Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Item 5 Appendix 2 13 March 2026 Page 1 of 9

Agenda item 5

Appendix 2

2025/0143/DET

Hab­it­ats reg­u­la­tions appraisal

---

HAB­IT­ATS REG­U­LA­TIONS APPRAISAL

Field	Con­tent
Plan­ning ref­er­ence and pro­pos­al information	2025/0143/DET Con­struc­tion of flood defence bund. Land 110m NE of Scot­tish Water treat­ment works at Dalwhinnie.
Appraised by	Scott Shanks, Eco­lo­gic­al Advice Officer
Date	25/09/2025. Updated 30 Janu­ary 2026
Checked by	NatureScot Anne Elli­ott, Oper­a­tions Officer – Cent­ral Highland
Date	30 Janu­ary 2026

---

INFORM­A­TION

Field	Con­tent
European site details
Name of European site(s) poten­tially affected	1) River Spey SAC
Qual­i­fy­ing interest(s)	1) River Spey SAC Otter Fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sel (FWPM) Sea lamprey Atlantic sal­mon
Con­ser­va­tion object­ives for qual­i­fy­ing interests	1) River Spey SAC Con­ser­va­tion Object­ive 2. To ensure that the integ­rity of the River Spey SAC is restored by meet­ing object­ives 2a, 2b, 2c for each qual­i­fy­ing fea­ture (and 2d for fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sel): 2b. Restore the dis­tri­bu­tion of fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sel through­out the site 2c. Restore the hab­it­ats sup­port­ing fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sel with­in the site and avail­ab­il­ity of food 2d. Restore the dis­tri­bu­tion and viab­il­ity of fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sel host spe­cies and their sup­port­ing hab­it­ats 2a. Restore the pop­u­la­tion of fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sel as a viable com­pon­ent of the site 2b. Main­tain the dis­tri­bu­tion of sea lamprey through­out the site 2c. Main­tain the hab­it­ats sup­port­ing sea lamprey with­in the site and avail­ab­il­ity of food 2a. Main­tain the pop­u­la­tion of sea lamprey as a viable com­pon­ent of the site 2b. Restore the dis­tri­bu­tion of Atlantic sal­mon through­out the site 2c. Restore the hab­it­ats sup­port­ing Atlantic sal­mon with­in the site and avail­ab­il­ity of food 2a. Restore the pop­u­la­tion of Atlantic sal­mon, includ­ing range of genet­ic types, as a viable com­pon­ent of the site
	2b. Main­tain the dis­tri­bu­tion of otter through­out the site 2c. Main­tain the hab­it­ats sup­port­ing otter with­in the site and avail­ab­il­ity of food 2a. Main­tain the pop­u­la­tion of otter as a viable com­pon­ent of the site Con­ser­va­tion Object­ive I. To ensure that the qual­i­fy­ing fea­tures of the River Spey SAC are in favour­able con­di­tion and make an appro­pri­ate con­tri­bu­tion to achiev­ing favour­able con­ser­va­tion status.

---

APPRAIS­AL

STAGE 1:

What is the plan or project?

Rel­ev­ant sum­mary details of pro­pos­al (includ­ing loc­a­tion, tim­ing, meth­ods, etc)

• Con­struc­tion of flood defence bunds next to the River Tru­im at Dalwhinnie.
• Drain­age ditch next to the River Tru­im may be a route for con­struc­tion-phase mobil­ised sed­i­ment or pol­lu­tion to enter the watercourse.
• No pro­gramme of works, or detailed meth­od state­ments provided.

STAGE 2:

Is the plan or pro­ject dir­ectly con­nec­ted with or neces­sary for the man­age­ment of the European site for nature conservation?

1) River Spey SAC

No, this devel­op­ment is not dir­ectly con­nec­ted with or neces­sary for the man­age­ment of the European site for nature conservation.

STAGE 3:

Is the plan or pro­ject (either alone or in-com­bin­a­tion with oth­er plans or pro­jects) likely to have a sig­ni­fic­ant effect on the site(s)?

