Com­mit­tee report

Devel­op­ment proposed: Install addi­tion­al moun­tain bik­ing down­hill run on the exist­ing buz­zard lift (shown as trail 4) at the Lecht Ski Centre, Cor­garff, Strath­don, Aber­deen­shire, AB36 8YP

Ref­er­ence: 2026/0060/DET Applic­ant: Iain Du Pon, Lecht Ski Centre Date called-in: 23/02/2026 Recom­mend­a­tion: Approve sub­ject to con­di­tions Case officer: Kath­er­ine Don­nach­ie, Plan­ning Officer

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(Map image show­ing the pro­posed trail at Lecht Ski Centre)

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 is loc­ated at the Lecht Ski Centre beside the Tomin­toul to Cock­bridge A939 road. It is part of an exist­ing ski slope on the east­ern side of the pub­lic road. It com­prises slop­ing moor­land run­ning up from the road. There is an access track off the pub­lic road which serves an exist­ing long uphill ski tow known as the Buz­zard uplift tow. The applic­a­tion site is largely moor­land / heath­land with some groups of boulders and gul­lies. On the oppos­ite side (west) of the pub­lic road is the ski centre infra­struc­ture com­pris­ing main vis­it­or centre / café and large car parks. There are numer­ous ski tows on this side of the road along with moun­tain bike trails. There is also a wind tur­bine sup­ply­ing energy to the facil­it­ies to the south of the main centre.
2. The site is sur­roun­ded to the north, south and east by fur­ther moor­land, and the Lad­der Hills Spe­cial Site of Sci­entif­ic Interest (SSSI) and Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Area (SPA), des­ig­nated for European dry heath, alpine and sub­alpine heath and blanket bogs interests, are loc­ated around 20 metres to the east of the devel­op­ment site. The River Spey Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion (SAC) lies some 2.4 km north of the site (Con­glass Water trib­u­tary), with the Cairngorms Mas­sif SPA lying some 5.6 km to the far southwest.
3. There are no lis­ted build­ings of archi­tec­tur­al or his­tor­ic sig­ni­fic­ance or archae­olo­gic­al sites in the vicin­ity, nor any core paths.

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: 2026/0060/DET | Install addi­tion­al moun­tain bik­ing down­hill run on the exist­ing buz­zard lift (shown as trail 4) | The Lecht Ski Centre Cor­garff Strath­don Aber­deen­shire AB36 8YP

Title	Draw­ing Num­ber	Date on Plan*	Date Received
Plan — Loc­a­tion Plan	001A	12/02/26	20/02/26
Plan — Concept Trail Plan	002 Rev A	16/01/26	20/02/26
Plan — Pro­posed Trail Plan	003 Rev A	14/01/26	20/02/26
Plan — Pro­posed Trail Con­struc­tion Details	004 Rev A	14/01/26	20/02/26
Plan — Road Plan — Pro­posed Plan Show­ing Safe Cross­ing for Cyclists	005A	25/03/26	31/03/26
Oth­er — Plan­ning Statement			17/03/26
Oth­er — Eco­nom­ic Impact Statement			17/03/26
Oth­er — Con­struc­tion Meth­od Statement			03/04/26
Peat Depth Survey	784-B080506 Ver­sion 1	12/05/26
Pre­lim­in­ary Eco­lo­gic­al Appraisal	784-B080506 Ver­sion 1	12/05/26

