Com­mit­tee report

Devel­op­ment proposed:

Res­id­en­tial devel­op­ment of 35no. units, form­a­tion of access road and SuDS at Land 160M South of Lyn­stock Park Nethy Bridge

Ref­er­ence: 2025/0034/DET

Applic­ant: AW Laing

Date called-in: 24 Feb­ru­ary 2025

Recom­mend­a­tion: Approve sub­ject to con­di­tions and leg­al agreement

Case officer: Kath­er­ine Don­nach­ie, Plan­ning Officer

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Site descrip­tion, pro­pos­al and history

Site descrip­tion

1. The applic­a­tion site com­prises around 3.6 hec­tares of largely agri­cul­tur­al undu­lat­ing graz­ing land loc­ated on the south­ern edge of the vil­lage of Nethy Bridge. The land slopes east to west and also upwards from north to south. It is bounded to the east by a minor pub­lic road lead­ing south to Clachaig and Lurg. To the north lies a small res­id­en­tial devel­op­ment at Lyn­stock Park. The applic­a­tion site is sep­ar­ated from the gar­dens of these houses by an approx­im­ately 5 metres wide area of open land under­stood to be a wayleave for water infra­struc­ture. This land is out­with the applicant’s control.

2. To the west of the site lies the River Nethy which is a trib­u­tary of the River Spey, and part of the River Spey Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion (SAC). The applic­a­tion site runs down to this river and the lower part of site, beside the river, is des­ig­nated on SEPA’s flood maps as being at risk of river flood­ing. In terms of des­ig­nated sites, apart from the River Spey SAC, the Cairngorms SAC and the Aber­nethy Forest Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Area (SPA) are with­in 5 km of the applic­a­tion site lying to the west on the oth­er side of the River Nethy.

3. There are no lis­ted build­ings of archi­tec­tur­al and his­tor­ic import­ance with­in the imme­di­ate vicin­ity of the site.

4. To the east of the site, on the oth­er side of the pub­lic road, is wood­land with Garlynne Moss bey­ond. To the south of the site the land slopes up to a small, veget­ated knoll with agri­cul­tur­al land and shrubs/​woodland bey­ond this. There are some trees with­in the west­ern part of the site and ripari­an plant­ing along the river­side. There are also areas of juni­per along the road­side to the east and a small ditch type fea­ture with­in the field close to the west­ern bound­ary with the river and towards Lettoch Park. An elec­tri­city line crosses the site.

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Pro­pos­al

1. The draw­ings and doc­u­ments asso­ci­ated with this applic­a­tion are lis­ted below and are avail­able on the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity web­site unless noted otherwise:

http://​www​.eplan​ningcnpa​.co​.uk/​o​n​l​i​n​e​-​a​p​p​l​i​c​a​t​i​o​n​s​/​a​p​p​l​i​c​a​t​i​o​n​D​e​t​a​i​l​s​.​d​o​?​a​c​t​i​v​e​T​a​b​=​s​u​m​m​a​r​y​&​k​e​y​V​a​l​=​S​2​H​0​6​U​S​I​0CP00

