Item 6 CoireMashieProposalOfApplicationNotice CommitteeReport PRE20260025

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Item 6 Plan­ning Com­mit­tee 9 Octo­ber 2026

Com­mit­tee report

Devel­op­ment proposed:

Pro­pos­al of applic­a­tion notice – con­struc­tion of new 400kV sub­sta­tion and under­ground cable con­nec­tion com­pris­ing new build­ings, plat­form, plant and machinery, access, laydown/​work com­pound area(s), drain­age, land­scap­ing, track upgrades and install­a­tions, under­ground cabling and oth­er ancil­lary works (Nation­al Devel­op­ment) on land to the south of the A86, Strath­mash­ie, Lag­gan, New­ton­more, PH20 1AJ

Ref­er­ence: PRE/2026/0025

Applic­ant: Scot­tish Hydro Elec­tric Trans­mis­sion plc

Date called-in: N/A

Recom­mend­a­tion: For information

Case officer: Heath­er Boswell, Seni­or Plan­ning Officer

Pur­pose

1. The pur­pose of this report is to: a) inform the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee of a Pro­pos­al of Applic­a­tion Notice (PoAN); and b) allow mem­bers to raise any views on the issues to be addressed in any sub­sequent plan­ning application.

Back­ground

1. The Plan­ning etc. (Scot­land) Act 2006 requires that any developer pro­pos­ing to sub­mit a major plan­ning applic­a­tion must under­take stat­utory pre-applic­a­tion con­sulta­tion with the com­munity. Before com­men­cing this con­sulta­tion, the developer is required to serve a ​‘Pro­pos­al of Applic­a­tion Notice’ (PoAN) on the Plan­ning Authority.

2. This report relates to a PoAN for a new 400kV sub­sta­tion and under­ground cable con­nec­tion on land to the south of the A86, Strath­mash­ie. The PoAN was sub­mit­ted to the High­land Coun­cil on 26 August 2026, who sub­sequently noti­fied the Park Author­ity on 11 Septem­ber 2026. Mem­bers are asked to note that this PoAN is inten­ded to form the basis of a sub­sequent plan­ning applic­a­tion. The sub­mit­ted inform­a­tion com­prises the Loc­a­tion Plan (Appendix 1a) and the PoAN form (Appendix 1b).

3. In Decem­ber 2015, Plan­ning Com­mit­tee agreed a pro­ced­ure to allow Mem­ber involve­ment in pre-applic­a­tion advice for major plan­ning applic­a­tions, since these applic­a­tions are nor­mally called in for determ­in­a­tion by the Park Author­ity. The pro­ced­ure involves officers present­ing the inform­a­tion provided by the applic­ant as part of any PoAN sub­mis­sion, along with a short cov­er­ing report to high­light the rel­ev­ant policy frame­work, likely mater­i­al con­sid­er­a­tions and key issues asso­ci­ated with the pro­posed development.

4. In line with the agreed pro­ced­ure, it is import­ant to note that Com­mit­tee Mem­bers are not being asked to dis­cuss the mer­its of the pro­pos­al. Rather, they are asked to note the rel­ev­ant issues that a future applic­a­tion would be expec­ted to address and advise of any addi­tion­al mater­i­al issues they wish to be drawn to the applicant’s attention.

The pro­pos­al

1. The pro­pos­al is for the con­struc­tion of a new 400kV sub­sta­tion and under­ground cable con­nec­tion com­pris­ing new build­ings, plat­form, plant and machinery, access, laydown/​work com­pound area(s), drain­age, land­scap­ing, track upgrades and install­a­tions, under­ground cabling and oth­er ancil­lary works on land south of the A86, Strath­mash­ie. The pro­pos­al is neces­sary to con­nect the con­sen­ted Ear­ba pumped stor­age hydro scheme into the grid. A sep­ar­ate Sec­tion 37 applic­a­tion will be sub­mit­ted to the Scot­tish Government’s Energy Con­sents Unit in sum­mer 2027 for the asso­ci­ated over­head line and tower works required to upgrade the Beauly to Denny trans­mis­sion line and bring the devel­op­ment online.

2. The pro­pos­al com­prises land with­in the High­land Coun­cil loc­al author­ity area, with a large pro­por­tion of the red line bound­ary fall­ing with­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity bound­ary. The sub­sta­tion is pro­posed in prox­im­ity to the exist­ing Beauly to Denny over­head line, approx­im­ately 2km south-east of Feargour cot­tage, Kin­loch­lag­gan. The under­ground cable cor­ridor would extend south-west from this loc­a­tion towards the con­sen­ted Ear­ba pumped stor­age hydro scheme site at Lochan na h‑Earba.

3. The PoAN sub­mis­sion explains that the applic­ants pro­pose to carry out two pre-applic­a­tion pub­lic con­sulta­tion events as required by legis­la­tion. The events will be held at Lag­gan Com­munity Hall between 3pm and 7pm on 7 Octo­ber 2026 and 24 March 2027. Both events will be advert­ised in the loc­al press.

