Item5AA20230004DETMacDonaldResortLodgesCommitteeReport

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

DEVEL­OP­MENT PRO­POSED: Change of use of land for sit­ing of 25 lodges, access road, land­scap­ing at site of dry ski slope, Grampi­an Road, Aviemore, Highland

REF­ER­ENCE: 2023/0004/DET APPLIC­ANT: Mac­Don­ald Resorts Ltd DATE CALLED-IN: 9 Janu­ary 2023 RECOM­MEND­A­TION: Approve Sub­ject to Con­di­tions and a Developer Oblig­a­tion CASE OFFICER: Gav­in Miles, Head of Stra­tegic Planning

CNPA Plan­ning Committee

Applic­a­tion Site

Aviemore Craigel­lach­ie Nation­al Nature Reserver

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5

SITE DESCRIP­TION, PRO­POS­AL AND HISTORY

Site Descrip­tion

1. The applic­a­tion site is loc­ated with­in the grounds of the Aviemore High­land Resort, and to the rear of the Strath­spey Hotel. The site is bounded by the A9 road to the west and B9152 and Aviemore town centre to the south. The site cov­ers an area of approx­im­ately 3.2 hec­tares. There is nat­ive wood­land in the north and south of the site and along the west­ern and east­ern bound­ar­ies, which are covered by a Tree Pre­ser­va­tion Order. The wood­land on the south­ern east bound­ary of the site is classed as Ancient Woodland.
2. The remainder of the site is char­ac­ter­ised by an area of flat and undu­lat­ing grass­land in the centre of the site, with a car park and a play park. The north part of the site has a knoll with scattered trees and once held a dry ski slope. Its north­ern bound­ary slopes down to a ser­vice road run­ning around the resort swim­ming pool build­ings. The south­ern sec­tion of the site is undu­lat­ing in nature, with a man-made ponds loc­ated in the south west corner and some sheds/​bird hides to their east. The site is accessed from Grampi­an Road and then via the net­work of exist­ing access roads with­in the resort bound­ary. The site is crossed by numer­ous inform­al paths, a core path and a sec­tion of the Aviemore orbit­al path.
3. Under the plan­ning hier­archy, this applic­a­tion is clas­si­fied as a major development.

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=RNYMOISI0 BYOO

Title	Draw­ing Num­ber	Date on Plan*	Date Received
PLANS
Plan — Loc­a­tion Plan	10141 PL001
REVB	2/12/2022	26/10/23
Plan — Site Plan	10141 PL002 REVE	02/12/2022	26/10/2023
Plan — Land­scape Plan	10141 PL005
REVA	23/10/2023	26/10/2023

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5

|Plan — Land­scape Plan | 10141 PL006 REVA | 23/10/2023 | 26/10/2023| |Plan – Drain­age Strategy /​Test Hole Loc­ataion | GMC23-1002 |Jan 23 | 16/10/2023| |Plan — Floor Elev­a­tion Plan (Lodge Type 1) | 10141PL002 | 01/01/2021 | 05/01/2023| |Plan — Floor Elev­a­tion Plan (Lodge Type 2) | 10141PL004 | 01/01/2021 | 05/01/2023| |Plan — Floor Elev­a­tion Plan (Dis­abled Lodge 2D) | 10141 PL005 | 0/101/2021| 25/01/2023| |Plan — Tree Con­straints Plan 1| 100186017 | 06/07/2022 | 05/01/2023| |Plan- Tree Con­straints Plan 2 |100186018 | 06/07/2022 | 05/01/2023| |Plan — Indic­at­ive Access Arrange­ments and Vis­ib­il­ity Splays.| 22103 002 REVA | 23/01/2023 | 10/02/2023| |Sup­port­ing Inform­a­tion | | | | |Oth­er — Design and Access| 100186004 | 01/12/2022 | 05/01/2023| |State­ment | | | | |Oth­er — Pre- Application|100186010 | 01/12/2022 | 05/01/2023| |Con­sulta­tion Report | | | | |Oth­er — Sup­port­ing| 100186014 | 01/11/2022 | 05/01/2023| |State­ment | | | | |Oth­er — Topo­graph­ic­al |100186015 | | 05/01/2023| |Study | | | | |Oth­er — Trans­port| 100186016 | 01/12/2022 | 05/01/2023| |State­ment | | | | |Arbor­i­cul­tur­al Impact| | 24/04/2023 | 26/10/2023| |Assess­ment | | | | |Flood State­ment | | 15/08/2023 | 25/8/2023| |Oth­er – Drain­age Impact | | 29/01/2023 | 16/10/2023| |Assess­ment | | | | |Oth­er — Data Sched­ule |100186003 | | 05/01/2023| |Out­door Access Plan | | 24/10/2023 | 26/20/2023| |Oth­er — Pre­lim­in­ary | 100186803 | 30/05/2022 | 05/01/2023| |Eco­lo­gic­al Apprais­al | | | | |Oth­er — Hotel Weekday|100187049 | 01/07/2021 | 25/02/2023| |Multi- Modal | | | |

