Item 5 - Planning Committee report

Cairngorms Item 5 Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Nation­al Park Author­ity 12 Decem­ber 2025 Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 1 of 34

Com­mit­tee report

Devel­op­ment pro­posed: Erec­tion of 4No. houses at Land 35M south of The Snipe, 3 Deshar Court, Boat of Garten

Ref­er­ence: 2024/0272/MSC

Applic­ant: Com­munit­ies Hous­ing Trust

Date called-in: 21 Octo­ber 2024

Recom­mend­a­tion: Approve sub­ject to conditions

Case officer: Kath­er­ine Don­nach­ie, Plan­ning Officer, Devel­op­ment Management

Cairngorms Item 5 Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Nation­al Park Author­ity 12 Decem­ber 2025 Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 2 of 34

[Map of area]

This map has been pro­duced to aid in the stat­utory pro­cess of deal­ing with plan­ning applic­a­tions. The map is to help identi­fy the site and its sur­round­ings and to aid Plan­ning Officers, Com­mit­tee Mem­bers and the Pub­lic in the determ­in­a­tion of the pro­pos­al. Maps shown in the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Report can only be used for the pur­poses of the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee. Any oth­er use risks infringing Crown Copy­right and may lead to pro­sec­u­tion or civil pro­ceed­ings. Maps pro­duced with­in this Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Report can only be repro­duced with the express per­mis­sion of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity and oth­er Copy­right hold­ers. This per­mis­sion must be gran­ted in advance.

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Site descrip­tion, pro­pos­al and history

Site descrip­tion

1. The applic­a­tion site com­prises wood­land to the rear (south) of a small res­id­en­tial devel­op­ment at Deshar Court, Boat of Garten, imme­di­ately out­side of the des­ig­nated set­tle­ment bound­ary. Access is taken via an exist­ing open­ing from the end of Strath­spey Park. Strath­spey Park serves a num­ber of houses and leads north­wards onto the main Deshar Road which runs through the vil­lage. To the east of the site is fur­ther hous­ing set with­in wooded grounds and tak­ing access off Kin­churdy Road to the far east. Fur­ther wood­land lies to the south and west. There is a net­work of paths through and around the site lead­ing into the wood­lands and these paths also lead to the com­munity hall and the bike park.

2. The site itself is slightly slop­ing and as noted above cur­rently largely wood­land. To its imme­di­ate north are the back gar­dens of res­id­en­tial prop­er­ties, some of which have access points from their gar­dens across the site join­ing to the net­work of core paths here.

3. An over­head elec­tri­city line crosses the site. It is pro­posed to divert and under­ground this.

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=S2H06USIO CP00

Title	Draw­ing Num­ber	Date on Plan*	Date Received
Plan — Roads con­struc­tion details	220675 – 000-CAM DR C 005 Rev A	22/01/25	29/01/25
Plan — Kerbing lay­out plan	220675 – 000-CAM DR C 004 Rev B	22/01/25	29/01/25

Cairngorms Item 5 Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Nation­al Park Author­ity 12 Decem­ber 2025 Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 4 of 34

Title	Draw­ing Num­ber	Date on Plan	Date Received
Plan — Road long section	220675 – 000-CAM DR C 003 Rev A	14/01/25	29/01/25
Plan — Road lay­out plan	220675 – 000-CAM DR C 002 Rev B	22/01/25	29/01/25
Plan — Loc­a­tion plan	220675 – 000-CAM DR C 001 Rev A	22/01/25	29/01/25
Plan — Street lighting	2210.03.08 Rev A		29/01/25
Plan — Visu­al information	2210.03.05	27/10/23	17/10/24
Plan — Tree pro­tec­tion plan	Rev A	09/03/21	17/10/24
Plan — Sec­tion plan	2210.03.06 Rev B	17/09/24	17/10/24
Plan — Loc­a­tion plan	2210.03.01 Rev A		17/10/24
Plan — Gen­er­al Plan 3B6P house type	2210.03.04		17/10/24
Plan — Gen­er­al Plan 2B4P house type	2210.03.03		17/10/24
Oth­er — Arbor­i­cul­tu­al Impact Assessment	Urb­an Aid	04/03/29	17/10/24
Oth­er — Drain­age impact assessment	HGA 3564	09/01/21	17/10/24
Oth­er — Design Statement	2210.03.20 rev B	28/01/25	24/10/24
Oth­er — Afford­able hous­ing statement	CHT		24/10/24
Oth­er — Ter­restri­al mam­mal survey	Alba Eco­logy	01/07/21	24/10/24
Oth­er — Wood­land com­pens­a­tion and plant­ing plan			31/10/24
Oth­er — Sup­port­ing statement	2219.93,21 rev A	27/09/24	31/10/24
Oth­er — Con­struc­tion /​traffic management	2210.03.10 Rev C	08/03/24	14/02/25
Oth­er — Bat sur­vey report	tree doc­tors		04/04/25
Oth­er — Bat sur­vey aer­i­al schedule	tree doc­tors	18/03/25	04/04/25
Oth­er — Ground invest­ig­a­tion report	HGS	24/09/25	01/10/25

