CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 10 10/03/2023

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

DEVEL­OP­MENT PRO­POSED: OUR­ACK WATCH WIND FARM

Con­sulta­tion from Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment Energy Con­sents & Deploy­ment Unit

REF­ER­ENCE: 2022/0382/PAC (ECU00001999) APPLIC­ANT: Our­ack Wind Farm LLP DATE CON­SUL­TED: 20 June 2022 RECOM­MEND­A­TION: 1) No objec­tion to the pro­posed Our­ack Watch Wind­farm on basis of impacts on the spe­cial qual­it­ies of the Nation­al Park arising from devel­op­ment out­side the Nation­al Park bound­ary; and 2) No objec­tion, sub­ject to con­di­tions, to the pro­posed con­struc­tion access works with­in the Nation­al Park.

CASE OFFICER: Stephanie Wade, Plan­ning Officer

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 10 10/03/2023

PUR­POSE OF REPORT

1. The pur­pose of this report is to inform the com­mit­tee decision and sub­sequent con­sulta­tion response to the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment Energy Con­sents & Deploy­ment Unit (ECDU) on an applic­a­tion sub­mit­ted under Sec­tion 36 of the Elec­tri­city Act 1989 for a pro­posed wind farm loc­ated to the north of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. The Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment are the determ­in­ing Author­ity for this applic­a­tion as the out­put is more than 50 MW. The applic­a­tion is accom­pan­ied by an Envir­on­ment­al Impact Assess­ment Report (EIAR).

2. This report com­prises con­sid­er­a­tion of two aspects:

   a) Part (a)- The effects of the pro­posed wind farm on the land­scape char­ac­ter and Spe­cial Land­scape Qual­it­ies (SLQs) of the Nation­al Park. b) Part (b) — The impact of the pro­posed tem­por­ary con­struc­tion route works at Castle Grant. The impacts to be assessed relate to the eco­lo­gic­al effects, land­scape and visu­al impacts and the impacts of the works on out­door access matters.

3. The two mat­ters for con­sid­er­a­tion will hence­forth be referred to as Part (a) and Part (b) with­in the rest of this report.

4. Under the cur­rent work­ing agree­ment on roles in land­scape case­work between NatureScot and the Park Author­ity, NatureScot lead on the pro­vi­sion of advice on the effects on the SLQs caused by pro­pos­als out­with the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. Their advice has been used to inform the con­sid­er­a­tion of Part (a) for this report.

SITE DESCRIP­TION AND PRO­POSED DEVELOPMENT

Descrip­tion of Main Wind Farm Devel­op­ment (Part (a))

1. The main devel­op­ment site is loc­ated approx­im­ately 10km north of Grant­own on Spey, imme­di­ately east of the Dava and the A939 and A940. The site com­prises approx­im­ately 762 ha of moor­land and a small area of con­i­fer­ous plant­a­tion wood­land. The south bound­ary of the site is approx­im­ately 1.8km north of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park bound­ary, although it is noted that the tur­bines have been set back to be loc­ated a min­im­um of 2.11km away from the Nation­al Park bound­ary and loc­ated pre­dom­in­antly in the north-east­ern corner of the site. Fig­ure 8.12 (Appendix I) illus­trates that in the sur­round­ing area there are numer­ous oth­er exist­ing and con­sen­ted wind farms, plus sev­er­al pro­posed wind farms in the plan­ning system.

2. The pro­posed devel­op­ment would com­prise 18 tur­bines with a max­im­um height of 180m to the tip of the blade in an upright pos­i­tion, upgrad­ing of road access tracks includ­ing the cre­ation of 16.7km of track, as well as oth­er infra­struc­ture and works (such as sub­sta­tion, under­ground cabling, bor­row pits, etc). It is expec­ted that the pro­posed wind farm would have an estim­ated total installed capa­city of 105MW.