Title	Draw­ing Num­ber	Date on Plan*	Date Received
Plan — Gen­er­al Arrange­ment 3D views 04	2104-PL00-303	02/02/25	20/02/25
Plan — BT1 Afford­able 3B5P semi detached	2104.00.20.00	01/11/23	20/02/25
Plan — BT1 Private 3B5P semi detached	2104.00.20.00	01/11/23	20/02/25
Plan — BT2 Afford­able 4B8P detached	2104.00.20.00	01/11/23	20/02/25
Plan — BT2 Private 4B8P detached	2104.00.20.00	01/11/23	20/02/25
Plan — BT3 Private 5B10P detached	2104.00.20.00	01/11/23	20/02/25
Plan — Plot and Infra­struc­ture Stage Land­scape Main­ten­ance Plan	101.24 SL-03	21/05/25	22/05/25
Plan — Plot and Infra­struc­ture Stage Land­scape Plan	101.24 SL-02	28/01/25	22/05/25
Plan — Over­all land­scape proposals	101.24 SL-01	21/05/25	22/05/25
Plan — Loc­a­tion Plan — Exist­ing site layout	SK-00 – 002	01/05/24	20/02/25
Plan — Pro­posed Site Lay­out 35 units	PL90-100	21/05/25	22/05/25
Plan — Pro­posed Site Lay­out — 35 Units	PL90-102	21/05/25	22/05/25
Plan — Road lay­out kerbing	DR-C-0102	23/05/25	23/05/25
Plan — Road Lay­out — surfacing	DR-C-0101	23/05/25	23/05/25
Plan — Road lay­out swept path (refuse)	DR-C-103	23/05/25	23/05/25
Plan — Road Lay­out Plan	DR-C-100	23/05/25	23/05/25
Plan — Road Lay­out — addi­tion­al surfacing	DR-C-104	23/05/25	23/05/25
Plan — Site Sections	PL90-200	08/05/25	22/05/25
Plan — Over­land flow route	DR-C-149	23/05/25	23/05/25
Plan — Drain­age Layout	DR-C-150	23/05/25	23/05/25
Plan — SUDS area layout	DR-C-151	23/05/25	23/05/25
Plan — Gen­er­al Arrange­ment 3D views 01	2104-PL00-300	02/02/25	20/02/25
Plan — Gen­er­al Arrange­ment 3D views 02	2104-PL00-301	02/02/25	20/02/25
Plan — Gen­er­al Arrange­ment 3D views 03	2104-PL00-302	02/02/25	20/02/25
Oth­er — Phase 1 Hab­it­at and Walkover Pro­tec­ted Ter­restri­al Mam­mal Sur­vey Report	Alba Eco­logy	01/11/23	27/02/25
Oth­er — Con­struc­tion Meth­od Statement	A W Laing		06/03/25
Oth­er — Biod­iversity Statement			12/03/25
Oth­er — Otter Pro­tec­tion Plan	Alba Eco­logy	01/01/25	12/03/25
Oth­er — Com­ments on Objec­tions and Responses	Colin Arm­strong Architects		21/05/25
Oth­er — Drain­age Impact Assessment	C7581	21/05/25	22/05/25
Oth­er — House­hold­ers Biod­iversity Note			22/05/25
Oth­er — Plan­ning Image 1			21/05/25
Oth­er — Plan­ning Image 2			21/05/25
Oth­er — Afford­able Hous­ing Statement	2104		20/02/25
Oth­er — Design and Access Statement	2104		20/02/25
Oth­er — Flood Risk Assessment	13036	08/05/24	20/02/25
Oth­er — Nat­ur­al Her­it­age Desk Study		01/01/24	20/02/25
Oth­er — Pre Applic­a­tion Con­sulta­tion Report	Colin Arm­strong	01/01/24	20/02/25
Oth­er — Land­scape Man­age­ment and Main­ten­ance Plan	Keith Wood Land­scape Design	19/05/25	22/05/25

1. *Where no spe­cif­ic day of month has been provided on the plan, the sys­tem defaults to the 1^st of the month. This applic­a­tion seeks full plan­ning per­mis­sion for a plot lay­out of 35 res­id­en­tial plots, with asso­ci­ated land­scap­ing, drain­age and roads infra­struc­ture. Full details of the road lay­out, land­scap­ing and drain­age have been sup­plied along with the divi­sion of plots. Indic­at­ive house types and design brief have been included, but fur­ther applic­a­tions will be required for all new houses in terms of the detail of their fin­ishes, design, and sit­ing with­in the pro­posed plots. Plans of the pro­pos­als are included in Appendix 1.

2. Access is pro­posed via a new access point onto Lettoch Road, which will loop south­wards around the site to serve the pro­posed plots. A foot­path link back towards Nethy Bridge to join to the exist­ing net­work is pro­posed, with exist­ing dropped kerb build out fea­tures on the pub­lic road north of the site removed and the road resur­faced (as recom­men­ded by the Roads Author­ity) and a cross­ing point provided by way of dropped kerbs.

3. Two land­scaped cor­ridors are pro­posed through the middle of the site run­ning west from the pub­lic road towards the river. These are around 18 metres wide and will con­tain water fea­tures by way of rain gar­dens, grass­land and wet mead­ow seed mixes and plant­ing com­pris­ing a mix­ture of nat­ive trees and shrubs. Paths are pro­posed through these cor­ridors from either side of the loop road. An approx­im­ately 5 metres land­scape strip is also pro­posed along the north­ern site bound­ary abut­ting the strip of open land beside Lyn­stock Park with a mix­ture of scots pine, alder, birch and row­an trees to be planted. These land­scaped areas will lead into the lower part of the site which lies with­in the flood plain. This lower part of the site will be retained as open space and left undis­turbed to allow for nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion. A play area is pro­posed in the south­ern part of the site beside the south­ern­most wild­life cor­ridor, described as a trim trail play area / open space. No details of play equip­ment have been provided at this stage.

4. It is pro­posed to con­nect to pub­lic water and drain­age sup­plies with a pump­ing sta­tion pro­posed. Sur­face water from the road sys­tem will be dealt with by a Sus­tain­able Drain­age Sys­tem (SuDS) com­pris­ing sur­face water drain­age sys­tem lead­ing to a SuDS atten­u­ation pond in the west­ern part of site with out­fall to the River Nethy. The pond will be planted with wet mead­ow mix and be around one metre deep. It is pro­posed that it will be adop­ted by Scot­tish Water and accessed by a stretch of grasscrete track off the main loop road. The pump­ing sta­tion will be loc­ated here too.

