Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Item 6 Plan­ning Com­mit­tee 24 April 2026

Com­mit­tee report

Devel­op­ment proposed: Install­a­tion of a hydro-elec­tric scheme and asso­ci­ated works at Land 650 Metres South West Of Dalmun­zie Castle Hotel, Spit­tal Of Glen­shee, Blair­gowrie, PH10 7QG

Ref­er­ence: 2025/0300/DET Applic­ant: Dalmun­zie Ltd Date called-in: 24 Novem­ber 2025 Recom­mend­a­tion: Approve Case officer: Kath­er­ine Don­nach­ie, Plan­ning Officer

(A map is present on this page, illus­trat­ing the site loc­a­tion in Glen Shee with geo­graph­ic­al fea­tures, roads, and the pro­posed scheme’s out­line. The map includes a legend and copy­right inform­a­tion from CNPA and Ord­nance Survey.)

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.

Site descrip­tion, pro­pos­al and history

Site descrip­tion

1. The applic­a­tion site is loc­ated to the west of Spit­tal of Glen­shee, accessed via an exist­ing track net­work off the minor road serving Dalmun­zie Castle Hotel. The site lies to the far south of the hotel on the oppos­ite side of the Shee Water which runs along­side the hotel road. The Shee Water is a trib­u­tary of the River Tay Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion (SAC) which is des­ig­nated for river, sea and brook lamprey, otter, clear water lakes or lochs, and Atlantic sal­mon interests.

2. The pro­posed devel­op­ment site runs from a field below some sheep pens to the south of the hotel track, south­wards along the Allt Coire a’ Ghe­arraig water­course to the primary intake, then onto a sec­ond­ary intake fur­ther south­w­est on an unnamed water­course. The area is south­wards slop­ing upland rough graz­ing and moor­land which climbs south­wards towards Ben Earb and Meall a’Coire Bhuidhe. The grid con­nec­tion cable will run north­wards across a golf course area asso­ci­ated with the hotel and over the Loch­sie Burn to con­nect to the hotel. The main track serving the site runs through forestry west­wards from its junc­tion onto the hotel access road.

3. There are a num­ber of core paths in the area includ­ing the hotel road (Core Path MTBL/101) which then loops round north to con­tin­ue as core path 142 (Glen­loch­sie). It then con­nects onto core path 100 (Glen Tait­neach) on the lower slopes of Ben Gulabin on the north side of the Shee Water. The forestry track head­ing from Spit­tal of Glen­shee to Glen Loch­sie is also used recre­ation­ally as an access route.

4. There are lis­ted build­ings at Spit­tal of Glen­shee itself some dis­tance to the east (church, grave­yard and bridge) and areas of archae­olo­gic­al interest as recor­ded in the His­tor­ic Envir­on­ment Records includ­ing town­ships in the imme­di­ate area of the site.

5. The Cairngorms Mas­sif Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Area (SPA) lies a short dis­tance to the south of the pro­posed new intakes. It is des­ig­nated for its golden eagle interests. This SPA also lies to the far north on the oth­er side of the River Shee and con­nect­ing up at Glen Loch­sie, with the Forest of Clunie SPA loc­ated some 800 metres to the southwest.

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: 2025/0300/DET | Install­a­tion of a hydro-elec­tric scheme and asso­ci­ated works | Land 650 Metres South West Of Dalmun­zie Castle Hotel Spit­tal Of Glen­shee Blair­gowrie PH10 7QG

