Item 5 Hospital 2018/0311/DET

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 5 22/02/19

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

DEVEL­OP­MENT PRO­POSED: Erec­tion of com­munity hos­pit­al at Land 215M South Of Spey House Cairngorm Tech­no­logy Park, Dal­faber Drive, Aviemore

REF­ER­ENCE: 2018/0311/DET

APPLIC­ANT: NHS Highland

DATE CALLED-IN: 10 August 2018

RECOM­MEND­A­TION: Approve Sub­ject to Conditions

CASE OFFICER: Plan­ning Officer — Emma Wilson

CNPA Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Applic­a­tion Site 0 60 120 240 Meters

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 5 22/02/19

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 5 22/02/19

SITE DESCRIP­TION, PRO­POS­AL AND HISTORY

Site Descrip­tion

1. The site cov­ers an area of approx­im­ately 3.94 hec­tares and it situ­ated on the south side of Dal­faber Drive. The rect­an­gu­lar shaped / tapered site lies between the Net­work Rail main rail­way line to the west and the Strath­spey Steam Rail­way line to the east. It is accessed via the entrance to the Cairngorm Tech­no­logy Park off Dal­faber Drive to the north. There is rough grass­land to the south with rail­way build­ings / sheds bey­ond. To the east bey­ond the steam rail­way line there is low rise hous­ing and to the west bey­ond the main rail­way line there is hous­ing along the north part with the new Aviemore Primary School, com­munity centre, lib­rary hub build­ing and sport pitches to the south west.

2. The site is gently undu­lat­ing with the topo­graphy rising from a hol­low at the north end over a level change of approx­im­ately 2.5 metres with the remainder of the site being rel­at­ively level. The site is cur­rently a mix of rough grass­land and dis­persed wood­land and has been par­tially fenced off to graze horses.

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​line- applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=PDHUYRSI0BY00

Title Draw­ing Date on Date Num­ber Plan* Received Site Plan — Site Plan As Pro­posed 293-P-003A 01/05/18 Site Plan — Site Plan — Pro­posed 293-P-004A 01/05/18 super­im­posed on Exist­ing Loc­a­tion Plan — Loc­a­tion Plan 293-P-001 01/05/18 Plan — Ground Floor 2283-℗_102‑A 18/05/15 Plan — Pro­posed Site Sec­tions (1) 293-P-121A 01/05/18 Plan — Pro­posed Site Sec­tions (2) 293-P-122A 01/05/18 Plan — Ser­vices Enclos­ures 293-P-131 01/05/18 Plan — Pro­posed Extern­al Light­ing AHC-RYB-XX- 01/05/18 and CCTV Lay­out XX-DR-E-9501 Revi­sion 03 Plan — Extern­al Roads and Car Park AHC-RYB-XX- 01/05/18 Light­ing Levels XX-DR-E-9502 Revi­sion 02 Plan — Extern­al Util­it­ies Sup­ply AHC-RYB-XX- 01/05/18 XX-DR-ME- 9001 Revi­sion 04

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 5 22/02/19

Plan — First Floor 2280-℗_103‑A 18/05/18 Plan — Pro­posed Roof Plan 293-P-103A 01/05/18 Plan — Pro­posed Elev­a­tions : North 293-P-111A 01/05/18 and East Plan — Pro­posed Elev­a­tions : South 293-P-112A 01/05/18 and West Plan — Indi­citave Site Set-up 01 Revi­sion 3 18/05/18 Plan — BS5837 Tree Sur­vey Sheet I of 2 29/07/16 Plan — BS5837 Tree Sur­vey Sheet 2 of 2 29/07/16 Plan — Pre­lim­in­ary Drain­age Lay­out AHC-WAT- 24/04/18 XX-XX-DR-C- 92900 Revi­sion P03 Plan — Land­scape Tree Pro­tec­tion ED12422- 11/05/18 AHC_WAR_X X XX DR LO 01 Revi­sion 02 Plan — Land­scape Gen­er­al ED12422- 11/05/18 Arrange­ment (1 of 2) AHC WAR X X_X X XX DR LI 00 Revi­sion 05 Plan — Land­scape Gen­er­al ED12422- 11/05/18 Arrange­ment (2 of 2) AHC WAR X X_XX_DR_LI 01 Revi­sion 02 Plan — Visu­al­isa­tion : Pro­posed view 293-P-202A 01/05/18 into ther­apy garden Plan — Visu­al­isa­tion : Pro­posed view 293-P-201A 01/05/18 to main entrance Plan — Visu­al­isa­tion : Pro­posed view 293-P-203A 01/05/18 into inpa­tient garden *Where no spe­cif­ic day of month has been provided on the plan, the sys­tem defaults to the 1^st of the month.

