Item 4 Appendix 5b - Reps Objs 20250034DET Redacted

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pairc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Item 4 Appendix 5b 27 June 2025 Page 1 of 23

Agenda item 4

Appendix 5b

2025/0034/DET

Rep­res­ent­a­tions — objections

Emma Green­lees

From: Cairngorms Cam­paign Sent: 24 March 2025 23:22 To: Plan­ning Cc: Kath­er­ine Don­nach­ie Sub­ject: CNPA plan­ning applic­a­tion Ref 25/0034/DET Cat­egor­ies: Emma G, Comments

Cairngorms Cam­paign Scot­tish Char­ity SC05523

CNPA plan­ning applic­a­tion Ref 25/0034/DET Dear Sir/​Madam The Cam­paign is writ­ing to object to the above applic­a­tion. Grounds for our objec­tion include the fol­low­ing concerns:

1. This pro­pos­al sig­ni­fic­antly exceeds the alloc­a­tion in the recent loc­al plan, both for the num­ber of houses and the land take.
2. The pro­pos­al would reduce the con­nectiv­ity of a vital wild­life cor­ridor between the des­ig­nated sites of Craigmore and Aber­nethy Forest. Facil­it­at­ing move­ment of Caper­cail­lie between these two SPAs is vital to main­tain­ing a viable future for this endangered bird.
3. The pro­pos­al con­flicts with both the 1^st and 4^th aims of the NP. It depletes the stock of agri­cul­tur­al land with implic­a­tions for future generations.
4. The pro­pos­al to segreg­ate the afford­able hous­ing rather than integ­rate a mix of house types is dam­aging to the char­ac­ter and social cohe­sion of the set­tle­ment and out of line with accep­ted good place-mak­ing. These con­sid­er­a­tions should take pre­ced­ence over profit max­im­isa­tion for the developer.
5. The design has been recog­nized as unin­spir­ing and inap­pro­pri­ate giv­en espe­cially the con­text of out­stand­ing and excep­tion­al views that stand to be degraded.
6. It des­troys an open view degrad­ing the exper­i­ence on a much-appre­ci­ated walk/​cycle pro­moted route. The land­scape asset it impacts con­trib­utes to the tour­ist eco­nomy and provides inspir­a­tion to vis­it­ors and residents.
7. It is too close to sens­it­ive ripari­an wood­land, impact­ing import­ant biod­iversity, includ­ing spe­cies asso­ci­ated with the River Spey SAC.
8. It appears that the SUDS pro­pos­als are not of suf­fi­cient scale. There is also a risk that some garden ground could be sub­ject to peri­od­ic flooding.
9. The devel­op­ment would cre­ate light pol­lu­tion impacts. These are poten­tially par­tic­u­larly dam­aging when impinging on fresh­wa­ter habitats.
10. Spe­cies on the Scot­tish Biod­iversity List for which the Cairngorms is import­ant are liable to be adversely impacted.
11. We are not sat­is­fied that adequate account has been taken of the poten­tial impact on otters. Dis­tri­bu­tion­al inform­a­tion is provided by signs (tracks, drop­pings), but these do not provide inform­a­tion on the num­ber of indi­vidu­als. There­fore, the size of the pop­u­la­tion asso­ci­ated with the River Spey remains unknown. This at a time when there is reduc­tion in import­ant otter prey, such as sal­mon and eels.
12. We note some plant­ing is pro­posed in strips, but do not con­sider real­ist­ic assess­ment can rate these as gen­er­ous enough to be effective.
13. We con­sider that the pro­pos­al, par­tic­u­larly because of its loc­a­tion and scale, con­flicts with NPF4 policy 3 (Biod­iversity).
14. We do not see this pro­pos­al as cli­mate friendly or affordable.

Yours sin­cerely Keith Char­man Director

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Plan­ning Team 14 The Square Grant­own on Spey PH26 3HG The Dulaig Seafield Aven­ue Grant­own-on-Spey PH26 3JG 24 March 2025

Objec­tion to Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 2025/0034/DET — Res­id­en­tial devel­op­ment of 35no. units, form­a­tion of access road and SUDS – Land 160m South of Lyn­stock Park, Nethy Bridge

I have cer­tain objec­tions to this plan­ning applic­a­tion in its cur­rent form and layout.

1. SUDS Pond. The Drain­age State­ment cal­cu­lates the required size of the pond to be 190 m³. I have two con­cerns about the SUDS pond being under­sized for this development.
   • The SUDS pond is stated to be of a depth of 1.5m. From the topo­graph­ic­al plan, it would appear that the base of this SUDS pond is close to the levels of the River Nethy. There appears to be the poten­tial for ground­wa­ter ingress into the SUDS pond, espe­cially dur­ing peri­ods of sus­tained high­er rain­fall. I do not see any recog­ni­tion of this poten­tial for ground­wa­ter ingress into the SUDS pond in the capa­city cal­cu­la­tions. Without account­ing for ingress of ground­wa­ter espe­cially dur­ing peri­ods of high rain­fall, it is likely that the SUDS pond could be sig­ni­fic­antly undersized.