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5

*Where no spe­cif­ic day of month has been provided on the plan, the sys­tem defaults to the 1^st of the month

1. It is pro­posed to devel­op 25 hol­i­day lodges, an access road and land­scap­ing. The lodges will be chalet type build­ings, with pitched roofs, and of a con­tem­por­ary design with dark tim­ber clad­ding. The lodges will be two storey with 3 bed­rooms, en-suite bath­rooms and open plan liv­ing / din­ing / kit­chen accom­mod­a­tion. Two of the units are expli­citly designed to be access­ible for wheel­chair users on their ground level and all the units have a bed­room and toilet/​bathroom on their ground level. The lodges will incor­por­ate ver­tic­al larch clad­ding with double glazed win­dows and doors, glass bal­conies and tim­ber ter­races. The lodges will be con­struc­ted using flat pan­el, tim­ber fram­ing on a flat base, with tim­ber pil­ings and ground screw found­a­tions to min­im­ise dis­turb­ance to the ground and neigh­bour­ing tree root systems.

2. The pro­posed devel­op­ment will include an 5m wide access road, which will serve the new lodges and link them to the wider resort. Park­ing will be loc­ated adja­cent to the access track for each lodge, and all new roads, foot­paths and park­ing areas will be con­struc­ted using loc­ally sourced crushed aggreg­ate. There is land­scap­ing pro­posed through­out the site, provid­ing areas of green space that will com­ple­ment the set­ting of the development.

3. Plans of the pro­pos­al are attached as Appendix 1.

His­tory

1. The applic­a­tion site has a his­tor­ic use as a former dry ski slope facil­ity, and amen­ity space or tem­por­ary event space beside the main resort build­ings.. With­in the wider Mac­Don­ald High­land Resort there are sev­er­al applic­a­tions run­ning con­cur­rently to this applic­a­tion which are out­lined below:

a) 2023/0030/PPP – Plan­ning per­mis­sion in prin­ciple for the res­id­en­tial devel­op­ment, staff accom­mod­a­tion and infra­struc­ture. Applic­a­tion sub­mit­ted 19/12/2022, and cur­rently under con­sid­er­a­tion by the CNPA. b) 2022/0328/PPP – Plan­ning per­mis­sion in prin­ciple for the erec­tion of hol­i­day apart­ments at land west of Cairngorm Hotel. Applic­a­tion sub­mit­ted on 03/10/2022 and cur­rently under con­sid­er­a­tion by the CNPA. c) 2022/0241/DET – Alter­a­tion and exten­sion to Mac­Don­ald Aviemore Hotel. Applic­a­tion sub­mit­ted 13/07/2022 and cur­rently under con­sid­er­a­tion by the CNPA.

1. As required for major devel­op­ments, a Pro­pos­al of Applic­a­tion Notice, for this applic­a­tion pro­pos­al was sub­mit­ted to and repor­ted to CNPA Com­mit­tee under ref­er­ence: PRE/2022/0014.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5

Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Appraisal

1. A Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al [HRA] has been under­taken to con­sider the effects of the pro­pos­al upon the con­ser­va­tion object­ives of the European Sites, as lis­ted with­in the doc­u­ment attached as Appendix 2. The sites poten­tially affected are the:

a) Kin­veachy Forest Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Area [SPA] b) River Spey – Insh Marshes Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Area.

1. The HRA con­cludes that the pro­pos­al will not have an adverse impact on site integ­rity of the Kin­veachy Forest SPA as the con­ser­va­tion object­ives can be met. Regard­ing the River Spey-Inch Marshes SPA, the Assess­ment con­firms that there will not be an adverse impact on site integ­rity sub­ject to the inclu­sion of a plan­ning con­di­tion requir­ing the devel­op­ment to be con­struc­ted out­with the act­ive osprey sea­son togeth­er with the agree­ment of a spe­cies pro­tec­tion plan.

DEVEL­OP­MENT PLAN CONTEXT

Policies

Nation­al Policy	Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 (NPF4) Scot­land 2045
POLICY 1	Tack­ling the Cli­mate and Nature Crises
POLICY 3	Biod­iversity
POLICY 4	Nat­ur­al Heritage
POLICY 6	Forestry, Wood­land, and Trees
POLICY 13	Sus­tain­able Transport
POLICY 14	Design, Qual­ity and Place
POLICY 18	Infra­struc­ture first
POLICY 21	Play, Recre­ation and Sport
POLICY 22	Flood Risk and Water Management
POLICY 30	Tour­ism
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 are marked with a cross
POLICY 1	NEW HOUS­ING DEVELOPMENT
POLICY 2	SUP­PORT­ING ECO­NOM­IC GROWTH	X
POLICY 3	DESIGN AND PLACEMAKING.	X
POLICY 4	NAT­UR­AL HERITAGE	X

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5

|POLICY 5|LANDSCAPE|X| |POLICY 6|THE SIT­ING AND DESIGN OF DIGIT­AL COM­MU­NIC­A­TIONS EQUIP­MENT|| |POLICY 7|RENEWABLE ENERGY|| |POLICY 8|OPEN SPACE, SPORT AND RECREATION|X| |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:

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

1. With­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021, the site forms part of a wider alloc­ated area for ​‘mixed use’, under alloc­a­tion Aviemore- M1. The Aviemore High­land Resort is a large site in the centre of Aviemore. It cur­rently has a range of dif­fer­ent uses includ­ing hotels and hol­i­day accom­mod­a­tion, retail, recre­ation, and hous­ing and has under­gone sig­ni­fic­ant devel­op­ment to cre­ate the resort it is today. The alloc­a­tion offers an oppor­tun­ity for the enhance­ment and diver­si­fic­a­tion of the cur­rent uses, includ­ing the pro­vi­sion of addi­tion­al hous­ing, retail, recre­ation, and employ­ment spaces.

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.
Policy 2	Sup­port­ing Eco­nom­ic Growth Non-Statutory	X
	Guid­ance
Policy 3	Design and Place­mak­ing Non Stat­utory Guidance	X
Policy 4	Nat­ur­al Her­it­age Sup­ple­ment­ary Guidance	X
Policy 5	Land­scape Non-Stat­utory Guidance	X
Policy 7	Renew­able Energy Sup­ple­ment­ary Guidance

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5

|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 Con­tri­bu­tions Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance |X|

CON­SULTA­TIONS

Sum­mary of the main issues raised by consultees

1. Scot­tish Water have not objec­ted to the pro­posed devel­op­ment but sug­gest the applic­ant com­pletes a Pre-Devel­op­ment Enquiry form ensur­ing that the devel­op­ment can be ser­viced and con­tacts Scot­tish Water regard­ing the pro­posed drain­age plan. They con­firm that the devel­op­ment would be fed from Aviemore Water Treat­ment Works, although capa­city will have to be reviewed once per­mis­sion is gran­ted for the scheme.
2. Accord­ing to exist­ing records, the devel­op­ment pro­pos­als impact on exist­ing Scot­tish Water assets. The applic­ant must identi­fy any poten­tial con­flicts with Scot­tish Water assets and con­tact the Asset Impact Team via the Cus­tom­er Portal to apply for a diver­sion. The applic­ant should be aware that any con­flict with assets iden­ti­fied may be sub­ject to restric­tions on prox­im­ity of con­struc­tion Sur­face water.
3. Trans­port Scot­land have no objec­tion to the pro­pos­als sub­ject to con­di­tions requir­ing the details of drain­age and bound­ary treat­ments along the bound­ary with the A9 and the com­puls­ory pur­chase order bound­ar­ies and ser­vitudes for the dualled A9 being sub­mit­ted to the plan­ning author­ity and approved in writ­ing in con­sulta­tion with Trans­port Scotland.
4. High­land Coun­cil Con­tam­in­ated Land Team have stated that, hav­ing checked their data­base, his­tor­ic­al Ord­nance Sur­vey maps and aer­i­al pho­tos, there does not appear to be a poten­tial source of con­tam­in­a­tion at the devel­op­ment site. There­fore, no fur­ther inform­a­tion is required.
5. High­land Coun­cil Trans­port Plan­ning Team had no objec­tion to the site lay­out with or dimen­sions of roads but noted that foot­paths con­nect­ing lodges to car park­ing should be 1.5m wide to com­ply with DDA guid­ance. The team require that each lodge has three car park­ing spaces so identi­fy a short­fall (that would be 20 spaces under the most recent lay­out) that they would be will­ing to accept an index-linked developer con­tri­bu­tion to address the short­fall and would be used to install car count­ing sensors on Grampi­an Road to mon­it­or and man­age con­ges­tion. They recom­mend a con­di­tion for secure and covered cycle park­ing to be incor­por­ated as part of the devel­op­ment and made com­ments on the align­ment and fin­ish of the core

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5

path, which the developer has since addressed. The Trans­port Plan­ning Team object to the devel­op­ment on the basis that the full impact of traffic on the B9152 (Grampi­an Road) had not been sat­is­fact­or­ily quantified.

1. High­land Coun­cil Flood Risk Man­age­ment Team removed an ini­tial objec­tion fol­low­ing the sub­mis­sion of a revised Drain­age inform­a­tion assess­ment and are sat­is­fied that the site should have suf­fi­cient drain­age capa­city for the pro­posed sur­face water drain­age, all sub­ject to the inclu­sion of con­di­tions that pre­vent ground rais­ing to facil­it­ate con­struc­tion of a SUDS pond; that roads and paths con­struc­ted do not pre­vent drain­age of sur­face water nat­ur­ally reach­ing low points with­in the site; the sub­mis­sion of a final­ised Drain­age Impact Assess­ment and asso­ci­ated cal­cu­la­tions; and that a draw­ing is provided to evid­ence that fin­ished floor levels of build­ings are all 300mm above ground levels or 600mm above ground level for cab­ins beside the sur­face water risk areas.
2. CNPA Land­scape Officer is sat­is­fied that the site has capa­city for the pro­posed devel­op­ment and that the prin­ciples of the land­scape inform­a­tion provided are accept­able, but requires that fur­ther detail on the land­scap­ing pro­pos­als, includ­ing fur­ther detail on trees that will be lost to the devel­op­ment and appro­pri­ate com­pens­at­ory plant­ing are secured for approv­al through condition.
3. CNPA Eco­logy Officer is sat­is­fied that the pro­pos­al will not have any sig­ni­fic­ant adverse eco­lo­gic­al impacts on the site and sur­round­ing area. The devel­op­ment avoids trees with­in the defined ancient wood­land area to the south east of the site, though any trees that would be affected are covered by a site-wide tree pre­ser­va­tion order and would require to have appro­pri­ate com­pens­at­ory planting.
4. In terms of pro­tec­ted spe­cies, the sub­mit­ted eco­lo­gic­al sur­veys have iden­ti­fied signs of otter and badger with­in the devel­op­ment site, but no rest­ing sites were found. It is recom­men­ded that a con­di­tion is included that pre- con­struc­tion sur­veys for badger, otter, red squir­rel are under­taken pri­or to works com­men­cing on site. The checks should be under­taken by a suit­ably exper­i­enced eco­lo­gist and fol­low NatureScot stand­ing advice. A pre­lim­in­ary bat roost assess­ment did not identi­fy any bat roosts, but the pro­vi­sion of bat boxes on build­ings would provide poten­tial bat roosts and there would con­tin­ue to be good bat for­aging hab­it­at avail­able once the devel­op­ment was oper­a­tion­al. The site has the poten­tial to sup­port a small pop­u­la­tion of rep­tiles, and, there­fore, a con­di­tion is recom­men­ded that pre-con­struc­tion checks for rep­tiles should be under­taken pri­or to veget­a­tion remov­al or ground works, from April / Octo­ber. Any suit­able hiber­nacula should be checked by an exper­i­enced eco­lo­gist before works com­mence dur­ing winter months

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5

1. The site is suit­able to sup­port breed­ing birds, and Osprey, a Sched­ule 1 pro­tec­ted spe­cies, is known to feed at the fish-stocked pond with­in the site. Ospreys are well known to become habitu­al­ised to the pres­ence of people unless near their nest­ing sites and Ospreys fish­ing at the pond will have been used to the pres­ence of chil­dren in the nearby play area and many people walk­ing, includ­ing with dogs on the paths around the pond. A con­di­tion is recom­men­ded that works should be sched­uled to com­mence out with the breed­ing bird sea­son. If works com­mence dur­ing this peri­od, nest­ing bird checks should be under­taken by a suit­ably exper­i­enced eco­lo­gists with­in 24 to 48 hours of works commencing.
2. There are two man-made lochans with­in the site bound­ary. How­ever, the site plan shows that no devel­op­ment will occur with­in the high water level areas of the lochans. There could be an impact on the water envir­on­ment in the event of a pol­lu­tion incid­ent. There­fore, a con­di­tion is recom­men­ded that a Pol­lu­tion Pre­ven­tion Plan is sub­mit­ted pri­or to works com­men­cing on site.
3. There are oppor­tun­it­ies to enhance the biod­iversity of the site with addi­tion­al wood­land plant­ing, cre­ation of spe­cies-rich mead­ow areas and the inclu­sion of bat and bird boxes on the new buildings.
4. High­land Coun­cil Forestry Officer has objec­ted because the inform­a­tion on impacts on trees (that are all covered by tree pre­ser­va­tion orders) is inad­equate and inform­a­tion on mit­ig­a­tion plant­ing to address loss of trees there­fore also inac­cur­ate. They also note a series of poten­tial con­flicts between tree pro­tec­tion meas­ures and root pro­tec­tion zones with the foot­print of lodge or services.
5. CNPA Out­door Access Team have stated that an Out­door Access Plan must be sub­mit­ted for approv­al, to ensure that loc­al access rights are being upheld and that the adja­cent core path / right of way is pro­tec­ted and enhanced.
6. Aviemore and Vicin­ity Com­munity Coun­cil have objec­ted to the applic­a­tion on the fol­low­ing grounds: (full copy avail­able to view at Appendix 3)

a) The pro­posed devel­op­ment will res­ult in an increase in vehicle traffic and will have an adverse impact on the loc­al infra­struc­ture. b) The pro­pos­als will res­ult in a loss of green space and a high-qual­ity play park. c) The pond that is loc­ated on site is used by ospreys for fish­ing. The new hol­i­day lodges will have an impact on the ospreys and oth­er pro­tec­ted spe­cies that may use the site. d) The sit­ing of the pro­posed lodges adja­cent to the core path that runs through the site will raise the poten­tial for con­flict between path users and visitors.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5

e) As a res­ult of the pro­posed devel­op­ment, there will be the poten­tial for an impact on the exist­ing wood­land. f) The pro­posed two storey lodges will detract from the views to and from the Craigel­lach­ie Nation­al Nature Reserve.

REP­RES­ENT­A­TIONS

1. There have been 10 let­ters of rep­res­ent­a­tion sub­mit­ted as a res­ult of this applic­a­tion. Cop­ies of the pub­lic responses can be viewed in Appendix 4. The main points are sum­mar­ised as follows:

a) There is a lack of green­space pro­posed for the site. b) The pro­pos­al devel­op­ment will lead to an increase in traffic con­ges­tion on Grampi­an Road. c) The pro­pos­als will res­ult in a loss of green space and a children’s play­park. d) There are no staff in Aviemore to main­tain the addi­tion­al lodges, and no staff accom­mod­a­tion avail­able loc­ally. e) The pro­pos­als will lead to the over­de­vel­op­ment of Aviemore with tour­ist accom­mod­a­tion. f) The pro­posed devel­op­ment will have an adverse impact on the ospreys that feed on site, thus redu­cing biod­iversity loc­ally. The cur­rent stock­ing of the pond with fish may also provide food for otter. g) The devel­op­ment would affect the exist­ing busi­ness that stocks the pond with fish to encour­age osprey to vis­it. h) The wider site has rab­bits which badger and otter will eat and worms which badger eat and will have amphi­bi­ans that could be killed on roads or trapped in infra­struc­ture. i) The pro­posed devel­op­ment is too dom­in­eer­ing in design, and insens­it­ive to the char­ac­ter of the sur­round­ing area. j) There are lodges pro­posed very close to the core path, which will detract from the high qual­ity that users cur­rently exper­i­ence and will change the char­ac­ter of the Aviemore orbit­al path. k) The pro­posed access road will detract from the nat­ur­al char­ac­ter of the exist­ing wood­land paths. I) The land­scap­ing pro­pos­als are inad­equate m) The pro­posed devel­op­ment will lead to a large increase in vis­it­or num­bers and dis­turb­ance which will impact neg­at­ively on the nearby wood­lands that sup­port capercaillie.

APPRAIS­AL

1. The main plan­ning con­sid­er­a­tions are con­sidered to be the prin­ciple of devel­op­ment; the impact upon the land­scape; envir­on­ment­al impacts lay­out, sit­ing, design and amen­ity; and ser­vi­cing and access.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5

Prin­ciple of Development

1. Aviemore plays a key role as an employ­ment and ser­vice centre for the wider Badenoch and Strath­spey area. Loc­al Plan policy sup­ports oppor­tun­it­ies which will increase Aviemore’s attract­ive­ness as a tour­ist and recre­ation des­tin­a­tion. The Aviemore High­land Resort is a large site in the centre of Aviemore, which has been alloc­ated for mixed uses in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 through M1: Aviemore High­land Resort. It cur­rently has a range of dif­fer­ent uses includ­ing hotels and hol­i­day accom­mod­a­tion, retail, recre­ation and hous­ing, and over the years has under­gone sig­ni­fic­ant devel­op­ment. The alloc­a­tion in the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan offers oppor­tun­ity for the enhance­ment and diver­si­fic­a­tion of the cur­rent uses, includ­ing the pro­vi­sion of addi­tion­al hous­ing, retail, recre­ation and employ­ment spaces.

2. Policy 30: Tour­ism (para­graph a) of Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 (NPF4) provides clear sup­port for new or exten­ded tour­ist facil­it­ies and accommodation.

3. Policy 2.2: Tour­ist Accom­mod­a­tion of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 sup­ports tour­ist related accom­mod­a­tion where it con­trib­utes to the pro­vi­sion of a wide range of vis­it­or accom­mod­a­tion options, sup­ports a year round eco­nomy and does not have adverse envir­on­ment­al or amen­ity impacts on the site or neigh­bour­ing areas.

4. In this instance, the pro­pos­als would res­ult in the cre­ation of 25 addi­tion­al lodges at the Mac­Don­ald Aviemore High­land Resort and sup­ple­ment the exist­ing accom­mod­a­tion on the site. The pro­posed devel­op­ment will intro­duce addi­tion­al tour­ist accom­mod­a­tion in a loc­a­tion which is likely to be able to sup­port such pro­vi­sion giv­en the high num­ber of vis­it­ors to this area. The pro­pos­al would gen­er­ate con­struc­tion employ­ment oppor­tun­it­ies, and in the longer term per­man­ent employ­ment for a small num­ber of staff to ser­vice the units. This in turn will sup­port the vital­ity and viab­il­ity of the loc­al eco­nomy and sup­port the year round economy.

5. Giv­en the above it is con­sidered that the prin­ciple of the devel­op­ment accords with Policy 30: Tour­ism of NPF4 and Policy 2: Sup­port­ing Eco­nom­ic Growth of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 sub­ject to com­pli­ance with oth­er rel­ev­ant Devel­op­ment Plan policies.

Land­scape Impacts

1. Policy 5: Land­scape of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 pre­sumes against devel­op­ment that does not con­serve and enhance the

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land­scape char­ac­ter and spe­cial qual­it­ies of the Nation­al Park and in par­tic­u­lar the set­ting of the pro­posed development.

1. The site has capa­city for fur­ther devel­op­ment and with appro­pri­ate wood­land and tree plant­ing will extend the wooded char­ac­ter of the site, albeit with ladges as part of the area. The dark clad­ding of the lodges and dark roofs will reduce their imme­di­ate impact and they will be loc­ated on the exist­ing land­form of the site so will reflect that topo­graphy. Over time, addi­tion­al tree plant­ing will help the lodges blend into the land­form. Most views to the site are cur­rently dom­in­ated by the crags of Craigel­lach­ie and the wooded slopes bey­ond the A9 and this sense of the site sit­ting beneath Craigel­lach­ie will con­tin­ue once the devel­op­ment is com­pleted. The site would con­tin­ue to con­trast with the main resort build­ings to the north­east of the site with their white rendered fin­ishes and great­er size.
2. There are two ele­ments of the applic­a­tion where inform­a­tion is inad­equate at this stage. Firstly, while the devel­op­ment has provided tree con­straints plans, an arbor­i­cul­tur­al assess­ment and tree pro­tec­tion inform­a­tion, this is insuf­fi­ciently detailed in the vicin­ity of the three most south­erly lodges where a num­ber of addi­tion­al trees would be lost under the pro­pos­als. Those trees are out­side the ancient wood­land invent­ory area, and new and addi­tion­al wood­land plant­ing could mit­ig­ate their loss both in biod­iversity and land­scape terms, but would require to be iden­ti­fied and quan­ti­fied pri­or to devel­op­ment in order that the neces­sary tree plant­ing is incor­por­ated in land­scape pro­pos­als for the site. Secondly, the land­scap­ing pro­pos­als with the applic­a­tion fol­low some sens­ible prin­ciples but require to be sig­ni­fic­antly more detailed, reflect the required mit­ig­a­tion plant­ing from trees lost, and to included detail on appro­pri­ate tree spe­cies for dif­fer­ent loc­a­tions, and all mat­ters relat­ing to the seed­ing and man­age­ment of areas. These mat­ters can be secured through appro­pri­ate condition.
3. Sub­ject to inclu­sion of appro­pri­ate con­di­tions, the pro­pos­als are con­sidered to com­ply with Policy 5: Land­scape of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021.

Envir­on­ment­al Impacts

1. Policy 3: Biod­iversity and Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Her­it­age of NPF4 along with Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Her­it­age of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 all seek to ensure that biod­iversity is enhanced and bet­ter con­nec­ted and that nat­ur­al assets are man­aged in a sus­tain­able way for their essen­tial benefits.
2. Much of the site is already rel­at­ively intensely used by people and there­fore sub­ject to dis­turb­ance that mobile spe­cies will either tol­er­ate or will avoid at times. Most of the ground with­in the site where devel­op­ment is pro­posed has

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been mod­i­fied through past engin­eer­ing works and his­tor­ic man­age­ment that includes intens­ive mow­ing of many grass­land areas. The pond areas to the south end of the site are man-made and are stocked with fish by a ten­ant of the landown­er to attract osprey to the site.