Cairngorms Item 5 Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Nation­al Park Author­ity 12 Decem­ber 2025 Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 5 of 34

Title	Draw­ing Num­ber	Date on Plan	Date Received
Oth­er — Drain­age Impact Assessment	220675 – 000-CAM RP C 001 Ver­sion 5	01/10/25	21/10/25
Oth­er — Micro drain­age caclulations		20/10/25	21/10/25
Oth­er — Road soakaway size calculation	220675 Rev 4	01/10/25	21/10/25
Oth­er — Bat roost poten­tial survey	Alba Eco­logy	01/01/25	06/02/25
Plan — Land­scap­ing proposals	2210.03.07 Rev d		23/10/25
Plan — Site plan	2210.03.02 Rev F		23/10/25
Plan — Drain­age layout	220675 – 000-CAM- DR — с 020 rev F		21/10/25
Plan — Drain­age con­struc­tion details	220675 – 000-CAM- DR‑C 022 Rev D	01/10/25	01/10/25
Plan — Drain­age lon­git­ud­in­al sections	220675 – 000-CAM- DR‑C 021 Rev D	01/10/25	01/10/25
Plan — Vehicle swept path analysis	220675 – 000-CAM- DR- C 250 Rev A	22/01/25	29/01/25
Plan — Off­s­ite improvements	220675 – 000-CAM DR C 150 Rev A	22/01/25	29/01/25
Plan — Road and site contours	220675 – 000-CAM DR C 002 Rev B	22/01/25	29/01/25

*Where no spe­cif­ic day of month has been provided on the plan, the sys­tem defaults to the 1^st of the month.

1. This applic­a­tion seeks ​“mat­ters spe­cified in con­di­tions” (MSC) con­sent in rela­tion to all parts of the con­di­tion imposed on a plan­ning per­mis­sion in prin­ciple con­sent for the erec­tion of four houses, gran­ted in Septem­ber 2021 (ref­er­ence 2021/0115/PPP). This con­sent was live at the time of sub­mis­sion of this MSC applic­a­tion and was sub­ject to a con­di­tion requir­ing the sub­mis­sion of details for approv­al (mat­ters spe­cified in con­di­tions) of design, sit­ing, drain­age, ground levels, trees, com­pens­at­ory plant­ing, land­scap­ing, eco­logy, access, core paths, park­ing, light­ing, traffic man­age­ment plan, con­struc­tion meth­od state­ment and afford­able hous­ing delivery.

Cairngorms Item 5 Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Nation­al Park Author­ity 12 Decem­ber 2025 Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 6 of 34

1. It is pro­posed to erect four houses. Two detached, 1 ¹⁄₂ storey, three-bed­room prop­er­ties are pro­posed at the rear (south) of the site. Two semi-detached, single storey, two-bed­room prop­er­ties are pro­posed at the front (north) of the site, closest to the exist­ing houses. These are described as enhanced access­ib­il­ity hous­ing designed to wheel­chair standard.