3. The­or­et­ic­al vis­ib­il­ity of the pro­posed wind farm from with­in the Nation­al Park is shown by the applicant’s EIAR fig­ure 8.2 (Appendix 2). When con­sid­er­ing the cumu­lat­ive visu­al effects, the applicant’s fig­ure 8.19 (Appendix 3) demon­strates that vis­ib­il­ity of

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 10 10/03/2023

the pro­posed wind farm would be lim­ited from with­in the Nation­al Park. Much of where it would be seen from is already influ­enced by vis­ib­il­ity of sev­er­al oth­er exist­ing and con­sen­ted wind farms. How­ever, there is an area (shown in blue) with­in the Nation­al Park where it would intro­duce vis­ib­il­ity of a wind farm where cur­rently there is none, around the road between Grant­own on Spey and Nethy Bridge and the east­ern side of Grant­own on Spey.

1. Visu­al­isa­tions from 10 view­points with­in the Nation­al Park and 3 view­points on the Nation­al Park bound­ary have been provided with­in the applicant’s EIAR to demon­strate the pre­dicted level of vis­ib­il­ity that would be had from within/​on the bound­ary of the Nation­al Park. A sum­mary of the view­points is included with­in the table below:

View­point num­ber	Loc­a­tion	Dis­tance to closest tur­bine	Num­ber of blade tips the­or­et­ic­ally vis­ible	Num­ber of hubs the­or­et­ic­ally visible
1	CNP- Nearest point on track at north­ern boundary	2.3 km	17	12
6	CNP- Auch­nagal­lin	4.4 km	2	0
11	CNP- Crom­dale Out­door Centre	10.3 km	1	0
12	CNP- Grant­own on Spey	10.5 km	7	0
14	Cre­ag Ealraich (just ouwith boundary)	13.5 km	18	12
15	CNP- A939 near Lynemore	14.6 km	11	0
16	CNP- Crom­dale Hills, Cre­agan a’Chaise	15.4 km	16	4
17	CNP-A939 near Lynebreck	16.5 km	13	3
18	CNP- Castle Roy, North of Nethy Bridge	17.3 km	10	3
19	CNP- Carn Glas Choire	18.4 km	18	18
22	CNP- Meall a‑Bhuachaille Cairn	27.8 km	18	17
23	CNP- Strath Nethy Path	28.3 km	15	9
24	CNP- Ptar­mig­an	34 km	18	16

1. Com­mit­tee mem­bers should famil­i­ar­ise them­selves with the above visu­al­isa­tions online before the meet­ing. The visu­al­isa­tions asso­ci­ated with each view point are avail­able to the pub­lic by search­ing the applic­a­tion doc­u­ments on the ECDU web­site: Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment — Energy Con­sents Unit — Applic­a­tion Details for the rel­ev­ant fig­ures with­in: EIAR_­Volume_2D- Chapter 8.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 10 10/03/2023

Descrip­tion of Pro­posed Castle Grant Con­struc­tion Access Route Works (Part (b)).

1. An Abnor­mal Load Route Apprais­al has been under­taken on the wider road net­works which iden­ti­fies that the ​‘south­ern deliv­ery route’ via the A9, A95, Grant­own on Spey and the A939 to the site, as the most suit­able access route for abnor­mal loads.

2. The pro­pos­al includes the pro­vi­sion of road improve­ments to facil­it­ate the deliv­ery, emer­gency main­ten­ance and future decom­mis­sion­ing of the tur­bines. ​‘Road Improve­ment Site A’ (as labelled with­in the doc­u­ments) is loc­ated approx­im­ately 2km north of Grant­own on Spey with­in the Nation­al Park area, near to the Castle Grant East Lodge and Rail­way Bridge. The site is imme­di­ately west of the A939 extend­ing to 4ha and encom­passes agri­cul­tur­al land, a sec­tion of the Dava Way and a sec­tion of farm track. The site includes minor trees and shrubs imme­di­ately adja­cent to the Dava Way and there is a cluster of more sub­stan­tial trees to the east of the site, adja­cent to the rail­way bridge.

3. Regard­ing des­ig­na­tions, it is noted that the area forms part of the Castle Grant Invent­ory and Designed Land­scape, and the Castle Grant East Lodge, Rail­way Bridge and Entrance Arch are all Cat­egory A lis­ted. The Dava Way is a Great Nation­al Trail and a Core Path.

