Item11AAAppealDecision20200064PPP

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 11 25/06/2021

AGENDA ITEM 11

FOR INFORM­A­TION

2020/0064/PPP

PLAN­NING APPEAL DECISION (PPA-001‑2023)

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Plan­ning and Envir­on­ment­al Appeals Divi­sion Appeal Decision Notice T: 0300 244 6668 E: [email protected] Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment Riaghaltas na h‑Alba gov.scot

Decision by Rosie Leven, a Report­er appoin­ted by the Scot­tish Ministers

• Plan­ning appeal ref­er­ence: PPA-001‑2023
• Site address: land at School Road and Craigmore Road, Nethy Bridge, PH26 3NW
• Appeal by CastleG­len Prop­er­ties (Scot­land) Ltd. against the decision by Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority
• Applic­a­tion for plan­ning per­mis­sion in prin­ciple 2020/0064/PPP dated 28 Feb­ru­ary 2020 refused by notice dated 2 Septem­ber 2020
• The devel­op­ment pro­posed: Res­id­en­tial devel­op­ment for up to 20 dwell­ing houses
• Date of site vis­it by Report­er: 21 April 2021

Date of appeal decision: 20 May 2021

Decision

I dis­miss the appeal and refuse plan­ning per­mis­sion in principle.

Reas­on­ing

1. I am required to determ­ine this appeal in accord­ance with the devel­op­ment plan, unless mater­i­al con­sid­er­a­tions indic­ate oth­er­wise. The stat­utory devel­op­ment plan com­prises the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (2021). Although there is no stra­tegic devel­op­ment plan, stra­tegic dir­ec­tion is provided by the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2017 – 2022.

2. The appeal relates to plan­ning per­mis­sion in prin­ciple for up to 20 houses, includ­ing sev­en afford­able units. The pro­posed site is 1.97 hec­tares in size, to the north of Craigmore Road, east of Dirdhu Court.

3. Hav­ing regard to the pro­vi­sions of the devel­op­ment plan, the main issues in this appeal are:

• the prin­ciple of hous­ing development;
• design and access;
• the impact on the nat­ur­al environment;
• the impact on ancient wood­land; and
• the impact on the char­ac­ter of the area.

1. The loc­al devel­op­ment plan con­tains the fol­low­ing policies which are rel­ev­ant to the appeal:

Plan­ning and Envir­on­ment­al Appeals Divi­sion Had­ri­an House, Cal­l­en­dar Busi­ness Park, Falkirk, FK1 1XR www.gov.scot/policies/planning-environmental-appeals/

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PPA-001‑2023 2

• Policy 1: New Hous­ing Devel­op­ment – provides sup­port for alloc­ated sites and sets out afford­able hous­ing requirements.
• Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing – ensures that all devel­op­ments meet the six qual­it­ies of suc­cess­ful places and requires the design of schemes to take into account a range of factors includ­ing the impact of the proposal’s set­ting on cli­mate change, the pro­mo­tion of sus­tain­able travel, oppor­tun­it­ies for out­door access and cre­ation of oppor­tun­it­ies to fur­ther biod­iversity and pro­mote eco­lo­gic­al interest.
• Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Her­it­age – require­ments relat­ing to des­ig­nated sites, includ­ing ancient wood­land sites, pro­tec­ted spe­cies and oth­er biod­iversity, with fur­ther details set out in sup­ple­ment­ary guidance.
• Policy 5: Land­scape – pre­sump­tion against devel­op­ment that does not con­serve and enhance land­scape char­ac­ter and, if it does not, the cir­cum­stances where devel­op­ment would be supported.
• Policy 10: Resources resource require­ments, includ­ing water resources, flood­ing, sew­er­age and waste management.
• Policy 11: Developer Con­tri­bu­tions – require­ments for con­tri­bu­tions to a range of pub­lic ser­vices or infra­struc­ture, with fur­ther details set out in sup­ple­ment­ary guidance.

Prin­ciple of hous­ing development

1. Loc­al devel­op­ment plan policy 1 sup­ports hous­ing on alloc­ated sites or with­in an iden­ti­fied set­tle­ment bound­ary. The appeal site is not alloc­ated for hous­ing and is out­with the Nethy Bridge set­tle­ment bound­ary. The plan’s Com­munity Inform­a­tion sec­tion for Nethy Bridge provides set­tle­ment object­ives, which include sup­port­ing the deliv­ery of hous­ing, par­tic­u­larly afford­able hous­ing, and increas­ing and enhan­cing flood man­age­ment and resilience.

2. Policy 1 requires hous­ing pro­pos­als in Nethy Bridge to provide a con­tri­bu­tion of 25% afford­able hous­ing. The pro­por­tion of afford­able hous­ing units pro­posed here is 35%. Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity (CNPA) has high­lighted the high demand for afford­able hous­ing in the vil­lage and, as a res­ult, wel­comes the high­er pro­por­tion in the pro­posed scheme.