2. The walls of the single storey houses will be fin­ished in smooth white render on the south elev­a­tion, with alu­mini­um clad win­dows and doors. A met­al stand­ing seam pitched asym­met­ric roof is pro­posed which will run over car ports to the sides of the units. These car ports are designed to enable trans­fer from car to house under cov­er, and the applic­ants have explained that the asym­met­ric roof helps cre­ate a more bene­fi­cial pitch for solar/​thermal pan­els on the south elev­a­tion. The north and side elev­a­tions will be fin­ished in larch wood. All elev­a­tions of the 1 ¹⁄₂ storey prop­er­ties will be fin­ished in tim­ber (larch), with grey met­al stand­ing seam pitched roofs and alu­mini­um clad win­dows and doors which will intro­duce ele­ments of col­our — pro­posed brown red. They will also have a met­al clad dormer fea­ture on their south elev­a­tions. Sup­port­ing plans have been sub­mit­ted to show how the new houses will sit rel­at­ive to exist­ing houses to the north.

3. Access will be via an exten­sion to the access road at Strath­spey Park which will be brought up to adopt­able stand­ard, with details of the works involved provided. This includes mat­ters such as tact­ile pav­ing, replace­ment of kerbing, repair of gully sur­round­ings, and some replace­ment of block pav­ing with tar.

4. The site access road will come south from Strath­spey Park then turn west into the site with the houses situ­ated on either side tak­ing access off this road which ter­min­ates in a turn­ing area at the west­ern end. Exist­ing paths cross the site and the route of an exist­ing trampled earth path along the north­ern site bound­ary will be enclosed with­in the gar­dens of plots 1 and 3. This north­ern path will remain open to use dur­ing con­struc­tion. Con­nec­tion to the path net­work will then be provided via the edge of road path pro­vi­sion along­side the new ser­vice road which will con­nect into the exist­ing path net­work through the woods. There will be a bit­mac path con­nec­tion from the end of Strath­spey Park to con­nect onto the road­side paths. A con­nect­ing gravel path link will also be provided lead­ing south from the new ser­vice road con­nect­ing into the exist­ing path net­work in the woods.

Cairngorms Item 5 Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Nation­al Park Author­ity 12 Decem­ber 2025 Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 7 of 34

Part of this path will also serve as an access to the SuDS fea­ture described later and it will be rein­forced with geogrid mesh.

1. Exist­ing open­ings into the woods from the houses to the north will be retained as these exit onto open space to the west of the pro­posed house at plot 3. There is also an exist­ing open­ing from the rear of Glenavon House on Kin­churdy Road, which will need to be closed off for safety reas­ons dur­ing con­struc­tion but will be access­ible again once the pro­posed houses are built.

2. In-cur­til­age car park­ing will be provided, along with bin stor­age areas and air source heat pumps for each prop­erty. Bound­ary enclos­ures will be 1.2 metre high tim­ber fen­cing along east­ern sides of plots and 1.2 metre high tim­ber pal­is­ade fence built on the south side of the bound­ary with the houses to the north at the Snipe. This fence is to be built on the south side of the exist­ing tim­ber screen bound­ary fence here in order to sep­ar­ate main­ten­ance responsibilities.

3. Sur­face water is pro­posed to be dis­posed of by means of soakaways with­in the per­meable drive­ways of each house and main­tained by the house­hold­er. Roads water will be dis­charged to an atten­u­ation fea­ture in the south­east part of the site, com­pris­ing a soakaway under a dry swale fea­ture which will be planted with a damp tol­er­ant wild­flower mix. Foul water will con­nect to the pub­lic sys­tems. It is pro­posed that this sys­tem will be adop­ted by the Roads Authority.

4. As the site is presently wooded, trees will need to be removed to facil­it­ate the devel­op­ment. Sup­port­ing plans show trees to be removed and those to be retained along with land­scape details of new nat­ive plant­ing with­in the site. Com­pens­at­ory nat­ive plant­ing is pro­posed at two sep­ar­ate loc­a­tions along the route of the Strath­spey Rail­way line at the south­w­est end of Kin­churdy Road. This land is with­in the con­trol of the ori­gin­al landown­er who still retains an interest in the site. It com­prises 0.81 hec­tares of clear land.

5. The applic­a­tion is sup­por­ted by a num­ber of doc­u­ments including:

6. Construction/​Traffic Man­age­ment Plan which sets out how exist­ing access across the site will be main­tained dur­ing con­struc­tion, with the path along the northern

Cairngorms Item 5 Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Nation­al Park Author­ity 12 Decem­ber 2025 Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 8 of 34

bound­ary of the site kept open until such time as the devel­op­ment is com­plete and the new route provided. It also sets out how con­struc­tion traffic will be man­aged to min­im­ise impacts on residents.