1. The applic­a­tion is for a com­munity hos­pit­al which will include a GP prac­tice, pub­lic dent­al ser­vice, an urgent care centre, out­pa­tients depart­ment, inpa­tients ward, com­munity health and care depart­ment, a mor­tu­ary, shared sup­port areas with asso­ci­ated park­ing and infrastructure.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 5 22/02/19

1. The pro­posed devel­op­ment takes cog­nis­ance of the con­straints of the site – access, rail­way lines, topo­graphy, eco­logy, etc. The build­ing is of a con­tem­por­ary design and will be made up of three forms con­nec­ted by a cent­ral, flat roofed ele­ment. The two forms loc­ated to the east side of the site will be single storey, to reflect the scale of the adja­cent dwell­ings. These ele­ments will be of tim­ber framed con­struc­tion and clad in tim­ber. These will also have green roofs. A court­yard ther­apy garden for patients will divide these two ele­ments. The third form to the west side of the site will extend to two storeys and will be a steel framed con­struc­tion, clad in a met­al clad­ding sys­tem with the roof areas fin­ished in a met­al sheet­ing product.

2. The intern­al arrange­ment reflects the func­tions of the vari­ous med­ic­al ser­vices the facil­ity provides. GP, dent­al and out-patients ser­vices will be loc­ated at the north ​‘front’ of the hos­pit­al adja­cent to the main access. The Urgent Care centre, ambu­lance ser­vices and the mor­tu­ary will be loc­ated to the rear to the south west of the build­ing. The in-patient wards will be loc­ated to the rear at the south east tak­ing advant­age of the more secluded corner of the site. Exist­ing trees provide screen­ing from the adja­cent hous­ing. The in-patients’ garden will also be loc­ated along this east­ern edge.

3. Vehicu­lar access will be via the exist­ing one from Dal­faber Drive into the Cairngorm Tech­no­logy Park. The main car park will be loc­ated to the north east part of the site where there will be 103 car park­ing spaces which will include 6 dis­abled spaces. A cir­cu­lar, one-way access road will run round the peri­met­er of the car­park. There will be a two way access road run­ning to the west of the pro­posed build­ing serving ambu­lance park­ing and drop-off area, a ser­vice yard and deliv­ery vehicle turn­ing area. This route will also provide access to 22 staff car park­ing spaces, and a layby des­ig­nated for screen­ing vehicles will provide an addi­tion­al 3 staff car park­ing spaces when not in use by these vehicles. Elec­tric vehicle char­ging points will be provided and there will be poten­tial for these to be increased in the future if demand increase.

4. Cycle park­ing will be loc­ated to the north west of the build­ing in the form of covered cycle stands with two spaces ded­ic­ated for e‑bikes with char­ging points.

5. Plans and visu­al­isa­tions of the pro­pos­als are included with­in Appendix I.

6. A num­ber of sup­port­ing doc­u­ments have been sub­mit­ted with the applic­a­tions includ­ing: a) Design and Access b) Land­scape Design and Access State­ment c) Trans­port Assess­ment d) Flood Risk and Drain­age Assess­ment Report e) Sus­tain­able State­ment f) Eco­logy Sur­vey Report g) Phase I Hab­it­at Sur­vey and Pro­tec­ted Spe­cies Sur­vey Report h) Tree Sur­vey Report i) Tree Con­straint Data j) Waste Man­age­ment Strategy k) Archae­olo­gic­al Eval­u­ation Data Struc­ture Report l) Archae­olo­gic­al Eval­u­ation Writ­ten Scheme of Invest­ig­a­tion m) Pub­lic Con­sulta­tion Event Doc­u­ment n) Con­struc­tion Meth­od Statement

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 5 22/02/19

His­tory

1. There is no recent plan­ning his­tory for this site. This is a major applic­a­tion as defined in The Town and Coun­try Plan­ning (Hier­archy of Devel­op­ments) (Scot­land) Reg­u­la­tions 2009 and was sub­ject to the form­al pre-applic­a­tion pro­ced­ures involving engage­ment with rel­ev­ant stat­utory con­sul­tees, key stake­hold­ers and the pub­lic advising them of the pro­posed devel­op­ment and any plan­ning implic­a­tions the forth­com­ing pro­pos­als may introduce.

DEVEL­OP­MENT PLAN CONTEXT

Policies

Nation­al Scot­tish Plan­ning Policy 2014 Policy Stra­tegic Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2017 — 2022 Policy Loc­al Plan Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (2015) Policy Those policies rel­ev­ant to the assess­ment of this applic­a­tion are marked with a cross POLICY I NEW HOUS­ING DEVEL­OP­MENT POLICY 2 SUP­PORT­ING ECO­NOM­IC GROWTH X POLICY 3 SUS­TAIN­ABLE DESIGN X POLICY 4 NAT­UR­AL HER­IT­AGE X POLICY 5 LAND­SCAPE X POLICY 6 THE SIT­ING AND DESIGN OF DIGIT­AL COM­MU­NIC­A­TIONS EQUIP­MENT POLICY 7 RENEW­ABLE ENERGY POLICY 8 SPORT AND RECRE­ATION POLICY 9 CUL­TUR­AL HER­IT­AGE POLICY 10 RESOURCES X POLICY 11 DEVELOPER CON­TRI­BU­TIONS X

1. All new devel­op­ment pro­pos­als require to be assessed in rela­tion to policies con­tained in the adop­ted Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan. The full word­ing of policies can be found at: http://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​u​p​l​o​a​d​s​/​d​o​c​u​m​e​n​t​s​/Park Authority/Planning/LDP15.pdf