3. For pro­pos­als not with­in a set­tle­ment bound­ary, policy 1 sup­ports oth­er hous­ing pro­pos­als in the coun­tryside which rein­force the exist­ing pat­tern of devel­op­ment and are either linked to an act­ive busi­ness or are on a rur­al brown­field site. I find that these cri­ter­ia do not apply to the proposal.

4. While the afford­able hous­ing ele­ment exceeds the require­ments in policy 1 and it is pos­sible that flood man­age­ment require­ments could be delivered through con­di­tions, I find that the site does not meet the loc­a­tion­al require­ments of policy 1 and there­fore the prin­ciple of hous­ing here is con­trary to the devel­op­ment plan. I say more on flood man­age­ment below.

Design and access

1. Loc­al devel­op­ment plan policy 3 includes 12 factors that all pro­pos­als must con­sider, includ­ing assess­ment of the effects of the devel­op­ment on cli­mate change, the pro­mo­tion of

Plan­ning and Envir­on­ment­al Appeals Divi­sion Had­ri­an House, Cal­l­en­dar Busi­ness Park, Falkirk, FK1 1XR www.gov.scot/policies/planning-environmental-appeals/

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sus­tain­able travel, oppor­tun­it­ies for out­door access and the cre­ation of oppor­tun­it­ies to fur­ther biod­iversity and pro­mote eco­lo­gic­al interest.

1. I have had regard to the appellant’s plan­ning and design state­ment, which provides an indic­at­ive lay­out show­ing two groups of houses in a row, with two access points pro­posed off Craigmore Road. The pro­posed houses would sit to the north of an exist­ing power line wayleave, run­ning across the site roughly from east to west. The pro­pos­als include the reten­tion of trees between the wayleave and Craigmore Road, to provide screen­ing and pri­vacy to the devel­op­ment. As this is an applic­a­tion for plan­ning per­mis­sion in prin­ciple, I am sat­is­fied that detailed house design and mater­i­als could be con­trolled and agreed through con­di­tions. I dis­cuss issues around land­scape char­ac­ter and eco­logy below.

2. In terms of access, the pro­pos­al is loc­ated some dis­tance from the centre of the vil­lage and key facil­it­ies such as the primary school, although I observed on my site inspec­tion that the remote loc­a­tion of the school to the north of the vil­lage affects most of the loc­al res­id­ents. Access to pub­lic trans­port is reas­on­ably close, how­ever, with a bus stop with­in 300 metres of the site. The wood­land loc­a­tion would allow for con­nec­tion into the exist­ing path net­work which exists through and bey­ond the site. The pro­pos­als also include a main­ten­ance pro­gramme for the wider School Wood, which is in the con­trol of the appel­lant. The evid­ence sug­gests that this area is used reg­u­larly by walk­ers and cyc­lists and I find that the pro­posed pro­gramme has the poten­tial to offer wider bene­fits in terms of out­door access and enhance­ment of the path net­work. I agree with CNPA that the imple­ment­a­tion of this man­age­ment pro­gramme could be con­trolled by condition.

3. In terms of roads impacts, it has been sug­ges­ted that a dif­fer­ent pri­or­ity sys­tem might be required at the cross­roads between Craigmore Road and School Road and that Craigmore Road should be upgraded east­wards from its junc­tion with Dor­back Place, with the addi­tion of a suit­able road­side foot­way. The High­land Council’s traffic and trans­port plan­ning team has no objec­tion to the pro­pos­al, sub­ject to con­di­tions provid­ing detail on a num­ber of mat­ters, includ­ing bus ser­vices, vis­ib­il­ity splays, park­ing arrange­ments, waste col­lec­tion and street light­ing. I con­sider that these mat­ters, and a road­side foot­way, are mat­ters which could be secured by con­di­tion if con­sent were to be granted.

4. The indic­at­ive lay­out includes two Sus­tain­able Drain­age Sys­tem (SuDS) ponds pro­posed for the east­ern and west­ern edges of the site. No con­cerns over flood­ing have been raised and the High­land Council’s flood risk man­age­ment team has no objec­tion, sub­ject to suit­able con­di­tions to man­age sur­face and foul water dis­charge. Sub­ject to these con­di­tions and the imple­ment­a­tion of the SuDS scheme, I find that the pro­pos­al would be con­sist­ent with loc­al devel­op­ment plan policy 10.

5. Tak­ing these issues togeth­er I there­fore find that, sub­ject to vari­ous con­di­tions, and allow­ing for design mat­ters to be con­sidered in fur­ther detail in a sub­sequent applic­a­tion for approv­al of mat­ters spe­cified in con­di­tions, the pro­pos­als would be con­sist­ent with policy 3 and policy 10.