1. Arbor­i­cul­tur­al Impact Assess­ment and Tree Pro­tec­tion Plan which sur­veyed 76 trees on site with 50 iden­ti­fied for remov­al to accom­mod­ate the pro­posed devel­op­ment. Tree pro­tec­tion is shown around the trees to be retained, which is also shown on the land­scape plan. These are loc­ated around the edges of the site. The major­ity of trees on site are Scots Pine.

2. Pro­tec­ted Ter­restri­al Mam­mals Sur­vey which was under­taken in 2021 and checked the site for wild­cat, badger, pine marten and red squir­rel. Evid­ence of older activ­ity by red squir­rel on site was found and the sur­vey con­cluded that pre- con­struc­tion sur­veys for red squir­rel should be car­ried out. This sur­vey did not include sur­vey of birds but con­cluded that as wood pigeon were evid­ent on site it would be neces­sary to under­take a pre felling sur­vey of trees before any work started.

3. Bat Sur­vey was under­taken and, fol­low­ing ini­tial con­sid­er­a­tion of the poten­tial for trees to be suit­able for bat roost­ing, ten trees were con­sidered to have poten­tial. An aer­i­al inspec­tion of these trees was under­taken which con­firmed that there were no bat roosts present, but that two of the trees had poten­tial roost fea­tures. These trees were sub­sequently felled as recom­men­ded by the sur­vey­or pri­or to the roost­ing season.

4. Design State­ment which explains that four houses are pro­posed, two single storey units with enhanced access­ib­il­ity to wheel­chair stand­ard and two 1 1½ story houses. This explains that the ridge height of the single storey houses has been kept low to reduce over­shad­ow­ing adja­cent prop­er­ties with the asym­met­ric roof cre­at­ing a more bene­fi­cial pitch for PV panels.

5. Afford­able Hous­ing State­ment which out­lines that the devel­op­ment will provide two afford­able homes for rent and two open mar­ket plots which will cross sub­sid­ise the pro­vi­sion of the ren­ted accom­mod­a­tion. It explains that the Com­munit­ies Hous­ing Trust have been work­ing with the Boat of Garten community

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for many years to help deliv­er afford­able hous­ing in the vil­lage, identi­fy­ing this site in 2017 as hav­ing poten­tial for a small devel­op­ment. The Com­munit­ies Hous­ing Trust were then asked to take this for­ward. Heads of terms have been agreed with the landown­ers (Reidhaven Trust) who will sell the land for the two afford­able ren­ted units to the Com­munit­ies Hous­ing Trust to provide afford­able ren­ted hous­ing and then sell two plots them­selves at mar­ket price. They will also provide the land for com­pens­at­ory plant­ing. Ser­vi­cing costs will be split between the two parties and all prop­er­ties will share com­mun­al responsibilities.

1. This sup­port­ing mater­i­al explains that the pro­posed devel­op­ment seeks to provide afford­able ren­ted accom­mod­a­tion for older people in the vil­lage with two wheel­chair access­ible prop­er­ties aimed to address that need and situ­ated close to shops and post office. These will be ren­ted out at social rent levels set by Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment and kept in per­petu­ity as afford­able ren­ted prop­er­ties in accord­ance with the terms and con­di­tions stip­u­lated in the Rur­al and Islands Hous­ing Fund by the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment. The mater­i­al also explains that 25% of hous­ing in Boat of Garten is second homes such that there is a press­ing need for this type of accom­mod­a­tion. It con­cludes that the pro­ject rep­res­ents a pub­lic private part­ner­ship with the Estate, and its suc­cess intends to allow for fur­ther oppor­tun­it­ies to release estate land for more afford­able hous­ing pro­jects in the future.

2. Drain­age Impact Assess­ment which explains that foul drain­age will be con­nec­ted to the Scot­tish Water sys­tem. Infilt­ra­tion rates are suit­able for plot soakaways which are to be loc­ated with­in private per­meable drive­ways – this sys­tem is to be main­tained privately. Roads water will be dealt with by a 15.5 metres by 4.5 metres by 1.6 metres deep under­ground soakaway with a dry swale above to facil­it­ate inspec­tion and main­ten­ance and to con­tain any water that may over­flow. A main­ten­ance track will also be provided and it is inten­ded that this sys­tem will be adop­ted by the Roads Author­ity. Details of the pro­posed main­ten­ance régime are included, along with meas­ures to man­age sur­face water at the con­struc­tion stage and details of drain­age cal­cu­la­tions and soil testing.