1) River Spey SAC

• Otter: Yes, LSE from short term effects arising dur­ing con­struc­tion activ­ity, includ­ing dis­turb­ance and poten­tial destruc­tion of holt or oth­er rest­ing sites next to the River Tru­im, and indir­ect impacts through poten­tial changes to water qual­ity and impacts on prey spe­cies. Loss of otter for­aging hab­it­at dur­ing con­struc­tion phase – and poten­tial for oper­a­tion­al phase loss of for­aging hab­it­at as a pro­posed drain­age ditch crosses into ter­restri­al hab­it­at with­in the bound­ary of the River Spey SAC.
• Fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sel: No LSE. Advice from Anne Elli­ott, NatureScot Oper­a­tions Officer (Per­son­al Com­mu­nic­a­tion, Janu­ary 2026) is that while no FWPM sur­vey was under­taken, it con­sidered very unlikely that they would be present this far up the catch­ment. There are a few known FWPM pop­u­la­tions in the main stem of the river bey­ond upstream of New­ton­more, these are sig­ni­fic­antly dis­tance from Dal­whin­nie, and so would not be impacted by the pro­posed devel­op­ment. There­fore, no LSE.
• Sea lamprey: No LSE. Advice from Anne Elli­ott, NatureScot Oper­a­tions Officer (Per­son­al Com­mu­nic­a­tion, Janu­ary 2026) is that it is con­sidered very unlikely for Sea Lamprey to be present this far up the catch­ment. Sea lamprey have very rarely been recor­ded as far up as Kin­gussie, but most are found much fur­ther down­stream. There­fore, no LSE.
• Atlantic sal­mon: Yes, LSE from short term effects arising dur­ing con­struc­tion activ­ity includ­ing dis­turb­ance of exist­ing hab­it­at with­in the River Tru­im through release of sed­i­ment mobil­ised from riverb­anks dur­ing con­struc­tion works that could smoth­er Atlantic sal­mon spawn­ing gravels down­stream of the site, pol­lu­tion from con­struc­tion activ­ity such as fuel spills and dis­turb­ance dur­ing spawn­ing peri­ods. Advice from Anne Elli­ott, NatureScot Oper­a­tions Officer (Per­son­al Com­mu­nic­a­tion, Janu­ary 2026) is that there may be poten­tial impacts on sal­mon hab­it­at with­in the river from the pro­posed bunds from lim­it­ing the flood plain, and con­strain­ing the water­course, which may res­ult in uncer­tain changes in the force of the water with­in the watercourse

STAGE 4:

Under­take an Appro­pri­ate Assess­ment of the implic­a­tions for the site(s) in view of the(ir) con­ser­va­tion objectives

1) River Spey SAC

Con­ser­va­tion Object­ive 2. To ensure that the integ­rity of the River Spey SAC is restored by meet­ing object­ives 2a, 2b, 2c for each qual­i­fy­ing fea­ture (Atlantic salmon):

2b. Restore the dis­tri­bu­tion of Atlantic sal­mon through­out the site

No works are pro­posed with­in the chan­nel of the River Tru­im (part of the River Spey SAC), so there will be no dir­ect loss of suit­able hab­it­at for these spe­cies with­in the aquat­ic sec­tion of the SAC. There­fore, the cur­rent and poten­tial dis­tri­bu­tion of these spe­cies would not be dir­ectly impacted upon.

How­ever, the pro­posed flood relief chan­nel does extend into the ter­restri­al hab­it­at of the River Spey SAC and it would dis­charge into the river. The effects of this are dif­fi­cult to pre­dict but on bal­ance are thought unlikely to impact on the dis­tri­bu­tion of Atlantic sal­mon due to the prox­im­ity of the devel­op­ment to the River Tru­im there is poten­tial for indir­ect impacts from con­struc­tion activ­it­ies, e.g., sed­i­ment or fuels enter­ing the water­course. These poten­tial pol­lu­tion events could indir­ectly cause the dis­tri­bu­tion to change due to changes in water qual­ity (tem­por­ary) and, if sig­ni­fic­ant amounts of sed­i­ment reach the water­course, through smoth­er­ing of hab­it­ats which are used by sal­mon for spawning/​juveniles.