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

1. The pro­posed devel­op­ment seeks to con­struct a new moun­tain bike down­hill track on the same side of the pub­lic road as the exist­ing Buz­zard tow. The tow will be used to take riders and their bikes up to the top of the slope using this exist­ing infra­struc­ture which will be adap­ted to make pro­vi­sion for riders to use it. The trail will start at the top of the tow with a view­point area and will run down­hill in a zig zag man­ner to join the exist­ing track at the foot of the ski tow. At this point a level area will be formed to enable cyc­lists to dis­mount. A bar­ri­er fence will be erec­ted here with closed gate for vehicu­lar access. The exist­ing path / desire line along the edge of the pub­lic road will be upgraded to a whin type sur­face. Cyc­lists will be dir­ec­ted along this path to a safe cross­ing point to the car park area.
2. The total length of the pro­posed new trail is 1,030 metres. It will be around 2 metres wide and micro sited to avoid any eco­lo­gic­al con­straints and to ensure appro­pri­ate safety and drain­age is achieved. It will be con­struc­ted by dig­ging out to form the trail, with loc­ally won mater­i­al used in con­struc­tion. Trail edges will be sta­bil­ised using stripped turf from the trail route with a turf lined side ditch con­struc­ted where neces­sary, with twin wall pipe under the trail to allow sur­face water to drain away on the down­hill side as required. Sub-base mater­i­al with lar­ger aggreg­ate at the base will be used, with quarry dust or suit­able ​“as dug” mater­i­al com­pacted on top of this. Con­struc­tion details have been sup­plied for vari­ous parts of the trail includ­ing typ­ic­al trail, berms, floated trail (with geo­tex­tile geogrid detail­ing), rock fea­ture details, piste trail and bench cut trail. Where the trail crosses a ski piste the pro­file / land­scap­ing will be con­sidered to ensure that snow groomers can cross the trail, with ski staff involved to ensure the detail­ing is suitable.
3. The design of the trail will be sim­il­ar to those pre­vi­ously con­struc­ted and in use on the oth­er (west) side of the main road where there are three trail routes. The cur­rent pro­pos­al will cre­ate a fourth trail. Plans of the pro­pos­als are attached as Appendix 1.
4. The applic­a­tion is sup­por­ted by a num­ber of doc­u­ments as fol­lows: Con­struc­tion Meth­od State­ment – explain­ing how the trail will be con­struc­ted by exper­i­enced oper­at­ives, with any dig­ging out beside the trail route required to gain mater­i­als care­fully rein­stated. It details how con­struc­tion stage drain­age will be dealt with includ­ing use of silt cur­tains and sed­i­ment traps. Details of eco­lo­gic­al mit­ig­a­tion dur­ing con­struc­tion are provided includ­ing daily pre-works checks, ensur­ing no excav­a­tions are left open and avoid­ing light spillage. Plan­ning State­ment – this explains that the devel­op­ment is part of a wider pro­gramme to diver­si­fy the Lecht’s offer­ing bey­ond winter snowsports. It notes that this will com­ple­ment the exist­ing offer­ing and is inten­ded to con­sol­id­ate man­aged recre­ation at an exist­ing hub rather than dis­pers­ing activ­it­ies into more sens­it­ive loc­a­tions. The state­ment sets out how the pro­pos­al aligns with Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan object­ives and com­plies with policies relat­ing to sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic growth, access, and tour­ism and recre­ation. It explains how the design of the trail seeks to min­im­ise land­scape impacts focus­sing on a low-pro­file inter­ven­tion and fol­low­ing a sens­it­ive align­ment. Sim­il­arly, it aims to min­im­ise dis­turb­ance to the ground and use loc­ally won mater­i­als where pos­sible. Eco­nom­ic Impact State­ment – this sets out the eco­nom­ic bene­fits of the pro­posed devel­op­ment. It explains that it is part of a wider pro­gramme to extend and enhance the Lecht’s exist­ing sum­mer moun­tain bike offer­ing with an uplift served rid­ing exper­i­ence and sup­port a broad­er vis­it­or exper­i­ence. Details of cost­ings are provided along with wider