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His­tory

1. 2021/0115/PPP – plan­ning per­mis­sion in prin­ciple was gran­ted by the Park Authority’s Plan­ning Com­mit­tee in Septem­ber 2021 for the erec­tion of four houses at the applic­a­tion site – two afford­able homes and two open mar­ket homes. This con­sent was live at the time of sub­mis­sion of the MSC applic­a­tion now under con­sid­er­a­tion. It was sub­ject to a plan­ning con­di­tion which the cur­rent applic­a­tion seeks to address.

2. 2024/0002/MSC: This applic­a­tion for mat­ters spe­cified in con­di­tions was with­drawn in 2024 in order to sub­mit all neces­sary sup­port­ing information.

Hab­it­at Reg­u­la­tions Appraisal

1. A Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al (HRA) was under­taken at the time of ori­gin­al plan­ning per­mis­sion in prin­ciple con­sent in order to con­sider the poten­tial effects of the devel­op­ment of four res­id­en­tial units upon the con­ser­va­tion object­ives of des­ig­nated sites. The des­ig­nated site in this case is the Aber­nethy Forest Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Area (SPA) des­ig­nated for its breed­ing caper­cail­lie, osprey and Scot­tish cross­bill interests. Poten­tial effects on cross­bill and osprey were scoped out of the assess­ment and the HRA con­sidered that there would be no sig­ni­fic­ant increase in dis­turb­ance risk to caper­cail­lie. It was con­cluded that there was no adverse effect on the integ­rity of the site, the con­ser­va­tion object­ives would not be com­prom­ised, and no fur­ther mit­ig­a­tion was required. Nature Scot agreed 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

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Nation­al policy	Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 (NPF4) Scot­land 2045 (Policies rel­ev­ant to the assess­ment of this applic­a­tion are marked with a cross (x))
Policy 7	His­tor­ic assets and places
Policy 8	Green belts
Policy 9	Brown­field, vacant and derel­ict land, and empty build­ings X
Policy 11	Energy
Policy 12	Zero waste
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
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
Policy 30	Tour­ism
Policy 31	Cul­ture and creativity
Policy 32	Aquacul­ture
Policy 33	Min­er­als
Stra­tegic policy	Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2022 – 2027
Loc­al plan policy	Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (2021) (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

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Loc­al plan policy	Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (2021) (Policies rel­ev­ant to the assess­ment of this applic­a­tion are marked with a cross (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
Policy 8	Open space, sport and recreation
Policy 9	Cul­tur­al heritage
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
2. 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).

Guid­ance
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
Policy 9	Cul­tur­al her­it­age non-stat­utory guidance
Policy 10	Resources non-stat­utory guid­ance X
Policy 11	Developer oblig­a­tions sup­ple­ment­ary guid­ance X

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Con­sulta­tions

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

2. Scot­tish Water has no objec­tions and notes there is cur­rently suf­fi­cient capa­city for a foul only con­nec­tion to the Boat of Garten wastewa­ter treat­ment works. They high­light that the devel­op­ment is with­in the Aviemore water treat­ment works catch­ment and advise that the applic­ant should be made aware that they are not able to reserve capa­city at their treat­ment works and will require to con­tact them to con­firm that the devel­op­ment can be ser­viced. They also note that they will not accept sur­face water con­nec­tions into their com­bined sew­er sys­tem for reas­ons of sus­tain­ab­il­ity and to pro­tect cus­tom­ers from future sew­er flood­ing. Finally, they have con­firmed that there are no Scot­tish Water drink­ing water catch­ments or water abstrac­tion sources in the area which may be affected.