Tim­ing of works to avoid the key Atlantic sal­mon spawn­ing peri­od (mid-Octo­ber to end of Feb­ru­ary) would reduce the risk of pol­lu­tion or sed­i­ment impact­ing Atlantic sal­mon dur­ing this sens­it­ive time.

A pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion plan is recom­men­ded through con­di­tion. The pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion plan should include stand­ard good prac­tice, such as main­tain­ing a min­im­um 30 m buf­fer for stor­ing chemicals/​wash out or any oth­er poten­tial pol­lut­ing activ­ity (SEPA WAT-SG-75). Oth­er rel­ev­ant Guid­ance for Pol­lu­tion Doc­u­ments should also be referred to and imple­men­ted on site (i.e. GPP5, GPP8, GPP21, GPP22¹). If a pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion plan is con­di­tioned and imple­men­ted — this con­ser­va­tion object­ive would be met.

If the tim­ing of works to avoid the key Atlantic spawn­ing peri­od (mid-Octo­ber to end of Feb­ru­ary), and a pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion plan is con­di­tioned and imple­men­ted this con­ser­va­tion object­ive would be met.

2c. Restore the hab­it­ats sup­port­ing Atlantic Sal­mon with­in the site and avail­ab­il­ity of food

While there will not be a dir­ect loss of hab­it­at with­in the water­course, the install­a­tion of bunds along the banks will con­strain the flood­plain, which may res­ult in uncer­tain changes to the force of water with­in the water­course in high water con­di­tions. This may res­ult in loc­al­ised changes in the depos­ition of sed­i­ments, par­tic­u­larly sand and small gravel with­in the water­course, and pos­sible changes to the pat­tern of flow with­in this sec­tion of the River Tru­im. Advice from Anne Elli­ott, NatureScot Oper­a­tions Officer (Per­son­al Com­mu­nic­a­tion, Janu­ary 2026), is that these poten­tial effects will not impact the integ­rity of the site. The reas­on for this is the restric­ted length of river affected, and the lim­ited impacts on water stor­age capa­city on the flood­plain due to the pro­posed flood banks being set back from the river. The river is already mobile, espe­cially down­stream, so the effect might be a slight increase in sed­i­ment trans­port, but not a change in geo­mor­pho­logy pro­cesses. Atlantic sal­mon are an adapt­able spe­cies and are likely to pick the best sites for redds or fry or juven­ile hab­it­at, even if the loc­a­tions for this hab­it­at change because of this work.

The cur­rent and poten­tial res­tor­a­tion of the dis­tri­bu­tion of hab­it­ats sup­port­ing Atlantic sal­mon with­in the SAC would not be dir­ectly affected as no devel­op­ment will occur with­in the water­course. How­ever, pol­lu­tion from con­struc­tion activ­it­ies next to the River Tru­im could poten­tially affect sup­port­ing hab­it­ats if sig­ni­fic­ant amounts of sed­i­ment reach the SAC and cause smoth­er­ing of hab­it­ats, redu­cing the dis­tri­bu­tion and extent of hab­it­at suit­able for sal­mon spawn­ing and juven­ile salmon.

The mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures iden­ti­fied for 2b above would reduce the risk of pol­lu­tion reach­ing the water­course to a min­im­al level and so this con­ser­va­tion object­ive would be met.

2a. Restore the pop­u­la­tion of Atlantic Sal­mon (includ­ing a range of genet­ic types) and fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sel as viable com­pon­ents of the site

As the oth­er con­ser­va­tion object­ives can be met for Atlantic sal­mon with mit­ig­a­tion, the pro­posed devel­op­ment would not hinder or pre­vent the res­tor­a­tion of the pop­u­la­tion of Atlantic sal­mon as a viable com­pon­ent of the site. How­ever, the pro­posed devel­op­ment will not have an impact on the genet­ic types of sal­mon. There­fore, this con­ser­va­tion object­ive would be met.

