Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Item 5 Appendix 2 24 April 2026 Page 1 of 9

Agenda item 5

Appendix 2

2025/0167/DET

Hab­it­ats reg­u­la­tions appraisal

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HAB­IT­ATS REG­U­LA­TIONS APPRAISAL

Plan­ning ref­er­ence and pro­pos­al inform­a­tion	2025/0167/DET Con­struc­tion of forestry extrac­tion track, track upgrad­ing. Land 465M NW Of Golden Acre Glen Road Newtonmore.
Appraised by	Scott Shanks, Eco­lo­gic­al Advice Officer
Date	30/09/2025 UPDATED 03/12/2025
Checked by	Anne Elli­ott NatureScot Oper­a­tions Officer — Cent­ral Highland
Date	13/02/2026

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INFORM­A­TION

European site details

Name of European site(s) poten­tially affected

1) River Spey SAC

Note: Insh Marshes SAC, River-Spey-Insh Marshes SPA and River Spey – Insh Marshes Ram­sar were ini­tially con­sidered but sub­sequently screened out due to dis­tance from poten­tial engin­eer­ing works. See SEPA guid­ance on screen­ing dis­tances for aquat­ic pro­tec­ted sites: wat-sg-90-sepa-conservation-procedure-for-sacs-spas-and-sssis.pdf.

Qual­i­fy­ing interest(s)

1) River Spey SAC

• Otter
• Fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sel (FWPM)
• Sea lamprey
• Atlantic sal­mon

Con­ser­va­tion object­ives for qual­i­fy­ing interests

1) River Spey SAC

Con­ser­va­tion Object­ive 2. To ensure that the integ­rity of the River Spey SAC is restored by meet­ing object­ives 2a, 2b, 2c for each qual­i­fy­ing fea­ture (and 2^d for fresh­wa­ter pearl mussel):

• 2b. Restore the dis­tri­bu­tion of fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sel through­out the site
• 2c. Restore the hab­it­ats sup­port­ing fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sel with­in the site and avail­ab­il­ity of food
• 2^d. Restore the dis­tri­bu­tion and viab­il­ity of fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sel host spe­cies and their sup­port­ing habitats

• 2a. Restore the pop­u­la­tion of fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sel as a viable com­pon­ent of the site

• 2b. Main­tain the dis­tri­bu­tion of sea lamprey through­out the site

• 2c. Main­tain the hab­it­ats sup­port­ing sea lamprey with­in the site and avail­ab­il­ity of food

• 2a. Main­tain the pop­u­la­tion of sea lamprey as a viable com­pon­ent of the site

• 2b. Restore the dis­tri­bu­tion of Atlantic sal­mon through­out the site

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• 2c. Restore the hab­it­ats sup­port­ing Atlantic sal­mon with­in the site and avail­ab­il­ity of food

• 2a. Restore the pop­u­la­tion of Atlantic sal­mon, includ­ing range of genet­ic types, as a viable com­pon­ent of the site

• 2b. Main­tain the dis­tri­bu­tion of otter through­out the site

• 2c. Main­tain the hab­it­ats sup­port­ing otter with­in the site and avail­ab­il­ity of food

• 2a. Main­tain the pop­u­la­tion of otter as a viable com­pon­ent of the site

• Con­ser­va­tion Object­ive 1. To ensure that the qual­i­fy­ing fea­tures of the River Spey SAC are in favour­able con­di­tion and make an appro­pri­ate con­tri­bu­tion to achiev­ing favour­able con­ser­va­tion status.

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APPRAIS­AL

STAGE 1:

What is the plan or project?

Rel­ev­ant sum­mary details of pro­pos­al (includ­ing loc­a­tion, tim­ing, meth­ods, etc)

Con­struc­tion of a track (approx­im­ately 4km length) north of New­ton­more con­nect­ing two blocks of plant­a­tion wood­land. Tracks pro­posed to facil­it­ate tim­ber extrac­tion and con­nect oth­er exist­ing tracks across the Pit­main and Glen­ban­chor Estate.