Impact on the nat­ur­al environment

1. Loc­al devel­op­ment plan policy 4 requires that devel­op­ment that is likely to have a sig­ni­fic­ant effect on a European site must demon­strate no adverse effect on the integ­rity of

Plan­ning and Envir­on­ment­al Appeals Divi­sion Had­ri­an House, Cal­l­en­dar Busi­ness Park, Falkirk, FK1 1XR www.gov.scot/policies/planning-environmental-appeals/

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the site. Policy 4 also con­tains detailed require­ments relat­ing to devel­op­ment that would have a sig­ni­fic­ant adverse effect on any pro­tec­ted spe­cies. Where there is evid­ence to sug­gest that a pro­tec­ted or pri­or­ity hab­it­at or spe­cies may be present, or could be adversely affected by devel­op­ment, focused sur­veys are required along with species/​habitat pro­tec­tion plans to set out meas­ures to avoid, reduce or mit­ig­ate effects.

1. The site is not itself part of a Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion (SAC) or Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Area (SPA). How­ever, two water­courses imme­di­ately to the east and west of the site (the Caochan Fhuar­ain to the east and an unnamed burn to the west) feed into the Allt Mhor, which is part of the River Spey SAC. The site is also loc­ated between the Craigmore Wood SPA and the Aber­nethy Forest SPA which are import­ant hab­it­ats for pro­tec­ted birds, and near to the Anagach Woods SPA, the Cairngorms SPA and the Kin­veachy Forest SPA in the wider area, which all relate to bird habitats.

2. CNPA car­ried out a Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al (HRA) under the terms of the Con­ser­va­tion (Nat­ur­al Hab­it­ats, &c.) Reg­u­la­tions 1994, as amended (the Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions). NatureScot agreed with the con­clu­sions of the HRA, which were that the pro­pos­al will res­ult in a likely sig­ni­fic­ant effect on the qual­i­fy­ing interests of Aber­nethy Forest, Anagach Woods, Cairngorms, Craigmore Wood & Kin­veachy Forest SPAs, and on the qual­i­fy­ing interests of the River Spey SAC. The rel­ev­ant qual­i­fy­ing interests of the River Spey SAC are otters, Atlantic sal­mon, sea lamprey and fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sels, while the rel­ev­ant qual­i­fy­ing interests of the SPAs are a range of bird spe­cies, includ­ing capercaillie.

3. Tak­ing the above into account, and hav­ing con­sidered the details of the HRA, I am sat­is­fied that the require­ments for such apprais­als have been met. I do not con­sider there to be any cumu­lat­ive effects with oth­er pro­pos­als or plans. Over­all, giv­en the nature of the pro­posed devel­op­ment and its loc­a­tion, I agree with the iden­ti­fic­a­tion of the likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects and I adopt the con­clu­sions of the HRA as my own.

4. As the decision maker, I am required to carry out an appro­pri­ate assess­ment under the terms of the Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions, focus­ing on those qual­i­fy­ing interests for which a likely sig­ni­fic­ant effect has been iden­ti­fied. In addi­tion to CNPA’s appro­pri­ate assess­ment (which includes some minor con­fu­sion over the use of the term ​‘sig­ni­fic­ant’ while assess­ing the effect on site integ­rity), I have con­sidered the assess­ment of the pro­pos­als by CNPA eco­logy officers, and the oth­er evid­ence relat­ing to the impact on the nat­ur­al envir­on­ment, includ­ing the appellant’s tree, caper­cail­lie and eco­lo­gic­al sur­veys (includ­ing an updated otter sur­vey), the wood­land man­age­ment sur­vey (relat­ing to the wider School Wood) and mat­ters raised in representations.

5. CNPA’s appro­pri­ate assess­ment finds that, sub­ject to two con­di­tions relat­ing to site run-off and drain­age to mit­ig­ate the effect on the qual­i­fy­ing interests of the River Spey SAC, there will not be any adverse effects on the integ­rity of the SAC or the rel­ev­ant SPAs. As I have not reques­ted fur­ther inform­a­tion on the Natura impacts, I have not recon­sul­ted NatureScot, which agreed with CNPA’s over­all findings.

6. In terms of the SAC, it is accep­ted that otters may be in the area around the Caochan Fhuar­ain, but as a route between hunt­ing grounds rather than for for­aging or breed­ing. In terms of SPAs, while the HRA sug­gests no sig­ni­fic­ant loss of caper­cail­lie for­aging or breed­ing hab­it­at, the appeal site is high­lighted as hav­ing value as a dis­pers­al route for caper­cail­lie between Craigmore Wood SPA and Aber­nethy Forest SPA. The

Plan­ning and Envir­on­ment­al Appeals Divi­sion Had­ri­an House, Cal­l­en­dar Busi­ness Park, Falkirk, FK1 1XR www.gov.scot/policies/planning-environmental-appeals/

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evid­ence sug­gests, how­ever, that exist­ing heavy use of the site by people means it is unlikely to be pre­ferred by caper­cail­lie and that most of the pro­posed devel­op­ment site already falls with­in a 150 metre dis­turb­ance zone from paths, roads and settlements.