3. SSEN was con­sul­ted but have not provided any com­ments to date.

4. The High­land Coun­cil Flood Risk Man­age­ment Team ini­tially noted that sur­face water from each plot was to be man­aged through privately owned and main­tained soakaways with­in each plot. The road drain­age was pro­posed to be dir­ec­ted to a soakaway which was not com­pli­ant with Sew­ers for Scot­land. The Team noted that the Trans­port­a­tion Team had set out what needed to be done to make the drain­age pro­pos­als suit­able for adop­tion and until agree­ment was reached with the Roads Author­ity drain­age con­di­tions of the ori­gin­al plan­ning in prin­ciple con­sent could not be discharged.

5. On receipt of fur­ther inform­a­tion on drain­age, the Team has advised that as the pro­posed drain­age sys­tem is for roads water only the Trans­port­a­tion Team will need to be sat­is­fied that it is suit­able for adop­tion. They have no fur­ther comments.

6. The High­land Coun­cil Trans­port­a­tion Team ini­tially objec­ted on the basis of lack of inform­a­tion to dis­charge the con­di­tions of the ori­gin­al plan­ning in prin­ciple con­sent in terms of the detail of roads, waste man­age­ment and drain­age. On receipt of some fur­ther details the Team con­tin­ued to have con­cerns regard­ing the extent of road to be adop­ted and the con­nec­tion to Strath­spey Park, togeth­er with

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details of the pro­posed road design/​layout and sur­face water drain­age arrange­ments which were inten­ded to be adop­ted by the Roads Author­ity. They also high­lighted that points raised pre­vi­ously regard­ing the con­tents of the Traffic Man­age­ment Con­struc­tion Plan had not been addressed. Oth­er mat­ters relat­ing to bicycle pro­vi­sion, car park­ing, light­ing were con­sidered to be sat­is­fact­ory in terms of address­ing the ori­gin­al plan­ning conditions.

1. Fur­ther inform­a­tion was sub­sequently provided, includ­ing updated Drain­age Impact Assess­ment, and the Team has now con­firmed they have no objec­tions to the application.

2. They have noted that these details now demon­strate a roads lay­out designed to the High­land Coun­cil stand­ards with a clear com­mit­ment to bring the new road for­ward for adop­tion through the Road Con­struc­tion Con­sent (RCC) pro­cess. They note that the drain­age strategy has been sig­ni­fic­antly improved and now meets stand­ards with sur­face water to be man­aged through an adopt­able SuDS sys­tem. Sup­port­ing doc­u­ment­a­tion has con­firmed that sat­is­fact­ory infilt­ra­tion test­ing has been car­ried out and that the design demon­strates sat­is­fact­ory per­form­ance under the required storm event mod­el­ling. It is con­cluded that the design provides appro­pri­ate water qual­ity and biod­iversity fea­tures. Any remain­ing mat­ters such as detailed RCC approv­al and vest­ing arrange­ments will be addressed through the RCC process.

3. The High­land Coun­cil Envir­on­ment­al Health Team was con­sul­ted but have not provided any com­ments to date.

4. Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Out­door Access Team has no objec­tions. They note that Core Path LBS69 (Craigie to Curl­ing Pond Path) runs through the site. The Team recog­nise that pro­posed re-align­ment/up­grad­ing of path A (which cur­rently runs along the north of the site to the rear of the prop­er­ties at Deshar Court) path B (which runs along the east­ern side of the site) and the pro­vi­sion of bit­mac pave­ments through the site will togeth­er provide a suit­able route through the site which will adequately serve the pur­pose of the core path.

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1. The con­struc­tion spe­cific­a­tion for the paths is con­sidered to be adequate for a rur­al wood­land foot­path. The Team also wel­comes the applicant’s com­mit­ment to main­tain­ing pedestrian/​cycle access through the site (from Strath­spey Park to the woods) via the exist­ing path along the back of the houses to the north of the site, until con­struc­tion is com­plete and the new altern­at­ive route through the devel­op­ment and along the reinstated/​rerouted paths is avail­able. They fur­ther note the need to close path B dur­ing con­struc­tion and have no objec­tion to this, not­ing that diver­sion sig­nage will be provided.

2. On sub­mis­sion of the applicant’s construction/​traffic man­age­ment plan and updated Design and Access State­ment the Team has wel­comed that these state that the pedestrian/​cycle access route from Strath­spey Park into the wood­land will be main­tained through con­struc­tion via the path at the north of the site pri­or to the core path being rerouted through the devel­op­ment fol­low­ing com­ple­tion. This is con­sidered to provide an adequate level of pub­lic access into the wood­land dur­ing the con­struc­tion stage.

3. Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Eco­logy Advisor was con­sul­ted on the pre­vi­ous applic­a­tion for MSC con­sent which was with­drawn (2024/0002/MSC). At that time the officer had no objec­tions to the pro­pos­als sub­ject to pre-con­struc­tion sur­veys being car­ried out for red squir­rels and breed­ing bird sur­veys if work was under­taken dur­ing the bird breed­ing sea­son. The officer con­firmed that an HRA had been car­ried out at the plan­ning per­mis­sion in prin­ciple stage. It was also noted that com­pens­at­ory plant­ing at a 3 to 1 ratio was being pro­posed off site in order to com­pensate for the loss of trees on site which was con­sidered to be sat­is­fact­ory, fur­ther not­ing that the loss of the trees was con­sidered to be of low sig­ni­fic­ance involving heav­ily dis­turbed wood­land, in a corner of the wood­land so lim­it­ing any frag­ment­a­tion issues.

4. Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Land­scape Advisor was con­sul­ted on the pre­vi­ous applic­a­tion and advised at that time that the scale of the pro­posed devel­op­ment was small and the effect would not be sig­ni­fic­ant on the wider wood­land or the vil­lage land­scape. Recom­mend­a­tions were made requir­ing detailed land­scape plans, pro­tec­tion of trees to be retained and con­sid­er­a­tion of how to lay out paths/​entrance to improve amenity.

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1. Boat of Garten Com­munity Coun­cil was con­sul­ted on the applic­a­tion and have not provided any com­ments to date. The Com­munity Coun­cil was con­sul­ted on the ori­gin­al plan­ning per­mis­sion in prin­ciple applic­a­tion and con­firmed sup­port for the pro­pos­als at that time.

Rep­res­ent­a­tions

1. The applic­a­tion was advert­ised and two rep­res­ent­a­tions were received. These are attached as Appen­dices 2 (a) and (b). One is a gen­er­al com­ment seek­ing more inform­a­tion on eco­lo­gic­al sup­port­ing mater­i­al and times­cales. This was respon­ded to, and the writer was later advised of the sub­mis­sion of bat sur­vey work.

2. The oth­er rep­res­ent­a­tion (Appendix 2 b) objects to the pro­posed devel­op­ment and refers to let­ters sub­mit­ted on pre­vi­ous applic­a­tions at this site. Key con­cerns are as follows:

a) Access and rights of way con­cern is raised that the exist­ing estab­lished path (described by the writer as a right of way) along the bound­ary fence with the Snipe is being removed. This will remove an amen­ity buf­fer between the devel­op­ment and the houses, reduce pri­vacy, and pre­vent access to the path net­work from the Snipe and oth­er prop­er­ties here. Space is also required for future main­ten­ance of the exist­ing fence at the Snipe. b) Water man­age­ment – con­cern is raised that sur­face water will run onto neigh­bour­ing gar­dens with quer­ies raised about tim­ing and loc­a­tion of drain­age test. c) Adverse impacts on land­scape from loss of trees. d) Loss of pri­vacy from over­look­ing from new houses – request that the houses be relo­cated fur­ther west. e) Con­cerns regard­ing impact on wild­life and bats which are present in this area with require­ment for bat sur­vey high­lighted giv­en that bats are present in this woodland.

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Apprais­al

1. Sec­tion 25 of the 1997 Act as amended requires applic­a­tions to be determ­ined in accord­ance with the Devel­op­ment Plan. This com­prises Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 (NPF4) and the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 (LDP). Where there is con­flict between policies, NPF4 policies will be used.

Prin­ciple

1. NPF4 Policy 9: Brown­field, vacant and derel­ict land and empty build­ings states that pro­pos­als on green­field sites will not be sup­por­ted unless the site has been alloc­ated for devel­op­ment or the pro­pos­al is expli­citly sup­por­ted by policies in the LDP. NPF4 Policy 16: Qual­ity homes sets out that devel­op­ment pro­pos­als for new homes on land alloc­ated for hous­ing in the LDP will be sup­por­ted, and that devel­op­ment pro­pos­als on land not alloc­ated for hous­ing in the LDP will only be