Two new bridges and three new cul­verts are pro­posed over trib­u­tar­ies of the River Spey.

Pro­posed tim­ing for the pro­gramme of works has not been stated.

STAGE 2:

Is the plan or pro­ject dir­ectly con­nec­ted with or neces­sary for the man­age­ment of the European site for nature conservation?

1) River Spey SAC

No, this devel­op­ment is not dir­ectly con­nec­ted with or neces­sary for the man­age­ment of the European site for nature conservation.

STAGE 3:

Is the plan or pro­ject (either alone or in-com­bin­a­tion with oth­er plans or pro­jects) likely to have a sig­ni­fic­ant effect on the site(s)?

1) River Spey SAC

• Otter: Yes, LSE from dir­ect effects arising dur­ing con­struc­tion activ­ity, includ­ing dis­turb­ance and poten­tial destruc­tion of holts or oth­er rest­ing sites next to trib­u­tar­ies of the River Spey. Poten­tial for indir­ect effects on water qual­ity from poten­tial pol­lu­tion and release of sed­i­ment impacts on prey spe­cies and the water environment.
• Fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sel: YES, LSE from short term effects arising dur­ing con­struc­tion includ­ing fine sed­i­ment released dur­ing con­struc­tion activ­ity that could smoth­er FWPM pop­u­la­tions down­stream of the site. Pol­lu­tion from con­struc­tion work such as fuel spillages could also enter the water­course and impact FWPM and host spe­cies (sal­monids) in the River Spey. Poor bio­se­c­ur­ity meas­ures could res­ult in the spread of dis­ease or invas­ive on-nat­ive spe­cies (INNS) that could impact FWPM pop­u­la­tions and host species.
• Sea lamprey: Yes, LSE from short term effects arising dur­ing con­struc­tion activ­ity includ­ing impacts on exist­ing hab­it­at and water qual­ity River Spey through release of sed­i­ment mobil­ised from the river banks dur­ing con­struc­tion works, or pol­lu­tion from con­struc­tion activ­ity such as fuel spills.
• Atlantic sal­mon: Yes, LSE from short term effects arising dur­ing con­struc­tion activity

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includ­ing dis­turb­ance of exist­ing hab­it­at with­in the River Spey through release of sed­i­ment mobil­ised from riverb­anks dur­ing con­struc­tion works that could smoth­er Atlantic sal­mon spawn­ing gravels down­stream of the site, pol­lu­tion from con­struc­tion activ­ity such as fuel spills and dis­turb­ance dur­ing spawn­ing periods.

STAGE 4:

Under­take an Appro­pri­ate Assess­ment of the implic­a­tions for the site(s) in view of the(ir) con­ser­va­tion objectives

1) River Spey SAC

Con­ser­va­tion Object­ive 2. To ensure that the integ­rity of the River Spey SAC is restored by meet­ing object­ives 2a, 2b, 2c for each qual­i­fy­ing fea­ture (and 2^d for fresh­wa­ter pearl mussel):

2b. Restore the dis­tri­bu­tion of Atlantic sal­mon and fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sel through­out the site

No works are pro­posed with­in the River Spey SAC, so there will be no dir­ect loss of any suit­able hab­it­at. As no devel­op­ment will occur with­in the River Spey SAC, the cur­rent and poten­tial dis­tri­bu­tion of these spe­cies would not be dir­ectly impacted upon.

How­ever, the pro­pos­al includes two new bridges and three new cul­verts across trib­u­tar­ies of the River Spey and so there is poten­tial for indir­ect effects from con­struc­tion activ­it­ies, e.g. sed­i­ment or fuel and oil enter­ing the water­course. These poten­tial pol­lu­tion events could indir­ectly impact the dis­tri­bu­tion of these spe­cies due to changes in water qual­ity (tem­por­ary) and, if sig­ni­fic­ant amounts of sed­i­ment reach the water­course, through smoth­er­ing of hab­it­ats which are used by spawn­ing or juven­ile sal­mon for spawning/​juveniles and hab­it­ats suit­able for sup­port­ing FWPM (long term).