1. While pre­lim­in­ary assess­ments of the impacts on caper­cail­lie and otters have been car­ried out, I have some reser­va­tions over the abil­ity to pre­vent dis­turb­ance from this increased human activ­ity, for example from dog walk­ing and oth­er recre­ation­al use. Although paths already exist with­in School Wood, the pro­pos­als would move the line of devel­op­ment fur­ther into the wood and are likely to increase human activ­ity in the area imme­di­ately around the site, effect­ively mov­ing the dis­turb­ance zone fur­ther north and east.

2. While Craigmore Road already runs between School Wood and Cul­stank Moss, the gap which is cur­rently undis­turbed between the exist­ing build­ings at Dirdhu Court and those lying fur­ther east on Craigmore Road would be sig­ni­fic­antly nar­rowed by the pro­posed devel­op­ment, poten­tially affect­ing the abil­ity of spe­cies to use School Wood as a step­ping stone to oth­er areas. In rela­tion to otters, mov­ing the devel­op­ment line fur­ther into the woods would also move the line of dis­turb­ance closer to the poten­tial routes used by otters along the Caochan Fhuarain.

3. I accept, how­ever, the find­ings that caper­cail­lie are already unlikely to use the site for for­aging or breed­ing due to the exist­ing levels of dis­turb­ance. Sim­il­arly, otters are not thought to use the Caochan Fhuar­ain for breed­ing. NatureScot has not raised con­cerns over the pro­posed mit­ig­a­tion for otters or about the effects on capercaillie.

4. In rela­tion to otters and the oth­er qual­i­fy­ing interests of the River Spey, I am there­fore sat­is­fied that with the pro­posed cre­ation of a ripari­an buf­fer strip along the banks of the Caochan Fhuar­ain to provide cov­er for otters, and con­di­tions to con­trol run-off and pol­lu­tion dur­ing the con­struc­tion peri­od and bey­ond, the pro­pos­als would not have an adverse effect on site integ­rity. Tak­ing this into account along­side the oth­er evid­ence sub­mit­ted, the con­clu­sion of my appro­pri­ate assess­ment is that I am sat­is­fied that, with suit­able con­di­tions, the pro­pos­al would have no adverse effect on the integ­rity of the above European sites.

5. Bey­ond the spe­cies dis­cussed in the HRA and appro­pri­ate assess­ment, the appellant’s Pre­lim­in­ary Eco­logy Apprais­al (PEA) iden­ti­fies fur­ther pro­tec­ted spe­cies, includ­ing Inter­na­tion­al Uni­on for Con­ser­va­tion of Nature red and amber list bird spe­cies, rare and pro­tec­ted plant and fungi spe­cies, and rare, scarce and threatened inver­teb­rates (some of which are UK Biod­iversity Action Plan pri­or­ity spe­cies and Scot­tish Biod­iversity List spe­cies) on the site or nearby, which are likely to be neg­at­ively affected by the proposals.

6. The appellant’s tree sur­vey assesses trees inside and out­side of the site bound­ary. The sur­vey finds that the pro­pos­als would res­ult in the loss of not­able plant spe­cies with­in the site bound­ary and the loss of poten­tial hab­it­at for oth­er pro­tec­ted spe­cies known to be in the area. It high­lights, how­ever, that the pro­pos­als have been designed to avoid the main areas of biod­iversity and the lar­ger mature/​veteran trees, includ­ing reten­tion of wood­land cov­er in the centre of the site to allow for a wild­life cor­ridor from north to south. The pro­pos­als include meas­ures to pro­tect red squir­rel dreys and bat roosts. I am con­tent that the detailed loc­a­tion and design of the wild­life cor­ridor could be agreed through conditions,

Plan­ning and Envir­on­ment­al Appeals Divi­sion Had­ri­an House, Cal­l­en­dar Busi­ness Park, Falkirk, FK1 1XR www.gov.scot/policies/planning-environmental-appeals/

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as could a tree pro­tec­tion plan and spe­cies pro­tec­tion plans for the iden­ti­fied pro­tec­ted species.

1. The PEA is con­sidered by CNPA’s eco­logy team and by some of those mak­ing rep­res­ent­a­tions to be lim­ited in scope due to hav­ing been car­ried out over a short time dur­ing the winter months and hav­ing been based on a data trawl rather than full sur­vey work. The eco­logy team believes that addi­tion­al spe­cies would be dormant or not act­ive at that time and there­fore may have been overlooked.

2. While fur­ther sur­vey work on otters was car­ried out in May 2020 and on caper­cail­lie in June 2020, the PEA acknow­ledges that fur­ther eco­lo­gic­al sur­veys would be required dur­ing the spring and sum­mer months to determ­ine wheth­er some fungi and rare plants are indeed present on site. It recog­nises that a breed­ing bird sur­vey was not able to be car­ried out and that this would be required if works were to be ini­ti­ated dur­ing the breed­ing sea­son (March-August). There is also recog­ni­tion that fur­ther sur­veys are neces­sary dur­ing spring and sum­mer to determ­ine the value of the site for rare invertebrates.

