Item5AA20220305DETNethyBridgeHousingCommitteeReport

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 11/08/2023

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

DEVEL­OP­MENT PROPOSED:

Erec­tion of 21no dwell­ings at Nethy Bridge Sta­tion Yard Sta­tion Road Nethy Bridge

REF­ER­ENCE: 2022/0305/DET

APPLIC­ANT: AW Laing

DATE CALLED-IN: 3 Octo­ber 2022

RECOM­MEND­A­TION: Refuse

CASE OFFICER: Emma Bryce – Plan­ning Manager

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CNPA Plan­ning Committee

Applic­a­tion Site

0 35 70 140 Meters

N

Nethy

Hotel Birch­field

Track River Nethy Issues Dis­mantled Railway

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 11/08/2023

Park 214.1m The Elm­park 026.8 Coul na Kyle The Cot­tage Ardach Mach Bain Moid­ants Balachan Culag Mount View Hotel Mousa Tigh Tam­ar­isk House 208.5m Tan­era Mor emid­drie Crown copy­right and data­base rights 2023. Ord­nance Sur­vey Licence num­ber 100040965 Sta­tion Nethy Sta­tion Rap nes’s Nethy Bridge 210.7m BRAES Stables Nethy Bridge Hotel 13 Ech­ids River Cot­tage 211.5m Drochit Bal­n­agow­an Cot­tage Tigh na Bru­ach Sub Sta Bal­n­agow­an Bal­n­agown Milk

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 11/08/2023

SITE DESCRIP­TION, PRO­POS­AL AND HISTORY

Site Descrip­tion

1. The applic­a­tion site lies on the west­ern edge of Nethy Bridge and cov­ers an area of approx­im­ately 0.8 hec­tares. The brown­field site was a former rail­way sta­tion and yard and is bounded by agri­cul­tur­al land to the north and west, res­id­en­tial prop­er­ties to the east and Sta­tion Road to the south, with the River Nethy (which is part of the River Spey SAC) flow­ing bey­ond, par­al­lel to the road. The Spey­side Way runs along the east­ern bound­ary of the site.

Pro­pos­al

1. The draw­ings and doc­u­ments asso­ci­ated with this applic­a­tion are lis­ted below and are avail­able on the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity web­site unless noted otherwise:

http://​www​.eplan​ningcnpa​.co​.uk/​o​n​line- applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=RIXB8QSI0C 100

Title Draw­ing Num­ber Date on Date Received Plan*

PLANS Plan — Loc­a­tion Plan 002 01/09/22 03/10/22 Plan — Site Lay­out ¹²⁴⁸⁷¹⁄₁₀₀₁ 10/05/22 26/05/23 Plan Plan — Site Lay­out — 21 Units | Rt14_​D_​90_​104 01/06/22 10/02/23 Plan — Pro­posed Site Cross ¹²⁴⁸⁷¹⁄₈₀₀₁ 06/09/22 26/05/23 Sec­tions Plan — Detached Elevations/​1690 BT1_00_100 01/08/22 03/02/23 Plans Plan — Semi Detached 1690 BT2_00_100 01/08/22 03/02/23 Elevations/​Plans Plan — Detached Gar­age 1690 BT1_00_100 16/01/23 Details Plan — Pro­posed Roads 124871-PC-1002 09/05/22 26/05/23 Lay­out ¹⁄₂ Plan — Pro­posed Roads 124871-PC-1003 05/09/22 26/05/23 Lay­out 2/2 Plan — Access Lay­out 124871-PC-1004 09/05/22 06/03/23 Plan — Roads Lon­git­ud­in­al ¹²⁴⁸⁷¹⁄₁₀₀₅ 10/05/22 03/10/22 Sec­tions ¹⁄₂

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 11/08/2023

Plan — Typ­ic­al Road 124871-PC-1015 09/05/22 06/03/23 Con­struc­tion Details Plan — Pro­posed Drain­age ¹²⁴⁸⁷¹⁄₂₀₀₁ 11/05/22 06/03/23 Lay­out ¹⁄₂ Plan — Pro­posed Drain­age ¹²⁴⁸⁷¹⁄₂₀₀₂ 11/05/22 06/03/23 Lay­out 2/2 Plan — Typ­ic­al Drain­age 124871-PC-2015 09/05/22 06/03/23 Con­struc­tion Details ¹⁄₂ Plan — Typ­ic­al Drain­age 124871-PC-2016 09/05/22 06/03/23 Con­struc­tion Details 2/2 Plan — Spey­side Way 1690 Rt14_​D_​90_​10 01/01/23 02/02/23 Diver­sion Strategy Plan — Roads Lon­git­ud­in­al ¹²⁴⁸⁷¹⁄₁₀₀₆ 10/05/22 06/03/23 Sec­tions 2/2

SUP­PORT­ING DOC­U­MENT­A­TION Oth­er — Drain­age Impact 01/09/22 03/10/22 Assess­ment Oth­er — Flood Risk 01/03/21 18/10/22 Assess­ment Oth­er — Pro­tec­ted Spe­cies 31/01/21 16/01/23 Scop­ing Sur­vey Oth­er — Con­tent, Design And 02/02/23 Loc­a­tion Fin­ger­posts Oth­er — Inter­me­di­ate 02/02/23 Way­mark­ing *Where no spe­cif­ic day of month has been provided on the plan, the sys­tem defaults to the 1^st of the month.