4. The pro­posed bypass route at Castle Grant is approx­im­ately 400m in length with the north­ern sec­tion util­ising part of an exist­ing farm track and its exist­ing access to re-join the A939, just north of East Lodge. The bypass route bisects a former rail­way embank­ment and raised sec­tion of the Dava Way. A new, tem­por­ary track would be con­struc­ted from the west­ern side of the A939 up to the embank­ment of the Dava Way, with a cut­ting taken through the embank­ment to enable the Abnor­mal Loads to pass through.

5. The tem­por­ary track would be con­struc­ted at grade with its fin­ished sur­face run­ning close to the exist­ing ground level on the approach to the cut­ting. A new track would also be laid to the west of the Dava Way which would then bear right to join the exist­ing farm track lead­ing back to the A939.

6. The pro­posed embank­ment cut­ting would be regraded either side to a suit­able gradi­ent to enable all users to con­tin­ue to use the core path. It is pro­posed that the detailed design for the bypass route would be secured by plan­ning con­di­tion and the applic­ant is com­mit­ted to con­sult fur­ther with all rel­ev­ant stake­hold­ers dur­ing the detailed design phase.

7. The bypass is solely for use of all AlLs under police escort for a peri­od of up to 3 months. Post-deliv­ery, the sup­port­ing doc­u­ment­a­tion con­firms that the road improve­ment works will be largely removed. Access onto the bypass route from the A939 will be closed, with the gates removed, track removed and rein­state­ment of the post and wire fence. The cut­ting through the embank­ment is pro­posed to be retained to enable emer­gency tur­bine main­ten­ance dur­ing oper­a­tion and to min­im­ise the extent of works required should the bypass routes need to be rein­stated for decom­mis­sion­ing phase. Decom­mis­sion­ing is anti­cip­ated to take place after 35 years of operation.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 10 10/03/2023

1. Plans of the Bypass route can be found at Appendix 4.

REL­EV­ANT PLAN­NING HISTORY

1. In June 2022, Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity respon­ded to a scop­ing con­sulta­tion from ECDU for the cur­rent application.

PLAN­NING POLICY CONTEXT

1. For part (a), as the pro­posed devel­op­ment is loc­ated wholly out­with the Nation­al Park, the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan policies do not apply. How­ever, an assess­ment of the pro­pos­al must have regard to Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 (NPF4) and the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP).

2. For part (b), as the pro­posed access route works are with­in the Nation­al Park, the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan policies, togeth­er with NPF4 policies are applicable.

Nation­al Policy

1. Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 [NPF4] sets out the nation­al plan­ning policies that reflect Scot­tish Min­is­ters pri­or­it­ies for the devel­op­ment and use of land, as well as for oper­a­tion of the plan­ning sys­tem. The policies are a mater­i­al con­sid­er­a­tion in plan­ning decisions that car­ries sig­ni­fic­ant weight.

2. Policy 4c (Nat­ur­al Places) states that ​“devel­op­ment pro­pos­als that will affect a Nation­al Park, Nation­al Scen­ic Area, Site of Spe­cial Sci­entif­ic Interest, or a Nation­al Nature will only be sup­por­ted where:

   a) The object­ives of the des­ig­na­tion and the over­all integ­rity of the areas will not be com­prom­ised; or b) Any sig­ni­fic­ant adverse effects on the qual­it­ies for which the area has been des­ig­nated are clearly out­weighed by social, envir­on­ment­al, or eco­nom­ic bene­fits of nation­al importance.’

3. Of rel­ev­ance to the applic­a­tion is Policy 11: Energy of NPF4. The policy intent is to encour­age, pro­mote and facil­it­ate all forms of renew­able energy devel­op­ment onshore and off­shore. This includes energy gen­er­a­tion, stor­age, new and replace­ment trans­mis­sion and dis­tri­bu­tion infra­struc­ture and emer­ging low-car­bon and zero emis­sions tech­no­lo­gies includ­ing hydro­gen and car­bon cap­ture util­isa­tion and stor­age. Cri­terion 11(b) con­firms that devel­op­ment pro­pos­als for wind farms in Nation­al Parks and Nation­al Scen­ic Areas will not be sup­por­ted. Cri­terion 11(d) con­firms that devel­op­ment pro­pos­als that impact on inter­na­tion­al and nation­al des­ig­na­tions will be assessed in rela­tion to Policy 4. Cri­terion 11(e) required pro­ject design and mit­ig­a­tion to demon­strate how the impacts on road traffic and on adja­cent trunk roads, includ­ing dur­ing con­struc­tion and how the impacts on pub­lic access, includ­ing impact on long dis­tance walk­ing and cyc­ling routes and scen­ic routes have been addressed by the pro­pos­al development.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 10 10/03/2023

1. As per Policy 4, the impact of any wind farm devel­op­ment out­with the Nation­al Park, must there­fore be determ­ined against the four aims of the Nation­al Park as set out in the Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000.