The SUDS pond is only sized for a 30 year + cli­mate change storm event. This was noted by High­land Council’s Flood Team. The Flood Team said they would wel­come ​‘bet­ter­ment’ of the SUDS pond size as there are known flood risk issues down­stream. I wouldn’t term this request ​‘bet­ter­ment’, instead I main­tain that if this SUDS pond is not increased in size sig­ni­fic­antly above the 30 year + cli­mate change storm event, then this devel­op­ment (if it were to pro­ceed) would con­sequently increase the down­stream flood risk. Fur­ther­more, I believe to not increase the SUDS pond capa­city to ensure no con­tri­bu­tion to flood risk areas down­stream would be a breach of NPF4, and I quote, ​“To strengthen resi­li­ence to flood risk by pro­mot­ing avoid­ance as a first prin­ciple and redu­cing the vul­ner­ab­il­ity of exist­ing and future devel­op­ment to flooding”.

Tak­ing these issues togeth­er, if this devel­op­ment is to pro­ceed, then the SUDS pond capa­city require­ment needs to be recal­cu­lated to com­pensate for these two issues. Fur­ther­more, it is unsat­is­fact­ory for these import­ant issues to be down­rated to a plan­ning con­di­tion requir­ing these risks to be assessed in a Drain­age Impact Assess­ment. They are of sig­ni­fic­ant import­ance for these issues to be addressed before this applic­a­tion goes to Com­mit­tee, or before full approv­al of the applic­a­tion is granted.

I have one fur­ther con­cern this time regard­ing the sit­ing of the SUDS pond. Accord­ing to the Flood Risk Assess­ment report, the SUDS pond lies well with­in the1 in 200 year flood risk area, and since there does not appear to be any embank­ments pro­posed around the SUDS pond, in the event of a flu­vi­al flood (from the River Nethy) over­top­ping the SUDS pond, the pur­pose and oper­a­tion of the SUDS pond would be negated.

1. Flood Risk

The Enviro­centre Flood Risk Assess­ment shows the areas of the devel­op­ment which have a great­er risk than 1 in 200 years + cli­mate change adjust­ment of flood­ing see plan below.

This flood risk area is very close to the pro­posed built devel­op­ment and shows that the actu­al houses in plots 9 and 10 are on the edge of this 1 in 200 year flood risk. Even

SEPA noted that in plots 9 and 10, their gar­dens are with­in the flood risk area. Fur­ther­more, the sens­it­iv­ity ana­lys­is out­put pre­dicts a great­er poten­tial flood area which would addi­tion­ally affect plots 8 and 11.

Giv­en the lim­it­a­tions of the accur­acy of the mod­el­ling used for the flood risk assess­ment, I believe the viab­il­ity of plots 8, 9 10 and 11 is very ques­tion­able. I also believe that NPF4 in its com­ment­ary on flood risk sup­ports my assertion.

1. Land­scape

I note that the val­id com­ments made by CNPA’s Land­scape con­sult­ant dur­ing the pre- applic­a­tion dis­cus­sions seem to have been ignored. I quote from her response to this applic­a­tion, ​“Hous­ing units 12 – 16 are likely to be more visu­ally prom­in­ent due to their elev­ated pos­i­tion and it would have been bet­ter to have omit­ted these units in favour of plant­ing wood­land to rein­force the knoll lying to the south-east of the devel­op­ment site”.

I fully con­cur with her com­ments and believe these plots should be removed from the application.

Taken in con­junc­tion with my con­cerns over the flood risk to plots 8 – 11, if all 9 plots were removed from the applic­a­tion, the wild­life cor­ridor along the banks of the River Nethy would be much wider and much more envir­on­ment­ally sustainable.

1. Con­flict with the LDP H1 site size.

The cur­rent CNPA LDP site size is much smal­ler than the pro­posed built devel­op­ment in this applic­a­tion and the num­ber of houses has grown from around 20 to 35 houses.

This over­lay of the LDP site size (in pink) clearly demon­strates the very sig­ni­fic­ant expan­sion of this devel­op­ment. I have read all the jus­ti­fic­a­tions put for­ward for increas­ing the devel­op­ment size, but remain uncon­vinced of the need for such expan­sion and remain con­cerned about the reduc­tion in wild­life cor­ridor near the river and of the visu­al impact of the devel­op­ment on the edge of the vil­lage. Such a major expan­sion to the pro­posed devel­op­ment in the LDP, calls into ques­tion the valid­ity of the LDP. Is it in place for strong guid­ance to shape future devel­op­ments, or some­thing that can be altered at will or whim?

I pro­pose a pos­sible com­prom­ise on the extent of the ​‘hard’ devel­op­ment area com­pared with the LDP area. remove plots 8, 9, 10 and 11 on the basis of these plots being on the mar­gins of flood risk remove plots 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 on the basis of the CNPA’s Land­scape consultant’s recom­mend­a­tion addi­tion­ally the remov­al of these 8 plots would greatly improve the visu­al land­scape char­ac­ter and provide a much improved land­scape set­ting, and much improved wild­life cor­ridor along the bank of the River Nethy. The res­ult­ing 26 plot devel­op­ment would still be slightly lar­ger than the LDP pro­posed site, but much more in keep­ing with the ori­gin­al inten­tion of includ­ing this 20 house devel­op­ment in the LDP.