5. The applic­a­tion is a major applic­a­tion under the terms of the Scot­tish Government’s hier­archy of devel­op­ment whereby pre applic­a­tion con­sulta­tion with the com­munity was required before sub­mis­sion. It is sup­por­ted by a num­ber of doc­u­ments as follows:

6. Nat­ur­al Her­it­age Inform­a­tion Desk Study – notes the main hab­it­at is arable pas­ture with some des­ig­nated sites adjacent.

7. Hab­it­at Sur­vey and Pro­tec­ted Spe­cies Report – con­cluded that the major­ity of the site was improved grass­land with some semi-improved neut­ral grass­land, a stand of Scots pine and an alder, and a patch of juni­per scrub. Signs of occa­sion­al otter use in the study area were noted whereby an otter spe­cies pro­tec­tion plan was required along with pre-con­struc­tion sur­vey checks. Mature live and dead Scots pine on site held some bat roost poten­tial and it was recom­men­ded that these and juni­per scrub along the edge of the site be retained if pos­sible and marshy hab­it­ats too. Mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures for loss of hab­it­ats and enhance­ment meas­ures to improve the eco­lo­gic­al con­di­tion of the site were recom­men­ded by way of: addi­tion­al plant­ing along bound­ar­ies to provide cov­er for song­birds; increas­ing the eco­lo­gic­al value of retained trees e.g. by plant­ing of scrub spe­cies and wild­flowers; pro­vi­sion of bird and bat boxes; and increas­ing the abund­ance of wild­flowers to increase spe­cies rich­ness and provide an increase in nec­tar for bees.

8. Otter Spe­cies Pro­tec­tion Plan – recom­mends a pre-con­struc­tion sur­vey be car­ried out to ascer­tain up to date otter use of the area and to inform the need for any license from NatureScot. Recom­men­ded actions include tool­box talks, mark­ing out of otter sens­it­ive zones, and cap­ping of exposed pipes.

9. Biod­iversity State­ment – sum­mar­ises the biod­iversity enhance­ments being delivered by the development.

10. House­hold­ers Biod­iversity Note – high­light­ing to new house­hold­ers the envir­on­ment­al value of their sur­round­ings and how to pro­tect this value e.g. man­age­ment of garden waste, suit­able plant­ing spe­cies in gar­dens, and keep­ing dogs on leads dur­ing bird breed­ing season.

11. Pre Applic­a­tion Con­sulta­tion (PAC) report – sum­mar­ising the pre-applic­a­tion con­sulta­tion with the com­munity. This com­prised two pub­lic events in Novem­ber 2024 held in Nethy Com­munity Hall. Around 15 – 25 people atten­ded each event. Focus event was also held with around 10 res­id­ents of Lyn­stock Park, web­site was set up, and the agent addressed the loc­al Com­munity Coun­cil meet­ing. A spread­sheet sum­mar­ising how com­ments have been addressed is included.

12. Design and Access State­ment – this explains how the design has evolved and why the pro­posed lay­out was chosen. Visu­al­isa­tions are included and the doc­u­ment con­cludes that a depar­ture from the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (LDP) is jus­ti­fied on the grounds that the applic­a­tion site bound­ar­ies are defined by exist­ing land­scape and topo­graph­ic­al fea­tures, per­mit­ting a more effi­cient, coher­ent, dis­tinct­ive, safe and eco­nom­ic­ally viable devel­op­ment, with more mean­ing­ful green space incor­por­ated into the design, as well as help­ing to min­im­ise the need for impor­ted fill. A set of design prin­ciples are included to guide future devel­op­ment on the plots.

13. Con­struc­tion Meth­od State­ment – focus­sing on noise, dust, pol­lu­tion, traffic man­age­ment and envir­on­ment­al issues.

14. Land­scape Main­ten­ance and Man­age­ment Plan – set­ting out the land­scape and biod­iversity aims and how these are being achieved.

15. Land­scape plant­ing and main­ten­ance plans – have been provided detail­ing pro­posed plant­ing and main­ten­ance across the site. This explains that it is pro­posed that the land­scap­ing will be main­tained by a factor.

16. Drain­age Impact Assess­ment and drain­age plan – explain­ing that soil con­di­tions are not suit­able for infilt­ra­tion and set­ting out the pro­posed SuDS solu­tion for the development.