2b. Main­tain the dis­tri­bu­tion of otter through­out the site

Con­struc­tion activ­it­ies are pro­posed next to the River Tru­im, which is des­ig­nated trib­u­tary of the River Spey SAC. The River Tru­im and sur­round­ing water­courses are known to sup­port otter (Lut­ra lut­ra: Otter | NBN Atlas). An Exten­ded Phase I and Pro­tec­ted Spe­cies sur­vey was under­taken in Octo­ber 2025. No otters, otter signs, holts or couches were detec­ted with­in a 200m buf­fer around the pro­posed devel­op­ment; how­ever, a single otter spraint was recor­ded on the riverb­ank approx­im­ately [A blank space/​image here in the OCR]. The lack of suit­able otter rest­ing areas and otter signs with­in 200m of the devel­op­ment bound­ary would sug­gest that this is not a pri­or­ity area for otter, how­ever, for­aging otter may occa­sion­ally use this site.

Dur­ing the con­struc­tion phase, otter may be a tem­por­ary inhib­ited from for­aging close to the site. Otters can have very large home ranges of around 32km for males and 20km for females (Otter | NatureScot), and there­fore tem­por­ary con­struc­tion work at this loc­a­tion is unlikely to res­ult in sig­ni­fic­ant impact on for­aging otter. Due to the prox­im­ity of the pro­posed works to suit­able otter hab­it­at, mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures for this spe­cies should be con­sidered in a spe­cies pro­tec­tion plan as part of a Con­struc­tion Envir­on­ment­al Man­age­ment Plan. A num­ber of mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures for otter have been sug­ges­ted in the Exten­ded Phase I and Pro­tec­ted Spe­cies Sur­vey report (Tay Eco­logy, Octo­ber 2025)

If a spe­cies pro­tec­tion plan is con­di­tioned and imple­men­ted, this con­ser­va­tion object­ive would be met.

2c. Main­tain the hab­it­ats sup­port­ing otter with­in the site and avail­ab­il­ity of food

No rest­ing sites for otter were observed with­in the devel­op­ment bound­ar­ies dur­ing a pro­tec­ted spe­cies sur­vey in Octo­ber 2025, and no works are pro­posed with­in the River Tru­im, how­ever the dis­tri­bu­tion of ter­restri­al hab­it­ats sup­port­ing otter with­in the River Spey SAC may be dir­ectly affected by this devel­op. Con­struc­tion activ­ity to cre­ate a swale/​shal­low flood relief chan­nel is pro­posed on an estim­ated 55m² or 0.055ha of grass­land with­in the bound­ary of the River Spey SAC.

An Exten­ded Phase I hab­it­at and Pro­tec­ted Spe­cies Report and Assess­ment (Tay Eco­logy, Novem­ber 2025) indic­ates that this area is cur­rently spe­cies-poor semi-improved grass­land dom­in­ated by per­en­ni­al rye grass, creep­ing thistle, broad-leaved dock and com­mon sor­rel. Dur­ing a CNPA site vis­it in August 2025 this area was noted to have a mix of grasses with fre­quent com­mon rag­wort, creep­ing thistle and devil’s‑bit sca­bi­ous, soft rush, yar­row, creep­ing but­ter­cup, rib­wort plantain, com­mon sor­rel and sting­ing nettles. This area may cur­rently sup­port otter prey spe­cies such as amphi­bi­ans and small mam­mals, how­ever the pro­posed shal­low swale ditch in this area would also provide suit­able hab­it­at for amphi­bi­ans and small mam­mals, and there­fore there is unlikely to be a sig­ni­fic­ant impact on ter­restri­al otter for­aging habitats.

As dis­cussed above, there may also be tem­por­ary restric­tions on the use of suit­able for­aging hab­it­at by otter with­in the devel­op­ment site due to con­struc­tion-phase dis­turb­ance. How­ever the lack of otter signs detec­ted dur­ing the pro­tec­ted spe­cies sur­vey (Tay Eco­logy, 2025), would sug­gest this is not a key for­aging site for otter, and oth­er suit­able hab­it­at is available.