1. House Design

In line with the com­ments of the CNPA’s Land­scape con­sult­ant, I am con­cerned that the out­side design of the pro­posed hous­ing doesn’t live up to the LDP words which require, hous­ing of the highest qual­ity design and Policy 1 states that hous­ing pro­pos­als will be sup­por­ted where they rein­force and enhance the char­ac­ter of the set­tle­ment. How­ever, I note in the Design & Access State­ment that the archi­tect is imply­ing that these designs are indic­at­ive only. Con­sequently, I assume that detailed design of the indi­vidu­al houses will be the sub­ject of sup­ple­ment­ary applic­a­tions, or altern­at­ively agreed under appro­pri­ate plan­ning conditions.

I urge CNPA to use what influ­ence and pro­cesses it has to improve these designs to be less sub­urb­an in nature and have more loc­al character.

I hope my com­ments will be ser­i­ously con­sidered and assessed and appro­pri­ately presen­ted in the Plan­ning Officer’s report, and not as hap­pens too fre­quently just presen­ted in a sum­mary list of objections.

Yours faith­fully,

Dr Gor­don Bulloch

Roy Turn­bull Tornis­car Nethy Bridge Inverness-shire PH25 3ED Scot­land Kath­er­ine Don­nach­ie, CNPA Case Officer Email: Tel. 23^th March 2025

Dear CNPA Case Officer,

2025/0034/DET | Res­id­en­tial devel­op­ment of 35no. units, form­a­tion of access road and SUDS

I object to the above plan­ning applic­a­tion for the fol­low­ing reason:

The above plan­ning applic­a­tion is not in accord­ance with the Devel­op­ment Plan.

The Devel­op­ment Plan com­prises both the Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work (NPF4) and the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (LDP). Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment policy states that decisions on plan­ning applic­a­tions are leg­ally required to be made in accord­ance with the Devel­op­ment Plan unless there are mater­i­al con­sid­er­a­tions that indic­ate otherwise.

In this case, the LDP alloc­ated i) land at H1 on a site whose area is sub­stan­tially smal­ler than the present applic­a­tion site, and ii) for 20 dwell­ings rather than the 35 dwell­ings applied for, an increase of 75%.

The applic­ant briefly addresses these sub­stan­tial depar­tures from the Devel­op­ment Plan in the Design and Access State­ment, in the fol­low­ing terms:

“a strong argu­ment for extend­ing the cur­rent site des­ig­na­tion could be made in the interests of achiev­ing a coher­ent devel­op­ment” and that ​“there is no par­tic­u­lar bar on num­bers achiev­able on the site”. In addi­tion, the applic­ant claims that these sub­stan­tial enlarge­ments would ​“improve effi­ciency of the lay­out by increas­ing the num­ber of units” and that ​“Spread­ing the site infra­struc­ture works across more units will help improve afford­ab­il­ity to ful­fil loc­al hous­ing need.”

Whatever the mer­its or demer­its of those asser­tions, the fact remains that they did NOT res­ult in an exten­ded site des­ig­na­tion, nor for the pro­vi­sion for 35 dwell­ings, in the LDP. Thus, this applic­a­tion is indubit­ably not in accord­ance with the Devel­op­ment Plan, and, indeed, diverges from it to a sub­stan­tial extent.

Whilst it may be accept­able to change the shape of a devel­op­ment area some­what in the final design, if, and only if, the mater­i­al con­sid­er­a­tions pro­posed do not impact on con­sid­er­a­tions of biod­iversity, land­scape, and amen­ity, that should not be used to sub­stan­tially increase the devel­op­ment area, as is pro­posed in this case. In this case, the expan­ded area now pro­posed brings hous­ing devel­op­ment with­in a few metres of the River Nethy, part of the River Spey Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion, which should be unacceptable.

Moreover, the pro­pos­al to increase the num­ber of dwell­ings in the interest of ​“improved effi­ciency” not only res­ults in the north west bound­ary of hous­ing devel­op­ment being too close to the exist­ing dwell­ings, but pro­duces a far more sub­urb­an char­ac­ter of devel­op­ment than is appro­pri­ate in this loc­a­tion. It is argu­able that the Nethy Bridge set­tle­ment bound­ary should nev­er have been exten­ded fur­ther south east bey­ond the exist­ing hous­ing. How­ever, it is accep­ted that that is what the LDP allowed for. But that should not now res­ult in a greatly increased num­ber of dwell­ings simply to increase the ​“effi­ciency”, (and fin­an­cial viab­il­ity), of the pro­pos­al. The applicant’s reas­on for pro­pos­ing this increase in dwell­ings might have mer­it in an infill devel­op­ment in an urb­an or sub­urb­an situ­ation, but not in an exten­sion on the fringe of a rur­al set­tle­ment in a land­scape and biod­iversity sens­it­ive loc­a­tion in a nation­al park.