17. Flood Risk Assess­ment – explains this is a site-spe­cif­ic assess­ment informed by hydraul­ic mod­el­ling and topo­graph­ic sur­vey work which iden­ti­fied that the lower lying part of the site is at flood risk from the River Nethy. The remainder of the site is suit­able for devel­op­ment. Recom­mends that ground and / or build­ing levels be raised suf­fi­ciently to achieve recom­men­ded min­im­um floor levels and free­board togeth­er with imple­ment­a­tion of SuDS com­pli­ant site drain­age. Con­cludes that there is a flood free access to and egress from the site along Lettoch Road.

18. Afford­able Hous­ing State­ment – sets out that it is pro­posed to deliv­er afford­able hous­ing on anoth­er site under the applicant’s con­trol in Nethy Bridge (Sta­tion Yard site) and explains the reas­on­ing for this.

19. Site Sec­tion Plans – have been provided to show how devel­op­ment could sit in the land­scape – the indic­at­ive 1:200-year flood event is shown on these sections.

20. Visu­al­isa­tions – to show how the houses could poten­tially sit in the landscape.

21. Indic­at­ive house type plans – includ­ing 3 bed­room semi-detached, 4 bed­room detached and 5‑bedroom detached houses of 1 ½ or 1 ¾ storey design with dormer features.

22. Road lay­out plans – includ­ing swept path ana­lys­is plans, sur­fa­cing and kerb plans.

23. Fol­low­ing dis­cus­sion with Park Author­ity staff and con­sid­er­a­tion of rep­res­ent­a­tions received, the applic­a­tion was amended slightly to provide a lar­ger buf­fer to the knoll area to the south and to the river to the west. This affected the road lay­out at the south end of the devel­op­ment, redu­cing the size of the play area.

His­tory

1. PRE/2024/0015: Pre applic­a­tion advice was provided for this site in 2024 with Park Author­ity staff provid­ing input to the High­land Coun­cil pre-applic­a­tion pro­cess. Issues to be addressed and inform­a­tion require­ments were set out.

2. 2022/0305/DET: Sta­tion site Nethy­bridge – erec­tion of 21 houses approved fol­low­ing noti­fic­a­tion to Scot­tish Min­is­ters in rela­tion to SEPA objec­tion on flooding.

3. 2019/0222/PPP: Erec­tion of 7 houses (5 afford­able) at Lettoch Road, on oppos­ite (east) side of pub­lic road from applic­a­tion site, was refused by the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee in Janu­ary 2020 with a sub­sequent appeal against this decision dis­missed by the Dir­ect­or­ate of Plan­ning and Envir­on­ment­al Appeals (DPEA). Reas­ons for refus­al related to loss of wood­land and adverse land­scape impacts which were not con­sidered to be out­weighed by the bene­fits of deliv­er­ing afford­able housing.

4. 2020/0064/DET: Erec­tion of 20 houses and asso­ci­ated infra­struc­ture at School Road and Craigmore Road, Nethy­bridge (close to school) on north­ern side of Nethy­bridge was refused by the CNPA Plan­ning Com­mit­tee in Septem­ber 2020 with an appeal against refus­al dis­missed by the Plan­ning and Envir­on­ment­al Appeals Divi­sion (DPEA). Reas­ons for refus­al related to loss of ancient wood­land, con­trary to emer­ging LDP with any bene­fits in deliv­ery of afford­able hous­ing not out­weighed by the loss of ancient woodland.

5. 22/01536/PIP: erec­tion of house to far south of applic­a­tion site near Moun­tain Bear lodge dealt with by the High­land Coun­cil (THC) and refused on land­scape, char­ac­ter and flood­ing grounds

Hab­it­at Reg­u­la­tions Appraisal

1. A Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al (HRA) has been under­taken to con­sider the poten­tial effects of the devel­op­ment upon the con­ser­va­tion object­ives of European sites. The HRA doc­u­ment and an accom­pa­ny­ing caper­cail­lie assess­ment is attached as Appen­dices 2 and 3. The European sites in this case are: the River Spey Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion (SAC) des­ig­nated for its Atlantic sal­mon, fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sels (FWPM), sea lamprey and otter interests; the Aber­nethy Forest Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion (SPA) des­ig­nated for its osprey, cross­bill and caper­cail­lie interests; and the Cairngorms SAC des­ig­nated for its hab­it­ats and otter interests. The River Nethy bounds the site and is part of the River Spey SAC, with the Aber­nethy SPA and Cairngorms SAC loc­ated to the far west of the site on the oth­er side of the river.