1. The applic­a­tion seeks per­mis­sion for a res­id­en­tial devel­op­ment of 21 afford­able homes with asso­ci­ated infra­struc­ture. The pro­pos­al is for 3, three bed­room detached prop­er­ties, 9, three bed­room semi-detached prop­er­ties and 9, two bed­room semi-detached prop­er­ties. The dwell­ings will be two storeys, fin­ished in white rendered block­work and tim­ber effect clad­ding. Win­dows will be alu­mini­um clad tim­ber and roof areas will be clad in slate. Rain­wa­ter goods will all be uPVC.

2. The site will be accessed via Sta­tion Road. The lay­out pro­poses a spine road with houses to either side with two small turn­ing heads, one to the north­w­est and one at the north­east end where the site ter­min­ates. A SuDS pond / basin will be loc­ated to the south east of the site adja­cent to the entrance. The Spey­side Way will be realigned to accom­mod­ate the devel­op­ment and will fol­low the pro­posed foot­way from the north of the site through to the Station

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 11/08/2023

Road junc­tion. In terms of drain­age, roof run-off will be via down pipes into a sur­face water sew­er and sur­face water drain­age for plots will be cap­tured by a series of road gul­lies and drained into the sur­face water sew­er which will dis­charge into the deten­tion basin. A flow con­trol device will mon­it­or the dis­charge rate into the river. Plots 14 – 16, which lie at the north end of the site, off the pro­posed unadop­ted road, will be drained into a private soakaway. All remain­ing areas, such as foot­ways and gar­dens, will be free drain­ing or com­prise per­meable surfaces.

1. Plans of the pro­pos­als are included in Appendix 1.

2. The fol­low­ing inform­a­tion has been sub­mit­ted in sup­port of the application:

a) Drain­age Impact Assess­ment; b) Flood Risk Assess­ment; c) Pro­tec­ted Spe­cies Scop­ing Sur­vey; d) Spey­side Way Diver­sion Strategy, Inter­me­di­ate Way­mark­ing and Fin­ger­post Details.

His­tory

1. 14/01529/S42 – Applic­a­tion for Sec­tion 42 to vary time on applic­a­tion 07/00231/FULLBS for a fur­ther year – plan­ning per­mis­sion gran­ted 19/05/2014.

2. 07/00231/FULBS – Erec­tion of bunk­house – plan­ning per­mis­sion gran­ted 17/04/2009.

3. 04/318/CP and 10/380/CP – Erec­tion of Vis­it­or Centre (includ­ing craft work­shops, retail, and cafet­er­ia), 6 no. dwell­ing­houses and gar­ages and asso­ci­ated access road and park­ing areas – plan­ning per­mis­sions gran­ted 17/11/2005 and 14/01/2011. The second per­mis­sion was star­ted in 2011 and remains a live consent.

HAB­IT­ATS REG­U­LA­TIONS APPRAISAL

1. A Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al [HRA] has been under­taken to con­sider the effects of the pro­pos­als upon the con­ser­va­tion object­ives of the Natura Sites as lis­ted with­in the doc­u­ment attached at Appendix 2.

2. The HRA iden­ti­fies that there is the poten­tial for impacts to the River Spey SAC, Aber­nethy Forest SPA and Craigmore Wood SPA due to poten­tial pol­lu­tion, dis­turb­ance dur­ing the con­struc­tion stage and long term dis­turb­ance as a res­ult of the poten­tial increase in recre­ation in areas util­ised by caper­cail­lie. How­ever, it is con­cluded that any adverse impacts to the site

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 11/08/2023

integ­rity of the River Spey SAC can be avoided by the pro­vi­sion of an approved Pol­lu­tion Pre­ven­tion Plan. There will be no adverse effects to the site integ­rity of Aber­nethy Forest SPA and Craigmore Wood SPA giv­en the high level of recre­ation­al use and the unlikely impact the occu­pants of the devel­op­ment will have (see Annex 1).

DEVEL­OP­MENT PLAN CONTEXT

Policies Nation­al Policy Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 (NPF4) Scot­land 2045 POLICY 1 Tack­ling the cli­mate and nature crises POLICY 2 Cli­mate mit­ig­a­tion and adapt­a­tion POLICY 3 Biod­iversity POLICY 4 Nat­ur­al places POLICY 9 Brown­field, vacant and derel­ict land, and empty build­ings POLICY 14 Design, qual­ity and place POLICY 15 Loc­al liv­ing and 20 minute neigh­bour­hoods POLICY 16 Qual­ity homes POLICY 17 Rur­al homes POLICY 20 Blue and green infra­struc­ture POLICY 22 Flood risk and water man­age­ment POLICY 29 Rur­al devel­op­ment Stra­tegic Policy Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2022 – 2027 Loc­al Plan Policy Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (2021) Those policies rel­ev­ant to the assess­ment of this applic­a­tion marked with a cross POLICY 1 NEW HOUS­ING DEVEL­OP­MENT X POLICY 2 SUP­PORT­ING ECO­NOM­IC GROWTH POLICY 3 DESIGN AND PLACE­MAK­ING X POLICY 4 NAT­UR­AL HER­IT­AGE X POLICY 5 LAND­SCAPE X POLICY 6 THE SIT­ING AND DEISGN OF DIGIT­AL POLICY 7 RENEW­ABLE ENERGY POLICY 8 COM­MU­NIC­A­TIONS EQUIP­MENT OPEN SPACE, SPORT AND RECRE­ATION POLICY 9 CUL­TUR­AL HER­IT­AGE POLICY 10 RESOURCES X POLICY 11 DEVELOPER OBLIG­A­TIONS X

1. All new devel­op­ment pro­pos­als require to be assessed in rela­tion to policies con­tained in the adop­ted Devel­op­ment Plan which com­prises Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 (NPF4) and the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021. The full word­ing of policies can be found at:

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 11/08/2023

https://www.gov.scot/publications/national-planning-framework- 4/​documents/​

and at:

https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​w​p​-​c​o​n​t​e​n​t​/​u​p​l​o​a​d​s​/​2​0​2​1​/​0​3​/​C​N​P​A​-​L​D​P​-​2021- web.pdf

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 this applic­a­tion is marked with a cross. Policy 1 Hous­ing Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance X Policy 2 Policy 3 Sup­port­ing Eco­nom­ic Growth Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance Design and Place­mak­ing Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance X Policy 4 Nat­ur­al Her­it­age Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance X Policy 5 Land­scape Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance X Policy 7 Renew­able Energy Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance Policy 8 Open Space, Sport and Recre­ation Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance Policy 9 Cul­tur­al Her­it­age Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance Policy 10 Resources Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance X Policy 11 Developer Oblig­a­tions Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance X

CON­SULTA­TIONS

Sum­mary of the Main Issues Raised by Consultees

1. Scot­tish Water has no objec­tion to the pro­posed devel­op­ment but sug­gest the applic­ant com­pletes a Pre-Devel­op­ment Enquiry (PDE) form ensur­ing the devel­op­ment can be ser­viced. There is cur­rently suf­fi­cient capa­city in the Aviemore Water Treat­ment Works to ser­vice the pro­posed devel­op­ment. There is also suf­fi­cient capa­city in the Nethy Bridge Wastewa­ter Treat­ment Works to ser­vice the devel­op­ment, how­ever the applic­ant must com­plete the Pre-Devel­op­ment Enquiry (PDE) form ensur­ing the devel­op­ment can be serviced.

2. Scot­tish Water records indic­ate that there is live infra­struc­ture (a rising foul sew­er with­in the site bound­ary) that may impact on exist­ing Scot­tish Water assets. The applic­ant should be aware that any con­flict with assets identified

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 11/08/2023

will be sub­ject to restric­tions on prox­im­ity of con­struc­tion. Writ­ten per­mis­sion must be obtained before any works are star­ted with­in the area of any assets.

1. SEPA object to the plan­ning applic­a­tion and recom­mend refus­al. The site lies with­in the func­tion­al flood­plain based on the SEPA Flood Maps and is there­fore at medi­um to high risk of flood­ing from the River Nethy. Fol­low­ing the adop­tion of NPF4, avoid­ance of flood risk areas in the 200 year, plus a cli­mate change scen­ario, is now a require­ment and must be assessed in line with the most up to date guid­ance. In this instance a 34% cli­mate change uplift is required to be included in any design flow cal­cu­lated for the site. Giv­en this is an ungauged catch­ment, a range of dif­fer­ent meth­ods is used to carry out flood risk cal­cu­la­tions and in line with NPF4, a pre­cau­tion­ary approach should be taken regard­ing the cal­cu­lated prob­ab­il­ity of flood­ing as a best estim­ate, not a pre­cise fore­cast. The sub­mit­ted Flood Risk Assess­ment has used dif­fer­ent meth­ods res­ult­ing in quite dif­fer­ent flow estim­ates and pre­dicted flood extents. The low­est flow estim­ate only reaches the bound­ary of the site, while oth­er estim­ates show the site com­pletely flooded. The sig­ni­fic­ant dif­fer­ence in the res­ult­ing flood extents demon­strates the mod­el­ling is very sens­it­ive to changes in flow extents and there­fore it is not appro­pri­ate to accept the low­est flow. The flood risk assess­ment work under­taken to sup­port the applic­a­tion unfor­tu­nately does not provide enough inform­a­tion to demon­strate that the site could be developed in line with NPF4 require­ments. The evid­ence of his­tor­ic extreme flood­ing of the site in addi­tion to the hydro­lo­gic­al uncer­tainty out­lined above, also jus­ti­fies a cau­tious approach in accord­ance with NPF4. It is con­sidered that no fur­ther mod­el­ling would provide any addi­tion­al inform­a­tion that would alter this opin­ion and as such SEPA object in prin­ciple to the development.

2. NatureScot agree with the con­clu­sions of the Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al that any effects to the site integ­rity of the River Spey SAC can be avoided provided that a pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion plan is agreed pri­or to any devel­op­ment com­men­cing. There are unlikely to be any adverse effects to the site integ­rity of the Aber­nethy Forest SPA and Craigmore Wood SPA due to those factors con­sidered in the HRA.

3. The High­land Coun­cil Trans­port Plan­ning Team ori­gin­ally objec­ted to the pro­pos­als, how­ever fol­low­ing dis­cus­sions with the applic­ant and the sub­mis­sion of revi­sions the team have with­drawn their objec­tions how­ever, this is sub­ject to no objec­tions from the High­land Council’s Flood Risk Man­age­ment Team, SEPA or Scot­tish Water to the pro­posed sur­face water drain­age and SuDS arrange­ments and the inclu­sion of con­di­tions requir­ing either a tem­por­ary or per­man­ent 20mph speed lim­it to be imple­men­ted on the C1139 approaches to the site; the neces­sary stat­utory pro­cesses to change the speed lim­it to 20mph includes the new street and should be in place before the com­ple­tion of the devel­op­ment and; design details for the pro­vi­sion of a ped­es­tri­an link along­side the C1139 from the vil­lage to the site. The team

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 11/08/2023

also recom­mend an inform­at­ive cla­ri­fy­ing that roads and foot­ways will need to be designed to adopt­able stand­ards and a Road Con­struc­tion Con­sent (RCC) applic­a­tion be made to the Coun­cil pri­or to the con­struc­tion of these. Changes to levels across the site and design details can also be addressed through the RCC process.

1. The High­land Coun­cil Flood Risk Man­age­ment Team object to the pro­posed devel­op­ment on the grounds of flood risk. There has been sig­ni­fic­ant work under­taken by the applic­ants and SEPA to explore the dis­par­ity between the sub­mit­ted Flood Risk Assess­ment and SEPA’s stra­tegic flood maps. SEPA main­tains its objec­tion (see above) and there­fore, giv­en SEPA’s level of expert­ise as a flood risk author­ity and its detailed flood risk ana­lys­is of the site, the Team sup­ports this decision and main­tains its objec­tion to the proposals.

2. The High­land Coun­cil Cor­por­ate Address Gaz­etteer Team provided no response.

3. The High­land Coun­cil Archae­olo­gist has no con­cerns regard­ing the pro­posed devel­op­ment and as such requires no mitigation.

4. The High­land Coun­cil Con­tam­in­ated Land Officer states that the site has an his­tor­ic use as a rail­way yard and tracks which may have led to con­tam­in­a­tion. Sub­mit­ted sur­vey work, reports and strategies have con­cluded that fol­low­ing some sur­face soil remov­al, there is no risk to human health or the wider envir­on­ment. How­ever, there has recently been a num­ber of changes to the guid­ance that is applic­able to the re-devel­op­ment of con­tam­in­ated land. It is there­fore recom­men­ded and a con­di­tion requir­ing a review of these reports is under­taken to demon­strate that suf­fi­cient work has been com­pleted with regards to cur­rent guid­ance and that there will be no con­tam­in­a­tion risks remain­ing on site. Should addi­tion­al work be required this should be in the form of a Sup­ple­ment­ary Invest­ig­a­tion Strategy approved by the Council’s Con­tam­in­ated Land Team.

5. The High­land Coun­cil Envir­on­ment­al Health Officer provided no response.

6. The High­land Coun­cil Waste Man­age­ment Team provided no response.

7. CNPA Land­scape Adviser is sat­is­fied that con­di­tions requir­ing full details of land­scap­ing pro­pos­als, tree plant­ing and future man­age­ment will provide suf­fi­cient clar­ity for the site.

8. CNPA Eco­logy Adviser has no objec­tions sub­ject to con­di­tions requir­ing pre- con­struc­tion sur­veys for breed­ing birds and otter with asso­ci­ated Spe­cies Pro­tec­tion Plans, a Pol­lu­tion Pre­ven­tion Plan and biod­iversity enhancements.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 11/08/2023

1. CNPA Out­door Access Officer ini­tially expressed con­cern regard­ing the impact on the Spey­side Way. The applic­ant has sub­mit­ted addi­tion­al inform­a­tion which addresses some of the con­cerns includ­ing an appro­pri­ate diver­sion of the Spey­side Way dur­ing con­struc­tion and the addi­tion of dir­ec­tion­al sig­nage and inter­pret­a­tion boards.

2. Nethy Bridge Com­munity Coun­cil wel­come much needed afford­able hous­ing, how­ever, they are con­cerned that the dwell­ings are two storeys rather than one and a half storeys. There is some anec­dot­al dis­ap­point­ment from poten­tial neigh­bours regard­ing over­look­ing. See Appendix 3.

REP­RES­ENT­A­TIONS

1. The applic­a­tion was advert­ised when it was sub­mit­ted. Two let­ters of objec­tion and a let­ter of sup­port have been received. Cop­ies of these rep­res­ent­a­tions can be found in Appendix 4. The grounds of objec­tion are sum­mar­ised as follows:

a) Some of the pro­posed houses will over­look and res­ult in a loss of pri­vacy to adja­cent prop­er­ties; b) The devel­op­ment will res­ult in the loss of mature (25 year old) trees; c) Loss of access to the Spey­side Way; d) Intens­i­fic­a­tion of use on the site will res­ult in road safety issues.

APPRAIS­AL

1. The main plan­ning con­sid­er­a­tions are con­sidered to be: the prin­ciple of the devel­op­ment; lay­out, amen­ity and design; land­scape issues; envir­on­ment­al issues; access and ser­vi­cing; flood­ing and sur­face water drain­age; infra­struc­ture and developer contributions.

Prin­ciple

1. NPF4 Policy 9: Brown­field, vacant and derel­ict land, and empty build­ings, encour­ages the sus­tain­able reuse of brown­field land while Policy 16: Qual­ity homes and Policy 17: Rur­al homes, both sup­port devel­op­ment pro­pos­als that provide high qual­ity, afford­able homes in loc­a­tions where there is an iden­ti­fied loc­al need.

2. Policy 1: New Hous­ing Devel­op­ment of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 sup­ports new hous­ing with­in iden­ti­fied set­tle­ment bound­ar­ies. The site is an unal­loc­ated, brown­field site with­in the set­tle­ment bound­ary of Nethy Bridge and has an extant per­mis­sion for craft work­shops, café and six large dwell­ing houses. Policy 1, para­graph 1.4 seeks a mix of

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 11/08/2023

dwell­ing types and sizes to help secure a bal­anced hous­ing stock with an emphas­is on smal­ler dwell­ings. The pro­pos­al will provide mod­est 2 and 3 bed­room homes com­men­sur­ate to the needs of the type of house­hold that will occupy them. This in turn will assist in address­ing the on-going issue of the lack of the right type of hous­ing which meets loc­al com­munity needs.

1. Policy 1, para­graph 1.5 seeks the pro­vi­sion of afford­able hous­ing with­in hous­ing devel­op­ments of at least 25%. The pro­posed devel­op­ment has mod­estly sized two and three bed­roomed prop­er­ties as semi-detached units as well as some three bed­roomed detached prop­er­ties, with floor areas of 85, 102 and 123 square metres respect­ively. The prop­er­ties have been designed to meet stand­ard afford­able hous­ing spe­cific­a­tions required by afford­able hous­ing pro­viders, but at this stage, there is no agreed con­tract for prop­er­ties to be taken on by an afford­able hous­ing pro­vider. A con­di­tion would ensure that a min­im­um of 25% of the units are afford­able in order to com­ply with policy, but it is pos­sible that more prop­er­ties would be taken by providers.

2. The prin­ciple of the pro­posed devel­op­ment is con­sidered to be accept­able, sub­ject to com­pli­ance with oth­er rel­ev­ant NPF4 and Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan policies.

Lay­out, Amen­ity and Design

1. NPF4 Policy 14: Design, qual­ity and place sup­ports devel­op­ment where it is con­sist­ent with the six qual­it­ies of suc­cess­ful places; healthy, pleas­ant, con­nec­ted, dis­tinct­ive, sus­tain­able and adapt­able. Policy 1: New Hous­ing Devel­op­ment and Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 seek to rein­force and enhance the char­ac­ter of the exist­ing set­tle­ment and encour­age new devel­op­ment to be sym­path­et­ic to the tra­di­tion­al pat­tern and char­ac­ter of the area, whilst encour­aging innov­at­ive design and fin­ishes. The pro­posed lay­out takes ref­er­ence from the con­straints of the exist­ing land­form with prop­er­ties address­ing a cent­ral spine road, ter­min­at­ing at the north­east end of the site in the form of a small turn­ing head serving two of the detached, slightly lar­ger prop­er­ties. This is the point where the site will adjoin the Spey­side Way. The pro­posed SuDS basin will be loc­ated to the south of the site adja­cent to the access and will intro­duce a land­scaped fea­ture at the pub­lic inter­face of the site. The pro­pos­als are con­sidered to com­ply with Policies 1 and 3 in this respect.

2. In terms of res­id­en­tial amen­ity Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 seeks to ensure that new devel­op­ments are designed to pro­tect the amen­ity cur­rently enjoyed by neigh­bours and that they provide suf­fi­cient private amen­ity ground and off- street park­ing. Each of the pro­posed dwell­ings will be set with­in reasonably

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 11/08/2023

sized plots with a suf­fi­cient dis­tance between them and exist­ing prop­er­ties to ensure there will be no issues of over­look­ing and loss of pri­vacy and an adequate level of amen­ity will be afforded to future occu­pants. Each dwell­ing will have its own private garden and car park­ing provision.

1. To ensure exist­ing res­id­en­tial amen­ity of adja­cent prop­er­ties is pro­tec­ted dur­ing con­struc­tion, it is recom­men­ded that a con­di­tion requir­ing appro­pri­ate noise and mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures are in place to min­im­ise any poten­tial dis­turb­ance. It is con­sidered that the pro­pos­al is in accord­ance with Policy 3 in this respect.

2. Finally, regard­ing design, Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 requires that all new devel­op­ment deliv­ers high stand­ards of place­mak­ing and sus­tain­able design that con­trib­utes to mak­ing a sense of place and pro­motes good health and well being. It should min­im­ise the effect of cli­mate change and make sus­tain­able use of resources. In terms of dens­ity, the num­ber of dwell­ings pro­posed across the site is con­sidered to be appro­pri­ate giv­en the size of the site and its devel­op­ment capa­city. The pro­posed dwell­ings will be a mix of detached and semi-detached, two storey houses which will be con­tem­por­ary in design but incor­por­at­ing tra­di­tion­al pro­por­tions and fea­tures with mater­i­als ref­er­en­cing tra­di­tion­al fin­ishes. Accord­ingly, the pro­posed devel­op­ment com­plies with Policy 3 in terms of design.

Land­scape Issues

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. This is rein­forced by Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing which seeks to ensure that all new devel­op­ment is sym­path­et­ic to the tra­di­tion­al pat­tern and char­ac­ter of the sur­round­ing areas, loc­al ver­nacu­lar and loc­al distinctiveness.

2. The site is a brown­field site, formerly a rail­way sta­tion and yard with some rough grass­land and scrub regen­er­a­tion that is not of sig­ni­fic­ant land­scape value. As such the site provides a ​‘blank can­vas’ in terms of land­scap­ing. No form­al land­scap­ing scheme has been developed for the site and there­fore a con­di­tion is recom­men­ded requir­ing a com­pre­hens­ive land­scap­ing plan incor­por­at­ing appro­pri­ate tree and shrub plant­ing around the peri­pher­ies of the site and streets­cape. This will assist in redu­cing the visu­al impact of the devel­op­ment on adja­cent exist­ing prop­er­ties and will also con­trib­ute to enhan­cing the loc­al land­scape char­ac­ter. Suit­able land­scap­ing will also be required around the SuDS pond to max­im­ise the visu­al con­nec­tion to the

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 11/08/2023

sur­round­ing area and adja­cent river banks. This will also enhance the land­scape set­ting and sup­port biodiversity.

1. Sub­ject to suit­ably worded con­di­tions to ensure the sub­mis­sion and approv­al of an appro­pri­ate land­scape plan along with the prop­er estab­lish­ment and long term man­age­ment of this land­scap­ing scheme, the pro­posed devel­op­ment is con­sidered to com­ply with Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing and Policy 5: Land­scape of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment 2021.

Envir­on­ment­al Issues

1. Policy 1: Tack­ling the cli­mate and nature crises of NPF4 requires that sig­ni­fic­ant weight is giv­en to the glob­al cli­mate and nature crisis when con­sid­er­a­tion is giv­en to new devel­op­ment. Policy 3: Biod­iversity seeks to ensure that devel­op­ment will con­serve, restore and enhance biod­iversity. Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Places seeks to pro­tect, restore and enhance nat­ur­al assets includ­ing pro­tec­ted areas.

2. Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Her­it­age of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 seeks to restrict devel­op­ment that would have an adverse impact on pro­tec­ted spe­cies and where this can­not be avoided that appro­pri­ate mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures are provided.

3. The site lies adja­cent to the River Nethy, which forms part of the River Spey SAC, and Aber­nethy Forest SPA and Craigmore Wood SPA. A Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al has been under­taken by CNPA to assess any impacts on the qual­i­fy­ing interests. NatureScot has been con­sul­ted and agree with the con­clu­sion reached and the recom­mend­a­tions made. These require sus­pens­ive con­di­tions to be attached to any con­sent gran­ted to ensure appro­pri­ate mit­ig­a­tion is under­taken and there will be no adverse effect on the site’s integ­rity. These include sur­veys for pro­tec­ted spe­cies and the sub­mis­sion of a Spe­cies Pro­tec­tion Plan. No inform­a­tion has been sub­mit­ted detail­ing how works will be car­ried out to min­im­ise the risk of pol­lu­tion from sed­i­ment or oth­er poten­tial pol­lut­ants and there­fore a con­di­tion is recom­men­ded requir­ing the sub­mis­sion and approv­al of a Pol­lu­tion Pre­ven­tion Plan.

4. The site cur­rently has a rel­at­ively low biod­iver­stity value, but appro­pri­ate land­scap­ing and tree plant­ing as well as design and man­age­ment of the SuDS pond will deliv­er some biod­iversity enhance­ment and can be increased through oth­er simple meas­ures covered by condition.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 11/08/2023

1. Sub­ject to the impos­i­tion of these recom­men­ded con­di­tions, the pro­posed devel­op­ment will com­ply with the terms of Policies 1, 3 and 4 of NPF4 and Policy 4 Nat­ur­al Her­it­age of the Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021.

Access and Servicing

1. Policy 13: Sus­tain­able Trans­port of NPF4 sup­ports devel­op­ments that provide dir­ect, easy, segreg­ated and safe links to loc­al facil­it­ies via walk­ing, wheel­ing and cyc­ling net­works before occu­pa­tion. Policy 15: Loc­al Liv­ing and 20 minute neigh­bour­hoods sup­ports devel­op­ment which con­trib­utes to loc­al liv­ing and the Place Prin­ciple and where, among oth­er things, there is the oppor­tun­ity for sus­tain­able modes of trans­port includ­ing high qual­ity walk­ing, wheel­ing and cyc­ling net­works. Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 seeks to pro­mote sus­tain­able trans­port meth­ods and act­ive travel and max­im­ise oppor­tun­it­ies for respons­ible out­door access.

2. The devel­op­ment provides a road lay­out with exten­ded foot­ways and is with­in accept­able walk­ing and cyc­ling dis­tance from loc­al amen­it­ies and pub­lic trans­port links. The High­land Coun­cil Trans­port Plan­ning team require a ded­ic­ated ped­es­tri­an foot­way along the north side of Sta­tion Road (the C1139) which links the site with the vil­lage to improve con­nectiv­ity and provide a safer route for ped­es­tri­ans and vul­ner­able road users. It is recom­men­ded a con­di­tion requir­ing the detailed design of such a ped­es­tri­an link be sub­mit­ted and approved should con­sent be gran­ted. The Coun­cil intends to imple­ment a 20mph speed lim­it through­out the vil­lage. Should plan­ning per­mis­sion be gran­ted an appro­pri­ately worded con­di­tion will be required to ensure the applic­ants take respons­ib­il­ity for the vil­lage wide 20mph speed lim­it to incor­por­ate the new street. The new road and foot­ways asso­ci­ated with the devel­op­ment will be adop­ted by the Coun­cil and as such Road Con­struc­tion Con­sent (RCC) will be required. This is a sep­ar­ate pro­cess, how­ever the Coun­cil recom­mend an inform­at­ive advising the applic­ant of this and that no works can com­mence until the RCC is form­ally approved.

3. The Spey­side Way cur­rently runs dir­ectly through the site. Dur­ing the con­struc­tion phase of the devel­op­ment, it will be diver­ted to the west of the site and tem­por­ar­ily fenced off. Tem­por­ary sig­nage will also be erec­ted to ensure users are fully aware of the diver­sion. Once the devel­op­ment is com­plete, the route will again run through the site. Notice boards at both ends of the site will be erec­ted and a way­mark­ing fin­ger­post will be loc­ated at the entrance to the devel­op­ment with two dir­ec­tion­al blades clearly indic­at­ing the revised final route.

4. Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 also states that all new devel­op­ment must include an appro­pri­ate means of access, egress and space for off street parking.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 11/08/2023

1. The pro­posed new access arrange­ments are accept­able giv­en that the intro­duc­tion of the vil­lage wide 20mph speed lim­it reduces the min­im­um vis­ib­il­ity require­ments for the site access (25 metres in each dir­ec­tion from a 2.4 metre set back). The imple­ment­a­tion of this speed lim­it how­ever has not yet been con­firmed. As such, to ensure the new access arrange­ments and asso­ci­ated vis­ib­il­ity splays are appro­pri­ate, a con­di­tion is recom­men­ded requir­ing a 20mph speed lim­it (either a per­man­ent or tem­por­ary depend­ing on wheth­er the vil­lage wide 20mph speed lim­it is forth­com­ing) is in place pri­or to the com­mence­ment of any works on the site. Pro­posed park­ing pro­vi­sion for each plot is con­sidered suf­fi­cient and accords with the Council’s guidelines.

2. Sub­ject to the recom­men­ded con­di­tions it is con­sidered that the pro­pos­als com­ply with Policy 13: Sus­tain­able Trans­port and Policy 15: Loc­al Liv­ing and 20 minute neigh­bour­hoods of NPF4 and Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021.

Con­tam­in­ated Land

1. Policy 10: Resources of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 states that devel­op­ment affect­ing con­tam­in­ated land will be con­sidered favour­ably where assess­ments are under­taken to identi­fy actu­al and poten­tial impacts, on site and off site, of all stages of devel­op­ment pro­pos­als on the risks to human health and to the Park’s biod­iversity, geo­di­versity, hydro­logy and oth­er spe­cial qualities.

2. The pro­posed devel­op­ment was pre­vi­ously used as a rail­way sta­tion and yard and as such there may still be ground con­tam­in­a­tion issues on the site. Giv­en this, a suit­ably worded sus­pens­ive con­di­tion is recom­men­ded that a scheme to identi­fy and address poten­tial con­tam­in­a­tion issues should be sub­mit­ted. There­fore, sub­ject to a sus­pens­ive con­di­tion, the pro­pos­al is con­sidered to com­ply with Policy 10: Resources of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021.

Flood­ing and Sur­face Water Drainage

1. NPF4 Policy 2: Cli­mate mit­ig­a­tion and adapt­a­tion requires that devel­op­ment is sited and designed to adapt to cur­rent and future risks from cli­mate change. Policy 22: Flood Risk and Water Man­age­ment pro­motes avoid­ance as a first prin­ciple and redu­cing the vul­ner­ab­il­ity of exist­ing and future devel­op­ment to flood­ing. Devel­op­ment at risk of flood­ing or in a flood risk area will only be sup­por­ted if the pro­pos­al is for the redevel­op­ment of pre­vi­ously used sites and where long term safety and resi­li­ence can be secured in accord­ance with rel­ev­ant SEPA advice.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 11/08/2023

1. Policy 10: Resources of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 requires that all devel­op­ment should be free from medi­um to high risk flood­ing, not increase the risk of flood­ing else­where, not add to the area of land requir­ing flood pre­ven­tion meas­ures and not affect the abil­ity of the func­tion­al flood plain to store or move flood waters. Devel­op­ments should incor­por­ate SUDs as pro­por­tion­ate to the scale and nature of the devel­op­ment. The policy also requires that all devel­op­ment should avoid unac­cept­able det­ri­ment­al impacts on the water environment.

2. The sur­face water drain­age pro­pos­als accom­pa­ny­ing the pro­pos­al are con­sidered to be accept­able in prin­ciple sub­ject to their rela­tion­ship with the func­tion­al flood plain.

3. SEPA, object to the pro­pos­al on the grounds that the pro­posed devel­op­ment would place people or prop­erty at risk of flood­ing con­trary to both NPF4 Policy 22 and the LDP Policy 10. High­land Council’s Flood team have objec­ted to the applic­a­tion because of SEPA’s objec­tion. The applicant’s flood engin­eers (Enviro­centre) are of the opin­ion that the site would be free from flood­ing in extreme events and allow­ing for cli­mate change. This opin­ion has been veri­fied by a second inde­pend­ent engin­eer, but SEPA main­tain their objec­tion on the basis that a pre­cau­tion­ary approach should be taken. The fol­low­ing para­graphs of this are inten­ded to sum­mar­ise the dif­fer­ent approaches as this mat­ter is crit­ic­al to the determ­in­a­tion of the application.

4. The poten­tial for the river Nethy and/​or river Spey to flood and to affect Nethy Bridge is accep­ted by all parties. SEPA’s flood maps for Nethy Bridge show poten­tial extens­ive flood­ing based on their nation­al mod­el­ling of indic­at­ive flood­ing. Nethy Bridge is iden­ti­fied as a Poten­tially Vul­ner­able Area (PVA) in the Find­horn, Nairn and Spey­side flood risk man­age­ment plan as a res­ult of that nation­al mod­el­ling. The flood risk man­age­ment plan also explains that fur­ther detailed flood risk mod­el­ling is required for Nethy Bridge and that there are few recent records of