Stra­tegic Policy

1. The Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan [NPPP] 2022 – 2027 is required under sec­tion |1 of the Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000. It is the man­age­ment plan for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park approved by Scot­tish Min­is­ters. The NPPP sets out how all those with a respons­ib­il­ity for the Nation­al Park will coordin­ate their work to tackle the most import­ant issues. There is a duty for decision makers to have regard to the NPPP, a require­ment set out in Sec­tion 14 of the Act. As such, the NPPP is a mater­i­al con­sid­er­a­tion in plan­ning decisions.

2. The NPPP iden­ti­fies that the land­scapes of the Nation­al Park are val­ued by many and under­pin the area’s eco­nomy. It con­tains policies to safe­guard land­scape interests. Of rel­ev­ance to wind farm devel­op­ment pro­pos­als are policies A4 and C2.a.

3. Policy A4 seeks to con­serve and enhance the Spe­cial Land­scape Qual­it­ies [SLQs]. Policy C2.a seeks to sup­port devel­op­ment of a low car­bon eco­nomy and increase renew­able energy gen­er­a­tion where this is com­pat­ible with con­serving the SLQs. In rela­tion to wind farm devel­op­ment, the policy states that ​“Large-scale wind tur­bines are not com­pat­ible with the land­scape char­ac­ter or spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies of the Nation­al Park. They are inap­pro­pri­ate with­in the Nation­al Park or in areas out­side the Nation­al Park where they adversely affect its land­scape char­ac­ter or spe­cial land­scape qualities.”.

Loc­al Policy

1. The rel­ev­ant Loc­al Plan Policies to be used to con­sider the Part (b) Castle Grant works are out­lined with­in the table below:

Loc­al Plan Policy	Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (2021) Those policies rel­ev­ant to the assess­ment of this applic­a­tion are marked with a cross
POLICY I	NEW HOUS­ING DEVELOPMENT
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
POLICY 7	RENEW­ABLE ENERGY
POLICY 8	OPEN SPACE, SPORT AND RECREATION
POLICY 9	CUL­TUR­AL HERITAGE
POLICY 10	RESOURCES
POLICY 11	DEVELOPER CON­TRI­BU­TIONS

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 10 10/03/2023

Plan­ning Guidance

1. Sup­ple­ment­ary guid­ance also forms part of the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan and provides more details about how to com­ply with the policies. Guid­ance that is rel­ev­ant to the con­sid­er­a­tion of Part(b) is marked with a cross.

Policy I	New Hous­ing Devel­op­ment Non-Stat­utory Guidance
Policy 2	Sup­port­ing Eco­nom­ic Growth Non-Stat­utory Guidance
Policy 3	Design and Place­mak­ing Non-Stat­utory Guidance	X
Policy 4	Nat­ur­al Her­it­age Sup­ple­ment­ary Guidance	X
Policy 5	Land­scape Non-Stat­utory Guidance	X
Policy 7	Renew­able Energy Sup­ple­ment­ary Guidance
Policy 8	Open Space, Sport and Recre­ation Non-Stat­utory Guidance
Policy 9	Cul­tur­al Her­it­age Non-Stat­utory Guidance
Policy 10	Resources Non-Stat­utory Guidance
Policy 11	Developer Con­tri­bu­tions Sup­ple­ment­ary Guidance

CON­SULTA­TIONS

In rela­tion to Part (a)

Nature Scot advice

1. In accord­ance with the NatureScot/​CNPA case­work agree­ment, NatureScot have provided CNPA with advice in rela­tion to the effects on the Nation­al Park, of the pro­posed wind farm both alone and cumu­lat­ively with oth­er exist­ing and con­sen­ted wind farms in the sur­round­ing area.