devel­op­ment spend in terms of repairs and main­ten­ance, and con­tract­or spend to sup­port the loc­al eco­nomy. It estim­ates that the trails will be open around 120 days per year and approx­im­ately 4 staff will be needed dur­ing the sum­mer oper­a­tions. Demand for the trails is expec­ted to vary, with week­ends and school hol­i­days likely to be peak times. Wider eco­nom­ic bene­fits are iden­ti­fied related to increased spend in the loc­al area (e.g. accom­mod­a­tion, fuel, food and drink etc) togeth­er with the abil­ity to retain sea­son­al staff and the loc­al pro­cure­ment spend. Pre­lim­in­ary Eco­lo­gic­al Apprais­al – this includes an exten­ded Hab­it­at Clas­si­fic­a­tion Sur­vey to record hab­it­at types and dom­in­ant veget­a­tion includ­ing any invas­ive spe­cies, and a pro­tec­ted spe­cies sur­vey. It con­cludes that the site com­prises pri­or­ity annex 1 blanket bog and UK biod­iversity action plan moun­tain heath hab­it­ats with wet pock­ets and flushes. No rocky out­crops were found but hab­it­ats on site have poten­tial to sup­port rest­ing, com­mut­ing and for­aging moun­tain hare, inver­teb­rates, rep­tiles and amphi­bi­ans. Ground nest­ing birds were observed adja­cent to the site with self-set Sitka spruce present and con­sidered to be an invas­ive spe­cies in these hab­it­ats. It is noted that the site is close to the Lad­der Hills SPA and SSSI, whereby suf­fi­cient inform­a­tion is required to inform a Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tion Apprais­al by the Plan­ning Author­ity. The report recom­mends that an NVC sur­vey con­firms the extent of pri­or­ity hab­it­ats. It also recom­mends the fol­low­ing: a Hab­it­at Man­age­ment Plan to identi­fy res­tor­a­tion areas for off­set­ting and enhan­cing peat­land hab­it­ats on site; tar­geted breed­ing bird sur­veys; pre­cau­tion­ary work­ing meth­ods to avoid harm to moun­tain hare, amphi­bi­ans, and oth­er not­able spe­cies; pre con­struc­tion checks for rep­tiles; and imple­ment­a­tion of a Con­struc­tion Envir­on­ment­al Man­age­ment Plan to reduce noise, dust, pol­lu­tion and oth­er impacts. The report details mit­ig­a­tion pro­pos­als includ­ing: use of low pres­sure machinery to avoid com­pac­tion of hab­it­ats; care with stor­age of peat; avoid­ance of deep peat areas; avoid­ing ground clear­ance works dur­ing moun­tain hare breed­ing sea­son (March to Octo­ber) and bird breed­ing sea­son (March to Septem­ber) or pre­cau­tion­ary work­ing meas­ures such as sweep sur­veys, pre-con­struc­tion checks and nest­ing bird checks imme­di­ately ahead of works; cap­ping of exposed pipes; avoid­ing work around dawn and dusk; tool box talks; veget­a­tion clear­ance under super­vi­sion of eco­lo­gic­al clerk of works to avoid harm to rep­tiles; and remov­al of Sitka spruce for hab­it­at enhance­ment. Peat Depth Sur­vey – this sur­veyed peat depths with­in a 30-metre buf­fer of the pro­posed track on a 30 by 30 metre grid basis. The ground was noted as being gen­er­ally soft organ­ic peat with a sur­face cov­er­ing of pre­dom­in­antly heath­er, grass and moss. The major­ity of peat exceed­ing 0.5 metre in depth (deep peat) lies with­in the 30-metre buf­fer rather than on the track itself. These loc­a­tions are isol­ated at the base of the slope with­in the fre­quently traf­ficked area in the vicin­ity of the access track and at the south-east­ern edge of the sur­vey area. Over­all peat qual­ity var­ies and is con­sidered to be ​“mod­i­fied” due the dom­in­ance of heath­er. A drain was noted along the gravel track and land with­in 30 metres of this is described as ​“drained”. An area to the south­east of the sur­vey area was cat­egor­ised as act­ively erod­ing with areas of peat hags noted. Sim­il­arly, an area at the top of the Buz­zard lift was noted as act­ively erod­ing due to the con­tinu­ous sur­face of bare peat and absence of sphag­num moss. The report con­cludes than no sig­ni­fic­ant thick­ness of peat (deep­er than 0.5 metres) was encountered along the major­ity of the trails apart from at the far south-east­ern edge and at the base of the slope where the pro­posed trail ends. Maps sum­mar­ising this inform­a­tion are included in the report.

His­tory

1. There have been numer­ous plan­ning applic­a­tions over the years in the area, includ­ing vari­ous mast related pro­pos­als, wind tur­bine (con­struc­ted and oper­a­tion­al), and snow fact­ory. Rel­ev­ant to the cur­rent pro­pos­al is applic­a­tion 08/123/CP – form­a­tion of moun­tain bike tracks on the oppos­ite (west) side of the pub­lic road, approved in July 2008.

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 is attached as Appendix 2. The European sites in this case are the River Spey Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion (SAC), des­ig­nated for its Atlantic sal­mon, fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sel (FWPM), sea lamprey and otter interests, the Cairngorms Mas­sif Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Area (SPA), des­ig­nated for its golden eagle interests, and the Lad­der Hills SAC, des­ig­nated for its European dry heath, alpine and sub­alpine heath and blanket bog interests.
2. It is con­sidered that there will be no sig­ni­fic­ant effects upon the heath interests of the Lad­der Hills SAC as the devel­op­ment is out­with the SAC. How­ever, there may be likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects in rela­tion to the blanket bog interests through drain­age of hydro­lo­gic­ally con­nec­ted peat­land close to the edge of the SAC (Nature Scot guid­ance indic­ates that drain­age of blanket bog hab­it­ats can have indir­ect impact on hydro­lo­gic­ally con­nec­ted blanket bog with­in 30 metres). Whilst there is no work pro­posed with­in the Con­glass Water (a trib­u­tary of the River Spey SAC), there is poten­tial for likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects through indir­ect impacts upon the otter, FWPM, sea lamprey and Atlantic sal­mon interests relat­ing to poten­tial for pol­lu­tion and release of sed­i­ment dur­ing con­struc­tion and, in the case of otter, any impacts on prey spe­cies. Finally, with regard to the Cairngorms Mas­sif SPA, there is poten­tial for likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects in rela­tion to poten­tial dis­turb­ance to for­aging golden eagle at the con­struc­tion stage.
3. The HRA con­cludes that the likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects on the Lad­der Hills SAC can be sat­is­fact­or­ily addressed by secur­ing (through plan­ning con­di­tion) a devel­op­ment buf­fer of at least 30 metres from the SAC bound­ary. Imple­ment­a­tion of this buf­fer will reduce poten­tial effects to a min­im­al level so that all the con­ser­va­tion object­ives can be met.
4. With regard to the River Spey SAC, it is con­cluded that likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects can be sat­is­fact­or­ily addressed by suit­able mit­ig­a­tion includ­ing tim­ing of works to avoid the key Atlantic sal­mon spawn­ing sea­son (mid-Octo­ber to end of Feb­ru­ary), and the pro­vi­sion and imple­ment­a­tion of a pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion plan. These meas­ures can be secured by plan­ning conditions.
5. Finally, with regard to the Cairngorms Mas­sif SPA it is noted that the site is just with­in the core for­aging range for breed­ing golden eagle, with hab­it­at with­in the site suit­able for their prey spe­cies (e.g. moun­tain hare). How­ever, sim­il­ar hab­it­at is wide­spread with­in the Lad­der Hills SPA such that golden eagle are unlikely to be solely depend­ent on the applic­a­tion site. Fur­ther­more, the site is close to the pub­lic road and next to exist­ing ski infra­struc­ture where there is an exist­ing level of human dis­turb­ance. Accord­ingly, it is not con­sidered that there will be sig­ni­fic­ant long-term impacts on the dis­tri­bu­tion and hab­it­ats of golden eagle with­in the SPA and no dir­ect effects or sig­ni­fic­ant indir­ect effects on breed­ing golden eagle.
6. On this basis, the HRA con­cludes 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. NatureScot have been con­sul­ted on the HRA and have con­firmed agree­ment with these conclusions.

Devel­op­ment plan context

Policies

Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 (NPF4) Scot­land 2045 (Policies rel­ev­ant to the assess­ment of this applic­a­tion are marked with a cross (x))

Nation­al policy
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
Policy 7	His­tor­ic assets and places
Policy 8	Green belts
Policy 9	Brown­field, vacant and derel­ict land, and empty buildings
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
Policy 16	Qual­ity homes
Policy 17	Rur­al homes
Policy 18	Infra­struc­ture first	X
Policy 19	Heat­ing 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	X
Policy 30	Tour­ism	X
Policy 31	Cul­ture and creativity
Policy 32	Aquacul­ture
Policy 33	Min­er­als

Stra­tegic policy Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2022 – 2027

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (2021) (Policies rel­ev­ant to the assess­ment of this applic­a­tion are marked with a cross (x))

Loc­al plan policy
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
Policy 8	Open space, sport and recreation
Policy 9	Cul­tur­al heritage
Policy 10	Resources	X
Policy 11	Developer oblig­a­tions

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 2021 (LDP). 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).

Policy
Policy 1	Hous­ing 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 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