Plan­ning Guidance

1. Sup­ple­ment­ary guid­ance also forms part of 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.

Policy I New Hous­ing Devel­op­ment Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance Policy 2 Sup­port­ing Eco­nom­ic Growth Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance X Policy 3 Sus­tain­able Design Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance X Policy 4 Nat­ur­al Her­it­age Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance X Policy 5 Land­scape Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance X

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 5 22/02/19

Policy 7 Renew­able Energy Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance Policy 8 Sport and Recre­ation Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance Policy 9 Cul­tur­al Her­it­age Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance Policy 10 Resources Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance X Policy 11 Developer Con­tri­bu­tions Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance X

CON­SULTA­TIONS

Sum­mary of the Main Issues Raised by Consultees

1. Net­work Rail has no objec­tions to the prin­ciple of the devel­op­ment how­ever recom­mend con­di­tions in rela­tion to the pro­vi­sion of suit­able tres­pass fen­cing, a drain­age scheme and the sit­ing of SUDs, appro­pri­ate land­scap­ing and a noise impact assess­ment. They also recom­mend advis­ory notes regard­ing the Under­pass and con­struc­tion works being close to the railway.

2. SEPA has no objec­tions to the pro­pos­als as it has a low risk of flood­ing. A hos­pit­al is a ​‘civil infra­struc­ture’ and should be loc­ated out­with the I in 1000 year flood extent. The sub­mit­ted inform­a­tion demon­strates that this is the case and the site is at low risk from flu­vi­al flood risk grounds. Parts of the site have been iden­ti­fied as being at risk from sur­face water flood­ing. This can be addressed through good site design and appro­pri­ate drain­age meas­ures and the sub­mit­ted FRA pro­poses such meas­ures. A con­struc­tion site licence is required from SEPA for the man­age­ment of sur­face water run-off from a con­struc­tion site. The applic­ants should liaise with SEPA regard­ing this. Ref­er­ence should be made to the cur­rent CIRIA Manu­al regard­ing SUDS and con­sulta­tion with Scot­tish Water in regards to con­nec­tion to the pub­lic water drain­age. They sup­port the inten­tion to explore the use of Low and Zero Car­bon Technologies.

3. SNH do not offer any form­al com­ments as the pro­pos­al does not meet their cri­ter­ia for consultation.

4. High­land Coun­cil Flood Risk Team has no objec­tions to the pro­posed devel­op­ment. They are sat­is­fied that any plu­vi­al flood risk can be man­aged through a robust sur­face water man­age­ment sys­tem They recom­mend a con­di­tion to ensure that all Fin­ished Floor Levels will be 150mm above sur­round­ing ground levels to pro­tect against any resid­ual flood­ing. They also request a con­di­tion that the final drain­age design is sub­mit­ted for review and will include per­col­a­tion tests which will inform the final design and micro-drain­age cal­cu­la­tions to ensure the net­work will cope with the 200 year storm event.

5. High­land Coun­cil Forestry Officer states that the sub­mit­ted inform­a­tion has been provided from a vari­ety of sources and it is unfor­tu­nate that the tree pro­tec­tion plan was pro­duced by a land­scape archi­tect and not an arbor­i­cul­tur­al­ist. The pro­pos­als will remove a large pro­por­tion of trees on the site, how­ever, there are incon­sist­en­cies in the draw­ings in rela­tion to tree reten­tion and pro­tec­tion. The draw­ings make ref­er­ence to trees being retained where pos­sible. This is not accept­able and the applic­ants need to cla­ri­fy tree reten­tion pro­pos­als and demon­strate that the

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 5 22/02/19

devel­op­ment should not adversely impact on trees to be retained. The tree plant­ing pro­pos­als should incor­por­ate great­er diversity of spe­cies. They query wheth­er fur­ther replace­ment tree plant­ing can be under­taken in the ​‘Eco­logy Recept­or Site’. Fur­ther cla­ri­fic­a­tion is sought on the pro­pos­als for the area to the south of the site one plan shows pro­pos­als for tree pro­tec­tion and anoth­er for new tree plant­ing. Fol­low­ing the sub­mis­sion of fur­ther inform­a­tion, the Forestry Officer con­firms that their pos­i­tion has not changed and advise that a revised Tree Pro­tec­tion Plan to BS:5837(2012) be submitted.

1. High­land Land­scape Officer has no detailed com­ments how­ever, has con­cerns about the lay­out of the pub­lic path through the site between the hos­pit­al wing with ground floor bed­rooms and the steam rail­way line. This space is nar­row and the inter- vis­ib­il­ity between rooms and the path seems poten­tially high. They also have reser­va­tions about the ​‘nov­elty’ of the exper­i­ence of occupy­ing the thera­peut­ic gar­dens and quiet seat­ing so close to the rail­way line.

2. High­land Coun­cil Con­tam­in­ated Land Officer has no com­ment as there are no issues in terms of con­tam­in­ated land on this site.