Tim­ing of works to avoid the key Atlantic sal­mon spawn­ing peri­od (mid-Octo­ber to end of Feb­ru­ary) would reduce the risk of pol­lu­tion or mobil­ised sed­i­ment impact­ing breed­ing Atlantic sal­mon dur­ing this sens­it­ive time.

A pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion plan is recom­men­ded through con­di­tion. The pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion plan should include stand­ard good prac­tice, such as main­tain­ing a min­im­um 30 m buf­fer for stor­ing chemicals/​wash out or any oth­er poten­tial pol­lut­ing activ­ity (SEPA WAT-SG-75). Oth­er rel­ev­ant Guid­ance for Pol­lu­tion Doc­u­ments should also be referred to and imple­men­ted on site (i.e. GPP5, GPP8, GPP21, GPP22¹). If a pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion plan is con­di­tioned and imple­men­ted — this con­ser­va­tion object­ive would be met.

If the tim­ing of works to avoid the key Atlantic spawn­ing peri­od (mid-Octo­ber to end of Feb­ru­ary), and a pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion plan is con­di­tioned and imple­men­ted this con­ser­va­tion object­ive would be met.

2c. Restore the hab­it­ats sup­port­ing Atlantic Sal­mon and fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sel with­in the site and avail­ab­il­ity of food

¹ Guid­ance for Pol­lu­tion Pre­ven­tion (GPP) doc­u­ments | Net­Regs | Envir­on­ment­al guid­ance for your busi­ness in North­ern Ire­land & Scotland

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The cur­rent and poten­tial res­tor­a­tion of the dis­tri­bu­tion of hab­it­ats sup­port­ing Atlantic sal­mon and FWPM with­in the SAC would not be dir­ectly affected as no devel­op­ment will occur with­in the SAC. How­ever, pol­lu­tion from con­struc­tion activ­it­ies next to/​within trib­u­tar­ies of the River Spey could neg­at­ively affect sup­port­ing hab­it­ats if sig­ni­fic­ant amounts of sed­i­ment reach the SAC and cause smoth­er­ing of hab­it­ats, redu­cing the dis­tri­bu­tion and extent of hab­it­at suit­able for sal­mon spawn­ing and juven­ile sal­mon, and hab­it­ats suit­able for FWPM (long term).

How­ever, mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures iden­ti­fied for 2b above would reduce the risk of pol­lu­tion reach­ing the water­course to a min­im­al level and so this con­ser­va­tion object­ive would be met.

2^d. Restore the dis­tri­bu­tion and viab­il­ity of fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sel host spe­cies and their sup­port­ing habitats

The dis­tri­bu­tion and viab­il­ity of FWPM host spe­cies (Atlantic sal­mon and oth­er sal­monids) would not be dir­ectly affected as no work will be under­taken with­in the River Spey SAC, how­ever, as dis­cussed in 2b & 2c, there is poten­tial for pol­lu­tion from con­struc­tion activ­it­ies to indir­ectly affect the hab­it­ats sup­port­ing these spe­cies which may in turn lead to a change in dis­tri­bu­tion or in change in health of FWPM host spe­cies (Atlantic sal­mon and trout). How­ever, with the imple­ment­a­tion of the mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures men­tioned in 2b the risk of pol­lu­tion events there­fore the devel­op­ment would not hinder the dis­tri­bu­tion or vital­ity of the host species.