3. Tak­ing all of this togeth­er, I find that with appro­pri­ate con­di­tions, the require­ments on European sites could be met in line with the related aspects of policy 4. Con­di­tions could also require spe­cies pro­tec­tion plans for those pro­tec­ted spe­cies which have been iden­ti­fied. Nev­er­the­less, giv­en the lack of detailed sur­vey work, I have some reser­va­tions about wheth­er all of the spe­cies that may be on the site have been iden­ti­fied. I note that CNPA has sug­ges­ted that addi­tion­al sur­vey work should be a con­di­tion of con­sent. To avoid any poten­tial adverse impact on pro­tec­ted spe­cies, I con­sider that it would not be appro­pri­ate to grant con­sent without such sur­veys. If I had found that all oth­er mat­ters were accept­able, I would have reques­ted fur­ther eco­lo­gic­al sur­vey work, to assess the exist­ence of spe­cies and effects on them, before grant­ing per­mis­sion. I there­fore find that the pro­pos­als would not meet all of the require­ments in policy 4 on pro­tec­ted species.

Impact on ancient woodland

1. The appeal site lies with­in an area of wood­land des­ig­nated as cat­egory 2a semi- nat­ur­al wood­land in the Ancient Wood­land Invent­ory (AWI). The site is pre­dom­in­antly close-grown Scots Pine, inter­spersed with birch, aspen and goat wil­low. The evid­ence sug­gests that the lat­ter is rare here. The site also includes ele­ments of dead­wood which is valu­able hab­it­at for oth­er plants, fungi and inver­teb­rates. The appellant’s sur­vey work iden­ti­fies the exist­ence on the site of ancient wood­land spe­cial­ist inver­teb­rate spe­cies, albeit that fur­ther sur­vey work may be required, as high­lighted above.

2. I sought cla­ri­fic­a­tion of the extent of the rel­ev­ant AWI land. The sub­mit­ted map shows large areas of AWI land sur­round­ing Nethy Bridge. The appellant’s tree sur­vey indic­ates that this area of ancient wood­land at the appeal site has nat­ur­ally regen­er­ated, fol­low­ing felling around 1947. The appel­lant con­tends that the trees on the site have been felled and re-estab­lished, sug­gest­ing that the site is there­fore not excep­tion­al. Nev­er­the­less, the parties agree that the devel­op­ment will res­ult in the loss of irre­place­able ancient wood­land. While trees may be felled at peri­ods in a wood’s his­tory, CNPA’s eco­logy team con­siders that the com­plex­ity of the hab­it­ats and the assemblage of the vari­ous plant and anim­al spe­cies and hab­it­ats con­trib­ute to the value of this site. I also note the evid­ence that ancient wood­land invent­ory sites can cov­er a range of dif­fer­ent types of tree cover.

Plan­ning and Envir­on­ment­al Appeals Divi­sion Had­ri­an House, Cal­l­en­dar Busi­ness Park, Falkirk, FK1 1XR www.gov.scot/policies/planning-environmental-appeals/

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1. Loc­al devel­op­ment plan policy 4 includes a strong pre­sump­tion against remov­al of AWI sites, which are con­sidered an irre­place­able resource. I find no dif­fer­en­ti­ation in the policy between dif­fer­ent types of ancient wood­land cov­er, nor on the basis of site size. Only in excep­tion­al cir­cum­stances will the policy per­mit the loss of AWI land, includ­ing: a) where the need and jus­ti­fic­a­tion for the devel­op­ment out­weighs the con­tri­bu­tion of the wood­land; and (b) where it can be clearly demon­strated that the AWI site has low eco­lo­gic­al value. Where the remov­al of an AWI site is deemed accept­able, com­pens­a­tion for such loss will be mandatory.

2. Look­ing at cri­terion (a) in policy 4, the site is not alloc­ated for hous­ing in the adop­ted plan. The evid­ence includes con­cerns about the lack of afford­able hous­ing in Nethy Bridge. I sought fur­ther details on the effect­ive­ness of the hous­ing land sup­ply to help estab­lish wheth­er there was an excep­tion­al need for hous­ing on the site. CNPA con­tends that the sup­ply of effect­ive hous­ing land based on the pre­vi­ous adop­ted plan from 2015 was 7.7 years and based on the newly adop­ted plan, it is 9.9 years. While I accept that the pro­pos­al would provide wel­come addi­tion­al afford­able hous­ing, I con­clude that there is an effect­ive sup­ply of hous­ing land and that the appeal site is not required at this stage to meet an imme­di­ate need for hous­ing land in the area. I also note that the two hous­ing sites that are included in the newly adop­ted plan do not involve AWI land. I there­fore find that cri­terion (a) would not apply.

