Item 8 Beauly Denny Appendix 1 Part 1

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

AGENDA ITEM 8

APPENDIX I – PART I

BEAULY-DENNY TRANS­MIS­SION LINE PROJECT

RES­TOR­A­TION MONITORING

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Scot­tish & South­ern Elec­tri­city Networks

SHE Trans­mis­sion Beauly-Denny Replace­ment Trans­mis­sion Line Res­tor­a­tion Mon­it­or­ing Year 3 (2018)

March 2019

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Scot­tish & South­ern Elec­tri­city Networks

QUAL­ITY MANAGEMENT

Issue/​Revision	1	2	3	4
Date	28/03/2019
Remarks
Pre­pared by	John McTa­gue
Sig­na­ture
Checked by	Stew­art Parsons
Sig­na­ture
Author­ised by	Richard Bald­win
Sig­na­ture
Pro­ject number
Report num­ber
File ref­er­ence

Scot­tish Hydro Elec­tric Trans­mis­sion plc Inver­al­mond House 200 Dunkeld Road Perth PH1 3AQ Tel: +44 (0)1738 456 000 www​.ssepd​.co​.uk

SHE Trans­mis­sion Envir­on­ment­al Impact Assess­ment Tem­plates | Non-Tech­nic­al Sum­mary 1

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CON­TENTS

EXEC­UT­IVE SUM­MARY 3

1. INTRO­DUC­TION 4 1.1 Back­ground 4 1.2 Pro­ject Timeline 4 1.3 Rein­state­ment and Res­tor­a­tion: Con­sent Require­ments 4 1.4 Object­ive of Mon­it­or­ing 5 1.5 Res­tor­a­tion Tri­al Sites 5 1.6 Stake­hold­er Engage­ment in 2018 5
2. RES­ULTS 6 2.1 Weath­er Con­di­tions 2018 6 2.2 Sum­mary of 2018 Res­ults 6
3. DIS­CUS­SION 9 3.1 Sum­mary of 2018 Mon­it­or­ing Res­ults 9 3.2 Access Tracks Flagged as Red in 2018 9 3.3 Com­pounds Flagged as Red in 2018 10 3.4 Res­tor­a­tion Tri­als 10
4. CON­CLU­SIONS 11

APPEN­DICES

APPENDIX 1 — RES­TOR­A­TION MON­IT­OR­ING TRI­ALS APPENDIX 2 – MON­IT­OR­ING METH­ODS APPENDIX 3 — CON­DI­TION OF REIN­STATED ACCESS TRACKS IN 2018 APPENDIX 4 – RES­TOR­A­TION MON­IT­OR­ING RES­ULTS 2018 APPENDIX 5 – COL­OUR-CODED MAPS OF TOWER COM­POUNDS AND ACCESS TRACKS

SHE Trans­mis­sion Envir­on­ment­al Impact Assess­ment Tem­plates | Non-Tech­nic­al Sum­mary 2

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EXEC­UT­IVE SUMMARY

This report details the res­ults of the Year 3 (2018) res­tor­a­tion mon­it­or­ing of the Beauly-Denny Replace­ment Trans­mis­sion Line. It cov­ers the approx­im­ate 200km of the 400kV over­head line that is with­in the Scot­tish Hydro Elec­tric Trans­mis­sion plc (SHE Trans­mis­sion) licence area, between the Beauly Sub­sta­tion and the Wharry Burn, near Dun­blane. This com­prises 539 steel lat­tice towers and asso­ci­ated access tracks.

In 2018, tower com­pounds, asso­ci­ated spur roads and rein­stated access tracks were mon­itored between July and Octo­ber. Two com­pounds were not mon­itored due to access issues. The rein­stated tracks and com­pounds were assigned a cat­egory based on veget­at­ive cov­er and details of hab­it­at type, spe­cies com­pos­i­tion and any addi­tion­al issues (e.g. over­graz­ing, pool­ing water) were noted.

A simple ​‘red-amber-green’ clas­si­fic­a­tion sys­tem sum­mar­ises the status of res­tor­a­tion along the route fol­low­ing the 2018 mon­it­or­ing, and where appro­pri­ate also high­lights where inter­ven­tion may be required to achieve res­tor­a­tion. A green flag means that res­tor­a­tion is con­sidered to be com­plete and no fur­ther mon­it­or­ing is pro­posed. Amber means that res­tor­a­tion is not com­plete but the affected loc­a­tion is reve­get­at­ing. Red means that res­tor­a­tion remains sparse (0 – 25% veget­at­ive cov­er) and no dis­cern­ible increase in veget­at­ive cov­er had occurred between mon­it­or­ing in 2017 and 2018

Of 46.2 km of rein­stated access track, 8.5 km (18.4%) was flagged red, 31.7 km (68.5%) amber and 6.1 km (13.1%) green. Of the 539 tower com­pounds, 16 loc­a­tions (2.97%) were flagged red, 326 (60.48%) amber, 195 (36.18%) green and two loc­a­tions (0.37%) were not mon­itored due to access issues.