2a. Restore the pop­u­la­tion of Atlantic Sal­mon (includ­ing a range of genet­ic types) and fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sel as viable com­pon­ents of the site

As the oth­er con­ser­va­tion object­ives can be met for Atlantic sal­mon and FWPM with mit­ig­a­tion, the pro­posed devel­op­ment would not hinder or pre­vent the res­tor­a­tion of the pop­u­la­tion of Atlantic sal­mon or FWPM as viable com­pon­ents of site. How­ever, the pro­posed devel­op­ment will not have an impact on the genet­ic types of sal­mon. There­fore, this con­ser­va­tion object­ive would be met.

2b. Main­tain the dis­tri­bu­tion of sea lamprey through­out the site

The cur­rent dis­tri­bu­tion of sea lamprey would not be dir­ectly impacted upon by the devel­op­ment pro­pos­als as no works will take place with­in the SAC. How­ever, there is poten­tial for pol­lu­tion from con­struc­tion activ­it­ies upstream of the SAC which could indir­ectly impact upon spawn­ing sub­strates (long term) and water qual­ity (tem­por­ary) which may alter the dis­tri­bu­tion of sea lamprey.

As detailed with­in 2b for Atlantic sal­mon & fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sel a pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion plan detail­ing stand­ard good prac­tice con­struc­tion activ­ity will reduce the risk of acci­dent­al pol­lu­tion and there­fore this con­ser­va­tion object­ive would be met.

2c. Main­tain the hab­it­ats sup­port­ing sea lamprey with­in the site and avail­ab­il­ity of food

The cur­rent suit­able hab­it­ats for sup­port­ing sea lamprey will not be dir­ectly impacted upon as no works will take place with­in the SAC. How­ever, there is poten­tial for pol­lu­tion and mobilised

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sed­i­ment to enter the water­course and smoth­er suit­able spawn­ing grounds (long term) mak­ing it dif­fi­cult for the sea lamprey to find suit­able hab­it­at. Changes to water qual­ity through sus­pen­ded solids or chem­ic­als (tem­por­ary) may lead to a reduc­tion in food avail­ab­il­ity through neg­at­ively impact­ing the dis­tri­bu­tion of fish species.

The imple­ment­a­tion of stand­ard pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion meas­ures will reduce the risk of pol­lu­tion enter­ing the water­course. There­fore this con­ser­va­tion object­ive would be met.

2a. Main­tain the pop­u­la­tion of sea lamprey as a viable com­pon­ent of the site

As the oth­er con­ser­va­tion object­ives for sea lamprey can be met through the imple­ment­a­tion of mit­ig­a­tion, the pro­posed devel­op­ment would not neg­at­ively impact on the cur­rent pop­u­la­tion of sea lamprey with­in the SAC, there­fore this con­ser­va­tion object­ive would be met.

2b. Main­tain the dis­tri­bu­tion of otter through­out the site

Con­struc­tion activ­it­ies includ­ing the install­a­tion of new bridges and cul­verts are pro­posed next to/​across trib­u­tar­ies of the River Spey SAC. There­fore, there is a poten­tial for con­struc­tion-phase dis­turb­ance to otters with­in the River Spey SAC which may neg­at­ively impact the otter pop­u­la­tion, and poten­tial for dam­age or destruc­tion of otter holts or rest­ing areas close to watercourses.

An otter sur­vey was included in the ​‘Glen­ban­chor Track Pre­lim­in­ary Eco­lo­gic­al Apprais­al and Nation­al Veget­a­tion Clas­si­fic­a­tion Report’ that has been sup­plied with the applic­a­tion. Based on sur­veys of the pro­posed route options at that time, the sur­vey iden­ti­fied 3 otter spraints, but no areas suit­able for otter holts. How­ever, the route that has been pro­posed with the cur­rent applic­a­tion con­tains sec­tions that appar­ently were not pre­vi­ously sur­veyed. There­fore, holts or couches used by otter may be present with­in or adja­cent to the devel­op­ment site.

Otters can have very large home ranges of around 32km for males and 20km for females (Otter | NatureScot), and there­fore tem­por­ary con­struc­tion work at this loc­a­tion is unlikely to res­ult in sig­ni­fic­ant impact on for­aging otter from the SAC, but if a holt or couch is present mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures includ­ing buf­fer exclu­sion zones and pos­sible licen­cing will be required.