3. In rela­tion to cri­terion (b), CNPA’s eco­logy team con­siders that even though the site is a small part of the wider School Wood, the pro­posed loss of the site will still be of high sig­ni­fic­ance due to the loss of par­tic­u­lar not­able plant spe­cies as well as a diverse range of oth­er spe­cies recor­ded with­in the site. Even without fur­ther sur­vey work, I find that the appellant’s exist­ing sur­veys and the oth­er eco­lo­gic­al evid­ence raised in rep­res­ent­a­tions lead me to share the eco­logy team’s view that the wood­land hab­it­at is of high eco­lo­gic­al value. I there­fore find that cri­terion (b) would not apply.

4. The appel­lant has pro­posed com­pens­at­ory plant­ing at anoth­er site in Nethy Bridge in the appellant’s con­trol, next to the Nethy Bridge Hotel. CNPA’s eco­logy team con­siders that while the com­pens­at­ory plan­ning would provide wel­come addi­tion­al tree cov­er, it can­not com­pensate for the loss of the par­tic­u­lar hab­it­ats at the appeal site, due to the way in which the wood­land has developed — its soil type, hydro­logy and his­tor­ic­al use. Sim­il­arly, mem­bers were not con­vinced that com­pens­at­ory plant­ing could provide new hab­it­ats of the same or great­er nature con­ser­va­tion value. I have had regard to the dif­fer­ing views in rep­res­ent­a­tions over wheth­er that site is appro­pri­ate for com­pens­at­ory plant­ing, includ­ing the com­munity council’s pref­er­ence to keep the site open, due to low levels of open space in the vil­lage for com­munity use.

5. CNPA has sug­ges­ted a con­di­tion requir­ing approv­al of the details of a wood­land com­pens­a­tion plant­ing area (includ­ing lay­out of pro­pos­als and man­age­ment plan) before devel­op­ment com­mences on site. If the prin­ciple of the loss of wood­land was con­sidered accept­able, it would be appro­pri­ate to include a con­di­tion on the con­sent, to final­ise the loc­a­tion and details of the com­pens­at­ory measures.

6. As high­lighted above, the appel­lant has pro­posed a man­age­ment pro­gramme for the wider School Wood and an area for out­door learn­ing to the south of Aber­nethy Primary School. I find that these aspects could have eco­logy and edu­ca­tion bene­fits, but not to the

Plan­ning and Envir­on­ment­al Appeals Divi­sion Had­ri­an House, Cal­l­en­dar Busi­ness Park, Falkirk, FK1 1XR www.gov.scot/policies/planning-environmental-appeals/

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extent that they would out­weigh the loss of the wood­land in the first instance. I am aware that the Wood­land Trust would wish to buy and man­age the site and wider School Wood on behalf of the com­munity, should plan­ning per­mis­sion be refused. It is there­fore clear that the oppor­tun­ity to con­serve and enhance the wider School Wood does not rest solely on the appeal proposals.

1. In light of the above, I find that there are no excep­tion­al cir­cum­stances to per­mit the loss of this AWI site and that the pro­pos­als would there­fore be con­trary to policy 4 in rela­tion to ancient woodlands.

Impact on the char­ac­ter of the area

1. Loc­al devel­op­ment plan policy 5 includes a pre­sump­tion against devel­op­ment that does not con­serve and enhance the land­scape char­ac­ter of the nation­al park and the set­ting of the pro­posed devel­op­ment. Where land­scape char­ac­ter is not con­served or enhanced, devel­op­ment will only be per­mit­ted where sig­ni­fic­ant adverse effects are clearly out­weighed by social or eco­nom­ic bene­fits of nation­al import­ance, and where the adverse effects have been min­im­ised and mit­ig­ated through the design of the scheme.

2. Nethy Bridge is described in the plan as a small wood­land vil­lage and is iden­ti­fied on vil­lage sig­nage as ​‘the Forest Vil­lage’. The vil­lage has a dis­persed lay­out with low dens­ity devel­op­ment fol­low­ing the banks of the River Nethy and along a num­ber of routes out from the vil­lage centre. I find the char­ac­ter of the vil­lage to be defined by extens­ive wood­land up to the edge of the vil­lage, par­tic­u­larly on the village’s east­ern side where the appeal site lies. The entrance to the vil­lage along Craigmore Road is char­ac­ter­ised by tall, dense wood­land on both sides of the road. Shortly after the vil­lage entrance sign the wood­land stops and hous­ing appears on both sides of the road, cre­at­ing a sharp change in char­ac­ter on enter­ing the village.