The CNPA rightly strives to encour­age stake­hold­er par­ti­cip­a­tion dur­ing the con­sulta­tions on the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan. That is admit­tedly a dif­fi­cult pro­cess, attempt­ing to recon­cile fre­quently con­flict­ing views on what is accept­able. But if that pro­cess of pro­du­cing the LDP is then shown to be of little worth, if the res­ult is seen to be dis­reg­arded in favour of developers’ interests, and what appear to be leg­al require­ments are ignored, then can it be any won­der if the pub­lic con­fid­ence in such con­sulta­tions grows to be the oppos­ite of what the CNPA might wish?

Yours sin­cerely,

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 2025/0034/DET

Applic­a­tion Sum­mary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: 2025/0034/DET Address: Land 160M South Of Lyn­stock Park Nethy Bridge Pro­pos­al: Res­id­en­tial devel­op­ment of 35no. units, form­a­tion of access road and SUDS Case Officer: Kath­er­ine Donnachie

Cus­tom­er Details Name: Mr Stew­art Taylor Address: Fir­wood Nethy Bridge PH25 3DE

Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Mem­ber of Pub­lic Stance: Cus­tom­er objects to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Comment:In Car­ol Anderson’s Response Form a more sens­ible num­ber of houses is raised ie ​“The site has capa­city for 20 dwell­ings” as per the cur­rent CNPA Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan. The num­ber of houses applied for goes against what is typ­ic­al of this part of Nethy Bridge with sev­er­al croft-type houses along the road to the SE of the site.

Whilst there should be 25% afford­able it is quite dif­fi­cult to know how many loc­al people will be able to afford the oth­er houses and how many might become hol­i­day homes.

Will the extra num­ber of people, dogs etc be con­sidered regard­ing the increased impact on the sur­round­ing wood­land etc espe­cially with this area being part of the wood­land link between RSPB Aber­nethy and RSPB Craigmore wood regard­ing Caper­cail­lie. Think­ing of birds, has a breeding/​wintering bird sur­vey been done for this loc­a­tion? In fact, most of what seems to appear in the ​“20 Feb 2025 Sup­port­ing inform­a­tion NAT­UR­AL HER­IT­AGE DESK STUDY” relies on inform­a­tion about spe­cies found by oth­er people.

Whilst there appears to be few records for the actu­al devel­op­ment site (only brown hare), areas of land totally adja­cent to the site sup­port many import­ant spe­cies, par­tic­u­larly fungi and flowers. The knoll adja­cent to houses 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16 is close to being of nation­al import­ance for the range of fungi it sup­ports par­tic­u­larly wax­cap fungi with 12 spe­cies recor­ded to date. Sev­er­al plants are also key spe­cies par­tic­u­larly for the num­ber of insect spe­cies they sup­port; bird’s‑foot tre­foil, rock­rose, devil’s‑bit sca­bi­ous and yel­low rattle to name but a few. Two orch­id spe­cies have also been recor­ded heath spot­ted and heath fra­grant orch­id with over 300 of the lat­ter. With the right level of graz­ing man­age­ment more fungi are likely to be recor­ded but this would take record­ing vis­its over sev­er­al grow­ing sea­sons. Houses away from this area should be import­ant — hence a max­im­um of 20 houses would be key.

2025/0034/DET Res­id­en­tial devel­op­ment of 35no. units, form­a­tion of access road and SUDS Land 160M South of Lyn­stock Park Nethy Bridge Com­ment as sent to via the CNPA Plan­ning web­site with some addi­tions for your inform­a­tion. In Car­ol Anderson’s Response Form a more sens­ible num­ber of houses is raised ie ​“The site has capa­city for 20 dwell­ings” as per the cur­rent CNPA Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan. The num­ber of houses applied for goes against what is typ­ic­al of this part of Nethy Bridge with sev­er­al croft-type houses along the road to the SE of the site. Whilst there should be 25% afford­able it is quite dif­fi­cult to know how many loc­al people will be able to afford the oth­er houses and how many might become hol­i­day homes. Will the extra num­ber of people, dogs etc be con­sidered regard­ing the increased impact on the sur­round­ing wood­land etc espe­cially with this area being part of the wood­land link between RSPB Aber­nethy and RSPB Craigmore wood regard­ing Caper­cail­lie. Think­ing of birds, has a breeding/​wintering bird sur­vey been done for this loc­a­tion? In fact, most of what seems to appear in the ​“20 Feb 2025 Sup­port­ing inform­a­tion NAT­UR­AL HER­IT­AGE DESK STUDY” relies on inform­a­tion about spe­cies found by oth­er people. Whilst there appears to be few records for the actu­al devel­op­ment site (only brown hare), areas of land totally adja­cent to the site sup­port many import­ant spe­cies, par­tic­u­larly fungi and flowers. The knoll adja­cent to houses 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16 is close to being of nation­al import­ance for the range of fungi it sup­ports par­tic­u­larly wax­cap fungi with 12 spe­cies recor­ded to date. Sev­er­al plants are also key spe­cies par­tic­u­larly for the num­ber of insect spe­cies they sup­port; bird’s‑foot tre­foil, rock­rose, devil’s‑bit sca­bi­ous and yel­low rattle to name but a few. Two orch­id spe­cies have also been recor­ded heath spot­ted and heath fra­grant orch­id with over 300 of the lat­ter. With the right level of graz­ing man­age­ment more fungi are likely to be recor­ded but this would take record­ing vis­its over sev­er­al grow­ing sea­sons. Houses away from this area should be import­ant — hence a max­im­um of 20 houses would be key.