2. The HRA con­siders that there are likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects upon the qual­i­fy­ing interests of the River Spey SAC in terms of all of its qual­i­fy­ing interests relat­ing to the poten­tial for pol­lu­tion from con­struc­tion activ­it­ies and, in the case of otter, from dis­turb­ance. With the Cairngorms SAC there is not con­sidered to be any likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects in terms of the hab­it­at interests, but sim­il­arly to the River Spey SAC, there are likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects for otter. There are also con­sidered to be likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects in terms of the Aber­nethy Forest SPA with respect to caper­cail­lie. These relate to poten­tial recre­ation­al dis­turb­ance and the poten­tial for increased use of the woods to the north of the site which may affect its use as a step­ping stone / con­nect­ing hab­it­at for dis­pers­ing caper­cail­lie mov­ing between the Aber­nethy SPA and the Craigmore SPA fur­ther north.

3. The HRA has con­cluded that these likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects can be sat­is­fact­or­ily addressed by suit­able mit­ig­a­tion. In the case of the River Spey and Cairngorms SACs, this relates to pro­vi­sion of detailed pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion plan to ensure no pol­lu­tion of the River Nethy dur­ing con­struc­tion, light­ing plan to ensure no dis­turb­ance to otter and oth­er spe­cies in the ripari­an cor­ridor, otter pro­tec­tion meas­ures, main­ten­ance and man­age­ment of the SuDs sys­tem, and a house­hold­er inform­a­tion pack to explain to res­id­ents the value of sur­round­ing hab­it­ats and good prac­tice to ensure no dam­age to these hab­it­ats e.g. dis­pos­al of garden waste, light­ing, plant­ing with­in gar­dens. For the Aber­nethy Woods SPA, mit­ig­a­tion involves the pro­vi­sion of open space with­in the devel­op­ment to enable dog walk­ing on site (with suit­able land­scap­ing to deter users from access­ing the riverb­anks) with appro­pri­ate inform­a­tion sign here, along with pro­vi­sion of house­hold­er inform­a­tion pack to edu­cate res­id­ents on appro­pri­ate dog walk­ing beha­viours to ensure no dis­turb­ance to caper­cail­lie in the wider area. These meas­ures can be secured by plan­ning con­di­tions with appro­pri­ate areas of open space already pro­posed with­in the site.

4. On this basis, it is con­cluded that the con­ser­va­tion object­ives of the des­ig­nated sites will be met and there will not be an adverse effect on site integ­rity of the des­ig­nated sites. NatureScot have con­firmed agree­ment with these conclusions.

Devel­op­ment plan context

Policies

Nation­al policy	Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 (NPF4) Scot­land 2045
	(Policies rel­ev­ant to the assess­ment of this applic­a­tion are marked with a cross (x))
Policy 1	Tack­ling the cli­mate and nature crises	X
Policy 2	Cli­mate mit­ig­a­tion and adaptation	X
Policy 3	Biod­iversity	X
Policy 4	Nat­ur­al places	X
Policy 5	Soils	X
Policy 6	Forestry, wood­land and trees	X
Policy 7	His­tor­ic assets and places	X
Policy 8	Green belts
Policy 9	Brown­field, vacant and derel­ict land, and empty buildings	X
Policy 11	Energy
Policy 12	Zero waste	X
Policy 13	Sus­tain­able transport	X
Policy 14	Design, qual­ity and place	X
Policy 15	Loc­al liv­ing and 20 minute neighbourhoods	X
Policy 16	Qual­ity homes	X
Policy 17	Rur­al homes
Policy 18	Infra­struc­ture first	X
Policy 19	Heat­ing and cooling
Policy 20	Blue and green infrastructure	X
Policy 21	Play, recre­ation and sport	X
Policy 22	Flood risk and water management	X
Policy 23	Health and safety	X
Policy 24	Digit­al infrastructure
Policy 25	Com­munity wealth building
Policy 26	Busi­ness and industry
Policy 27	City, town, loc­al and com­mer­cial centres
Policy 28	Retail
Policy 29	Rur­al development	X
Policy 30	Tour­ism
Policy 31	Cul­ture and creativity
Policy 32	Aquacul­ture
Policy 33	Min­er­als
Stra­tegic policy	Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2022 – 2027
	Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (2021)
Loc­al plan policy	(Policies rel­ev­ant to the assess­ment of this applic­a­tion are marked with a cross (x))
Policy 1	New hous­ing development	X
Policy 2	Sup­port­ing eco­nom­ic growth	X
Policy 3	Design and placemaking	X
Policy 4	Nat­ur­al heritage	X
Policy 5	Land­scape	X
Policy 6	The sit­ing and design of digit­al com­mu­nic­a­tions equipment
Policy 7	Renew­able energy	X
Policy 8	Open space, sport and recreation	X
Policy 9	Cul­tur­al heritage	X
Policy 10	Resources	X
Policy 11	Developer oblig­a­tions	X

1. All new devel­op­ment pro­pos­als require to be assessed in rela­tion to policies con­tained in the adop­ted Devel­op­ment Plan which com­prises Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 (NPF4) and the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 (LDP) The full word­ing of policies can be found at:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/national-planning-framework‑4/documents/

and at:

https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​w​p​-​c​o​n​t​e​n​t​/​u​p​l​o​a​d​s​/​2​0​2​1​/​0​3​/​C​N​P​A​-​L​D​P​-​2​0​2​1​-​w​e​b.pdf

Plan­ning guidance

1. Sup­ple­ment­ary guid­ance also sup­ports the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan and provides more details about how to com­ply with the policies. Guid­ance that is rel­ev­ant to this applic­a­tion is marked with a cross (x).

