Item 8 AA Beauly Denny Update

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 8 16/08/2019

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

FOR INFORM­A­TION

Title: BEAULY TO DENNY TRANS­MIS­SON LINE PRO­JECT PRO­GRESS UPDATE Pre­pared by: Gav­in Miles, Head of Planning

Pur­pose of Report To update the com­mit­tee on the Beauly to Denny trans­mis­sion line works in the Nation­al Park and the res­tor­a­tion and reve­get­a­tion of the main line works.

Recom­mend­a­tion That the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee notes the con­tent of the paper.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 8 16/08/2019

Back­ground & Context

1. The Beauly to Denny trans­mis­sion pro­ject star­ted on site in 2012 fol­low­ing the 2010 con­sent from Scot­tish Min­is­ters under Sec­tion 37 of the Elec­tri­city. The main line con­struc­tion was com­pleted in 2016.

2. Fol­low­ing CNPA site vis­its in 2015 and 2016, where it became clear to CNPA officers that the res­tor­a­tion meth­ods were unlikely to be suc­cess­ful in some sec­tions of the line, Scot­tish and South­ern Energy Net­works (SSEN) and Balfour-Beat­tie (the main con­tract­or) agreed to under­take a vol­un­tary mon­it­or­ing scheme of the res­tor­a­tion to check on pro­gress. Some of the least suc­cess­ful res­tor­a­tion of the tem­por­ary access tracks and tower bases has occurred over a stretch of the line between Dal­nas­pid­al in the south and Dal­whin­nie in the north, on ground clearly vis­ible from the A9 and main high­land rail line. The mon­it­or­ing scheme runs run for five years from 2016 and includes a site inspec­tion assess­ment of revegetation.

3. The Plan­ning Com­mit­tee last received a form­al update in Decem­ber 2017’, fol­low­ing com­ple­tion of the year two mon­it­or­ing report. In that report, SSEN com­mit­ted to under­take addi­tion­al tri­al meas­ures in 2018 to accel­er­ate reve­get­a­tion in some sec­tions with­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. The year three mon­it­or­ing report, received by the CNPA in June 2019 (Appendix 1), cov­ers the first year of those tri­als. Many CNPA plan­ning com­mit­tee mem­bers under­took a site vis­it with SSEN staff to view the tri­al plots and examples of both suc­cess­ful and unsuc­cess­ful res​tor​a​tion​.in Septem­ber 2018,

4. It is worth not­ing that in addi­tion to the upgrad­ing main Beauly to Denny trans­mis­sion line, SSEN were required to under­take the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Ration­al­isa­tion Scheme as com­pens­a­tion for the main pro­ject. This pro­ject, which com­pleted in the sum­mer of 2017, removed approx­im­ately 93km of exist­ing low voltage or redund­ant tower lines from Etter­idge, past Boat of Garten, Tomin­toul, the Lecht and Strath­don towards Tar­land. Scot­tish and South­ern Energy Net­works (SSEN) have also recently secured £32 mil­lion from the energy reg­u­lat­or OFGEN for the under­ground­ing of 12km of prom­in­ent over­head lines between in the Boat of Garten and Nethy­bridge as part of its VISTA (Visu­al Impact of Scot­tish Trans­mis­sion Assets) project.

Beauly to Denny Line Res­tor­a­tion Progress

1. The CNPA received the SSE Eco­lo­gic­al Clerk of Works (ECOW) report for the 2018 sea­son (year three of the mon­it­or­ing pro­ject) in June 2019. Mem­bers of the plan­ning com­mit­tee who atten­ded the site vis­it in Septem­ber 2018 will recog­nise the mixed pic­ture it presents of res­tor­a­tion inside the Cairngorms Nation­al Park, hav­ing seen the ground con­di­tions and ground cov­er at a vari­ety of loc­a­tions, includ­ing tri­al plots at close to the end of the year three grow­ing season.

‘Beauly Denny Year 2 Mon­it­or­ing Update Decem­ber 2017.pdf

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 8 16/08/2019

1. The year three mon­it­or­ing report shows a gradu­al improve­ment in con­di­tion with few­er tower bases and sec­tions of track in the red and amber cat­egor­ies, with trans­ition towards green cat­egor­ies or near com­plete reve­get­a­tion. As the mon­it­or­ing scheme con­tin­ues, we would expect to see faster improve­ments as ini­tial veget­a­tion recol­on­isa­tion improves con­di­tions for fur­ther plant growth.

2. How­ever, there remain areas where reve­get­a­tion is extremely slow, and unfor­tu­nately, a num­ber of these are with­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. The major­ity of those areas are where there was very little soil or veget­a­tion over rocky ground and where the con­struc­tion and res­tor­a­tion tech­niques provided less soil and organ­ic mat­ter for veget­a­tion to recol­on­ise. Reve­get­a­tion has been com­poun­ded by graz­ing of sheep and deer along some sec­tions and by vehicle dam­age in others.

3. The tri­al plots cre­ated 2018 were imple­ment too late in the year to have a full effect. CNPA officers will vis­it in Septem­ber 2019 to assess the first full year’s effect, and the year four mon­it­or­ing report should provide fur­ther data and com­par­is­on with oth­er areas. Both will be repor­ted to the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee in due course.

4. SSEN have acknow­ledged that fur­ther inter­ven­tion may be required to fully address the res­tor­a­tion. This may also mean that the res­tor­a­tion work and mon­it­or­ing must be exten­ded bey­ond the cur­rent five-year mon­it­or­ing scheme. Fol­low­ing the year four mon­it­or­ing report, CNPA officers will seek agree­ment with SSEN over any fur­ther meas­ures required to repair and mon­it­or the areas that need fur­ther work and report the Plan­ning Committee.

Gav­in Miles August 2019 gavinmiles@​cairngorms.​co.​uk