3. High­land Coun­cil Archae­ology Ser­vice has con­firmed that an archae­olo­gic­al eval­u­ation has already been com­pleted for this site and that no sig­ni­fic­ant remains were iden­ti­fied. No addi­tion­al mit­ig­a­tion is required and the there are no out­stand­ing sens­it­ive his­tor­ic envir­on­ment issues with regard to this proposal.

4. High­land Coun­cil Trans­port Plan­ning ini­tially objec­ted to the pro­pos­als on the grounds of insuf­fi­cient inform­a­tion. They require cla­ri­fic­a­tion and fur­ther detail on: a) Trip impacts and the revi­sion of the TA to reflect this. If these revi­sions iden­ti­fied unac­cept­able levels of trip impacts the TA should cla­ri­fy how those unac­cept­able impacts will be mit­ig­ated; b) The own­er­ship and inten­ded way for­ward for the pro­posed vehicu­lar access to the site from Dal­faber Drive and recom­men­ded con­di­tions to ensure appro­pri­ate vis­ib­il­ity splays; c) Wheth­er the cur­rent road lay­out at the private junc­tion with Dal­faber Drive would require large vehicles to over­hang the east­bound side of Dal­faber Drive when turn­ing left out of the private junc­tion, and if so what mit­ig­a­tion is being pro­posed to avoid a new road safety prob­lem; d) Revised pro­pos­als where enhanced ped­es­tri­an routes are provided along the exist­ing private road into the Tech­no­logy Park; e) Revised details for the pro­posed cross­ing points with­in the site, oth­er­wise a suit­able worded con­di­tion attached to any con­sent requir­ing the form of these to be sub­mit­ted for sub­sequent approv­al pri­or to any works com­men­cing on site and imple­men­ted pri­or to the facil­ity open­ing; f) The ped­es­tri­an link through the patient / vis­it­or park­ing area will be raised to assist ped­es­tri­ans. This route and the ramps onto it should be posi­tioned so that cars turn­ing into the park­ing aisle from the one way route head­ing north out of that area can pull fully into the park­ing aisle before reach­ing the ped­es­tri­an cross­ing point; g) Man­aging vehicle speeds on routes with­in the site; h) Cycle routes and pro­pos­als for dir­ect­ing cyc­lists once they enter the site;

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 5 22/02/19

i) Man­age­ment of the bus stops and drop-off zones dur­ing the oper­a­tion of the facil­ity as inap­pro­pri­ate drop-offs could dis­rupt the abil­ity of bus drivers to access the bus stops; j) Jus­ti­fic­a­tion on the adequacy of the pro­posed vehicu­lar park­ing pro­vi­sion with­in the site, includ­ing details on the inten­ded oper­at­ing arrange­ments between staff and vis­it­ors / patients; k) Jus­ti­fic­a­tion on the adequacy of the pro­posed dis­abled park­ing pro­vi­sion; l) The inten­ded num­ber of cycle park­ing spaces pro­posed and jus­ti­fic­a­tion for its adequacy. Also the inten­ded form of cycle park­ing being pro­posed, oth­er­wise a suit­able worded con­di­tion address­ing this issue; m) The com­mit­ment of the NHS High­land to invest in improv­ing the exist­ing under­pass and the con­nec­tions for walk­ers and cyc­lists; n) Widen­ing the foot­path on the south side of Dal­faber Drive for the bene­fit of staff and vis­it­ors walk­ing to the facil­ity along this route; o) A fin­an­cial con­tri­bu­tion is sought from NHS High­land towards the deliv­ery of a bar­ri­er sys­tem on this level cross­ing; p) A con­di­tion requir­ing the arrange­ments for run­ning sched­uled bus ser­vices and com­munity bus ser­vices into the devel­op­ment are estab­lished and agreed with Oper­at­ors and the High­land Coun­cil Pub­lic Trans­port Team pri­or to this facil­ity open­ing; and q) The inten­tions for provid­ing adequate facil­it­ies to per­mit safe refuse col­lec­tion from adja­cent Spey House site before any decision is taken on the application.

1. Fol­low­ing the sub­mis­sion of addi­tion­al inform­a­tion Trans­port sup­port the applic­a­tion sub­ject to the sat­is­fact­ory res­ol­u­tion of their requests and the recom­men­ded con­di­tions: a) The require­ment for this devel­op­ment to either deliv­er the sug­ges­ted junc­tion improve­ments mak­ing use of those exist­ing related developer con­tri­bu­tions and appro­pri­ate fund­ing sources that can be secured, or provide a fin­an­cial con­tri­bu­tion towards deliv­ery of a scheme to bene­fit vehicu­lar and act­ive travel trips to and from this devel­op­ment iden­ti­fied in the Act­ive Aviemore Study. It is noted dis­cus­sions are on-going, and Trans­port are happy to assist in reach­ing an appro­pri­ate solu­tion. If a solu­tion can­not be reached they would main­tain their objec­tion; and b) Inform­a­tion to sup­port that there will be a suit­able right of access to the hos­pit­al site both before and after any adop­tion of the exist­ing spine road serving the Tech­no­logy Park pri­or to the facil­ity being per­mit­ted to open.