Policy 1	Hous­ing sup­ple­ment­ary guid­ance	X
Policy 2	Sup­port­ing eco­nom­ic growth non-stat­utory guidance
Policy 3	Design and place­mak­ing non-stat­utory guidance	X
Policy 4	Nat­ur­al her­it­age non-stat­utory guidance	X
Policy 5	Land­scape non-stat­utory guidance	X
Policy 7	Renew­able energy non-stat­utory guidance
Policy 8	Open space, sport and recre­ation non-stat­utory guidance	X
Policy 9	Cul­tur­al her­it­age non-stat­utory guidance	X
Policy 10	Resources non-stat­utory guidance	X
Policy 11	Developer oblig­a­tions sup­ple­ment­ary guidance	X

Con­sulta­tions

1. A sum­mary of the main issues raised by con­sul­tees now follows:

2. SEPA have no objec­tions on the grounds of flood risk. They note that, in line with Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 Policy 22, a pre­cau­tion­ary approach should be taken to flood risk by avoid­ing devel­op­ment with­in areas at risk of flood­ing, not­ing that the site is partly with­in an area at risk of flood­ing from the River Nethy based on their future flood maps. They fur­ther note that they had sig­ni­fic­ant pre applic­a­tion dis­cus­sion with the applic­ant to ensure that this pre­cau­tion­ary approach was taken. They have provided detailed com­ment­ary on the applicant’s Flood Risk Assess­ment, not­ing that the site lay­out shows all prop­er­ties to be loc­ated on ground with exist­ing levels above the 1 in 200 year includ­ing cli­mate change flood level as determ­ined by the high­er rain­fall run-off flows. Con­sequently, they are sat­is­fied that the pro­posed dwell­ings avoid the area of flood risk. In addi­tion to this, inform­a­tion on fin­ished floor levels demon­strates that the required 0.6m free­board will be provided above design flood levels as determ­ined by the high­er rain­fall run­off flows. It was pre­vi­ously con­firmed that there was to be no landrais­ing with­in the flood extent of the rain­fall run­off mod­el­ling, and they are sat­is­fied that the site sec­tions con­firm that any landrais­ing is min­im­al in this area and set back from the flood extent

3. They finally note that garden grounds for plots 9 and 10 will be partly loc­ated with­in the flood risk area. Whilst they have no objec­tion on these grounds, they recom­mend that the Plan­ning Author­ity con­siders remov­ing per­mit­ted devel­op­ment rights for these plots to ensure there is no impact on the flood­plain as a res­ult of any future devel­op­ment con­struc­ted with­in the garden grounds.

4. Scot­tish Water has no objec­tions. They note that the devel­op­ment lies with­in the Aviemore Water Treat­ment Works catch­ment. The developer will require to sub­mit a pre-devel­op­ment inquiry form so they can fully appraise the pro­pos­als. They have con­firmed that there is cur­rently suf­fi­cient capa­city in the Nethy Bridge wastewa­ter treat­ment works for a foul only con­nec­tion. Fur­ther invest­ig­a­tions may be required once a form­al applic­a­tion for con­nec­tion is made. They can­not reserve capa­city at their works and will review capa­city once con­sent is gran­ted and a form­al applic­a­tion made. They have con­firmed that there are no Scot­tish Water drink­ing catch­ments or water abstrac­tion sources in the area that may be affected. They also note that they have live infra­struc­ture in the prox­im­ity of the devel­op­ment whereby the applic­ant should identi­fy any con­flicts and con­tact the Asset Impact Team for an appraisal.

5. SSEN Trans­mis­sion was con­sul­ted as there is an elec­tri­city line cross­ing the site. They have con­firmed that there are no issues from their per­spect­ive as their nearest asset is over 2 km away. How­ever, they recom­men­ded con­tact with the loc­al elec­tric­al dis­tri­bu­tion net­work SSEN Dis­tri­bu­tion who have con­firmed that there are 11 kW lines cross­ing the site whereby the applic­ant will require to take this into account and make an applic­a­tion for diver­sion / alter­a­tions at their own cost.

