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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 10 25/06/2021

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

FOR INFORM­A­TION Title: PRO­POS­AL OF APPLIC­A­TION NOTI­FIC­A­TION – PRO­POSED BAT­TERY STOR­AGE FACIL­ITY ADJA­CENT TO THE BOAT OF GARTEN SUB­STA­TION BY WHIRL­WIND ENERGY STOR­AGE LTD. REF­ER­ENCE: PRE/2021/0015

Pre­pared by: Katie Crerar, Plan­ning Officer

Pur­pose of Report

To inform the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee of: a Pro­pos­al of Applic­a­tion Noti­fic­a­tion (PAN) made to High­land Coun­cil on 7 May 2021 and noti­fied to the CNPA on 26 May 2021 for a major plan­ning applic­a­tion for the cre­ation of an elec­tric­al energy stor­age: the CNPA’s pre- applic­a­tion advice in response to the con­sulta­tion from the High­land Coun­cil; and to allow mem­bers to raise any rel­ev­ant views on the issues to be addressed in an application.

Recom­mend­a­tion

That the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee: a) Note the PAN for the cre­ation of an elec­tric­al energy stor­age facil­ity con­sist­ing of a com­pound con­tain­ing up to 50 energy stor­age con­tain­ers, an elec­tric­al con­trol build­ing, trans­formers, switchgear, land­scap­ing and access on land adja­cent to the Boat of Garten Sub­sta­tion; b) Note the CNPA’s pre-applic­a­tion advice on the issues to address; and c) Make com­ment on any addi­tion­al rel­ev­ant issues to be addressed in any future application.

Back­ground

1. The Plan­ning Com­mit­tee agreed a pro­ced­ure to allow mem­ber involve­ment in pre- applic­a­tion advice for major plan­ning applic­a­tions in Decem­ber 2015. The pro­ced­ure involves officers present­ing the inform­a­tion provided with the noti­fic­a­tion along­side an assess­ment from officers on the issues that need to be addressed. Plan­ning Com­mit­tee mem­bers have an oppor­tun­ity to note issues that an applic­a­tion would be expec­ted to address. Mem­bers are not being asked to approve the advice of officers.

2. The form­al pre-applic­a­tion pro­cess is led by the rel­ev­ant loc­al author­ity, with the CNPA being a con­sul­tee in the pro­cess. The CNPA’s com­ments focus on the plan­ning con­text nat­ur­al her­it­age, land­scape and access issues. Rel­ev­ant Loc­al Author­ity teams such as trans­port plan­ning, flood­ing and con­tam­in­ated land teams provide advice along­side any neces­sary stat­utory consultees.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 10 25/06/2021

1. Plan­ning Com­mit­tee mem­bers are expec­ted to approach decision-mak­ing on the applic­a­tions presen­ted at Com­mit­tee with open minds. Being involved in pre- applic­a­tion pro­cess places a respons­ib­il­ity on mem­bers not to express views that would indic­ate pre-determ­in­a­tion of a future applic­a­tion. To do so could mean that the mem­ber could not take part in the future decision-mak­ing or could lead to a leg­al chal­lenge. Mem­bers are reminded that this is not a plan­ning applic­a­tion and that they should not com­ment on the mer­its of such a pro­pos­al. Any addi­tion­al issues raised by mem­bers will be recor­ded and passed on the applicant’s agent for their consideration.

The Pro­pos­al

1. The pro­pos­al is to devel­op an elec­tric­al energy stor­age facil­ity con­sist­ing of a com­pound (cov­er­ing approx. I Ha) con­tain­ing up to 50 energy stor­age con­tain­ers imme­di­ately adja­cent to the north­ern bound­ary of the exist­ing sub­sta­tion. The site would also include an elec­tric­al con­trol build­ing, trans­formers and switchgear. The site would have an inner enclos­ure con­sist­ing of 3m tall wooden acous­tic fen­cing, with planted nat­ive tree belts and bund­ing out­with this fence. The plant­ing would be designed to com­ple­ment the exist­ing land­scape char­ac­ter and cre­ate enhanced wild­life cor­ridors between the Loch Garten NNR to the south and the River Spey to the north.

2. Access to the site would be either be via a new access road along the east­ern edge of the exist­ing sub­sta­tion requir­ing dir­ect access from the B970 or altern­at­ively using the exist­ing access via East Croft­more to the east of the site. Once oper­a­tion­al the site would be oper­ated remotely and would gen­er­ate very low levels of traffic, typ­ic­ally weekly vis­its by a light van.

3. The site com­prises slop­ing agri­cul­tur­al land loc­ated imme­di­ately adja­cent to the north- west bound­ary of the Boat of Garten Sub­sta­tion, just off the B970 and just under a mile west of Boat of Garten vil­lage. A copy of the loc­a­tion and site plans are attached in Appendix I.

CNPA Officer Advice

1. CNPA staff atten­ded High­land Council’s major applic­a­tion pre-applic­a­tion advice ser­vice meet­ing with the applicant’s team on 5 May 2021 when this pro­pos­al was presen­ted. CNPA staff provided writ­ten feed­back to High­land Coun­cil on 17 May 2021 and a copy of this advice is attached in Appendix 2. The PAN was sub­mit­ted to the High­land Coun­cil in May 2021.

2. Rel­ev­ant plan­ning policy and inform­a­tion require­ments have been set out. Key land use plan­ning issues raised dur­ing the pre-applic­a­tion pro­cess included:

a) the need to fully con­sider land­scape impacts par­tic­u­larly to the north and west of the site; b) poten­tial impacts on lay­out of the site giv­en the slope and prom­in­ence of the site; c) envir­on­ment­al impacts giv­en the prox­im­ity to the River Spey and exist­ing trees; d) safe access to the site; e) the need to demon­strate the role of this pro­pos­al in the wider energy network.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 10 25/06/2021

Con­clu­sion and Next Steps

1. CNPA officers con­sider that the rel­ev­ant issues for such a devel­op­ment on the site selec­ted by the applic­ants have been raised with the applic­ant through meet­ings and cor­res­pond­ence. Any addi­tion­al rel­ev­ant issues that mem­bers con­sider import­ant that are raised at the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee meet­ing will be passed on to High­land Coun­cil and the applic­ant for their con­sid­er­a­tion fol­low­ing the Com­mit­tee meeting.

Katie Crerar June 2021 katiecrerar@​cairngorms.​co.​uk