Title	Draw­ing Num­ber	Date on Plan*	Date Received
Plan — Loc­a­tion Plan — Devel­op­ment Bound­ary Plan 1	283 – 06-DWG03-REV01		24/11/25
Plan — Loc­a­tion Plan — Devel­op­ment Bound­ary Plan 2	283 – 06-DWG03-REV03		24/11/25
Plan — Exist­ing Site Plan	283 – 06-DWG16-REV01		24/11/25
Plan — Pen­stock Section	283 – 06-DWG12-REV01		24/11/25
Plan — Primary Intake 1 — Elevation	283 – 06-DWG05-REV02		24/11/25
Plan — Primary Intake 1 Plan	283 – 06-DWG11-REV01		24/11/25
Plan — Devel­op­ment Site Plan 1	283 – 06-DWG08-I-REV01		24/11/25
Plan — Devel­op­ment Site Plan 2	283 – 06-DWG08-H-REV01		24/11/25
Plan — Devel­op­ment Site Plan 3	283 – 06-DWG08-G-REV01		24/11/25
Plan — Devel­op­ment Site Plan 4	283 – 06-DWG08-F-REV01		24/11/25
Plan — Devel­op­ment Site Plan 5	283 – 06-DW-G08-E-REV01		24/11/25
Plan — Devel­op­ment Site Plan 6	283 – 06-DW-G08-D-REV01		24/11/25
Plan — Devel­op­ment Site Plan 7	283 – 06-DWG08-C-REV01		24/11/25
Plan — Devel­op­ment Site Plan 8	283 – 06-DWG08-B-REV01		24/11/25
Plan — Devel­op­ment Site Plan 9	283 – 06-DWG08-A-REV01		24/11/25
Plan — Rur­al Loc­a­tion Plan	283 – 06-DWG15-REV02		24/11/25
Plan — Sec­ond­ary Intake Elevation	283 – 06-DWG04-REV02		24/11/25
Plan — Trans­fer Pipe Section	283 – 06-DWG13-REV02		24/11/25
Plan — Tur­bine House & Out­fall Arrangements	283 – 06-DWG10-REV01		24/11/25
Plan — Tur­bine House Elevations	283 – 06-DWG09-REV01		24/11/25
Plan — Core Paths	283 – 06-DWG18-REV01		29/01/26
Plan — Archae­olo­gic­al Features	283 – 06-DWG17-REV01		29/01/26
Plan — Cable Route	283 – 06-DWG19 REV01		26/02/26
Oth­er — Access Statement	283 – 06-PTN04-REV 01	27/01/26	29/01/26
Oth­er — Archae­olo­gic­al Statement	283 – 06-PTN03-REV 01	27/01/26	29/01/26
Oth­er — Land­scape and Visu­al Appraisal	283 – 06-PTN02-REV 01	21/01/26	29/01/26
Oth­er — Biod­iversity Statement	283 – 06-PTN01-REV 01	21/01/26	29/01/26
Oth­er — Pro­tec­ted Spe­cies Report			24/11/25
Oth­er — Pol­lu­tion Pre­ven­tion Plan		01/09/25	24/11/25
Oth­er — Fish Hab­it­at Survey			24/11/25
Oth­er — Design Statement		01/10/25	24/11/25
Oth­er — Con­struc­tion Meth­od Statement		01/10/25	24/11/25

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

1. The devel­op­ment pro­poses a 30kw twin intake run of river micro hydro­elec­tric scheme to provide elec­tri­city for Dalmun­zie Castle Hotel so off­set­ting energy use at the castle and redu­cing its car­bon foot­print, with any sur­plus sold back to the grid.

2. The pro­pos­al involves a num­ber of com­pon­ents includ­ing two intakes, pen­stock to trans­fer water, gen­er­at­or house and grid con­nec­tion cable. Plans of the pro­posed devel­op­ment are attached as Appendix 1. The applicant’s sup­port­ing inform­a­tion advises that the loc­a­tion of intakes has been chosen to max­im­ise avail­able head of water and because the gradi­ent is favour­able for the move­ment of water through the trans­fer pipe. The loc­a­tion of the tur­bine house was chosen to max­im­ise avail­able head and as bey­ond this point the gradi­ent of the water­course decreases and there is a great­er poten­tial for good fish habitat.

3. The primary intake is pro­posed on the Allt Coire a’ Ger­raig burn some dis­tance south of Dalmun­zie Castle Hotel. It will be loc­ated just below an exist­ing ford type cross­ing of the water­course. The pro­posed intake will be con­tained with­in the exist­ing bank pro­file with no changes to ground level pro­posed or any need for rock break­ing with weir struc­tures pinned to bed­rock. The pro­posed design is a Coanda steel box struc­ture moun­ted to a poured con­crete weir. A hands-off flow ori­fice will be fit­ted which will ensure that suf­fi­cient water bypasses the intake to ensure that there is always flow down the burn.