2. Should the issues with­in the fol­low­ing con­di­tions not be addressed by the con­sen­ted Spey House applic­a­tion (2018/0027/DET), then the fol­low­ing con­di­tions are recom­men­ded: a) The achieve­ment and onward main­ten­ance of clear vis­ib­il­ity splays from the private road with Dal­faber Drive; and b) A traffic sign and road mark­ing traffic man­age­ment scheme to be provided on the west­ern approach along Dal­faber Drive designed to make drivers approach­ing from the west more aware of the junc­tion and to reduce speed accordingly.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 5 22/02/19

1. The fol­low­ing con­di­tions are also recom­men­ded: a) All dropped kerb cross­ings along the spine road from the junc­tion with Dal­faber Drive to the pro­posed hos­pit­al site to incor­por­ate suit­ably design tact­ile pav­ing fea­tures; b) Dir­ec­tion sig­nage pro­pos­als for the new facil­ity; c) Fur­ther details of the cross­ing points where the shared cycle and foot­way from the under­pass beneath the rail­way line crosses the vehicu­lar route for staff park­ing, ser­vi­cing and the ambu­lance facil­it­ies and where the foot way from the Tech­no­logy Park off Dal­faber Drive crosses the one-way route for vis­it­ors and patients driv­ing into the facil­ity; d) The pos­i­tion of ramps up to the raised foot­way through the patient and vis­it­or park­ing area, should start from the give-way at the end of each park­ing aisle to avoid cars over­hanging the one way route whilst allow­ing a ped­es­tri­an to cross; e) Inform­a­tion on pro­pos­als for man­aging vehicle speeds on the routes with­in the site and pro­pos­als for dir­ect­ing cyc­lists; f) Pro­posed arrange­ments for man­aging the bus stop and drop-off zone dur­ing the oper­a­tion of the facil­ity; g) The own­er / oper­at­or of the facil­ity to identi­fy a Travel Plan Coordin­at­or and devel­op a Travel Plan that addresses a num­ber of spe­cif­ic require­ments; h) Any changes to the form and loc­a­tion of any car park­ing with­in the site will sub­mit­ted to and approved pri­or to being imple­men­ted; i) The num­ber and form of cycle park­ing; j) A com­mit­ment to provide fund­ing towards the deliv­ery of meas­ures to enhance the under­pass and make it a safe and attract­ive route for ped­es­tri­ans and cyc­lists to use; k) Widen the foot­way on the south­ern side of Dal­faber Drive between the sig­nal­ised ped­es­tri­an cross­ing west of the rail­way bridge and the access into the Tech­no­logy Park; and l) Coun­cil refuse col­lec­tion vehicles will be able to use the turn­ing facil­ity with­in the hos­pit­al site so as not to dis­rupt refuse col­lec­tion from the adja­cent Spey House development.

2. Fur­ther inform­a­tion was sub­mit­ted regard­ing the man­oeuv­rab­il­ity of large vehicles and the poten­tial for these vehicles to cross the centre line of Dal­faber Drive. The pos­sible revi­sion option would require land from the adja­cent Spey House site. It is recom­men­ded that the Applic­ant is asked to secure con­firm­a­tion from the own­er of the Spey House site that if such land is required, that landown­er will be will­ing to release it. If that can be secured, the cur­rent objec­tion on this mat­ter would be removed as the inform­a­tion provided sug­gests that there would be deliv­er­able solu­tions avail­able if the prac­tic­al tests iden­ti­fied that such improve­ments were needed. How­ever, a suit­ably worded Con­di­tion requir­ing the prac­tic­al tests and any res­ult­ing improve­ments need­ing to be approved and delivered pri­or to any works com­men­cing to con­struct the hos­pit­al should be included in any per­mis­sion issued. The pre- com­mence­ment require­ment of this is to reflect that the large vehicles need­ing access for the con­struc­tion of the new hos­pit­al would also bene­fit from any required changes to the junc­tion access.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 5 22/02/19

1. It is noted that no fin­an­cial con­tri­bu­tion will be sought towards enhan­cing loc­al bus ser­vices serving this site. This is based on the oper­at­ors of the site work­ing with Com­munity Trans­port pro­viders to enhance con­nec­tions and con­tinu­ing to pro­mote non-car con­nectiv­ity to the site. It is also worth not­ing that HC Pub­lic Trans­port Team has also said that High­land Coun­cil could not sup­port future requests for bus ser­vice changes to serve this site that had unac­cept­able fin­an­cial implic­a­tions to The Council.

2. Any per­mis­sion gran­ted should also include a suit­ably worded Inform­at­ive cla­ri­fy­ing that no works should be under­taken on the adop­ted pub­lic road until a Road Open­ing Per­mit has been sub­mit­ted to and approved by High­land Coun­cil as the Loc­al Roads Authority.

3. High­land Coun­cil Waste Man­age­ment Officer no response.

4. CNPA Out­door Access Officer states that there are two estab­lished desire line paths at the east and west mar­gins of the site. The paths are used for recre­ation and pos­sible short cut­ting between res­id­en­tial areas and loc­al amen­it­ies. They note the inclu­sion of a pub­lic foot­path link­ing the pro­posed car park and the exist­ing open wooded area to the rear of the pro­posed hos­pit­al. They advise this should remain access­ible to the pub­lic and com­pat­ible with future oper­a­tion­al require­ments of the hos­pit­al. No detailed spe­cific­a­tion has been received regard­ing the retained path­way link­ing entry to the site with the Aviemore path net­work via the exist­ing rail­way under­pass – this should be submitted.