2. NatureScot con­sider that the pro­pos­al will not have an adverse effect on the integ­rity of the Nation­al Park or the object­ives of the designation.

3. From the Scop­ing, the applic­ant has sought to remove the tur­bines closet to the Park bound­ary using the loc­al land­form of Carn Ruighe an Uain to screen the major­ity of the tur­bines loc­ally. This has had the effect of sig­ni­fic­antly redu­cing blade tip and hub height vis­ib­il­ity dir­ectly across and down into the Park in the vicin­ity of Huntly’s Cave.

4. There will be lim­ited pre­dicted vis­ib­il­ity of tur­bines with­in the Park around Cot­tar­town, along with the west facing upper slopes and sum­mits of the Crom­dales. Whilst this is likely to res­ult in some cumu­lat­ive effects, intensi­fy­ing exist­ing wind tur­bine group­ing around Berryburn/​Pauls Hill, Clash Gour and wider afield includ­ing Rothes, NatureScot agree with the con­clu­sions of the EIAR that there will not be sig­ni­fic­ant effects on the spe­cial land­scape qualities.

In rela­tion to Part (b)

1. CNPA Eco­logy Officer has no objec­tion on eco­lo­gic­al grounds to the pro­posed re-rout­ing works. The Officer agrees with the Land­scape Officer’s recom­men­ded mit­ig­a­tion for a tree pro­tec­tion plan. The Officer is con­tent with the pro­tec­ted spe­cies and hab­it­ats mit­ig­a­tion embed­ded with­in the EIA (out­line spe­cies pro­tec­tion plans). The

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 10 10/03/2023

iden­ti­fied bat trees and struc­tures are to be avoided and re-sur­veyed pri­or to works com­men­cing. No roosts are expec­ted to be lost as part of the pro­posed re-route. The rep­tile hiber­nacula which have been iden­ti­fied around the road realign­ment will be avoided.

1. CNPA Land­scape Officer con­siders that over­all, sig­ni­fic­ance will be low though low-mod­er­ate for users of the Dava Way. The Officer recom­mends plan­ning con­di­tions for the agree­ment of a full land­scap­ing plan and main­ten­ance togeth­er with a tree sur­vey and pro­tec­tion plan.

2. CNPA Out­door Access Officer note the con­tents of the EIA report which includes an out­line Access Man­age­ment Plan and that a plan­ning con­di­tion should be attached to any sub­sequent decision for the agree­ment of a Final­ised Access Man­age­ment Plan. The Officer notes that the re-grad­ing of the sec­tion of the Dava Way that would be crossed by the route is to be determ­ined through fur­ther con­sulta­tion with rel­ev­ant stake­hold­ers dur­ing the detailed design phase, along with mater­i­als, fin­ishes and land­scap­ing proposals.

Rel­ev­ant Con­sulta­tion responses to EDCU in rela­tion to Part (b)

The fol­low­ing con­sulta­tion com­ments have been sub­mit­ted to the Energy Con­sent Unit and are included with­in this report for inform­a­tion pur­poses only, to provide fur­ther con­text to the wider con­sulta­tion con­sid­er­a­tion of the Castle Grant Access Works.

1. Trans­port Scot­land con­sider that insuf­fi­cient inform­a­tion has cur­rently been presen­ted to con­firm the suit­ab­il­ity of the pro­posed abnor­mal loads route. As such, they advise that for a revised sub­mis­sion which provides final­ised tur­bine com­pon­ent dimen­sions and trans­port arrange­ments and con­firm­a­tions regard­ing the issues raised in the AIL Access Study. Trans­port Scot­land recom­mend this can be under­taken as a plan­ning condition.

2. High­land Coun­cil Trans­port Plan­ning Team con­siders that the abnor­mal load activ­ity through Grant­own is likely to gen­er­ate oper­a­tion­al issues and con­sider that a com­bin­a­tion of con­trolling traffic flows may be required as well as poten­tially pre­vent­ing on street park­ing dur­ing the deliv­ery activ­ity. The Team requires plan­ning con­di­tions for the pri­or agree­ment of Con­struc­tion Traffic Man­age­ment Plan and AIL Rout­ing Plan pri­or to the com­mence­ment of works. The Team require that the applic­ant dis­cusses the AIL Rout­ing Plan dir­ectly with the Loc­al Com­munity and busi­ness groups in Grant­own to ensure that any dis­rup­tion is min­im­ised. A plan­ning con­di­tion is also recom­men­ded to agree the final detailed design at the Castle Grant bypass togeth­er with assur­ances that any gates are set back from the road and the first 6m of the track is prop­erly surfaced.