4. The sec­ond­ary intake will be loc­ated fur­ther south­east on an unnamed water­course. It will be a simple log stop design (using tim­ber sleep­ers) with a bur­ied 250mm twin wall trans­fer pipe to divert the required flow to the primary intake.

5. The water will then go into a 225mm HDPE bur­ied pen­stock (pres­sur­ised cable) which will run for 780 metres on the north side of the water­course lead­ing down to the tur­bine house. The pen­stock will have a con­stant fall to min­im­ise sed­i­ment build up and air entrap­ment. It will run down the hill to the tur­bine house with a tailrace back into the burn with all water then returned to the burn. The pro­posed tur­bine house will be loc­ated below an embank­ment with sheep pens and shed loc­ated at the top of the slope. It will meas­ure some 4 metres by 4 metres with tim­ber clad walls and mono­p­itch steel roof.

6. An elec­tric­al bur­ied cable will then run from the tur­bine to Dalmun­zie Castle Hotel across the golf course with a sus­pen­ded cable cross­ing over the Glen Loch­sie Burn. This will run for around 570 metres and routed to avoid the loc­a­tion of a medi­ev­al township.

7. A lay­down area for works is pro­posed in the field beside the private road to Dalmun­zie Castle Hotel and will meas­ure around 20 metres by 5 metres with no layered hard­core or alter­a­tions proposed.

8. The exist­ing road to Dalmun­zie Castle Hotel is to be used for access along with exist­ing forestry tracks with no new accesses required. Due to the small scale of pro­ject around six-eight HGV deliv­er­ies are expec­ted over the six-eight week pre­dicted con­struc­tion period.

9. The applic­ants have sum­mar­ised the eco­nom­ic bene­fits as redu­cing run­ning costs of the hotel, sur­plus energy being used to help sup­port the estate, use of loc­al con­tract­ors and cre­ation of a part-time skilled post to carry out peri­od­ic main­ten­ance. They have also con­firmed that a Con­trolled Activ­it­ies Reg­u­la­tions (CAR) license has been sub­mit­ted to Scot­tish Envir­on­ment Pro­tec­tion Area (SEPA).

10. A num­ber of sup­port­ing doc­u­ments have been sub­mit­ted as fol­lows: a) Con­struc­tion meth­od state­ment – this sets out how the work will pro­ceed to min­im­ise envir­on­ment­al impacts and avoid the fish spawn­ing sea­son (Octo­ber to March) for any in river works. Work is estim­ated to take around six-eight weeks and details of the pro­gramme and mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures for all com­pon­ents are included. b) Design State­ment – describ­ing the scheme, site con­di­tions, access, con­struc­tion and reas­ons for choice of loc­a­tion / com­pon­ents. c) Pol­lu­tion Pre­ven­tion Plan – set­ting out the vari­ous meas­ures to avoid envir­on­ment­al pol­lu­tion includ­ing induc­tion for work­ers, silt bar­ri­ers, set­ting aside of turves and care­ful stor­age of mater­i­als. d) Pro­tec­ted Spe­cies Report – notes that a desktop sur­vey revealed only a single record for red squir­rel with­in 1km of the site, with otter with­in 5km of the site. The onsite sur­vey revealed no signs of otter or water vole not­ing that the act­ive nature of the water­course may reduce its suit­ab­il­ity for these spe­cies whilst the high­er qual­ity hab­it­at on the lower reaches flows through fields used for live­stock with lim­ited poten­tial for otter. There were no signs of oth­er pro­tec­ted spe­cies such as red squir­rel, bats, badgers, pine marten or wild­cat. Rab­bit were found and a mink trap which indic­ated that this invas­ive spe­cies has been present. e) Fish Hab­it­at Sur­vey – is set out to assess fish hab­it­at affected by the devel­op­ment and com­prised the stretches of river which would be sub­ject to reduced flows as well as fur­ther stretches extend­ing 100 metres upstream and 500 metres down­stream, with an assess­ment of exist­ing instream obstacles to fish migra­tion under­taken too. It con­cludes that there is unlikely to be any impact on fish pop­u­la­tions from the oper­a­tion of the scheme due to the nature of the water­course (extens­ive bed­rock chan­nel and gen­er­al high energy) and obstacles (fords, falls in chan­nel boulders) upstream of the tur­bine house. The greatest risk would be at con­struc­tion stage in terms of poten­tial pol­lu­tion, which may be addressed by fol­low­ing SEPA guid­ance and licens­ing require­ments. f) Archae­olo­gic­al Sup­port­ing State­ment – explains how the devel­op­ment is designed to avoid impacts on known archae­olo­gic­al fea­tures with the cable route across the golf course avoid­ing the medi­ev­al town­ship in this area and mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures pro­posed. g) Land­scape and Visu­al Assess­ment – includes visu­al­isa­tions to demon­strate how the pro­posed devel­op­ment will fit into the land­scape. It con­cludes that there will be no sig­ni­fic­ant impact upon the spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies of the Nation­al Park. h) Access State­ment – explains how use of core and recre­ation­al paths will be man­aged dur­ing con­struc­tion. i) Biod­iversity State­ment – sets out the pro­pos­als for plant­ing on either side of the water­course below the tur­bine house.