5. CNPA Eco­logy Adviser and CNPA Land­scape Adviser have provided a com­bined con­sulta­tion response. They state that the advice provided at pre- applic­a­tion stage has been taken on board, in par­tic­u­lar with regard to rep­tile trans­lo­ca­tion work and Hab­it­at Com­pens­a­tion Area. There are no major issues in terms of eco­logy and land­scape. Over­all the design is good and clearly aims to enhance the loc­al land­scape char­ac­ter whilst facil­it­at­ing the new build­ing and func­tion and use of the site. The pro­pos­als go a long way to com­pensate for loss of hab­it­at and retain/re-cre­ate some of the key eco­lo­gic­al fea­tures. Fur­ther detail is still required in rela­tion to: a) Cla­ri­fic­a­tion on the reten­tion of trees on the site; b) SUDs; c) Land­scape plant­ing – seed mixes, shrub plant­ing and choice of spe­ci­men trees; d) Fur­ther details on the Hab­it­at Com­pens­a­tion Area is required to ensure it is prop­erly man­aged and main­tained to bene­fit key spe­cies and suf­fi­ciently mon­itored to meas­ure its suc­cess; and e) Foul drain­age and loc­a­tion of pro­tec­tion areas and con­struc­tion compounds.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 5 22/02/19

1. Fol­low­ing the sub­mis­sion of fur­ther inform­a­tion, the CNPA advisers have com­men­ted in response to the above issues: a) It has been agreed that if tree removals are neces­sary dur­ing con­struc­tion, CNPA will be kept updated to allow man­age­ment of this. It is assumed trees iden­ti­fied on the Tree Pro­tec­tion Plan will be retained. A con­di­tion is required stat­ing that the CNPA must be con­sul­ted pri­or to any addi­tion­al tree felling and addi­tion­al replace­ment tree plant­ing will be required for any addi­tion­al tree remov­al, the type and loc­a­tion to be agreed with CNPA. A final land­scape plan is required address­ing modi­fic­a­tions to tree plant­ing mix and SUDS and show­ing all retained trees as detailed on the TPP so there is con­sist­ency between the plans. b) The prin­ciple of the SUDs design is accep­ted, how­ever a con­di­tion requir­ing fur­ther details will be required to cla­ri­fy its design and demon­strate it meets amen­ity and biod­iversity bene­fit (as required by the CIRIA SUDs manu­al). c) Seed ratios have been appro­pri­ately mod­i­fied, increas­ing the value of the grass­land for loc­al inver­teb­rate spe­cies. An advis­ory note must be applied to any decision notice for approv­al that ​“plant­ing should be enhanced to include a wider range of spe­cies, includ­ing per­en­ni­als that provide amen­ity and biod­iversity value, par­tic­u­larly bright­er col­ours for the bene­fit of par­tially sighted patients and vis­it­ors. d) The Hab­it­at Com­pens­a­tion Area will be part of the rep­tile Spe­cies Pro­tec­tion Plan and a con­di­tion will be required to ensure this. A con­di­tion will also be required that states the HCA will be man­aged in accord­ance with the Land­scape and Hab­it­at Man­age­ment Plan and all mon­it­or­ing will be car­ried out in accord­ance with this report. e) A Drain­age Plan has been sub­mit­ted provid­ing fur­ther inform­a­tion in rela­tion to this.

2. Aviemore and Vicin­ity Com­munity Coun­cil fully sup­port the application.

REP­RES­ENT­A­TIONS

1. There has been one let­ter of rep­res­ent­a­tion received from the Strath­spey Rail­way Com­pany who sup­port the applic­a­tion, how­ever they raise con­cern regard­ing poten­tial noise nuis­ance from the Steam Rail­way. They are pleased to note that the Net­work Rail rules applic­able to adja­cent con­struc­tion work will apply to the SRC and request this is a con­di­tion on any con­sent gran­ted. They also point out that any ser­vices taken below SRC’s tracks will need form­al way leave agree­ment with SRC. Fol­low­ing the sub­mis­sion of addi­tion­al inform­a­tion, they main­tain their sup­port, how­ever point out their con­cerns regard­ing noise nuis­ance remain as the acous­tic sur­vey under­taken was not adja­cent to the Ward build­ing. It is pro­posed to site a sew­er below their track and although this appears feas­ible no tech­nic­al or com­mer­cial agree­ment is in place. A copy of this let­ter is attached in Appendix 2.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 5 22/02/19