An addi­tion fol­low­ing con­tact with loc­al Myco­lo­gic­al expert Liz Hold­en about the num­ber of import­ant wax­cap fungi on the knoll that could be affected by this plan­ning applic­a­tion should the res­id­en­tial devel­op­ment go ahead. Three spe­cies of import­ance out of the twelve spe­cies iden­ti­fied on the knoll by the pro­posed devel­op­ment are: Neo­hygro­cybe ovina, Hygro­cybe punicea and Hygro­cybe splen­di­dissima. These three spe­cies alone sug­gest a prop­er, full sur­vey of the knoll site should be under­taken before any plan­ning per­mis­sion is giv­en and con­sid­er­a­tion giv­en about allow­ing houses to be built so close to the knoll. Stew­art Taylor

Fir­wood, Nethy Bridge, PH25 3DE.

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 2025/0034/DET

Applic­a­tion Sum­mary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: 2025/0034/DET Address: Land 160M South Of Lyn­stock Park Nethy Bridge Pro­pos­al: Res­id­en­tial devel­op­ment of 35no. units, form­a­tion of access road and SUDS Case Officer: Kath­er­ine Donnachie

Cus­tom­er Details Name: Sor­rel Jones Address: 37 lyn­stock cres­cent Nethy­bridge PH253DX

Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Mem­ber of Pub­lic Stance: Cus­tom­er objects to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Comment:This applic­a­tion is not com­pli­ant with the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan. The pro­posed alloc­a­tion of afford­able hous­ing is all at a dif­fer­ent site, which lack of integ­ra­tion will do noth­ing to strengthen the com­munity. Fur­ther­more, their size and design indic­ates they are not genu­inely afford­able. The loc­al devel­op­ment plan high­lights that ter­raced hous­ing in the style of Lyn­stock cres­cent is desir­able. Such a devel­op­ment would be far more valu­able to the community.

The applic­a­tion for 35 houses also greatly exceeds the num­ber of houses in the loc­al devel­op­ment plan (20). This excess­ive increase will exacer­bate the eco­lo­gic­al dam­age from the devel­op­ment, espe­cially due to bring­ing the devel­op­ment area in close prox­im­ity to the River Nethy. It seems clear that a more appro­pri­ate devel­op­ment would include prop­erly afford­able hous­ing, and be con­strained to the top field.

Emma Green­lees From: BSCG info Sent: 24 March 2025 23:44 To: Plan­ning; Kath­er­ine Don­nach­ie Sub­ject: BSCG Com­ments 25 – 0034 Cat­egor­ies: Emma G, Comments

CNPA Plan­ning 24 March 2025 Badenoch & Strath­spey Con­ser­va­tion Group Fiod­hag, Nethy­bridge, Inverness-shire PH25 3DJ Tel Scot­tish Char­ity No. SC003846 Email Web­site bscg​.org​.uk/

Dear Kath­er­ine Don­nachy 25/0035/DET Res­id­en­tial devel­op­ment of 35no. units, form­a­tion of access road and SUDS Land 160M South Of Lyn­stock Park Nethy Bridge I am writ­ing to object to the above applic­a­tion and I would like to request the oppor­tun­ity to address the com­mit­tee when the applic­a­tion is determ­ined. Not com­pli­ant with the CNPA Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021. The LDP states ​“The site has capa­city for 20 dwell­ings”. The 35 dwell­ings pro­posed rep­res­ents an increase of 75%.

The area alloc­ated in the LDP is very sub­stan­tially smal­ler than the area of the pro­pos­al. The area of the pro­pos­al with­in the red line bound­ary rep­res­ents an increase of approx­im­ately 410% above the alloc­ated area in the LDP; and if the undeveloped ground near the river is excluded, then the increase is approx­im­ately 320% com­pared to the area of the H1 alloc­a­tion in the LDP. This level of non-com­pli­ance is unac­cept­able. To per­mit such an uplift in house num­bers and land take would draw into ques­tion the valid­ity and the pur­pose of the LDP. It would also under­mine pub­lic con­fid­ence in the plan­ning sys­tem and the worth of enga­ging with the con­sulta­tion pro­cess of the LDP. Land­scape The pro­pos­al would have sig­ni­fic­ant impacts on the land­scape of an extremely attract­ive area, and on out­stand­ing views to the Cairngorms that are truly excep­tion­al. The LDP states that the ​“detail of any devel­op­ment must take account of and seek to com­ple­ment … the views towards the Cairngorms, and the nature of nearby devel­op­ment” and that ​“the site will need to take account of and respond to the wider land­scape con­text, par­tic­u­larly views towards the Cairngorm plat­eau”. We do not see that this pro­pos­al has in any way taken account of, or respon­ded to the out­stand­ing qual­ity of this set­ting. Recre­ation­al Enjoy­ment The Lettoch Road is part of the pop­u­lar, well used, pro­moted path net­work of Nethy­bridge and the pro­pos­al would sig­ni­fic­antly reduce the qual­ity of exper­i­ence for users. House Designs and Lay­out We agree with the Land­scape Advisor’s com­ments, that the pro­pos­al has a ​“sub­urb­an char­ac­ter” that is out of place in this set­ting, and the house designs are ​“unin­spir­ing.” We do not con­sider that this meets the LDP require­ments of ​“the highest qual­ity of design”; and neither would it ​“rein­force and enhance the char­ac­ter of the set­tle­ment”. The Land­scape Adviser states that Houses 12 – 16, which are elev­ated and there­fore likely to be more prom­in­ent in the land­scape, should be removed from the pro­pos­al. We agree that these houses should be removed giv­en the land­scape impacts. In addi­tion, we con­sider they should be removed due to impacts on biod­iversity that are con­sidered later. In rela­tion to house types and design, the LDP states that ​“semi-detached and ter­raced dwell­ings, in a sim­il­ar pat­tern to Lyn­stock Cres­cent are desir­able.” This guid­ance, which implies mod­est houses and a high­er hous­ing dens­ity, has not been fol­lowed. Con­sequently, the pro­posed houses are unlikely to match the needs of many people work­ing in the loc­al economy.