His­tory

1. There is no plan­ning his­tory on the site itself.

Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Appraisal

1. A Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al (HRA) has been under­taken to con­sider the poten­tial effects of the devel­op­ment upon the con­ser­va­tion object­ives of European sites. The HRA doc­u­ment is attached as Appendix 2. The European sites in this case are the River Tay Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion (SAC) des­ig­nated for clear water lakes and lochs, sea river and brook lamprey, Atlantic sal­mon and otter interests, and the Cairngorms Mas­sif Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Area (SPA) des­ig­nated for its golden eagle interests. The Forest of Clunie SPA also lies to the south­w­est, des­ig­nated for its hen har­ri­er, osprey, short eared owl and mer­lin interests.

2. The HRA iden­ti­fied that there could be likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects in rela­tion to the River Tay SAC in terms of short-term effects arising dur­ing con­struc­tion includ­ing poten­tial release of sed­i­ments or pol­lu­tion impact­ing on hab­it­ats and also dis­turb­ance and impacts on prey spe­cies in rela­tion to otter. Likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects were also iden­ti­fied for the Forest of Clunie SPA relat­ing to short term dis­turb­ance for owl, mer­lin and hen har­ri­er for­aging in the breed­ing sea­son. Sim­il­arly, there may be likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects for the Cairngorms Mas­sif SPA in rela­tion to golden eagle as the upland grass­land and forestry in the area may be used by for­aging Golden Eagle with signs of this on site. An appro­pri­ate assess­ment of the implic­a­tions for the des­ig­nated sites in terms of their con­ser­va­tion object­ives was there­fore undertaken.

3. In rela­tion to the River Tay SAC the HRA con­cluded that there is poten­tial for indir­ect impacts on lamprey and Atlantic sal­mon interests due to the con­nectiv­ity of the site to the Shee Water and the suit­ab­il­ity of the water­course below the tur­bine house for sal­mon­oid fry and parr. It is con­sidered that these impacts can be sat­is­fact­or­ily mit­ig­ated by the imple­ment­a­tion of the applicant’s Con­struc­tion Meth­od State­ment and Pol­lu­tion Pre­ven­tion Plan (which fol­lows good prac­tice and makes pro­vi­sion for sed­i­ment bar­ri­ers to pre­vent sed­i­ment enter­ing the water­course) and by tim­ing of works to avoid the key Atlantic sal­mon spawn­ing sea­son (mid-Octo­ber to end of Feb­ru­ary). With regard to otter interests, the applic­ants’ Pro­tec­ted Spe­cies Sur­vey found no signs of otter with the hab­it­at assessed as unlikely to be suit­able for holts or couches. The lower stretches of the water­course could be suit­able for for­aging otter, and they may be tem­por­ar­ily inhib­ited from for­aging dur­ing the con­struc­tion peri­od. How­ever, it is con­sidered that as otter have very large home ranges tem­por­ary con­struc­tion work is unlikely to have a sig­ni­fic­ant impact, whilst the pol­lu­tion con­trol meas­ures pro­posed should ensure no impacts on their prey spe­cies. It is also recom­men­ded that a pre-con­struc­tion check for otter is under­taken. These meas­ures can be secured by appro­pri­ate plan­ning conditions.