Con­sid­er­a­tion as to wheth­er any man­age­ment inter­ven­tion may be appro­pri­ate should be made on a case-by- case basis for the sites clas­si­fied as Red status (res­tor­a­tions remains sparse with no dis­cern­ible increase in cover).

SHE Trans­mis­sion Envir­on­ment­al Impact Assess­ment Tem­plates | Non-Tech­nic­al Sum­mary 3

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1. INTRO­DUC­TION 1.1 Back­ground The Beauly to Denny Replace­ment Trans­mis­sion Line devel­op­ment is a joint under­tak­ing by Scot­tish Hydro- Elec­tric Trans­mis­sion Plc (SHE Trans­mis­sion) and Scot­tish Power Trans­mis­sion (SPT). It is a 400kV trans­mis­sion line between Beauly sub­sta­tion and Denny sub­sta­tion. Approx­im­ately 200 km of the line is with­in the SHE Trans­mis­sion licence area, between the Beauly Sub­sta­tion and the Wharry Burn, near Dun­blane. This com­prises 539 steel lat­tice towers and asso­ci­ated access tracks. Fur­ther details of the pro­ject back­ground and applic­a­tions can be found here.

1.2 Pro­ject Timeline

• Septem­ber 2005: SHETL applies for con­sent (under Sec­tion 37 of the Elec­tri­city Act 1989), and plan­ning per­mis­sion (under Sec­tion 57(2) of the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning (Scot­land) Act 1997), to con­struct the line

• April 2006: Con­sulta­tion peri­od ends.

• Decem­ber 2007: Pub­lic Inquiry ends.
• Janu­ary 2010: Scot­tish Min­is­ters grant con­sent for the project.
• Novem­ber 2010: Pre-con­struc­tion work begins.
• Feb­ru­ary 2012: First tower completed.
• Decem­ber 2015: Line ener­gised and fully operational.
• Sum­mer 2016: Year 1 of res­tor­a­tion mon­it­or­ing (5 year mon­it­or­ing plan agreed with SNH and Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority).
• Sum­mer 2017: Year 2 of res­tor­a­tion monitoring.
• Sum­mer 2018: Year 3 of res­tor­a­tion monitoring.

1.3 Rein­state­ment and Res­tor­a­tion: Con­sent Requirements

Oblig­a­tions on SHE Trans­mis­sion stip­u­lat­ing the qual­ity of rein­state­ment and res­tor­a­tion have applied through the con­di­tions of s37 con­sent and the sub­sequently approved Con­struc­tion Pro­ced­ures Hand­book (CPH). A sum­mary of these oblig­a­tions is provided below.

Sec­tion 37 Con­sent (Elec­tri­city Act 1989):

• Requires works to be under­taken in line with Envir­on­ment­al State­ment and Con­struc­tion Pro­ced­ures Hand­book (CPH).

Envir­on­ment­al State­ment and Con­struc­tion Pro­ced­ures Hand­book (CPH):

• All required tem­por­ary access tracks would be restored after dis­mant­ling of the line is completed.

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• Tem­por­ary tracks are required to be removed and the ground re-instated to a con­di­tion equi­val­ent to that pre­ced­ing construction.

• Nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion should be promoted.

• Ensure that mon­it­or­ing of res­tor­a­tion post-con­struc­tion is car­ried out and any neces­sary remedi­al actions taken.

1.4 Object­ive of Monitoring

Rein­state­ment and res­tor­a­tion of the Beauly-Denny pro­ject is crit­ic­al to the long-term leg­acy of the pro­ject. To achieve this SHE Trans­mis­sion has com­mit­ted to a five year mon­it­or­ing pro­gramme aimed at quan­ti­fy­ing the pro­gress of res­tor­a­tion of access tracks and tower com­pounds. This is to ensure that all neces­sary meas­ures are taken to achieve the over­rid­ing object­ive of full res­tor­a­tion of the impacted hab­it­at and to achieve this res­tor­a­tion with­in a reas­on­able timescale.

At the start of this pro­gramme we con­sul­ted the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity (CNPA) and Scot­tish Nat­ur­al Her­it­age (SNH) on the scope and meth­od used to assess the pro­gress of res­tor­a­tion. Full details of the meth­ods used to mon­it­or the affected loc­a­tions are provided in Appendix 1.

We are cur­rently in year three of this programme.

1.5 Res­tor­a­tion Tri­al Sites

The first two years of mon­it­or­ing iden­ti­fied vary­ing levels of res­tor­a­tion at the Drumochter Pass (access tracks 25 and 26) and there is a con­cen­tra­tion of com­pounds assessed as sparse (0 – 25%) veget­at­ive cov­er. One of the main factors lim­it­ing res­tor­a­tion at these loc­a­tions appears to be graz­ing by sheep, and to a less­er extent by deer in the winter months. As a res­ult of this, six com­pound loc­a­tions and the rein­stated access track between them were selec­ted for tri­al res­tor­a­tion interventions.