APPRAIS­AL

Prin­ciple

1. Policy 2: Sup­port­ing Eco­nom­ic Growth of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Devel­op­ment Plan 2015 states that pro­pos­als which sup­port or extend the eco­nomy or enhance the range and qual­ity of eco­nom­ic oppor­tun­it­ies or facil­it­ies will be con­sidered favour­ably where it is compatible/​complementary with the exist­ing busi­ness activ­ity in the area and it sup­ports the vital­ity and viab­il­ity of the loc­al eco­nomy and broad­er eco­nomy of the Nation­al Park. This applic­a­tion pro­poses the sit­ing of a com­munity hos­pit­al and social care facil­ity which will serve Aviemore and the wider Badenoch and Strath­spey area. It is loc­ated on a site alloc­ated for Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment with­in the adop­ted Loc­al Plan – site ED2, iden­ti­fied for the future expan­sion of the exist­ing Tech­no­logy Park. This is in addi­tion to site EDI which has been iden­ti­fied to allow for the pos­sible future expan­sion of the Dal­faber Indus­tri­al Estate should it reach capa­city. The site has lain vacant for many years and there is no demon­strable demand for it to be developed for an iden­ti­fied eco­nom­ic use. The intro­duc­tion of the com­munity use and the pro­posed hos­pit­al is con­sidered to be accept­able. It will both pre­serve and offer employ­ment oppor­tun­it­ies with­in the area which in turn will sup­port the loc­al eco­nomy. The prin­ciple of the pro­posed devel­op­ment is con­sidered to be accept­able sub­ject to com­pli­ance with oth­er loc­al plan policies on the issues dis­cussed below.

Envir­on­ment­al Impacts

1. Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Her­it­age of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015 seeks to restrict devel­op­ment that would have an adverse impact on pro­tec­ted spe­cies and where this can­not be avoided that appro­pri­ate mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures are provided.

2. The site is an undeveloped piece of land which poten­tially hosts a vari­ety of hab­it­ats. The applic­ants engaged in early dis­cus­sion with officers from the CNPA regard­ing the poten­tial sig­ni­fic­ant impacts on the site’s nat­ur­al her­it­age. It was iden­ti­fied that the pro­pos­als would likely reduce the area of heath­land and acid grass­land hab­it­at on the site. It would also res­ult in the loss of a num­ber of trees. Min­im­ising hab­it­at loss and dis­turb­ance, as well as man­aging the remainder of the site to retain its eco­lo­gic­al value for the asso­ci­ated spe­cies was recog­nised as a cru­cial part of the pro­pos­als as they came for­ward. Key spe­cies iden­ti­fied for con­sid­er­a­tion were rep­tiles (com­mon liz­ard) and a range of sol­it­ary min­ing bees.

3. The advice giv­en at the pre-applic­a­tion stage has been taken on board and is wel­comed. A Hab­it­at Com­pens­a­tion Area has been iden­ti­fied to the south of the site. Work on this com­menced in August 2018 with the cre­ation of hab­it­ats and rep­tile, bee and wood ant trans­lo­ca­tion. The trans­lo­ca­tion of the bees and wood ant is to be mon­itored and the applic­ants have indic­ated a com­mit­ment to this. A draft Rep­tile Spe­cies Pro­tec­tion Plan has been pro­duced, how­ever this requires to be final­ised detail­ing the man­age­ment of the recept­or area and a com­mit­ment to mon­it­or­ing rep­tiles post — com­ple­tion of the devel­op­ment. This is also to include a spe­cif­ic plan clearly show­ing the loc­a­tion of the Hab­it­at Com­pens­a­tion Area. A fur­ther 5 days of

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 5 22/02/19

trans­lo­ca­tion of rep­tiles is required in March/​April 2019 ahead of con­struc­tion work. The applic­ants have indic­ated their will­ing­ness to under­take these meas­ures and a con­di­tion is recom­men­ded to address this.

1. In terms of the impact on the grass­land, this has been addressed through pro­pos­als to plant acid grass­land across a sub­stan­tial pro­por­tion of the area to be land­scaped. To be of most value to the loc­al inver­teb­rate spe­cies the applic­ants have agreed to a more appro­pri­ate grass seed mix incor­por­at­ing a smal­ler pro­por­tion of the less vital spe­cies. This will be applied to both the land­scaped areas and to the green roofs.

2. There will be a sub­stan­tial loss of trees with­in the area that is to be developed. There is some incon­sist­ency between the two tree sur­veys that have been under­taken, and as such it is not clear how many trees are to be removed. The Coun­cil Forestry Officer has raised con­cern regard­ing this issue and the applic­ants have been in dis­cus­sion to address these con­cerns. It is pro­posed to plant 54 trees with­in the devel­op­ment area and a fur­ther 400 trees with­in the Hab­it­at Com­pens­a­tion Area. This will include a mix of spe­cies includ­ing those cur­rently on site and the intro­duc­tion of addi­tion­al spe­cies to increase diversity. This level of tree plant­ing is con­sidered to be suf­fi­cient over the long term to com­pensate for loss of trees in terms of num­ber and the pro­vi­sion of wild­life cor­ridors through and around the site. There is also nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion occur­ring on the Hab­it­at Com­pens­a­tion Area fol­low­ing pre­vi­ous felling work. It has been agreed that should there be addi­tion­al tree removals required dur­ing the con­struc­tion phase, CNPA will be advised. As such, a con­di­tion is recom­men­ded which requires con­sulta­tion with CNPA pri­or to any addi­tion­al tree felling and addi­tion­al replace­ment tree plant­ing will be required to com­pensate for this remov­al. The spe­cies and loc­a­tion of the replace­ment trees are to be approved also.