3. Regard­ing the pro­posed off­s­ite works at Castle Grant, the former rail­way line now car­ries the long-dis­tance route ​‘Dava Way’, which will be dir­ectly impacted by the pro­posed works. This includes remov­ing a sec­tion of the embank­ment that the route runs along to cre­ate a cut­ting through it for the AIL vehicles to use. The sub­mis­sion says that the slopes of the cut­ting through the embank­ment would be at a gradi­ent suit­able for all users of the Dava Way. How­ever, Fig­ure 3.17 from the submission

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 10 10/03/2023

includes a sec­tion through the cut­ting show­ing side slopes of 1:2, with gates at the bot­tom to con­trol access. Also, the sub­mis­sion says that the pro­posed cut­ting through the former rail­way embank­ment would be left in-place after the wind farm has been con­struc­ted so that there is a viable route avail­able for any AlLs need­ing to deliv­er replace­ment parts to the wind farm dur­ing its oper­a­tion­al life. The Team recom­mends that feed­back is sought from the rel­ev­ant Access Officers at both High­land Coun­cil and the Cairngorm Nation­al Park Author­ity on the accept­ab­il­ity of these pro­posed arrange­ment, as it is under­stood that 1:2 slopes would be steep­er than is recom­men­ded for access by all poten­tial users.

1. His­tor­ic Envir­on­ment Scot­land (HES) do not object to the applic­a­tion. HES agree that the pro­posed tem­por­ary bypass would not affect the wider land­scape or Castle Grant itself and impacts on the set­ting of East Lodge and the west­ern edge of the Designed Land­scape would not be sig­ni­fic­ant. Those impacts would be mit­ig­ated by the fact that the works are tem­por­ary and that the exist­ing char­ac­ter would be rein­stated once the wind farm is con­struc­ted, and the bypass dis­mantled. Over HES con­sider that the pro­posed devel­op­ment would not have sig­ni­fic­ant adverse effects on the Cat­egory A lis­ted build­ings or the Invent­ory Garden and Designed Land­scape at Castle Grant.

2. Grant­own on Spey and Vicin­ity Com­munity Coun­cil object to the pro­posed wind­farm not­ing that the tur­bines will cause visu­al pol­lu­tion both day and night and are situ­ated close to an ancient route from Strath­spey to the coast. Regard­ing the Part(b) works, the Com­munity Coun­cil con­sider the access route through Grant­own and the cut­ting through the Dava Way totally unacceptable.

APPRAIS­AL

In rela­tion to Part (a)

1. In the policy con­text of the NPPP and NPF4, con­sid­er­a­tion is required of the effects of the pro­posed devel­op­ment, on land­scape char­ac­ter and the SLQs, both alone and cumu­lat­ively with oth­er wind farms in the sur­round­ing area.

2. From the Scop­ing, the applic­ant has sought to remove the tur­bines closet to the Park bound­ary using the loc­al land­form of Carn Ruighe an Uain to screen the major­ity of the tur­bines loc­ally. This has had the effect of sig­ni­fic­antly redu­cing blade tip and hub height vis­ib­il­ity dir­ectly across and down into the Park in the vicin­ity of Huntly’s Cave.

3. There are sev­er­al exist­ing and con­sen­ted wind farms in the area sur­round­ing the pro­posed wind farm. Adding the pro­posed Our­ack wind farm to the baseline would not sig­ni­fic­antly add to the exist­ing level of effects, either alone or in com­bin­a­tion with oth­er exist­ing or con­sen­ted wind farms.