Com­pound FT141 (GY1 138) was seeded with a high­land seed mix and FT140 (GY1 137) was left unseeded as a com­par­is­on. No fen­cing was erec­ted around the tower bases. Com­pounds FT142 (GY1 139) and FT143 (GY1 140) and the rein­stated access track between them were enclosed with­in a deer fence in spring 2018, to pre­vent graz­ing by both sheep and deer. Com­pounds FT144 (GY1 141) and FT145 (GY1 142) were enclosed with­in a stock fence in spring 2018, to exclude sheep but not exclude deer. This area included the access track between FT143 AND FT143. Com­pound Due to the tim­ing of ini­ti­at­ing these tri­als, the effect­ive­ness of these inter­ven­tions will be assessed as part of the year 4 res­tor­a­tion mon­it­or­ing in 2019.

The com­pounds are shown in Appendix 1 Res­tor­a­tion Mon­it­or­ing Trials.

1.6 Stake­hold­er Engage­ment in 2018

Com­mu­nic­a­tion between the pro­ject team and key stake­hold­ers con­tin­ues. In Septem­ber 2018, the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity met with key mem­bers of SHE Trans­mis­sion staff and inde­pend­ent eco­lo­gists, vis­it­ing sev­er­al loc­a­tions on the line to dis­cuss res­tor­a­tion and the cur­rent status.

SHE Trans­mis­sion Envir­on­ment­al Impact Assess­ment Tem­plates | Non-Tech­nic­al Sum­mary 5

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1. RES­ULTS 2.1 Weath­er Con­di­tions 2018

Weath­er con­di­tions can affect the nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion of affected loc­a­tions. 2018 weath­er con­di­tions are sum­mar­ised below.

• Winter 2017 – 18 was gen­er­ally unsettled, with weath­er sys­tems pre­dom­in­antly com­ing from the west most of the time allow­ing only short settled spells. Pre­cip­it­a­tion was aver­age, and sun­shine was slightly high­er than aver­age. Decem­ber and Janu­ary were colder than average.

• Spring 2018 was unsettled, with west­erly winds pre­dom­in­ant in March and April and east­erly winds being more com­mon in May. Early spring was cold, with the UK mean tem­per­at­ure for March being 1.6°C below aver­age. April star­ted colder than aver­age before a warm spell in the third week. These below aver­age tem­per­at­ures in March and the first half of April meant a delayed start to the grow­ing sea­son. Sun­shine and pre­cip­it­a­tion were aver­age overall.

• Sum­mer 2018 was 1.4°C warm­er than aver­age, with 73% of the aver­age rain­fall and 124% of the aver­age sun­shine. June and July saw peri­ods of settled weath­er with tem­per­at­ures well above aver­age. August saw aver­age tem­per­at­ures in Scot­land. From mid-July, weath­er in Scot­land became less settled and rain­fall was closer to aver­age levels.

2.2 Sum­mary of 2018 Results

A spread­sheet detail­ing the con­di­tion of each affected com­pound loc­a­tions in mon­it­or­ing years 1, 2 and 3 is provided in Appendix 3. The con­di­tion of sec­tions of rein­stated access track is sum­mar­ised in Appendix 2 and util­ises the fol­low­ing criteria.

	Veget­at­ive cov­er is ​‘sparse’ (0 – 25%) and no dis­cern­ible increasein veget­at­ive cov­er has occurred since last monitoring.
	Affected loc­a­tion is not fully restored but is revegetating.
	Affected loc­a­tion is con­sidered to be fully restored and no fur­ther­mon­it­or­ing is proposed.

Table 1 below shows the length and pro­por­tion of rein­stated access track classed as green, amber or red as per the defin­i­tions here:

Table 1. Sum­mary of rein­stated access tracks classed as red, amber and green in 2018

Status	Length (km)	Per­cent­age
Red	8.5	18.4
Amber	31.7	68.5
Green	6.1	13.1
Total	46.3	100

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The level of res­tor­a­tion on sec­tions of rein­stated access track var­ies con­sid­er­ably across the pro­ject. This is dis­cussed in Sec­tion 4. Appendix 2 sum­mar­ises the cur­rent state of res­tor­a­tion of rein­stated access tracks, and this is dis­played visu­ally using red, amber or green col­ours on the asso­ci­ated maps in Appendix 4. Red sym­bol­ises sec­tions of track that have sparse (0 – 25%) veget­at­ive cov­er with no dis­cern­ible improve­ment since the pre­vi­ous year of mon­it­or­ing; amber sym­bol­ises sec­tions of track that are par­tially restored (25 – 85% veget­at­ive cov­er) and green sym­bol­ises sec­tions of track assessed as being fully restored, with 85 – 100% veget­at­ive cover.

Table 2 below sum­mar­ises the num­ber of tower com­pounds assessed as red, amber and green in 2016, 2017 and 2018 and Fig­ure 2 dis­plays these data as a bar chart.