3. The pro­posed devel­op­ment will have an envir­on­ment­al impact on this undeveloped site, how­ever, the meas­ures both pro­posed and those that have been under­taken (e.g. cre­ation of Hab­it­at Com­pens­a­tion Area and spe­cies trans­lo­ca­tion work) will ensure these impacts are appro­pri­ately mit­ig­ated against or com­pensated for. Sub­ject to appro­pri­ate con­di­tions in rela­tion to those mat­ters the applic­a­tion is con­sidered to be in com­pli­ance with Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Her­it­age of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015.

Land­scape and Sit­ing Issues

1. Policy 5: Land­scape of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015 pre­sumes against devel­op­ment that does not con­serve and enhance the land­scape char­ac­ter and spe­cial qual­it­ies of the Nation­al Park and in par­tic­u­lar the set­ting of the pro­posed development.

2. The sit­ing and lay­out of the pro­posed devel­op­ment has been informed by the con­straints of the site – its topo­graphy, access, adja­cent rail­way lines and eco­lo­gic­al value. The build­ing has been sited south of the site’s level change to avoid sub­stan­tial excav­a­tion works min­im­ising on site dis­rup­tion and avoid­ing issues of access­ib­il­ity. It is inten­ded to pre­serve as many of the exist­ing trees as pos­sible and thus pro­tect the exist­ing land­scape which is pre­dom­in­antly grass­land with pion­eer tree spe­cies and which provides both hab­it­at and recre­ation­al space. The entrance is cent­rally loc­ated with a strong visu­al link to the main access from Dal­faber Drive. Pub­lic and private

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 5 22/02/19

access is sep­ar­ated with ambu­lance and ser­vice vehicle access to the more open side of the site to the west. A more private, sens­it­ive approach has been adop­ted for the east side of the site. This faces onto the adja­cent res­id­en­tial prop­er­ties which lie along this bound­ary and this is where the inpa­tient accom­mod­a­tion and ther­apy garden will be located.

1. The south of the site is to remain undeveloped and will remain as amen­ity ground. This is wel­comed giv­en the cur­rent use of the site as recre­ation­al space which is clearly well used and appre­ci­ated by the loc­al com­munity. Access to this will be retained along the east and west boundaries.

2. Com­pre­hens­ive pre-applic­a­tion advice was giv­en and fur­ther advice provided dur­ing the applic­a­tion pro­cess. The applic­ants have taken on board this advice and addressed con­cerns amongst oth­er things relat­ing to shrub plant­ing, tree pro­tec­tion, tree plant­ing and spe­cies selec­tion, fen­cing details and the SUDs.

3. In view of the for­go­ing it is con­sidered that the pro­pos­als com­ply with Policy 5: Land­scape of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015.

Scale, Mass and Design Issues

1. Policy 3: Sus­tain­able Design of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015 requires design state­ments to accom­pany all devel­op­ment pro­pos­als to demon­strate the pro­pos­als have been designed to be sym­path­et­ic to the tra­di­tion­al pat­tern and char­ac­ter of the sur­round­ing area, loc­al ver­nacu­lar and loc­al dis­tinct­ive­ness whilst encour­aging innov­a­tion in design and use of mater­i­als. Devel­op­ment should seek to use mater­i­als and land­scap­ing that will com­ple­ment the set­ting of the development.

2. The site’s char­ac­ter­ist­ics have informed the scale and mass­ing of the build­ing. The west of the site is more open and exposed fol­low­ing recent tree felling and over­looks the main rail­way line and the adja­cent primary school and com­munity centre. The east of the site is more intim­ate and enclosed with exist­ing tree cov­er and the low rise res­id­en­tial prop­er­ties lying bey­ond the less fre­quently used Steam Rail­way line.

3. The intro­duc­tion of the three forms breaks up the mass­ing and provides oppor­tun­it­ies for extern­al space to enhance both amen­ity and visu­al focus to cer­tain ele­ments of the build­ing, for example to the main entrance. The ele­ment run­ning along the east­ern bound­ary is single storey and split into two sec­tions with the ther­apy garden lying between. This reduces its per­ceived length and its low scale respects the more intim­ate con­text of the east side of the site. The west side accom­mod­ates the two storey ele­ment. The con­text here is con­sidered appro­pri­ate for this type of built form which will be clearly vis­ible, sig­ni­fy­ing the building’s pres­ence, in par­tic­u­lar from the approach on Dal­faber Drive. The cent­ral flat roofed space will form the main entrance and recep­tion area. The lower scale of this ele­ment, flanked by the two forms lying to the east and west will instinct­ively draw vis­it­ors to this entrance way.

4. Extern­al fin­ishes are also informed by the dis­tinct char­ac­ter­ist­ics of the site and the scale of the dif­fer­ent ele­ments. The east side will have a softer fin­ish, con­struc­ted in tim­ber with and pre­dom­in­antly fin­ished in tim­ber clad­ding – nat­ur­al larch which will

CAIRNGORMS