Site descrip­tion

1. The site falls with­in the Ard­verikie Estate and com­prises areas of wood­land and open moor­land. The River Mash­ie, River Pat­tack and its trib­u­tar­ies flow through the site. Vari­ous tracks are present across the site and access­ible to act­ive travel users and estate vehicles. The Beauly to Denny over­head line tran­sects the north­ern por­tion of the site. Across the site small areas of loc­al­ised sur­face water and river flood­ing are iden­ti­fied on SEPA’s flood maps. Giv­en the extent of land with­in the site bound­ary which is not at risk of flood­ing, it would be reas­on­able to assume that the devel­op­ment will be sited to avoid flood risk areas.

2. A small num­ber of scattered prop­er­ties are loc­ated across the Ard­verikie Estate used as both per­man­ent res­id­ences and short-term lets.

Devel­op­ment plan context

1. Any pro­posed devel­op­ment will be con­sidered against the rel­ev­ant policies and guid­ance as con­tained with­in the Devel­op­ment Plan. For the parts of the devel­op­ment with­in the Nation­al Park bound­ary, this com­prises the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 (LDP) and the Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 (NPF4). Where there is con­flict between policies, NPF4 policies will be used.

Policies

Nation­al policy

Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 (NPF4) Scot­land 2045 (Policies expec­ted to be rel­ev­ant to the assess­ment of any future plan­ning applic­a­tion for this devel­op­ment pro­pos­al are marked with a cross (x))

Policy	Descrip­tion	Rel­ev­ant
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
Policy 10	Coastal devel­op­ment
Policy 11	Energy	X
Policy 12	Zero waste	X
Policy 13	Sus­tain­able transport
Policy 14	Design, qual­ity and place	X
Policy 15	Loc­al liv­ing and 20-minute neighbourhoods
Policy 16	Qual­ity homes
Policy 17	Rur­al homes
Policy 18	Infra­struc­ture first	X
Policy 19	Heat and cooling
Policy 20	Blue and green infrastructure
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	X
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 expec­ted to be rel­ev­ant to the assess­ment of any future plan­ning applic­a­tion for this devel­op­ment pro­pos­al are marked with a cross (x))

Policy	Descrip­tion	Rel­ev­ant
Policy 1	New hous­ing development
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
Policy 9	Cul­tur­al heritage	X
Policy 10	Resources	X
Policy 11	Developer oblig­a­tions

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 expec­ted to be rel­ev­ant to this pro­posed plan­ning applic­a­tion is marked with a cross.

Policy	Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance	Rel­ev­ant
Policy 1	New Hous­ing Devel­op­ment Sup­ple­ment­ary Guidance
Policy 2	Sup­port­ing Eco­nom­ic Growth Non-Stat­utory Guidance	X
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 Sup­ple­ment­ary Guidance	X
Policy 8	Sport and Recre­ation Non-Stat­utory Guidance
Policy 9	Cul­tur­al Her­it­age Non-Stat­utory Guidance	X
Policy 10	Resources Non-Stat­utory Guidance	X
Policy 11	Developer Oblig­a­tions Sup­ple­ment­ary Guidance

Poten­tial mater­i­al plan­ning con­sid­er­a­tions and issues to address

1. Key mater­i­al plan­ning con­sid­er­a­tions for any sub­sequent applic­a­tion are as fol­lows: a) The prin­ciple of devel­op­ment b) Land­scape and visu­al impacts c) Design and lay­out d) Flood­ing and sur­face water man­age­ment e) Envir­on­ment­al impacts (includ­ing impacts on any des­ig­nated sites) f) Eco­logy g) Forestry and wood­land h) Archae­ology and cul­tur­al her­it­age i) Amen­ity (includ­ing noise, vibra­tion and air qual­ity) j) Access (includ­ing traffic, trans­port, and pub­lic access impacts)

Con­clu­sion and next steps

1. The report presents the inform­a­tion sub­mit­ted to date as part of the PoAN. Officers have sum­mar­ised the policy con­sid­er­a­tions against which any future plan­ning applic­a­tion will be con­sidered as well as poten­tial mater­i­al plan­ning con­sid­er­a­tions and key issues. The sum­mary is not exhaust­ive, and fur­ther mat­ters may arise as and when a plan­ning applic­a­tion is received, and in the light of pub­lic rep­res­ent­a­tions and con­sulta­tion responses on any form­al plan­ning application.

2. It is recom­men­ded that the Com­mit­tee notes the sub­mis­sion of the PoAN and advises of any addi­tion­al mater­i­al issues it wishes be brought to the applicant’s attention.

Recom­mend­a­tion

That mem­bers of the com­mit­tee: a) note the Pro­pos­al of Applic­a­tion Noti­fic­a­tion; b) note the Officer’s advice to the pro­spect­ive applic­ant as to issues to address; and c) advise of any addi­tion­al rel­ev­ant issues to be addressed in any future plan­ning application.