6. Police Scot­land Com­munity Safety Officer has no objec­tions not­ing that the loc­a­tion is with­in a low crime area. The officer has made some recom­mend­a­tions to reduce crime includ­ing that any foot­paths be well-lit and free of poten­tial hid­ing places, bound­ar­ies between pub­lic and private space should be clearly defined, open spaces should have fea­tures which pre­vent unau­thor­ised vehicu­lar access and any plant­ing should not impede good nat­ur­al sur­veil­lance, and a main­ten­ance plan should be implemented.

7. It is also recom­men­ded that the developer con­tin­ues to liaise with the Police Scot­land ​‘Design­ing-Out Crime’ ser­vice at each stage of the devel­op­ment and seeks to attain the ​‘Secured by Design’ award for the res­id­en­tial prop­er­ties as this demon­strates that safety and secur­ity have been pro­act­ively considered.

8. Nature Scot was con­sul­ted on the Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tion Apprais­al and agree that the devel­op­ment has poten­tial to impact sev­er­al des­ig­nated sites. They have also con­firmed that they agree with the con­clu­sions of the HRA that any adverse impacts upon the des­ig­nated sites can be avoided sub­ject to the mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures out­lined in the HRA report.

9. Spey Fish­ery Board was con­sul­ted, and no com­ments have been provided to date.

10. High­land Coun­cil Flood Risk Man­age­ment Team has no objec­tions on flood­ing or drain­age grounds sub­ject to a plan­ning con­di­tion being attached requir­ing sub­mis­sion of a fully detailed Drain­age Impact Assess­ment (DIA).

11. In terms of flood­ing, they note that SEPA’s online stra­tegic flood map­ping shows a large part of the site lies with­in the 1:200 years plus cli­mate change flu­vi­al flood plain of the River Nethy. It also indic­ates that there are two small, isol­ated areas of plu­vi­al flood­ing in the west of the site with an appro­pri­ately designed drain­age sys­tem being able to ensure risk from this is low. Avoid­ance of the flu­vi­al flood plain would address any risk from flu­vi­al flooding.

12. The Team con­siders the applic­ants Flood Risk Assess­ment (FRA) to be accept­able. They note that it shows that the actu­al area of the site at risk of flood­ing is less than is sug­ges­ted by the stra­tegic map­ping and that it con­cludes that the min­im­um fin­ished floor level in the low­est part of the site should be no less than 235.1metre AOD, which includes an allow­ance of 600 mm free­board. They fur­ther note that the sub­mit­ted plans indic­ate that the lay­out meets the require­ments of the FRA, demon­strat­ing that the houses would be suit­ably elev­ated above the 200 plus cli­mate change flood plain.

13. With regard to drain­age the Team note that the pro­pos­al is for an atten­u­ation strategy using a SuDS basin sized for the 30 years plus cli­mate change event with the remainder of any storm­wa­ter (up to 200 years plus cli­mate change event) dis­char­ging to the lower ground. This is con­sidered accept­able although detail will be required to demon­strate that any flow reach­ing the River Nethy will not cause erosion.

14. The Team also noted that as there are known flood risks fur­ther down the catch­ment at high­er return peri­od storm events any ​“bet­ter­ment” provided for example in the free­board of the SUDS basin would be wel­comed and should be high­lighted in the detailed DIA they recom­mend be secured by con­di­tion. The Team had no objec­tion to the dis­charge loc­a­tion or rates and con­sidered that there appeared to be suf­fi­cient space to enlarge the SUDS basin if neces­sary. They also noted that the applic­ant pro­poses to vest the drain­age infra­struc­ture to Scot­tish Water with the High­land Coun­cil adopt­ing rel­ev­ant remain­ing parts.

15. The applicant’s con­sidered these points and sub­mit­ted a revised Drain­age Impact Assess­ment (DIA). The Flood Risk Man­age­ment Team has con­sidered this DIA and note that it high­lights that there would be room in the SuDS basin to store the 200 year plus cli­mate change storm event with some out­line cal­cu­la­tions (includ­ing dis­charge rates) provided. They fur­ther note that the revised DIA and plans now sug­gest that only water atten­u­ated to 200 years plus cli­mate change would enter the River Nethy dir­ectly while exceedance water would dis­charge to lower ground with­in the site bound­ary. This is con­sidered to be accept­able. The Team also accepts that a liner is not required in the SuDS basin due to the clay con­tent of the ground here.

16. The Team advise that some final details should be secured by con­di­tion requir­ing a detailed DIA to secure inform­a­tion includ­ing fur­ther net­work sim­u­la­tions, state­ment describ­ing exceedance flow to lower ground and its man­age­ment, cross sec­tion with anti­cip­ated SuDS basin levels at vari­ous cli­mate change stages and details of the out­flow struc­ture include. Meth­ods of rain­fall cal­cu­la­tions to reflect best meth­ods should also be included in the final DIA.