The pol­lu­tion issues iden­ti­fied for the oth­er fresh­wa­ter spe­cies men­tioned, could affect otter prey spe­cies, how­ever the imple­ment­a­tion of pre­vi­ously dis­cussed mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures would reduce the risk of this occur­ring to a min­im­al level and so the con­ser­va­tion object­ive would be met.

2a. Main­tain the pop­u­la­tion of otter as a viable com­pon­ent of the site

As the oth­er con­ser­va­tion object­ives can be met for otter with the mit­ig­a­tion included in the pro­pos­al, the pro­posed devel­op­ment would not hinder or pre­vent the main­ten­ance of the pop­u­la­tion of otter as a viable com­pon­ent of site, there­fore this con­ser­va­tion object­ive would be met.

Con­ser­va­tion Object­ive I. To ensure that the qual­i­fy­ing fea­tures of the River Spey SAC are in favour­able con­di­tion and make an appro­pri­ate con­tri­bu­tion to achiev­ing favour­able con­ser­va­tion status.

As all the oth­er con­ser­va­tion object­ives would be met, the pro­posed devel­op­ment would not pre­vent or hinder the con­di­tion or con­ser­va­tion status of the qual­i­fy­ing interests of the SAC, and so this con­ser­va­tion object­ive would be met.

In con­clu­sion, the mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures pro­posed includ­ing: tim­ing of the works to avoid the key Atlantic sal­mon spawn­ing sea­son, the inclu­sion of sed­i­ment and pol­lu­tion man­age­ment meas­ures, pre-con­struc­tion checks for pro­tec­ted spe­cies and the imple­ment­a­tion of an otter spe­cies pro­tec­tion plan, will reduce the poten­tial effects to a min­im­al level, so that all the con­ser­va­tion object­ives can be met for the River Spey SAC.

STAGE 5:

Can it be ascer­tained that there will not be an adverse effect on site integrity?

1) River Spey SAC

Yes, Provided the mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures below are imple­men­ted, then the con­ser­va­tion object­ives will be met and there­fore there will not be an adverse effect on site integrity.

The mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures that require to be secured by con­di­tion are:

• Pri­or to ground pre­par­a­tion or con­struc­tion works, a pre-con­struc­tion pro­tec­ted spe­cies sur­vey of the pro­posed devel­op­ment site and sur­round­ing area should be car­ried out by a suit­ably exper­i­enced sur­vey­or fol­low­ing NatureScot guid­ance (Plan­ning and devel­op­ment: stand­ing advice and guid­ance doc­u­ments | NatureScot). If evid­ence of any pro­tec­ted spe­cies is found a Spe­cies Pro­tec­tion Plan identi­fy­ing appro­pri­ate mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures based on the sur­vey res­ults such be sub­mit­ted to CNPA for agree­ment in writ­ing pri­or to works com­men­cing. The reas­on for this meas­ure is to min­im­ise the risk of con­struc­tion phase impacts on pro­tec­ted species.
• Tim­ing of the works to avoid the Atlantic sal­mon spawn­ing sea­son (mid-Octo­ber to end of Feb­ru­ary). The reas­on for this con­di­tion is to min­im­ise poten­tial con­struc­tion phase impacts on qual­i­fy­ing interests of the River Spey SAC.
• A Con­struc­tion Meth­od Statement/​Con­struc­tion Man­age­ment Plan which includes site-spe­cif­ic pol­lu­tion-pre­ven­tion meas­ures, a sed­i­ment man­age­ment plan and details of bio­se­c­ur­ity con­trol pro­ced­ures should be pro­duced and agreed with the CNPA pri­or to any works com­men­cing on site and then fully imple­men­ted dur­ing con­struc­tion. The reas­on for this con­di­tion is to pro­tect the water envir­on­ment and River Spey SAC from pol­lu­tion events, sed­i­ment mobil­isa­tion or dis­ease caused dur­ing construction.

---

¹ Guid­ance for Pol­lu­tion Pre­ven­tion (GPP) doc­u­ments | Net­Regs | Envir­on­ment­al guid­ance for your busi­ness in North­ern Ire­land & Scotland