Table 2. Num­ber and per­cent­age of com­pounds classed as red, amber and green in 2016, 2017 and 2018

Year	2016	2017	2018
Status	Num­ber of compounds	Per­cent­age	Num­ber of compounds	Per­cent­age	Num­ber of compounds	Per­cent­age
Red	6	1.11	6	1.11	16	2.97
Amber	336	62.34	356	66.05	326	60.48
Green	98	18.18	142	26.35	195	36.18
Not mon­itored (access restric­tions or rein­state­ment works)	99	18.37	35	6.49	2	0.37

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16 com­pounds were flagged red, mean­ing that veget­at­ive cov­er is sparse and has not dis­cern­ibly increased since the 2017 mon­it­or­ing. The likely reas­ons for the lack of res­tor­a­tion at these loc­a­tions are dis­cussed in sec­tion 6 and details for all loc­a­tions are provided in Appendix 3.

Works at Mel­garve Sub­sta­tion required works to be under­taken at 4 towers with an addi­tion­al tower added. Two towers were com­pletely soil stripped for the works and rein­stated with bare soil. This accounts for the increase in com­pound flagged red in the 2018 results.

An addi­tion­al 52 com­pounds mon­itored in 2018 were assessed as being fully restored and no fur­ther mon­it­or­ing required. This means that as of 2018, 195 (36.18%) of the 539 com­pounds in the SHE Trans­mis­sion licence area are now restored. There­fore 344 com­pounds require fur­ther mon­it­or­ing in 2019.

SHE Trans­mis­sion Envir­on­ment­al Impact Assess­ment Tem­plates | Non-Tech­nic­al Sum­mary 8

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1. DIS­CUS­SION 3.1 Sum­mary of 2018 Mon­it­or­ing Results

Over­all, year 3 mon­it­or­ing has found that nat­ur­al reve­get­a­tion is occur­ring across the pro­ject in most areas. It is recom­men­ded that nat­ur­al reve­get­a­tion is allowed to con­tin­ue in the vast major­ity of affected loc­a­tions as this will lead to semi-nat­ur­al veget­a­tion com­munit­ies typ­ic­al of the sur­round­ing habitat.

The wide vari­ation in res­tor­a­tion levels of access tracks may be due to track con­struc­tion meth­ods, sub­strate (min­er­al soil or peat), aspect, alti­tude, wet­ness of the ground, and veget­a­tion type present before works In some areas, soils were able to be sep­ar­ated dur­ing con­struc­tion, i.e. turves, top­soils and sub­soils. In oth­er areas, only a shal­low soil was present before con­struc­tion works and min­im­al soil remains, mak­ing it dif­fi­cult to pre­serve turves and sep­ar­ate out soil hori­zons. This is evid­ent where dead and upside-down turves are present, which will slow restoration

3.2

The rate of nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion depends on factors includ­ing alti­tude, aspect, hab­it­ats present before works and graz­ing pres­sure. Com­pounds at high­er alti­tudes are gen­er­ally less well veget­ated than those in the low­lands due to the short­er grow­ing sea­son and harsh weath­er con­di­tions. Graz­ing by sheep is sig­ni­fic­antly lim­it­ing res­tor­a­tion at a num­ber of loc­a­tions, with graz­ing by cattle and deer iden­ti­fied as an issue at a smal­ler num­ber of loc­a­tions. Sheep were noted to be pref­er­en­tially graz­ing the new growth in the com­pounds and access tracks over the sur­round­ing veget­a­tion on many occasions.

The loc­a­tions that have restored at a faster rate are typ­ic­ally those which are on min­er­al soils rather than peat. Where peat is the dom­in­ant sub­strate, com­pounds on drier and shal­low­er peats are typ­ic­ally restor­ing at a faster rate than those on deep, wet peat such as former blanket bog hab­it­at. Peat is very low in nutri­ents access­ible to plants and where bare peat has been exposed by con­struc­tion activ­it­ies, it is likely to be very slow to reve­get­ate naturally.

The two com­pounds that were recor­ded as hav­ing declined in veget­at­ive cov­er are not a sig­ni­fic­ant cause for con­cern as only small reduc­tions in veget­at­ive cov­er were recor­ded. It is expec­ted that these areas will recov­er and con­tin­ue to reve­get­ate as they had shown veget­at­ive growth in 2016 and 2017. Soil man­age­ment was under­taken cor­rectly, and the soils were not mixed. Small decreases in veget­at­ive cov­er on restored sites often relates to nat­ur­al changes in veget­a­tion com­pos­i­tion, where ephemeral/​pioneer plant spe­cies were iden­ti­fied dying out and not yet being fully replaced by slower grow­ing species.

Access Tracks Flagged as Red in 2018

As stated above, 8.5km (18.39%) of rein­stated access track is flagged red, mean­ing that reve­get­a­tion is sparse and shown no dis­cern­ible improvement.

Track 10: the two red-flagged sec­tions are likely to be a res­ult of alti­tude, graz­ing pres­sure and the abund­ance of wet peat. Nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion will be slow in these conditions.

Track 21: the red-flagged sec­tion is very wide (30−40 metres in places) with many dead turves and a large amount of rock at the sur­face. Graz­ing by sheep, cattle and deer is likely to be lim­it­ing res­tor­a­tion, and nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion at this alti­tude will be slow (track reaches 450 metres above ord­nance datum (AOD)).

Track 22: the red-flagged sec­tion is over 400 metres AOD mean­ing nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion will be slower. It also appears that vehicles have driv­en through the area, fur­ther redu­cing nat­ur­al regeneration.

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Track 25: The red-flagged sec­tions are heav­ily grazed by sheep, which appears to be lim­it­ing regen­er­a­tion of veget­a­tion. The veget­at­ive cov­er in this area var­ies, with some areas of bare peat, some very stony areas and some areas with slightly high­er veget­at­ive cov­er. The sub­strate is a mix­ture of peat, soil and stone. The tri­al site area (with deer fenced and stock fenced areas) is on Track 25. Addi­tion­ally, part of the rein­stated track was used by work­ers access­ing the area as part of the site invest­ig­a­tion works for the A9 dualling, which fur­ther set back regen­er­at­ing veget­a­tion in one area.

3.3 Com­pounds Flagged as Red in 2018

There were 16 tower com­pounds flagged as red in 2018. These are at alti­tudes between 180 and 567 metres above mean sea level.. In some of these loc­a­tions, issues such as graz­ing by sheep and deer, and graz­ing and poach­ing by cattle are mak­ing nat­ur­al res­tor­a­tion more chal­len­ging. Two of the red-flagged com­pounds (FT64 and FT65) had extens­ive ground­works in ²⁰¹⁶⁄₁₇ related to the Mel­garve sub­sta­tion, which has res­ul­ted in large areas of cleared ground. These were there­fore flagged as red for the first time in 2018. FT71 also had extens­ive ground­works in this peri­od, mean­ing this loc­a­tion was also flagged as red for the first time in 2018.

It is recom­men­ded that any inter­ven­tions such as fen­cing and reve­get­a­tion tech­niques are decided on a case- by-case basis for these locations.

In areas with low graz­ing pres­sure, issues such as mix­ing of soil hori­zons dur­ing con­struc­tion, com­bined with the short­er grow­ing sea­son at high­er alti­tude, mean that nat­ur­al res­tor­a­tion will take longer. At loc­a­tions where no increase in veget­at­ive cov­er was recor­ded, espe­cially where oth­er neg­at­ive factors such as heavy graz­ing or large areas of bare peat were iden­ti­fied, man­age­ment inter­ven­tions to increase the rate of res­tor­a­tion are recommended.

3.4 Res­tor­a­tion Trials

The res­tor­a­tion tri­als out­lined in sec­tion 2.5 will be mon­itored as part of the 2019 (year 4) mon­it­or­ing. At the time of the 2018 mon­it­or­ing, the gate of the deer fence enclos­ing FT145 and FT146 (and the rein­stated access track) had been left open and sheep were graz­ing with­in the com­pounds. There­fore no ini­tial obser­va­tions on the suc­cess of this inter­ven­tion can be made. Addi­tion­ally, access for pre-works activ­it­ies relat­ing to the dualling of the A9 have made use of the rein­stated access track in this area, dam­aging regen­er­at­ing veget­a­tion. This activ­ity has now stopped. The tri­al site areas will be mon­itored in 2019 and any ini­tial effects of the inter­ven­tions can be assessed then.

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1. CON­CLU­SIONS

In sum­mary, veget­at­ive cov­er is, on the whole, increas­ing, albeit more slowly in upland areas and espe­cially at loc­a­tions on former blanket bog / mod­i­fied bog hab­it­at. it is recom­men­ded that that vast major­ity of affected loc­a­tions are allowed to con­tin­ue to reve­get­ate nat­ur­ally, with no seed­ing or nutri­ent input. This will allow semi-nat­ur­al veget­a­tion com­munit­ies more typ­ic­al of the sur­round­ing hab­it­at to develop.

Where veget­at­ive cov­er remains sparse, it is likely that the main reas­ons are over­graz­ing by sheep and/​or deer, mix­ing of soil hori­zons dur­ing rein­state­ment, and dam­age to the pre­vi­ous hab­it­at type (espe­cially where this was peat­land hab­it­at such as blanket bog). SHE Trans­mis­sion could con­sider wheth­er man­age­ment inter­ven­tions are appro­pri­ate at the affected loc­a­tions high­lighted in Appendix 2 and 3.

Some recom­mend­a­tions are made below;

• Rein­stated access tracks: sec­tions of rein­stated access track that have been flagged red could provide a focus for assess­ing wheth­er any man­age­ment inter­ven­tion is required. Poten­tial reas­ons for lack of res­tor­a­tion at these affected loc­a­tions are provided in Appendix 2.

• Com­pounds with red flag: tower com­pounds that have been flagged red could provide an ini­tial focus for assess­ing wheth­er any man­age­ment inter­ven­tion is required. Poten­tial reas­ons for lack of res­tor­a­tion at these affected loc­a­tions are provided in Appendix 3. Affected areas with ​‘sparse’ veget­at­ive cov­er which have been amber-flagged are show­ing signs of nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion, albeit slow. In some of these loc­a­tions, access­ing the site may set back this nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion and there­fore any inter­ven­tion here should be informed by com­ments in Appendix 3 on each indi­vidu­al location.

• Tri­al sites: a site vis­it in May 2019 to ensure gates to enclosed areas are closed and to assess any early impact of this inter­ven­tion. At present it is recom­men­ded at these loc­a­tions not to inter­vene and to mon­it­or pro­gress, as access­ing these sites may say back this ini­tial nat­ur­al regeneration.

SHE Trans­mis­sion Envir­on­ment­al Impact Assess­ment Tem­plates | Non-Tech­nic­al Sum­mary 11

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Scot­tish & South­ern Elec­tri­city Networks

APPENDIX 1 – Appendix 1 Res­tor­a­tion Mon­it­or­ing Trials

SHE Trans­mis­sion Envir­on­ment­al Impact Assess­ment Tem­plates | Non-Tech­nic­al Sum­mary 12

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Scot­tish & South­ern Elec­tri­city Networks

APPENDIX 2 – MON­IT­OR­ING METHODS

The Year 3 (2018) mon­it­or­ing fol­lows the meth­ods used in years one and two. A stand­ard record­ing form was used at each affected loc­a­tion, which recorded:

• Date

• Sur­vey­or name(s)

• Mon­it­or­ing year

• Weath­er conditions

• Track and tower number

• Tower work­ing number

• Alti­tude (metres above mean sea level)

The veget­at­ive cov­er of the affected loc­a­tion was visu­ally assessed and recor­ded to one of the below four cat­egor­ies, as well as a more pre­cise estim­a­tion of cov­er being made (e.g. 55 – 60%).

• Sparse (0 – 25% cover)

• Mediocre (25 – 50% cover)

• Good (50 – 75% cover)

• Excel­lent (75 – 100% cover)

The per­cent­age of the veget­at­ive cov­er com­pris­ing each of the fol­low­ing broad groups was estimated:

• Heath­ers

• Grasses

• Sedges / rushes

• Mosses

• Herbs

The hab­it­at type present before works and the hab­it­at type present at the time of mon­it­or­ing were noted, e.g. incip­i­ent acid grass­land, marshy grass­land / wet heath mat­rix. A full spe­cies list of high­er plants recor­ded at the loc­a­tion was made, and each spe­cies was giv­en a DAFOR score (dom­in­ant, abund­ant, fre­quent, occa­sion­al or rare). The DAFOR scale enables quick estim­ates of the rel­at­ive abund­ance of plant spe­cies in a giv­en area.

SHE Trans­mis­sion Envir­on­ment­al Impact Assess­ment Tem­plates | Non-Tech­nic­al Sum­mary 13

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Scot­tish & South­ern Elec­tri­city Networks

Com­ments on the con­di­tion of the affected loc­a­tion since the last mon­it­or­ing were made, such as not­ing an increase in the pro­por­tion of heath­ers, signs of graz­ing pres­sure, or any seeding/​management under­taken. Any peat hag­ging was also recorded.

Two or three pho­to­graphs were taken at each com­pound: one look­ing down the line, one look­ing up the line and a third of the spur road or sec­tion of rein­stated access track, if present.

Data were col­lec­ted on hand­writ­ten forms in the field, and later entered into a spread­sheet. In addi­tion to a status of sparse, mediocre, good or excel­lent as described above, each loc­a­tion was assigned a col­oured flag as detailed in Table A1 below and a status of ​‘declin­ing’, ​‘no change’ or ​‘recov­er­ing’. ​‘Declin­ing’ means that veget­at­ive cov­er appears to be lower than pre­vi­ous year. ​‘Recov­er­ing’ means that veget­at­ive cov­er has increased to a high­er cat­egory. ​‘No change’ means that the veget­at­ive cov­er of the com­pound has not increased or decreased into a dif­fer­ent cat­egory (0 – 25%, 25 – 50%, 50 – 75%, 75 – 100%) but does not neces­sar­ily mean that no increase in veget­at­ive cov­er has taken place.

	Veget­at­ive cov­er is ​‘sparse’ (0 – 25%) and no dis­cern­ible increasein veget­at­ive cov­er has occurred since last monitoring.
	Affected loc­a­tion is not fully restored but is revegetating.
	Affected loc­a­tion is con­sidered to be fully restored and no fur­ther­mon­it­or­ing is proposed.

Table A1: RAG cri­ter­ia for affected locations

SHE Trans­mis­sion Envir­on­ment­al Impact Assess­ment Tem­plates | Non-Tech­nic­al Sum­mary 14

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Scot­tish & South­ern Elec­tri­city Networks

APPENDIX 3 – CON­DI­TION OF REIN­STATED ACCESS TRACKS IN 2018

SHE Trans­mis­sion Envir­on­ment­al Impact Assess­ment Tem­plates | Non-Tech­nic­al Sum­mary 15

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Track	Sec­tion of rein­stated access track	Length of Track (m)	Rein­state­ment and res­tor­a­tion com­ments 2016	Flag	Status	Com­ments	Rein­state­ment and res­tor­a­tion com­ments 2017	Flag	Status	Com­ments	Rein­state­ment and res­tor­a­tion com­ments 2018	Flag	Status	Com­ments
1	All	343.746	Access track in agri­cul­tur­al field rein­stated and seeded.		No Fur­ther Monitoring
2	All	293.306	Access track in agri­cul­tur­al field rein­stated and seeded.		No Fur­ther Monitoring
3	All	488.756	Access track in agri­cul­tur­al field rein­stated and seeded.		No Fur­ther Monitoring
4	All	1519.952	Access track in agri­cul­tur­al field rein­stated and seeded.		No Fur­ther Monitoring
6 & 7 BF15 & BF20	Between	447.6	The rein­stated access track between BF15 & 21 is well veget­ated and classed as ​“excel­lent”.		No Fur­ther Monitoring
8 BF21A & BF21/1A	Between		Mix of veget­a­tion dens­er in wet areas through forestry works. Area had been rein­stated almost 12 months pri­or to forst visit		Recov­er­ing	Fur­ther Mon­it­or­ing Required	Mix of veget­a­tion dens­er in wet areas through forestry works. Area high Mediocre / Low Good		Recov­er­ing	Fur­ther Mon­it­or­ing Required	The rein­stated access track between BF21A & 21/1A is well veget­ated and classed as ​“excel­lent”.		No Fur­ther Monitoring
9 BF34 and Track 91	Between
BF40 & BF42	Between	538.153	Ground recov­er­ing well		Recov­er­ing	No Fur­ther Monitoring	Ground recov­er­ing well		Recov­er­ing	No Fur­ther Monitoring	The rein­stated access track is in quite poor con­di­tion, with much bare peat and sparse veget­a­tion on flat sec­tions, but high­er veget­at­ive cov­er on slopes.		Fur­ther Recovering	Mon­it­or­ing Required
10B BF50 & BF51	Between	437.392	Ground recov­er­ing well. rea had been rein­stated almost 12 months pri­or to forst visit		Recov­er­ing	Fur­ther Mon­it­or­ing Required	Ground recov­er­ing well		Recov­er­ing	Fur­ther Mon­it­or­ing Required	The track in this area, while not yet fully restored, mostly has excel­lent veget­at­ive cov­er. Some bare areas remain.		Fur­ther Recovering	Mon­it­or­ing Required
BF56 & BF63 (RSPB Corrimony)	Between	3232.142	Ground recov­er­ing well. rea had been rein­steed almost 12 months pri­or to forst visit		Recov­er­ing	No Fur­ther Monitoring	Ground recov­er­ing well			No Fur­ther Monitoring	The rein­state­ment in this area has been very suc­cess­ful and the line of the track is not dis­cern­ible in many places.
10T BF82 & BF83	Between	500.016	Area of peat slow to re-eastablish		Recov­er­ing	Fur­ther Mon­it­or­ing Required	Some veget­a­tion grow­ing but slow on peat. Poe­at appears to be dry­ing and becom­ing more soil.		Recov­er­ing	Fur­ther Mon­it­or­ing Required	Rein­stated track has ​“sparse” veget­at­ive cov­er of approx­im­ately 20%. The sub­strate is peat with some stone. Small heath­er Cal­luna vul­gar­is seed­lings present.		Fur­ther Recovering	Mon­it­or­ing Required
10U BF84 & BF86	Between	741.409	Area of peat slow to re-eastablish		Recov­er­ing	Fur­ther Mon­it­or­ing Required	Some veget­a­tion grow­ing but slow on peat. Poe­at appears to be dry­ing and becom­ing more soil.		Recov­er­ing	Fur­ther Mon­it­or­ing Required	Com­prises peat and stone and has mediocre veget­at­ive cov­er, dom­in­ated by sedges and rushes.		Fur­ther Recovering	Mon­it­or­ing Required

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| 10Y Between BF90 & BF92 | | 531.93 | Area of peat slow to re-east­ab­lish | | Recov­er­ing | Fur­ther Mon­it­or­ing Required | Some veget­a­tion grow­ing but slow on peat. Poe­at appears to be dry­ing and becom­ing more soil. | | Recov­er­ing | Fur­ther Mon­it­or­ing Required | Over­all veget­at­ive cov­er on track is ​“mediocre”. Sub­strate is wet peat and stone. Some areas are very wet and dom­in­ated by toad rush Jun­cus bufoni­us. Mod­er­ate deer graz­ing appar­ent. | | Fur­ther Recov­er­ing | Mon­it­or­ing Required | | 10AD From retained track to BF97 and spur to BF98 | | 221.492 | Wet peat at high alti­tude will be slow to restore nat­ur­ally. | | No change | Fur­ther Mon­it­or­ing Required | Wet peat at high alti­tude will be slow to restore nat­ur­ally. Graz­ing pres­sure evid­ent. | | No change | Fur­ther Mon­it­or­ing Required | Track con­sists of sparsely veget­ated wet peat. Alti­tude, graz­ing pres­sure and abund­ance of wet peat are likely to slow res­tor­a­tion here. | | No change | Fur­ther Mon­it­or­ing Required | | 10AE From retained track to BF100 & spurs to BF99 & BF101 | | 694.315 | Wet peat at high alti­tude will be slow to restore nat­ur­ally. | | No change | Fur­ther Mon­it­or­ing Required | Wet peat at high alti­tude will be slow to restore nat­ur­ally. Graz­ing pres­sure evid­ent. | | No change | Fur­ther Mon­it­or­ing Required | Veget­at­ive cov­er is ​“sparse” and dom­in­ated by rushes. Alti­tude, graz­ing pres­sure and former blanket bog hab­it­at are likely to slow res­tor­a­tion here. | | No change | Fur­ther Mon­it­or­ing Required | | FT1 to FT2 | From 15 | 287.951 | Grass­land veget­a­tion rcov­er­ing well | | Recov­er­ing | Fur­ther Mon­it­or­ing Required | Grass­land hab­it­at fully recovered. Small areas of stiny ground. | | | No Fur­ther Mon­it­or­ing | | | | | | 17B FT5 | | 118.833 | | | | | Veget­at­ive cov­er is ​“low mediocre” and is quite stony, but is reve­get­at­ing. | | Recov­er­ing | Fur­ther Mon­it­or­ing Required | | | | | | 18D Between FT24 & FT26 | | 822.722 | Ground is quite stony and veget­a­tion is slow to estab­lish | | Recov­er­ing | Fur­ther Mon­it­or­ing Required | Ground is quite stony and veget­a­tion is slow to estab­lish | | Recov­er­ing | Fur­ther Mon­it­or­ing Required | The access track in this area is fairly well veget­ated, mainly with grasses, but bare areas remain. Quite var­ied over­all — some areas fully veget­ated, oth­er areas with much stone at the sur­face and areas of bare ground. All veget­a­tion appears self-sown. Over­all classed as ​“good”. | | Fur­ther Recov­er­ing | Mon­it­or­ing Required | | 18E Between FT29 & FT30 | | 330.294 | Ground is quite stony and veget­a­tion is slow to estab­lish | | Recov­er­ing | Fur­ther Mon­it­or­ing Required | Rush veget­a­tion estab­lish­ing in wet areas. | | Recov­er­ing | Fur­ther Mon­it­or­ing Required | Veget­at­ive cov­er is mediocre and dom­in­ated by rushes. Veget­at­ive cov­er has increased since 2017. | | Fur­ther Recov­er­ing | Mon­it­or­ing Required | | Track 18 FT39B/1A to FT41 | | 664.911 | Rein­stated access track is very stony. Some parts restor­ing well, oth­er parts con­sist of bare peat / stone / gravel. Over­all cov­er is low ​“sparce”. | | Recov­er­ing | Fur­ther Mon­it­or­ing Required | Rein­stated access track is very stony. Some parts restor­ing well, oth­er parts con­sist of bare peat / stone / gravel. Over­all cov­er is high ​“sparce”. | | Recov­er­ing | Fur­ther Mon­it­or­ing Required | Veget­at­ive cov­er on this sec­tion of track is low ​“mediocre”. The sub­strate is mainly peat, with quite a lot of stone at the sur­face, includ­ing some large boulders. Piles of used silt fen­cing and straw bales have been left in sev­er­al places along the track. This sec­tion of track is over 600m above sea level so will nat­ur­ally take longer to reve­get­ate. | | Fur­ther Recov­er­ing | Mon­it­or­ing Required |

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|19 Between FT42 & FT44| | 464.301 | Sig­ni­fic­ant mix­ing of soils from vehicle move­ments. No growth on access track | | | | Some growth on access track mainly from mosses. | ||| The rein­stated access track in this area is in a very vari­able con­di­tion of res­tor­a­tion. Some areas have typ­ic­al wet heath and blanket mire spe­cies e.g. heath­er, hare’s‑tail cot­ton­grass, cloud­berry and bog asphodel recol­on­ising. How­ever there is still much bare peat along parts of the track. Over­all it is assessed as low ​“mediocre”. | | Recov­er­ing | Fur­ther Mon­it­or­ing Required | |19 Between FT44 & FT46| | 1,075.53 | Sig­ni­fic­ant mix­ing of soils from vehicle