4. In rela­tion to the Cairngorms Mas­sif SPA as the devel­op­ment lies out­with the SPA there will not be a dir­ect impact on hab­it­ats sup­port­ing golden eagle. How­ever, parts of the pro­posed devel­op­ment are with­in 20 metres of the SPA. As the core for­aging dis­tance for Golden Eagle is 6km it is unlikely that they will be solely depend­ent on the devel­op­ment site. How­ever, golden eagle are sens­it­ive to dis­turb­ance with­in 1 km of nest sites dur­ing the breed­ing sea­son (Feb­ru­ary to end of August), so if con­struc­tion work was car­ried out dur­ing this peri­od there may be short term dis­turb­ance to eagle. Once installed the pro­posed devel­op­ment will not require an act­ive human pres­ence so there will not be a sig­ni­fic­ant increase in human activ­ity long term. It is recom­men­ded that tim­ing con­struc­tion activ­ity to avoid the Golden Eagle breed­ing sea­son will ensure that there is not a sig­ni­fic­ant impact on the pop­u­la­tion whereby the con­ser­va­tion object­ive will be met.

5. Finally, with regard to the Forest of Clunie SPA, it is noted that the pop­u­la­tion of hen har­ri­ers in the Forest of Clunie is one of the largest in the UK. As the site lies out­with the SPA there will not be a dir­ect impact upon hab­it­ats sup­port­ing hen har­ri­ers, although parts of the devel­op­ment are with­in 800 metres of the SPA and well with­in the 2km core for­aging dis­tance for hen har­ri­er, with a high dens­ity of vole bur­rows (a key prey spe­cies for har­ri­er) in the heath­land sur­round­ing the Allt Coire a Ghear­aig water­course. How­ever, as there are extens­ive areas of such hab­it­at avail­able it is not con­sidered that the hen har­ri­er would be solely depend­ent on land at the devel­op­ment site whereby there should not be a sig­ni­fic­ant impact. A sim­il­ar con­clu­sion was reached for short eared owl and mer­lin. Over­all, it is con­cluded that whilst there may be tem­por­ary indir­ect impacts dur­ing the con­struc­tion phase there will not be a sig­ni­fic­ant increase in human activ­ity dur­ing the oper­a­tion­al stage or loss of poten­tial for­aging hab­it­at and there­fore no sig­ni­fic­ant long-term dis­turb­ance. Meas­ures pro­posed in rela­tion to tim­ing of works to avoid the Golden Eagle breed­ing sea­son will also ensure the con­ser­va­tion object­ives of the Forest of Clunie SPA are met.

6. On this basis, it is con­cluded that the con­ser­va­tion object­ives of the des­ig­nated sites will be met and there will not be an adverse effect on integ­rity of the des­ig­nated sites, sub­ject to mit­ig­a­tion relat­ing to imple­ment­a­tion of pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion plan and con­struc­tion man­age­ment state­ment; tim­ing of works to avoid bird breed­ing sea­son; pre-con­struc­tion pro­tec­ted spe­cies sur­vey; and tim­ing of works to avoid Atlantic Sal­mon spawn­ing sea­son. NatureScot have been con­sul­ted on the HRA and have con­firmed agree­ment with these conclusions.

Devel­op­ment plan context

Policies

Nation­al policy	Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 (NPF4) Scot­land 2045 (Policies rel­ev­ant to the assess­ment of this applic­a­tion are marked with a cross (x))
Policy 1	Tack­ling the cli­mate and nature crises	X
Policy 2	Cli­mate mit­ig­a­tion and adaptation	X
Policy 3	Biod­iversity	X
Policy 4	Nat­ur­al places	X
Policy 5	Soils	X
Policy 6	Forestry, wood­land and trees	X
Policy 7	His­tor­ic assets and places	X
Policy 8	Green belts
Policy 9	Brown­field, vacant and derel­ict land, and empty buildings
Policy 11	Energy	X
Policy 12	Zero waste	X
Policy 13	Sus­tain­able transport	X
Policy 14	Design, qual­ity and place	X
Policy 15	Loc­al liv­ing and 20 minute neighbourhoods
Policy 16	Qual­ity homes
Policy 1