4. When con­sid­er­ing the nature and sig­ni­fic­ance of the effects, the pro­pos­al would not com­prom­ise the integ­rity or object­ives of the Nation­al Park. The pro­pos­al is there­fore con­sidered to be in accord­ance with NPF4 Policies 4 and 11 and Policies A4 and C2.a. of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan. Scot­tish Plan­ning Policy para­graph 212.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 10 10/03/2023

1. For these reas­ons, it is con­sidered that CNPA should not object to the pro­posed wind farm development.

In rela­tion to Part (b)

Back­ground

1. Part (b) works form part of the Our­ack wind­farm devel­op­ment and relates to the vehicu­lar access detour to avoid the lis­ted gate­house and bridge at Castle Grant on the A940 for abnor­mal load deliv­er­ies. It con­sists of tem­por­ary realign­ment of the access by provid­ing a track and new gated entrance on the main road. In addi­tion, the rail­way embank­ment will be removed for approx­im­ately 30m to facil­it­ate the bypass route. The former work will be tem­por­ary and rein­stated whilst the lat­ter will be a per­man­ent change. As these works fall with­in the Nation­al Park bound­ary, Com­mit­tee mem­bers are asked to con­sider the pro­pos­al in respect of its impact on out­door access, land­scape and nat­ur­al envir­on­ment. The roads related mat­ters and oth­er mater­i­als con­sid­er­a­tions are dealt with by oth­er con­sul­tees to the Energy Con­sents Unit.

Impacts on the Nat­ur­al Environment

1. Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Her­it­age of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 seeks to ensure that there is no adverse impact upon des­ig­nated areas, pro­tec­ted spe­cies or biod­iversity. Policy 3 of NPF4 places great emphas­is on ensur­ing that EIA devel­op­ment con­serves, restores and enhances biodiversity.

2. The pro­posed tem­por­ary bypass works have been sub­ject to eco­lo­gic­al sur­veys and the CNPA Eco­logy Officer is con­tent with the pro­tec­ted spe­cies and hab­it­ats mit­ig­a­tion embed­ded with­in the EIAR, which includes out­line spe­cies pro­tec­tion plans. The pro­posed bypass route will not adversely affect eco­lo­gic­al interests and there­fore accords with Policy 4 Nat­ur­al Her­it­age of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 and Policy 3 of NPF4.

Impacts on the Landscape

1. Policy 5: Land­scape of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 pre­sumes against devel­op­ment which does not con­serve and enhance the land­scape char­ac­ter and spe­cial qual­it­ies of the Nation­al Park and in par­tic­u­lar the set­ting of the pro­posed devel­op­ment. Policy 11 of NPF4 notes that where land­scape impacts are loc­al­ised and/​or appro­pri­ate design mit­ig­a­tion has been applied, they will gen­er­ally be con­sidered acceptable.

2. The site cur­rently con­sists of a small field adja­cent to the A940 with the Vic­tori­an rail­way embank­ment to the west of this. The embank­ment is approx­im­ately 3 – 4m high at the is point. To the north west of the embank­ment the are per­man­ent pas­ture fields. There are sev­er­al mature trees along the embank­ment in the vicin­ity of the pro­posed remov­al section.

3. The embank­ment at this point is not a dom­in­ant fea­ture in the land­scape. In gen­er­al, views from the east, mainly the road users, are dom­in­ated by the wooded hill to the

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 10 10/03/2023

west of the site. The trees on the embank­ment are import­ant in this view. From the west the view is mostly from the elev­ated area where there is pub­lic access and res­id­en­tial prop­er­ties. Again, the embank­ment is a mod­est part of the view which is more focused on the area of policy wood­lands around Castle Grant and the Crom­dale Hills bey­ond. The tem­por­ary tracks will have a small and short-lived effect on the char­ac­ter of the site. The embank­ment will change due to hav­ing the per­man­ent sec­tion removed but this will not be sig­ni­fic­ant from these areas.