17. High­land Coun­cil Trans­port­a­tion Team wel­come the widen­ing of the U2036 Lettoch Road, remov­al of his­tor­ic ker­bed build outs along Lettoch Road to the west, and the pro­vi­sion of a road­side foot­way which will provide ded­ic­ated ped­es­tri­an con­nectiv­ity between the site and exist­ing foot­ways. Details of this will need to be agreed through Road Con­struc­tion Con­sent process.

18. The Team recom­mends that the exist­ing speed lim­it gate­way be relo­cated fur­ther east than ori­gin­ally shown (with the developer respons­ible for the costs of the sup­port­ing traffic reg­u­la­tion orders) and then enhanced with suit­able fea­tures to enhance its visu­al impact. They also recom­mend that con­sid­er­a­tion is giv­en to address­ing exist­ing issues with nar­row car­riage­way and lim­ited for­ward vis­ib­il­ity beside 39 and 40 Lyn­stock Cres­cent to the north of the site in view of the increased traffic from the devel­op­ment in order to avoid over­run­ning of the verges or foot­way. The Team advise that ideally the car­riage­way should be widened if there is suf­fi­cient space or else a traffic man­age­ment arrange­ment will be needed to ensure the safe two-way move­ment of traffic through this sec­tion of road. Con­di­tions will be required to address these points.

19. With regard to non-vehicle con­nectiv­ity, the Team wel­come the pro­posed con­nec­tions to exist­ing foot­ways. They note rep­res­ent­a­tions have raised the need for a ded­ic­ated walk­ing and cyc­ling route to the school. Whilst such facil­it­ies do help sup­port more cyc­ling and walk­ing it is not clear how this could be prac­tic­ally provided without some remote land being offered up, with no prac­tic­al oppor­tun­it­ies with­in the exist­ing road bound­ary to widen exist­ing foot­paths for shared cycle use. Con­sequently, cyc­lists will need to share the car­riage­way with oth­er road users as they already do. The Team has noted that if the applic­ant is aware of any oppor­tun­it­ies to enhance walk­ing and cyc­ling con­nec­tions then they would be open to under­stand­ing what these may be.

20. In terms of the intern­al site road lay­out, the Team are con­tent with arrange­ments for refuse vehicles and wel­come the incor­por­a­tion of facil­it­ies for safe ped­es­tri­an move­ment – the final details of which will need to be agreed through the Road Con­struc­tion Con­sent pro­cess. Suit­able in cur­til­age park­ing and elec­tric vehicle char­ging pro­vi­sion will be required for all houses. As all units appear to have their own gar­dens there is no need for ded­ic­ated cycle park­ing facil­it­ies in this case. Sim­il­arly, there appears to be suf­fi­cient space with­in gar­dens for bin stor­age. Pro­posed sur­face water drain­age arrange­ments by way of shared roads and cur­til­age drain­age and SuDS sys­tem should provide the required level of treat­ment with Scot­tish Water (bur­ied sew­ers, deten­tion basin and piped out­fall) and High­land Coun­cil (road gul­lies and tails) to adopt the vari­ous sys­tems — final details to be agreed through the Road Con­struc­tion Con­sent process.

21. On receipt of revised plans which seek to deliv­er a wider eco­logy / land­scape buf­fer between the plots and the Knoll to the south, the Team have advised they have no objec­tions in prin­ciple to this change in respect of the altered road lay­out at the far east­ern end of the loop road.

22. High­land Coun­cil Hous­ing Devel­op­ment has advised that the site is loc­ated in a vil­lage with hous­ing needs. They note that the developer has reques­ted that the afford­able hous­ing pro­vi­sion be loc­ated on an altern­at­ive site at Sta­tion Road Nethy Bridge where plan­ning con­sent has been gran­ted for hous­ing and which is situ­ated in a more cent­ral pos­i­tion in the vil­lage. The Team sup­port this as the num­ber of hous­ing units on that site exceeds the com­bined afford­able hous­ing require­ment of both sites togeth­er, thereby offer­ing betterment.

23. High­land Coun­cil Envir­on­ment­al Health team was con­sul­ted, and no com­ments have been provided to date.

24. High­land Coun­cil Forestry Officer has noted that trees around the site, whilst not recor­ded in the Nat­ive Wood­land Sur­vey of Scot­land nor the Ancient Wood­land Invent­ory, have visu­al and eco­lo­gic­al value and are worthy of reten­tion and safe­guard­ing. It is recom­men­ded that a tree pro­tec­tion plan be provided and tree plant­ing sched­ule to accom­pany the plant­ing plan.

25. High­land Coun­cil Archae­ology Officer has noted that the site lies with­in an area of archae­olo­gic­al poten­tial and recom­mends that a con­di­tion be attached requir­ing sub­mis­sion of a