3. In terms of land­scape impact from the pro­pos­als, CNPA’s con­ser­va­tion man­ager finds that there would be an adverse impact, due to sig­ni­fic­ant change to the entrance to the vil­lage from the east and a weak­en­ing of the defin­i­tion between vil­lage and its coun­tryside set­ting. A nar­row strip of wood­land along Craigmore Road would be retained. While I con­sider that the char­ac­ter of the pro­pos­al, with hous­ing sit­ting with­in the wood­land and sur­roun­ded by it, is not gen­er­ally char­ac­ter­ist­ic of the rest of the vil­lage, par­tic­u­larly in the area around the junc­tion of Craigmore Road and School Road, the reten­tion of trees with­in the site could con­trib­ute to the sense of a wood­land village.

4. How­ever, I con­sider that the lin­ear exten­sion of the vil­lage in this dir­ec­tion would be at odds with the estab­lished set­tle­ment bound­ary. The vil­lage would no longer have a clear entrance from the east framed by wood­land and then houses on both sides. The con­ser­va­tion man­ager con­tends that the pro­pos­al would not meet the plan’s object­ive ​‘that devel­op­ment con­trib­utes to a clear defin­i­tion between set­tle­ment and coun­tryside’. This spe­cif­ic word­ing arises from the pre­vi­ous plan, and is not rep­lic­ated in the adop­ted plan. How­ever, I find that the char­ac­ter of the entrance to the vil­lage from the east would be sig­ni­fic­antly altered. Even with the reten­tion of a strip of wood­land, hous­ing would still be vis­ible through the trees and the feel­ing of enclos­ure from the wood­land on either side of the road would be lost, as would the clear defin­i­tion between the set­tle­ment and the coun­tryside. As a res­ult, I find that the pro­pos­al would not con­serve or enhance the land­scape char­ac­ter of the area, con­trary to policy 5.

Plan­ning and Envir­on­ment­al Appeals Divi­sion Had­ri­an House, Cal­l­en­dar Busi­ness Park, Falkirk, FK1 1XR www.gov.scot/policies/planning-environmental-appeals/

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Oth­er issues

1. Loc­al devel­op­ment plan policy 11 relates to developer con­tri­bu­tions and the plan iden­ti­fies in Nethy Bridge a need for con­tri­bu­tions towards afford­able hous­ing and increas­ing capa­city at stra­tegic com­munity leis­ure facil­it­ies serving the vil­lage. I find no issues with the abil­ity of the pro­pos­als to meet the require­ments for developer con­tri­bu­tions and there­fore find that the pro­pos­al would be in line with policy 11.

Over­all com­pli­ance with the devel­op­ment plan

1. Although the pro­pos­al could deliv­er a high­er than required pro­por­tion of afford­able hous­ing and is likely to be able to meet flood man­age­ment require­ments, I find the pro­pos­al is not in line with the key loc­a­tion­al aspects of policy 1. With appro­pri­ate con­di­tions, I con­sider that the ele­ments of the pro­pos­als relat­ing to design, access, resources and developer con­tri­bu­tions are in line with policies 3, 10 and 11.

2. I find that the impacts on European sites can be mit­ig­ated in line with the rel­ev­ant aspects of policy 4. I have found, how­ever, that the pro­pos­al is not con­sist­ent with the pro­tec­ted spe­cies and wood­land ele­ments of policy 4 and I find it con­trary to policy 5 on land­scape. Giv­en the par­tic­u­lar sens­it­iv­ity of the nat­ur­al envir­on­ment at the appeal site, and the irre­place­able nature of the ancient wood­land, I there­fore con­sider that the pro­pos­al does not com­ply over­all with the devel­op­ment plan.

Oth­er mater­i­al considerations

1. The site was an alloc­ated hous­ing site in the pre­vi­ous loc­al devel­op­ment plan adop­ted in 2015. It has been removed in the cur­rent plan, which was adop­ted on 26 March 2021, fol­low­ing the neces­sary con­sulta­tion and exam­in­a­tion pro­cesses. In Novem­ber 2020, when CNPA pub­lished its inten­tion to adopt the pro­posed plan, it con­firmed its inten­tion to remove the hous­ing alloc­a­tion on the appeal site, as had been sig­nalled in the pro­posed plan pub­lished for con­sulta­tion in early 2019. CNPA also con­firmed its inten­tion to include a revised policy 4 which, in my opin­ion, sig­ni­fic­antly strengthened the policy pro­tec­tion for AWI sites by includ­ing a strong pre­sump­tion against their remov­al and allow­ing their loss only in excep­tion­al cir­cum­stances: two ele­ments which were not included in the pre­vi­ous plan.

2. Giv­en that the pro­posed plan was already at an advanced stage of pre­par­a­tion when the appeal was made, even if it had not now been adop­ted, I would in any case have giv­en sig­ni­fic­ant weight to the pro­posed plan in my decision, in par­tic­u­lar the remov­al of the hous­ing alloc­a­tion on the appeal site and the stronger emphas­is on wood­land protection.

