­it friends and rel­at­ives there which is why I want to com­ment on the plan­ning applic­a­tion for new houses in the village.

I under­stand and appre­ci­ate that the area needs more houses and if the Nation­al Park really is a place for ​‘Nature and People’ I think the design of this new estate could do much more for nature without los­ing any houses. The biggest change I’d like to see is the widen­ing of the pro­posed strip of nat­ive wood­land link­ing the Scots pine east of the site (I think it is called Garlyn Wood) with the river­side wood­land and Aber­nethy Nature Reserve. It’s the bit next to the ​‘new houses’ in Lyn­stock Park. It doesn’t look wide enough to allow wild­life to safely travel along without being dis­turbed. I think this could eas­ily be widened a lot with only a pos­it­ive impact on the whole development.

Com­ing back to people, my rel­at­ives’ chil­dren, along with many oth­ers, used to walk and cycle to the primary school so I think a devel­op­ment of this size should also include a path for walk­ing and cyc­ling so pupils and par­ents can safely and enjoy­able get to school. I also think the need for act­ive travel is strongly sup­por­ted by the Cairngorms 2030 pro­ject so per­haps that team could help deliv­er a ​‘20 minute’ neighborhood?

I hope these sug­ges­tions are use­ful and that an ​‘out­siders’ view adds to the qual­ity of the development.

Kind Regards, Sue Johnson

Reply For­ward

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Nethy Bridge 5^th March 2025

Dear Plan­ners,

Please find below my response to:-

25/00404/FUL Land 160M South of Lyn­stock Park Nethy Bridge

The design appro­pri­ately con­tains green cor­ridors (nature net­works) through the site but the most sig­ni­fic­ant on the north­w­est of the bound­ary appears neither long nor wide enough. This nature net­work is the only one that dir­ectly links exist­ing nat­ive wood­land areas, and on to ancient wood­land sites.

See Fig 1 below

Fig 1. Wood­land and Ancient Wood­land (purple) adja­cent to the Devel­op­ment & NW Nature Cor­ridor (Red Line)

232m Path 238m Drain G G Lyn­stock Cres Drain Drain Drain Lettoch Rd Dr G G B 240m 6 G M Be 24

To meet

Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4

Policy 3

a) Devel­op­ment pro­pos­als will con­trib­ute to the enhance­ment of biod­iversity, includ­ing where rel­ev­ant, restor­ing degraded hab­it­ats and build­ing and strength­en­ing nature net­works and the con­nec­tions between them. Pro­pos­als should also integ­rate nature-based solu­tions, where possible.

c) Pro­pos­als for loc­al devel­op­ment will include appro­pri­ate meas­ures to con­serve, restore and enhance biod­iversity, in accord­ance with nation­al and loc­al guid­ance. Meas­ures should be pro­por­tion­ate to the nature and scale of development.

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This cor­ridor, which is the only one not to cross intern­al roads and gar­dens , and link exist­ing nat­ur­al wood­land and ancient wood­land, should be widened to 30m. The site would fur­ther be enhanced by encour­aging nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion of nat­ive wood­land on the ​‘func­tion­al flood­plain’ SW of the plots.

Nature cor­ridors are sup­por­ted by Nature Scot­land ​‘They allow wild­life to move between areas and improve the resi­li­ence of hab­it­ats and pop­u­la­tions of spe­cies using them. Nature Net­works radi­ate from, and extend into, all land­scapes, across inner-cit­ies to towns and vil­lages, rur­al areas, moun­tains, lochs and coasts, ​‘and I con­sider that a new site with­in in Nation­al Park should cre­ate a nature net­work to the highest standard.

The Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan States: ​‘The site has capa­city for 20 dwell­ings. The detail of any devel­op­ment pro­pos­als must take account of and seek to com­ple­ment the nature of the wood­land oppos­ite’. There­fore, with a sig­ni­fic­ant increase in hous­ing (now 35 dwell­ings) planned it is appro­pri­ate to bal­ance that with cre­at­ing a wider nature net­work that effect­ively ​‘com­ple­ments the nature of the wood­land oppos­ite’ and allows wild­life to con­nect with the exist­ing nat­ive woodland.

Nature Scot­land also state that nature net­works deliv­er the fol­low­ing NPF4 policies:-

Policy 3 LDPs should facil­it­ate the cre­ation and con­ser­va­tion of Nature Net­works and strengthen con­nec­tions between them so as to sup­port improved eco­lo­gic­al con­nectiv­ity. Devel­op­ment pro­pos­als will be required to con­trib­ute to the enhance­ment of biod­iversity, includ­ing by restor­ing degraded hab­it­ats and build­ing and strength­en­ing Nature Networks.

Policy 4 Spa­tial strategies, whilst pro­tect­ing and restor­ing import­ant nat­ur­al assets, should estab­lish and grow Nature Networks.

Policy 6 LDPs, as well as identi­fy­ing and pro­tect­ing exist­ing wood­lands, should identi­fy their poten­tial for enhance­ment and improved eco­lo­gic­al con­nectiv­ity through help­ing to sup­port and expand Nature Networks.

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Map­ping clearly shows that the wood­lands to be con­nec­ted by a nature net­work have been here for over 150 years.

Fig 2. 1875 Map of Lyn­stock show­ing Wood­land NE and SW of the Pro­posed Development

Nation­al Lib­rary of Scot­land na h‑Alba Leabhar­lann Nàiseanta Inverness-shire (Main­land), Sheet XLVI Sur­vey date: 1867 – 71, Pub­lic­a­tion date: 1875 Size: map 61 x 92 cm (ca. 24 x 36 inches), on sheet ca. 70 x 100 cm (28 x 40 inches) Maps home > Ord­nance Sur­vey > Six-inch 1^st edi­tion, 1843 – 1882

Limekiln ← Back Foot Br Lower Dell h Lower Dell Nurver’s Cot­tag urs­ery. 777 Lyn­stack Ken­nel Lower Delt Lodge Ellane

To deliv­er

NPF Policy 15

a) Devel­op­ment pro­pos­als will con­trib­ute to loc­al liv­ing includ­ing, where rel­ev­ant, 20- minute neigh­bour­hoods. To estab­lish this, con­sid­er­a­tion will be giv­en to exist­ing set­tle­ment pat­tern, and the level and qual­ity of inter­con­nectiv­ity of the pro­posed devel­op­ment with the sur­round­ing area, includ­ing loc­al access to:

• sus­tain­able modes of trans­port includ­ing loc­al pub­lic trans­port and safe, high qual­ity walk­ing, wheel­ing and cyc­ling networks

The pro­pos­al needs to appro­pri­ately segreg­ate walk­ing and cyc­ling from the site along Lettoch Road to Lyn­stock Cresent and bey­ond with a spe­cif­ic focus on people access­ing the primary school. A safe appro­pri­ate non-motor­ised user (NMU) route needs to constructed.

The minor county road access to the site sig­ni­fic­antly nar­rows bey­ond Lyn­stock Park see Fig 3

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Fig 3 Road Nar­row­ing SE of Lyn­stock Park

4 Lyn­stock House Cho­lile 000 Pondo Drain. LYN­STOCK PARK Lettoch Road

The minor county road will need to be upgraded to the appro­pri­ate stand­ard to allow for the increased usage, and the need for an NMU.

To deliv­er NPF4 Policy 20

Plans should take into account the prob­ab­il­ity of flood­ing from all sources and make use of rel­ev­ant flood risk and river basin man­age­ment plans for the area. A pre­cau­tion­ary approach should be taken, regard­ing the cal­cu­lated prob­ab­il­ity of flood­ing as a best estim­ate, not a pre­cise forecast.

Fig 4. SEPA Flood Risk Map of Site Map Key Flood Maps River Flood­ing High Like­li­hood Each year this area has a 10% chance of flood­ing. Medi­um Like­li­hood Each year this area has a 0.5% chance of flood­ing. Low Like­li­hood Each year this area has a 0.1% chance of flood­ing. X er Dell 4 Dell Rd A 4 Lyn­stock Pk Lettoch Rd Search location

The water man­age­ment site design and infra­struc­ture should not only reduce the risk of flood­ing on that site but also that iden­ti­fied on Lyn­stock Park – see

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Fig 4. Flood risk on the area out­lined in red should be reduced by drain­age devel­op­ment on the site.

To sup­port NPF4 Policy 7

‘To pro­tect and enhance his­tor­ic envir­on­ment assets and places’

The area has been iden­ti­fied as a site of a pris­on­er award camp 1914 – 18 (Dav­id Duncan HES). Any devel­op­ment should appro­pri­ately care for, and safe­guard antiquit­ies iden­ti­fied dur­ing the work programme.

Fig 5 HES Map of ​‘Lyn­stock’ PoW Site 1914 – 18.

From Dav­id Duncan in Assoc.Docs See also Assoc. Docs. NJ 02 SW 0033 Pris­on­er of War camp, 1914 – 1918 SLF 22/8/00 Sources/​Archives (0) Map !!! 木 FEGLE MILL 14205 FB Lower Dell 236 200 未来未 238 100 Garlyne Moss 소 來 00 Ellane­orn 木 だ OIRON SMELT­ER + Garl NURS­ERY WOOD GER­MAN P.O.W CAMP 1914 – 18

Pleas­ing to read that the WW1 PoW camp has left no con­tam­in­a­tion that may have poten­tially impacted on the River Nethy dur­ing construction.

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Com­ment Date: Thu 20 Feb 2025 Nic­ola MacK­en­zie, Sci­entif­ic Officer Hav­ing checked our his­tor­ic­al records I have not found any evid­ence of a poten­tially con­tam­in­at­ive former use of the land, and there­fore offer no fur­ther com­ment on this application.

Happy to dis­cuss fur­ther in use­ful, Kind Regards,

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