A pre-con­struc­tion sur­vey of all suit­able hab­it­at with­in 200m of the pro­posed devel­op­ment (focus­ing on sec­tions of the route that were not pre­vi­ously sur­veyed) should be under­taken, pri­or to any works com­men­cing on site. If evid­ence of otters are found, a otter spe­cies pro­tec­tion plan should be pro­duced and sub­mit­ted to the CNPA pri­or to works commencing.

If a spe­cies pro­tec­tion plan is con­di­tioned and imple­men­ted, this con­ser­va­tion object­ive would be met.

2c. Main­tain the hab­it­ats sup­port­ing otter with­in the site and avail­ab­il­ity of food

The dis­tri­bu­tion of hab­it­ats sup­port­ing otter with­in the River Spey SAC would not be dir­ectly affected by this devel­op­ment, as no con­struc­tion work will hap­pen with­in the bound­ar­ies of the River Spey SAC. How­ever, there may be restric­tions on the use of suit­able for­aging hab­it­at with­in the devel­op­ment site. The pol­lu­tion issues iden­ti­fied for the oth­er fresh­wa­ter spe­cies men­tioned, could affect otter prey spe­cies, how­ever the imple­ment­a­tion of pre­vi­ously dis­cussed mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures would reduce the risk of this occur­ring to a min­im­al level and so the conservation

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object­ive would be met.

2a. Main­tain the pop­u­la­tion of otter as a viable com­pon­ent of the site

As the oth­er con­ser­va­tion object­ives can be met for otter with the mit­ig­a­tion included in the pro­pos­al, the pro­posed devel­op­ment would not hinder or pre­vent the main­ten­ance of the pop­u­la­tion of otter as a viable com­pon­ent of site, there­fore this con­ser­va­tion object­ive would be met.

Con­ser­va­tion Object­ive 1. To ensure that the qual­i­fy­ing fea­tures of the River Spey SAC are in favour­able con­di­tion and make an appro­pri­ate con­tri­bu­tion to achiev­ing favour­able con­ser­va­tion status.

As all the oth­er con­ser­va­tion object­ives would be met, the pro­posed devel­op­ment would not pre­vent or hinder the con­di­tion or con­ser­va­tion status of the qual­i­fy­ing interests of the SAC, and so this con­ser­va­tion object­ive would be met.

In con­clu­sion, the imple­ment­a­tion of mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures includ­ing tim­ing of the works to avoid the key Atlantic sal­mon spawn­ing sea­son, the inclu­sion of sed­i­ment and pol­lu­tion man­age­ment meas­ures, pre-con­struc­tion checks for pro­tec­ted spe­cies and if required- the imple­ment­a­tion of spe­cies pro­tec­tion plans, will reduce the poten­tial effects to a min­im­al level, so that all the con­ser­va­tion object­ives can be met for the River Spey SAC.

STAGE 5:

Can it be ascer­tained that there will not be an adverse effect on site integrity?

River Spey SAC

If the mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures men­tioned above are secured by con­di­tion and imple­men­ted, then the con­ser­va­tion object­ives will be met and there will not be an adverse effect on site integ­rity for the River Spey SAC.

The mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures that require to be secured by con­di­tion are:

• A pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion plan to be approved by CNPA, and fully implemented.
• Tim­ing of works to avoid the key Atlantic spawn­ing peri­od (mid-Octo­ber to end of February).
• An otter spe­cies pro­tec­tion plan to be pro­duced and imple­men­ted (if signs of otter signs are detec­ted in pre-con­struc­tion survey).

The reas­on for these con­di­tions is to avoid pol­lu­tion enter­ing the Allt Laraidh and River Calder trib­u­tar­ies of the River Spey SAC and neg­at­ively impact­ing upon the qual­i­fy­ing features.

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