1. The embank­ment itself is a core path and long-dis­tance foot­way (the Dava way) and this is sig­ni­fic­ant as the con­tinu­ity of the route includ­ing its level is part of the exper­i­ence of walking/​cycling along its length, espe­cially in the approach to the Icon­ic bridge and gate house (some­times known loc­ally as the ​“harry pot­ter” house). The tracks will have little or no effect on this exper­i­ence or char­ac­ter in this area. How­ever, the loss of this sec­tion of embank­ment will inter­rupt the move­ment of users along the Dava way by requir­ing them to drop down level and then walk/​cycle back up again. It should be noted that the line of the rail­way is already broken a few hun­dred meters to the south. Though this is an incon­veni­ence it is not likely to affect the enjoy­ment of the route from a land­scape per­spect­ive and there is still approx­im­ately 200m before the bridge which is suf­fi­cient for the exper­i­ence of this approach to be re-estab­lished for users. Sub­ject to the inclu­sion of plan­ning con­di­tions, for a full land­scap­ing and main­ten­ance plan, togeth­er with res­tor­a­tion plan, tree sur­vey and tree pro­tec­tion plan the pro­pos­al is con­sidered to accord with Policy 5: Land­scape of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 and Policies 11 of NPF4.

Impacts on Out­door Access

1. Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021, requires pro­pos­als to be con­sist­ent with the Scot­tish Out­door Access Code, the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Out­door Access Strategy, and the Cairngorms Nation­al Pak Core Paths Plan with pro­pos­als main­tain­ing and max­im­ising all oppor­tun­it­ies for respons­ible out­door access. Policy 11 of NPF4 requires pro­ject design and mit­ig­a­tion to demon­strate how impacts on pub­lic access and long-dis­tance walk­ing and cyc­ling routes are addressed by the development.

2. The pro­posed tem­por­ary bypass looks to alter the Dava Way from its cur­rent route along the embank­ment. The design of the bypass looks to cre­ate a cut­ting with­in the embank­ment with the final design sug­ges­ted to be agreed through plan­ning con­di­tion. The CNPA Out­door Access Officer recom­mends the inclu­sion of plan­ning con­di­tions for the final design agree­ment togeth­er with the agree­ment of a final­ised Access Man­age­ment Plan. Sub­ject to these con­di­tions, the pro­pos­al would not adversely affect out­door access with­in the area, in accord­ance with Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 and Policy 11 of NPF4.

Oth­er Considerations

1. The road safety and traffic gen­er­a­tion of the pro­pos­al are being dealt with by Trans­port Scot­land and High­land Coun­cil Trans­port Plan­ning Team via the Council’s con­sulta­tion response to the Energy Con­sents Unit and are there­fore not mat­ters under con­sid­er­a­tion by the CNPA. It is noted that both con­sul­tees are seek­ing further

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 10 10/03/2023

cla­ri­fic­a­tion regard­ing the pro­posed abnor­mal load route for the deliv­ery of large tur­bine com­pon­ents, cranes, and heavy trans­former equip­ment. The accept­ab­il­ity of the route is there­fore a mat­ter for them to advise on. In terms of the CNPA plan­ning con­sid­er­a­tions, the pro­pos­al is accept­able, sub­ject to con­di­tions. In respect of the impact of the her­it­age assets, it is also noted that His­tor­ic Envir­on­ment Scot­land have no objec­tions to the bypass route in rela­tion to the impacts on the set­ting of the her­it­age assets.

CON­CLU­SION

1. The pro­posed bypass route would have loc­al­ised impacts which, sub­ject to mit­ig­a­tion, will have no adverse impacts on the eco­lo­gic­al, land­scape and out­door access interests of the site and wider area. Sub­ject to the inclu­sion of the sug­ges­ted plan­ning con­di­tions, it is con­sidered that CNPA should not object to the pro­posed bypass route.

RECOM­MEND­A­TION

That Mem­bers of the Com­mit­tee confirm:

• For Part (a) That CNPA raise no objec­tion to the applic­a­tion for the pro­posed Our­ack Watch wind farm.
• For Part (b)- That CNPA raise no objec­tion sub­ject to the inclu­sion of the plan­ning con­di­tions lis­ted below:

Recom­men­ded Plan­ning Con­di­tions for Part(b)

1. No devel­op­ment should com­mence until: a) A detailed design for the bypass route has been agreed in writ­ing by the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity. b) A Final­ised Access Man­age­ment Plan has been agreed in writ­ing by the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity. c) A Tree Sur­vey and Tree Pro­tec­tion Plan has been agreed in writ­ing by the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity. d) A Bypass Route Res­tor­a­tion and Land­scape Plan has been agreed in writ­ing by the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority.