Item10 KingussieHousingPoANReport PRE20260004

Com­mit­tee report

Devel­op­ment proposed: Pro­pos­al of applic­a­tion notice – Kin­gussie Phase 3 – Site A is 108 dwell­ings and asso­ci­ated infra­struc­ture at land between Dun­barry Ter­race and Gen­er­al Wade’s Mil­it­ary Road and Site B is 8 res­id­en­tial plots and asso­ci­ated infra­struc­ture at land adja­cent to Ard­broilach Road.

Ref­er­ence: PRE/2026/0004

Applic­ant: Dav­all Devel­op­ments Ltd

Date called-in: N/A

Recom­mend­a­tion: For information

Case officers: Kath­er­ine Don­nach­ie & Lauren Neil Plan­ning Officers

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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 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 pro­posed hous­ing devel­op­ment at Kin­gussie. The PoAN was lodged with the High­land Coun­cil on 25 Novem­ber 2025, who sought the views of the Park Author­ity on 13 Janu­ary 2026. Mem­bers are asked to note that this PoAN is inten­ded to form the basis for a sub­sequent plan­ning applic­a­tion. The sub­mit­ted PoAN is attached as Appendix 1.

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 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 approve the pre-applic­a­tion advice from officers, or to dis­cuss the mer­its of the pro­pos­al. Rather, they are asked to note the issues that any future plan­ning applic­a­tion will be expec­ted to address and advise of any addi­tion­al mater­i­al issues they wish to be drawn to the applicant’s attention.

5. Mem­bers may wish to note that the applic­ants sub­mit­ted a pre­vi­ous plan­ning applic­a­tion for this devel­op­ment last year (2025/0244/DET). This applic­a­tion was ulti­mately with­drawn as it was not fully com­pli­ant with rel­ev­ant legis­lat­ive require­ments in terms of pre-applic­a­tion con­sulta­tion with the loc­al community.

The pro­pos­al

1. The pro­pos­al is for res­id­en­tial devel­op­ment on a site to the north of Kin­gussie. It forms part of a wider site which is alloc­ated for res­id­en­tial devel­op­ment in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 (LDP) as site H1. There is hous­ing devel­op­ment approved and under con­struc­tion / com­pleted on parts of this wider site.

2. The site lay­out sub­mit­ted with the PoAN pro­poses two areas of new devel­op­ment. The first area includes 108 dwell­ings on ​‘Site A’ (land between Dun­barry Ter­race and Gen­er­al Wade’s Mil­it­ary Road – A86), com­pris­ing a mix of house types with asso­ci­ated infra­struc­ture, land­scap­ing and SUDS fea­ture – the SUDS fea­ture is loc­ated out­with the bound­ary of the H1 alloc­a­tion. The second area includes 8 res­id­en­tial plots and asso­ci­ated infra­struc­ture at ​‘Site B’ (land adja­cent to Ard­broilach Road).

3. Site A is accessed via the main trunk road through Kin­gussie to the east of the vil­lage, via an exist­ing road formed to serve recently com­pleted hous­ing at this end of the wider H1 alloc­a­tion. Site B will be accessed via roads serving an approved house site in the middle of the wider H1 alloc­a­tion. See Appendix 2 for the sup­port­ing plans

4. A sup­port­ing design state­ment has been provided and is attached as Appendix 3.

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Site descrip­tion

1. The pro­pos­al site com­prises improved graz­ing land loc­ated on the north-west side of Kin­gussie. The pro­pos­al cov­ers an area of approx­im­ately 8.74 ha for Site A and 2 ha for Site B, giv­ing a total of 10.74 ha. Both sites have undu­lat­ing ground levels, with Site A rising more towards the north and Site B rising gently from south-east to north-west. Both sites are bounded by ancient wood­land to the north with exist­ing res­id­en­tial areas to the south. The land between Site A and Site B has plan­ning per­mis­sion for res­id­en­tial devel­op­ment which is cur­rently under construction.

Devel­op­ment plan context

1. Any pro­posed devel­op­ment will be con­sidered against the rel­ev­ant policies of 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 will be used.

Policies

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

Nation­al policy
Policy 1	Tack­ing 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	X
Policy 11	Energy
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	X
Policy 16	Qual­ity homes	X
Policy 17	Rur­al homes
Policy 18	Infra­struc­ture first	X
Policy 19	Heat­ing and cooling
Policy 20	Blue and green infrastructure	X
Policy 21	Play, recre­ation and sport	X
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	X
Policy 32	Aquacul­ture
Policy 33	Min­er­als

Stra­tegic policy Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2022 – 2027

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

Loc­al plan policy
Policy 1	New hous­ing development	X
Policy 2	Sup­port­ing eco­nom­ic growth
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

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Policy 7	Renew­able energy
Policy 8	Open space, sport and recreation	X
Policy 9	Cul­tur­al heritage	X
Policy 10	Resources	X
Policy 11	Developer oblig­a­tions	X

Plan­ning guidance

1. Sup­ple­ment­ary guid­ance also sup­ports the LDP and provides more detail about how to com­ply with the policies. Guid­ance that is expec­ted to be rel­ev­ant to this pro­posed applic­a­tion is marked with a cross.

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

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) Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan des­ig­na­tion c) Land­scape impacts d) Design and lay­out e) Flood­ing and sur­face water man­age­ment f) Envir­on­ment­al impacts (includ­ing impact on any des­ig­nated sites) g) Impacts on amen­ity of res­id­en­tial prop­er­ties in the area h) Access and ser­vi­cing, includ­ing path links i) Afford­able hous­ing deliv­ery j) Developer oblig­a­tions k) Recre­ation and play space

2. Key inform­a­tion require­ments are con­sidered to be as fol­lows: a) Eco­logy sur­veys includ­ing Phase 1 Hab­it­at Sur­vey and pro­tec­ted spe­cies sur­vey. b) Details of pro­posed biod­iversity enhance­ments c) Detailed Design and Access State­ment to explain how the design has evolved and how it is con­sidered to meet NPF4 and LDP policies – ref­er­ence should be made to the exist­ing qual­it­ies of Kin­gussie and an explan­a­tion should be provided as to why it is neces­sary to include land out­with the LDP H1 alloc­a­tion. d) Assess­ment of impacts on the spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies of the Nation­al Park e) Design Guide / Code for the ser­viced plots to provide guid­ance for future developers of these sites (this could be included in the Design and Access State­ment). f) Site sec­tions to show exist­ing and pro­posed ground levels giv­en the slop­ing nature of this site. g) Visu­al­isa­tions to show how the new devel­op­ment will sit in the land­scape. h) Inform­a­tion on pub­lic access, pub­lic trans­port and path links – this could be included in the Design and Access State­ment and should con­sider the need to main­tain access to the Tom Baraidh forest. i) Inform­a­tion on play / recre­ation pro­vi­sion j) Access details includ­ing cla­ri­fic­a­tion on wheth­er the required vis­ib­il­ity splays shown onto the trunk road were fully achieved at the time the developer was form­ing the access to the hous­ing already built at this end of the wider site, and inform­a­tion on the pro­posed emer­gency access route to Dun­barry Ter­race. k) State­ment of Com­munity Bene­fit as required by NPF4 Policy 16: Qual­ity Homes l) Inform­a­tion on deliv­ery of afford­able hous­ing m) State­ment on cli­mate mit­ig­a­tion and adapt­a­tion n) Mas­ter­plan – the site is des­ig­nated for devel­op­ment in the Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan as site H1 and this des­ig­na­tion high­lights that any future pro­pos­als for this site will need to be sup­por­ted by a mas­ter­plan o) Drain­age Impact Assess­ment – to include ref­er­ence to con­sid­er­a­tion of flood risk and inform­a­tion on future main­ten­ance and con­sid­er­a­tion of how the SUDS fea­ture may be used to enhance the biod­iversity and land­scape set­ting of the devel­op­ment. p) Land­scape details which should show how land­scap­ing and struc­tur­al plant­ing will be used to ensure integ­ra­tion of the devel­op­ment with the sur­round­ing land­scape and ancient wood­land sur­round­ing the site. q) Tree Sur­vey / Pro­tec­tion Plans for trees bound­ing the site to the north.

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, inform­a­tion require­ments 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

The Com­mit­tee is asked to: a) Note the Pro­pos­al of Applic­a­tion Notice; 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 application.