3. Scot­tish Plan­ning Policy (SPP) states that pro­pos­als that do not accord with the devel­op­ment plan should not be con­sidered accept­able unless mater­i­al con­sid­er­a­tions indic­ate oth­er­wise. It also states that where a hous­ing pro­pos­al is for sus­tain­able devel­op­ment and the decision-maker estab­lishes that there is a short­fall in the hous­ing land sup­ply, then the short­fall is a mater­i­al con­sid­er­a­tion in favour of the pro­pos­al. As high­lighted above, I am sat­is­fied that there is not a short­fall in the hous­ing land sup­ply. As there is no short­fall, even if it was con­sidered sus­tain­able devel­op­ment, which I find unlikely

Plan­ning and Envir­on­ment­al Appeals Divi­sion Had­ri­an House, Cal­l­en­dar Busi­ness Park, Falkirk, FK1 1XR www.gov.scot/policies/planning-environmental-appeals/

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due to the loss of ancient wood­land, the SPP would not provide a pre­sump­tion in favour of the proposal.

1. The Scot­tish Government’s policy on the Con­trol of Wood­land Remov­al (CWR) states that wood­land in gen­er­al should only be removed where it would achieve sig­ni­fic­ant and clearly defined addi­tion­al pub­lic bene­fits. There is a strong pre­sump­tion against remov­ing cer­tain types of wood­land, includ­ing ancient semi-nat­ur­al wood­land. I there­fore find that the pro­pos­als would be con­trary to the CWR policy.

2. SPP recog­nises ancient semi-nat­ur­al wood­land as an irre­place­able resource, and seeks to pro­tect it from adverse effects res­ult­ing from devel­op­ment. There is a pre­sump­tion in favour of pro­tect­ing wood­land (with no ref­er­ence to size) unless its remov­al would achieve sig­ni­fic­ant and clearly defined addi­tion­al pub­lic bene­fits. Where wood­land is removed, developers are expec­ted to provide com­pens­at­ory plant­ing. As set out above, I con­sider that a com­pens­at­ory plant­ing scheme could be agreed at detailed plan­ning stage, before devel­op­ment com­mences. How­ever, as I have also set out above, I con­sider that the wood­land hab­it­at is of high eco­lo­gic­al value and I have found no excep­tion­al reas­ons to per­mit the loss of the AWI land. The pro­pos­al would there­fore be incon­sist­ent with SPP in this regard.

3. Sec­tion 14 of the Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000 (the 2000 Act) requires me to have regard to the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan. The Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2017 – 2022 includes the four aims set out in the 2000 Act:

• to con­serve and enhance the nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age of the area;
• to pro­mote sus­tain­able use of the nat­ur­al resources of the area;
• to pro­mote under­stand­ing and enjoy­ment (includ­ing enjoy­ment in the form of recre­ation) of the spe­cial qual­it­ies of the area by the pub­lic; and
• to pro­mote sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic and social devel­op­ment of the area’s communities.

1. The 2000 Act requires these aims to be pur­sued col­lect­ively. How­ever, if there is con­flict between the first aim and any of the oth­ers, then great­er weight must be giv­en to the first aim. In the com­mit­tee report, CNPA dis­cusses this bal­an­cing act, with the sug­ges­tion that the deliv­ery of afford­able hous­ing, along with the com­pens­at­ory plant­ing and a man­age­ment pro­gramme for the wider School Wood out­weighs the loss of the AWI land. How­ever, tak­ing into account my find­ings above on the loss of ancient wood­land and on the hous­ing land sup­ply, I have found no evid­ence to jus­ti­fy the devel­op­ment that would out­weigh the con­tri­bu­tion of the wood­land. I there­fore give great­er weight to the first aim.

2. Finally, I have taken account of the plan­ning his­tory of the site, recog­nising that out­line plan­ning per­mis­sion has pre­vi­ously been gran­ted for the site but that per­mis­sion for detailed mat­ters has not been achieved. I must, how­ever, con­sider the appeal in the cur­rent con­text and find that the plan­ning his­tory does not provide reas­ons to jus­ti­fy over­turn­ing the cur­rent devel­op­ment plan position.

Con­clu­sion

1. I there­fore con­clude, for the reas­ons set out above, that the pro­posed devel­op­ment does not accord over­all with the rel­ev­ant pro­vi­sions of the devel­op­ment plan and that there are no mater­i­al con­sid­er­a­tions which would still jus­ti­fy grant­ing plan­ning permission.

Plan­ning and Envir­on­ment­al Appeals Divi­sion Had­ri­an House, Cal­l­en­dar Busi­ness Park, Falkirk, FK1 1XR www.gov.scot/policies/planning-environmental-appeals/

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PPA-001‑2023 11

Rosie Leven Reporter

Plan­ning and Envir­on­ment­al Appeals Divi­sion Had­ri­an House, Cal­l­en­dar Busi­ness Park, Falkirk, FK1 1XR www.gov.scot/policies/planning-environmental-appeals/