We do not sup­port segreg­at­ing the hous­ing so that all the ​‘afford­able’ hous­ing is at the Old Sta­tion site and there is no pro­vi­sion of afford­able hous­ing at the Lettoch Road site. We don’t believe such segreg­a­tion is com­munity-friendly, nor that it deliv­ers good place-mak­ing. SUDS At a time of cli­mate emer­gency, we believe a pre­cau­tion­ary approach towards SUDS is imper­at­ive. We con­sider it is unac­cept­able that the gar­dens of houses 9 and 10 are with­in the flood risk area; and that the houses of these two plots are on the edge of the 1 in 200 years + cli­mate change adjust­ment flood risk. We note that the sens­it­iv­ity ana­lys­is pre­dicts a great­er poten­tial flood area that would also affect plots 8 and 11. Fur­ther, the SUDS pond capa­city should be more than the cur­rent 30 year + cli­mate change storm event. There are known flood risk issues down­stream, and without a lar­ger SUDS the pro­posed devel­op­ment could add to the down­stream flood risk. We con­sider the present SUDS pro­pos­als do not com­ply with the 4^th aim of the NP that requires devel­op­ment to be ​“sus­tain­able”. The pro­pos­als sim­il­arly con­flict with NPF4 which states on flood­ing that ​“pro­mot­ing avoid­ance” is a first prin­ciple, and emphas­ises ​“redu­cing the vul­ner­ab­il­ity of exist­ing and future devel­op­ment to flood­ing”. Biod­iversity Impacts The pro­pos­al site forms part of the hab­it­at con­nectiv­ity in a key cor­ridor between Craigmore and Aber­nethy. Both these sites are des­ig­nated for Caper­cail­lie and move­ment between the two is neces­sary for the Strath­spey meta­pop­u­la­tion of Caper­cail­lie. The pro­pos­als would degrade the con­nectiv­ity as well as add to recre­ation­al dis­turb­ance in the cor­ridor (from walk­ers, dogs, cyc­lists, run­ners, etc), includ­ing in the wood­land dir­ectly across Lettoch Road from the devel­op­ment. A Selec­tion of Spe­cies Recor­ded with­in the Red Line Bound­ary of the Pro­pos­al Site and very close by. Inver­teb­rates Raft Spider Dolomedes fim­bri­atus, Nation­ally Scarce. In the south west of the site, with­in the red line bound­ary but out­with the part of the site pro­posed to be developed, there is a damp area where in wet con­di­tions there can be stand­ing water, that is con­trib­uted to by a field drain that issues into this area from the field fur­ther uphill. Here we have recor­ded the rare Raft Spider Dolomedes fim­bri­atus that is classed as Nation­ally Scarce. This spider is closely asso­ci­ated with water. It is breed­ing at this loc­a­tion, with a nurs­ery web con­tain­ing many spider­lings and guarded by the adult female, hav­ing been found here in 2024. A fea­ture of this breed­ing loc­a­tion is extreme vul­ner­ab­il­ity to trampling.

Small Sca­bi­ous Min­ing Bee Andrena mar­ginata. On the Scot­tish Biod­iv­eristy List and recor­ded with­in the red line bound­ary. This rare bee is asso­ci­ated with the flower Devil’s‑bit Sca­bi­ous, which occurs at many loc­a­tions with­in the pro­pos­al site. One of this bee’s few UK strong­holds is in the Cairngorms. It is a par­tic­u­larly import­ant pol­lin­at­or of Devil’s‑bit Sca­bi­ous. It is one of the tar­get spe­cies of the Rare Inver­teb­rates in the Cairngorms pro­ject. The CNPA writes of this bee ​“Lis­ted as endangered in 7 oth­er European coun­tries, this min­ing bee is an inter­na­tion­ally import­ant part of the Park’s bril­liant insect biod­iversity. It … is closely asso­ci­ated with its only known pol­len source recor­ded in Scot­land, Devil’s‑bit Sca­bi­ous.” Tor­mentil Min­ing Bee Andrena tarsata. On the Scot­tish Biod­iv­eristy List and recor­ded with­in the red line bound­ary. It typ­ic­ally vis­its Tor­mentil flowers for which it has a strong pref­er­ence for pol­len. Will also vis­it Hare­bells and some oth­er flowers, pos­sibly only for nec­tar, not for pol­len. Nar­row-bordered Bee Hawk-moth (Hem­aris tity­us). On the Scot­tish Biod­iversity List and classed as Nation­ally Scarce. It is recor­ded with­in the red line bound­ary and is also asso­ci­ated with Devil’s‑bit Sca­bi­ous. Pine­wood Mason Bee Osmia uncinata. On the Scot­tish Biod­iversity List and is a spe­cies of Con­ser­va­tion Con­cern. It is recor­ded close to the pro­pos­al site and is likely to feed on its food plant Bird’s‑foot Tre­foil on the pro­pos­al site and on the Knoll. The rare Pine­wood Mason Bee is recor­ded feed­ing on Bird’s‑foot Tre­foil flowers on the north­ern side of the Lettoch Road a few metres from the pro­pos­al red line bound­ary. Furry Peat Hov­er­fly Serico­myia super­bi­ens recor­ded with­in the red line bound­ary. Vis­its flowers of Devil’s- bit Sca­bi­ous. Bog Hov­er­fly Sericomya silentis recor­ded from with­in the red line bound­ary. Fungi Crim­son Wax­cap Hygro­cybe punicea is recor­ded from vari­ous parts of the site near the edge of the devel­op­ment foot­print. Most, or per­haps all of these areas, will be dir­ectly impacted by devel­op­ment. With­in the CNP in recent years, there have been cumu­lat­ive impacts with loss of sites for this fungus, includ­ing at Car­rbridge, Aviemore and Kin­craig. Birds Cur­lew UK Red List of Birds of Con­ser­va­tion Con­cern (BoCC). Feed on the pro­pos­al field. Oyster­catch­er UK Amber List. Known to breed suc­cess­fully in the field in recent years. Wood­cock UK Red List. Bene­fit from good cov­er, which may be denuded depend­ing on man­age­ment; win­ter­ing birds using dense and rel­at­ively frost-free hab­it­at near the river where the ground remains unfrozen, may be impacted by dis­turb­ance from dogs and people. May lose undis­turbed day­time refuge sites. Dip­per UK Amber List. Breed nearby, and for­age in the River Nethy. Could be impacted by hab­it­at degrad­a­tion and loss in the ripari­an zone depend­ing on man­age­ment prac­tices; increased disturbance

pres­sures from people and pets; from arti­fi­cial light­ing affect­ing their prey e.g. adult river flies; young birds can be espe­cially vul­ner­able when they have left the nest but are still depend­ent on an adult. Cuckoos UK Red List. Use the site for for­aging. May be impacted by their hosts, such as Mead­ow Pip­its, loos­ing hab­it­at. Mead­ow Pip­its UK Amber List. Known to use parts of the site. Will lose hab­it­at to devel­op­ment. Thrushes includ­ing Song Thrush, Mistle Thrush, Field­fare All UK Red List. All use the grass­land for for­aging. White-tailed Eagle UK Amber List. There is an anec­dot­al report of a sea eagle tak­ing a brown hare from this site. Kestrel UK Amber List. Will lose for­aging hab­it­at. Mam­mals Brown Hare On Scot­tish Biod­iversity List. Can make con­sid­er­able use of the site and have been seen at high dens­it­ies in some years. Sev­er­al females believed to have bred on the site in some years. Pine Marten On Scot­tish Biod­iversity List. Con­sidered to use the site. Otter On Scot­tish Biod­iversity List. Otters using the area can be con­sidered to be part of the River Spey SAC pop­u­la­tion. Two fresh spraint loc­a­tions in the stretch of the R. Nethy along­side the pro­pos­al site, March 2025. Known to use the ripari­an area. There is an anec­dot­al report of an otter seen cross­ing the Lettoch Road, sug­gest­ing use of the hab­it­at cor­ridor between the River Nethy and the burns and ponds in School Wood and Cul­stank. Wild­cat Poten­tial Wild­cat hab­it­at sup­port­ing prey (such as small mam­mals and birds) and provid­ing cov­er, will be lost and degraded. There are poten­tial impacts from domest­ic cats due to inter breed­ing, dis­ease and com­pet­i­tion for wild prey. Badger Will lose hab­it­at. Prox­im­ity of Houses to the River Nethy Some pro­posed houses and gar­dens (house num­bers 11, 12, 13) are sited con­sid­er­ably too close to the River Nethy, where they would impact the very import­ant hab­it­at of the steep wooded slope of the river bank. Impacts include light­ing from house lights and garden light­ing; garden waste includ­ing lawn mow­ings being dis­posed of over the garden fence; garden plants spread­ing into valu­able ripari­an veget­a­tion; dogs being let out of the garden and impact­ing both on the banks and the river itself; people scram­bling up and down the steep banks; the cre­ation of dens; the erec­tion of zip wires. The value of ripari­an hab­it­ats is high. Space should be provided to expand and enhance the ripari­an zone. As pro­posed, the devel­op­ment would con­strain it.

Prox­im­ity of Houses to the Knoll The Knoll is the elev­ated area that is out­with the pro­pos­al site but dir­ectly adja­cent to the red line bound­ary, on the east side. House num­bers 13 – 16 are sited sig­ni­fic­antly too close to the Knoll, where they would impact the very high qual­ity hab­it­at of this area. It is an excep­tion­al area that bene­fits from being both long estab­lished and unim­proved. It is extremely vul­ner­able to degrad­a­tion due to the prox­im­ity of houses and gar­dens as pro­posed. Impacts from the prox­im­ity of houses would be likely to include dump­ing of lawn mow­ings and oth­er garden waste over the garden fence onto the Knoll; the spread and pos­sible inten­tion­al plant­ing of garden plants onto the Knoll; the effects of cat and dog mess on the soils, fungi and flora; increased tramp­ling pres­sure; light­ing from houses and gar­dens impact­ing night fly­ing spe­cies of insects which include import­ant pol­lin­at­ors. The CNPA has plans and tar­gets in place to pri­or­it­ise the con­ser­va­tion of long estab­lished flower- and fungi-rich sites, and is spend­ing staff time on seek­ing to achieve this. The Knoll is a rich and import­ant example of such a site. 12 spe­cies of wax­caps have been recor­ded from the Knoll. These include the rare Blush­ing Wax­cap Neo­hygro­cybe ovina (found in two loc­a­tions, with 12 indi­vidu­al and 6 indi­vidu­al fruit­ing bod­ies); and Crim­son Wax­cap H. punicea recor­ded from mul­tiple loc­a­tions on the Knoll as well as with­in the red line bound­ary. Both these spe­cies are on the Pro­vi­sion­al European Red List (PERL). The oth­er wax­cap spe­cies recor­ded on the Knoll are: Hygro­cybe chloro­phana H. laeta H. rus­so­cori­acea H. con­ica H. coc­cinea H. reidii H. splen­di­dissima H. can­tharel­lus H. cer­acea H. virginea

The CNPA CNAP states that a ​“good site” may con­tain 12 – 20 spe­cies of wax­caps. The Knoll is already known to con­tain 12 spe­cies, mak­ing it a good site, and this num­ber may well be added to with the fruit­ing bod­ies of oth­er wax­cap spe­cies appear­ing in oth­er years. Nation­ally import­ant site for grass­land fungi. How many species.

In 2024 there were 50 fruit­ing bod­ies of the fungus Morel (Morchella elata) on the Knoll; and some 390 flower­ing spikes of Heath Fra­grant Orch­id (Gym­nad­enia borealis).

The fol­low­ing 15 spe­cies are a selec­tion of the over 50 flower­ing plant spe­cies recor­ded from the Knoll, with notes for some spe­cies: Alpine Bis­tort Per­si­caria vivi­para There is poten­tial for the rarely recor­ded fungus (Micro­botry­um bis­tor­tar­um) that grows on Alpine Bis­tort to occur here. Com­mon Bird’s‑foot Tre­foil Lotus cor­nicu­lat­us. This is the food plant for the rare Pine­wood Mason Bee (Osmia uncinata) that is recor­ded feed­ing on Bird’s‑foot Tre­foil on the north­ern side of the Lettoch Road a few metres from the pro­pos­al red line bound­ary. It may well breed nearby and is likely to feed on the Knoll. Com­mon Bird’s‑foot Tre­foil is an import­ant food plant for the 6‑spot Bur­net moth, which has been recor­ded with­in a few metres of the pro­pos­al site red line bound­ary. Com­mon Bird’s‑foot Tre­foil is also the usu­al food plant for the scarce Dingy Skip­per but­ter­fly (Eryn­nis tages), that has not as yet been recor­ded here. Com­mon Rock Rose Heli­an­them­um num­mu­lari­um. This is the food plant for the rare but­ter­fly North­ern Brown Argus (as yet unre­cor­ded on the Knoll). Creep­ing Wil­low Salix repens Devil’s‑bit Sca­bi­ous Suc­cisa praten­sis. This is also present with­in the red line bound­ary. This is an import­ant food plant for many spe­cies includ­ing the Small Sca­bi­ous Min­ing Bee (Andrena mar­ginata) and the Nar­row- bordered Bee Hawk-moth (Hem­aris tity­us). Both these insects have been recor­ded on the pro­pos­al site with­in the red line bound­ary. Anoth­er rar­ity asso­ci­ated with Devil’s‑bit Sca­bi­ous that has not as yet been recor­ded at this loc­a­tion is Scarce Sca­bi­ous Club­horn Saw­fly Abia candens.

Fairy Flax Lin­um cath­artic­um Golden­rod Sol­id­ago vir­gaurea Hare­bell Cam­pan­ula rotun­di­fo­lia Heath Milk­wort Poly­gala ser­pyli­fo­lia Louse­wort Pedicu­lar­is sylvat­ica Pill Sedge Carex pil­lulifera Slender St John’s Wort Hyper­ic­um pulchrum Wild Thyme Thymus poly­trich­ous Yel­low Rattle Rhin­anthus minor. Import­ant as a hemi-para­site in sus­tain­ing the rich­ness of the site. Yours sin­cerely Gus Jones Convener