Con­sulta­tions

1. A sum­mary of the main issues raised by con­sul­tees now follows:
2. Moray Coun­cil Trans­port Devel­op­ment Team was con­sul­ted and ini­tially raised con­cerns about safety issues with cyc­lists cross­ing the road from the trails to the car park area. Recom­mend­a­tions were made on how to achieve safe cross­ing and the applic­ants provided revised plans to address this, includ­ing a safe land­ing area at the foot of the trail and an iden­ti­fied cross­ing point with con­nect­ing path and gated arrange­ment along the bot­tom of the track. On receipt of the revised plans the Team has con­firmed that they have no objec­tions to the pro­pos­al. Suit­able plan­ning con­di­tions will be required to ensure that the works are imple­men­ted, no water or loose mater­i­al is per­mit­ted to drain onto the pub­lic road, and the open­ing path of the access gates is fully con­tained with­in the site.
3. Park Author­ity Out­door Access Team advise that there are no des­ig­nated paths in the area, no signs of the area being used for recre­ation oth­er than the down­hill ski­ing area, and they have no access related concerns.
4. Park Author­ity Eco­lo­gic­al Advice Officer ini­tially noted that no eco­lo­gic­al sur­veys had been sub­mit­ted, so only inter­im com­ments could be provided. These com­ments high­lighted that hab­it­at on site is likely to be suit­able for moun­tain hare, adder and com­mon liz­ard. Accord­ingly, there may be poten­tial issues for these spe­cies. Hibern­at­ing rep­tiles may be also be dis­turbed dur­ing the hiberna­tion sea­son (Octo­ber to March). The hab­it­at is also likely to be suit­able for oth­er breed­ing birds. Accord­ingly, mit­ig­a­tion is likely to be required includ­ing tim­ing of works to avoid breed­ing / hiberna­tion sea­sons and exclu­sion of poten­tial rep­tile hiber­nacula. It was also noted that there may be impacts on pri­or­ity hab­it­ats and spe­cies, birds of con­ser­va­tion con­cern, and car­bon rich soils and peat­land hab­it­ats. With regard to the water envir­on­ment, it was con­sidered that due to the dis­tance between the site and exist­ing water­courses there is a lower risk of pol­lu­tion. Finally, with regard to biod­iversity enhance­ments it was con­sidered that details could be required by plan­ning condition.
5. Fol­low­ing con­sid­er­a­tion of these com­ments, the applic­ants sub­mit­ted an Eco­lo­gic­al Apprais­al (includ­ing pro­tec­ted spe­cies sur­vey) and Peat Sur­vey as noted earli­er. This addi­tion­al inform­a­tion has been con­sidered by the Park Authority’s Eco­lo­gic­al Advice Officer who con­siders that impacts upon pro­tec­ted spe­cies and breed­ing birds can be mit­ig­ated by tim­ing and meth­ods of work­ing. Sim­il­arly in terms of the water envir­on­ment any impacts can also be mit­ig­ated by tim­ing of works to avoid sal­mon spawn­ing sea­son and adher­ence to best prac­tise as out­lined in the Con­struc­tion Meth­od State­ment and SEPA guidance.
6. With regard to car­bon rich soils and pri­or­ity peat­lands, the officer notes that micro-sit­ing of the tracks is pro­posed to avoid deep peat and pri­or­ity hab­it­ats. How­ever, inform­a­tion to inform micros­it­ing is only presently avail­able for the ​“trail con­struc­tion zone” which crosses areas of deep peat and two areas of blanket bog, includ­ing areas with­in 20 metres of the Lad­der Hills SAC, res­ult­ing in poten­tial sig­ni­fic­ant impacts on the des­ig­nated site. Mit­ig­a­tion is there­fore required which should include hab­it­at sur­vey work to enable re-rout­ing / micro sit­ing of the trail to avoid these pri­or­ity areas and any devel­op­ment with­in 30 metres of the Lad­der Hills SAC. This would also be likely to reduce long term path main­ten­ance as tracks through deep peat often sink over time. Where the pro­posed track can­not avoid pri­or­ity peat­land hab­it­ats then com­pens­at­ory peat­land res­tor­a­tion of degraded peat­land hab­it­ats nearby will be likely to be required. This would equate to an area 10 times the extent of peat­land hab­it­at impacted, and should be cal­cu­lated on the foot­print of the trail where it passes through pri­or­ity peat­land hab­it­at plus a 30 metre buf­fer on either side of trail. A Hab­it­at Man­age­ment Plan will also be required with details of peat man­age­ment and if required a com­pens­at­ory peat res­tor­a­tion plan. (If the applic­ant is able to realign the route over dry heath and acid grass­land and avoid impacts upon deep peat there may not be a require­ment for any com­pens­at­ory peat­land res­tor­a­tion. How­ever more hab­it­at and peat depth map­ping would be neces­sary to inform such a change.)
7. The Hab­it­at Man­age­ment Plan should also provide details of biod­iversity enhance­ments which are required to com­ply with NPF4 Policy 3. This could include nat­ive tree or shrub plant­ing or install­a­tion of rep­tile hiber­nacula. Any off-site enhance­ment such as ripari­an nat­ive tree plant­ing will require to ensure that areas of deep peat are avoided. Com­pens­at­ory peat­land res­tor­a­tion would not be con­sidered a biod­iversity enhance­ment unless the ratio of restored peat­land is great­er than 1:10. Plan­ning con­di­tions will be required to cov­er all these matters.
8. Park Author­ity Land­scape Advisor has no con­cerns about the land­scape and visu­al effects, not­ing that the devel­op­ment would be loc­ated with­in the cur­til­age of the ski centre so would be seen in the con­text of exist­ing ski related infra­struc­ture, tracks and build­ings. The advisor con­siders that the pro­pos­al would be barely notice­able from the A939 and sur­round­ing hill ground due to its rel­at­ively nar­row width and the con­struc­tion meth­od which pro­poses to use reserved turf on the path edges so redu­cing intrusion.
9. Glen­liv­et and Inveravon Com­munity Coun­cil was con­sul­ted and have not provided any com­ments at the time of writing.

Rep­res­ent­a­tions

1. No rep­res­ent­a­tions have been received.

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 take precedence.
2. The main plan­ning con­sid­er­a­tions in this case are: the prin­ciple of devel­op­ment; land­scape and design; envir­on­ment­al impacts; trans­port and access; amen­ity; flood­ing, drain­age and water issues; and sus­tain­ab­il­ity and cli­mate change. These are con­sidered in detail below.

Prin­ciple

1. In terms of gen­er­al prin­ciples, NPF4 Policy 29: Rur­al devel­op­ment sets out that devel­op­ment pro­pos­als which con­trib­ute to the viab­il­ity, sus­tain­ab­il­ity and diversity of rur­al com­munit­ies and the loc­al rur­al eco­nomy will be sup­por­ted sub­ject to con­sid­er­a­tion of sit­ing, scale, design and trans­port issues to ensure it is appro­pri­ate to rur­al char­ac­ter. NPF4 Policy 30: Tour­ism requires pro­pos­als for tour­ism related devel­op­ment to take into account factors such as the con­tri­bu­tion made to the loc­al eco­nomy; com­pat­ib­il­ity with the sur­round­ing area; impacts on com­munit­ies; oppor­tun­it­ies for sus­tain­able travel; access­ib­il­ity for dis­abled people; meas­ures to min­im­ise car­bon emis­sions; and oppor­tun­it­ies to provide access to the nat­ur­al envir­on­ment. NPF4 Policy 25: Com­munity wealth build­ing sets out that devel­op­ment pro­pos­als which con­trib­ute to loc­al or region­al wealth build­ing strategies and are con­sist­ent with loc­al eco­nom­ic pri­or­it­ies will be sup­por­ted, not­ing that this could include for example ensur­ing the use of loc­al sup­ply chains and ser­vices and loc­al job creation.
2. LDP Policy 2: Sup­port­ing eco­nom­ic growth sim­il­arly sup­ports devel­op­ments which sup­port or extend the eco­nomy where they have no adverse envir­on­ment­al or amen­ity impacts, are com­pat­ible with the exist­ing busi­ness activ­ity and sup­port the vital­ity and viab­il­ity of the loc­al eco­nomy. Policy 2.3 Oth­er tour­ism and leis­ure devel­op­ments sup­ports devel­op­ment which enhances inform­al leis­ure and recre­ation facil­it­ies, tour­ism and leis­ure based busi­ness activ­it­ies and attrac­tions, and improved oppor­tun­it­ies for respons­ible out­door access where there are no adverse envir­on­ment­al or amen­ity impacts and where it makes a pos­it­ive con­tri­bu­tion to the exper­i­ence of vis­it­ors and sup­ports a year round economy.
3. The cur­rent pro­pos­al seeks to provide a moun­tain bike trail to expand and com­ple­ment the exist­ing recre­ation­al offer­ing at the Lecht which is a well-estab­lished ski centre. This will help sup­port the eco­nom­ic viab­il­ity of the centre by provid­ing year-round oppor­tun­it­ies for both loc­al employ­ment and increased vis­it­or use. As out­lined in the applicant’s sup­port­ing mater­i­al, this will sup­port the loc­al eco­nomy both dir­ectly with the sum­mer jobs provided as well as the spin offs in terms of con­tract­ors con­struct­ing the trail, then the loc­al spend gen­er­ated by visitors.
4. As such, the pro­posed devel­op­ment read­ily com­plies in prin­ciple with these gen­er­al eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment policies, sub­ject to the land­scape, envir­on­ment­al and oth­er impacts of the pro­pos­al being sat­is­fact­ory. This will now be considered.