1. While osprey are a pro­tec­ted spe­cies and asso­ci­ated with nearby pro­tec­ted sites, they do not nest in the vicin­ity of the site and their feed­ing at this site is man­aged. If for any reas­on the fish-stock­ing of the ponds ceases, osprey would be unlikely to vis­it once the fish stocks are exhausted but this would not affect the dis­tri­bu­tion or range of osprey with in the wider area where they have mul­tiple nat­ur­al food sources. If the pond were to con­tin­ue to be stocked with fish, osprey would prob­ably con­tin­ue to feed there once the devel­op­ment was com­pleted, and very likely dur­ing much of the con­struc­tion activity.

2. The hab­it­ats reg­u­la­tions apprais­al (HRA) for the applic­a­tion under­taken by the CNPA con­cludes that sub­ject to a con­di­tion ensure devel­op­ment is com­menced out­side the act­ive osprey sea­son of March to Septem­ber and the sub­mis­sion of a Spe­cies Pro­tec­tion Plan with meas­ures to min­im­ise dis­turb­ance to osprey through­out con­struc­tion, there will be no sig­ni­fic­ant dis­turb­ance to the spe­cies and the pop­u­la­tion of osprey will be unaf­fected, so there will not be an adverse effect on the site integ­rity of sites pro­tec­ted for osprey.

3. Some trees will be lost to the devel­op­ment but there is an oppor­tun­ity to provide sig­ni­fic­antly more tree plant­ing across the site and for wood­land and grass­land hab­it­ats, along with the pond and wet­land areas to be man­aged for biod­iversity gain. The lodges them­selves have appro­pri­ate bird and bat boxes installed to provide roost­ing and nest­ing sites. These mat­ters can be addressed through sus­pens­ive con­di­tions. Finally, a con­struc­tion meth­od state­ment that demon­strates how impacts on pro­tec­ted trees will be avoided dur­ing the con­struc­tion of lodges and ser­vices and how pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion meas­ures will avoid harm to the water envir­on­ment on the site can also be secured through a sus­pens­ive condition.

4. Sub­ject to appro­pri­ate con­di­tions, the pro­pos­al is con­sidered to com­ply with Policy 3: Biod­iversity and Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Her­it­age of NPF4 as well as Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Her­it­age of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021.

Lay­out, Sit­ing, Design and Amen­ity and Out­door Access

1. Policy 14: Design, qual­ity and place of NPF4 and Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021

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require that devel­op­ments are con­sist­ent with the six qual­it­ies of suc­cess­ful places.

1. The lodges are con­tem­por­ary in their design and will be fin­ished in mater­i­als to com­ple­ment their set­ting, incor­por­at­ing tim­ber clad­ding and glazed bal­conies. The pro­posed devel­op­ment will sit sym­path­et­ic­ally with­in its land­scape set­ting and the lodges will be loc­ated a suf­fi­cient dis­tance from adja­cent prop­er­ties that will not intro­duce issues of over­look­ing, loss of pri­vacy. The lodges will not detract from the char­ac­ter of the wood­land and sur­round­ing area and will not res­ult in a loss of amen­ity for the exist­ing lodges on site. Fur­ther­more, giv­en the pro­posed height of the lodges, loc­al views will not be com­prom­ised. The pro­posed meth­od of con­struc­tion of the lodges, with tim­ber-clad, highly insu­lated build­ings min­im­ises the car­bon foot­print and should cre­ate energy effi­cient build­ings. Two of the units are expli­citly designed to be access­ible for wheel­chair users.
2. The per­meable nature of the devel­op­ment will mean that people will be able to move across the entire area more effect­ively than is cur­rently the case, where fen­cing cur­rently isol­ates the play area and ground near­er the ponds. Shared use roads lim­it traffic speeds and the out­door access plan sub­mit­ted with the applic­a­tion upgrades the core path route through the site towards Craigel­lach­ie NNR and its path net­work. The Aviemore Orbit­al path shares some of that core path, but will become less clearly defined in the sec­tion that runs north from the lower centre of the site uphill. The route will still be access­ible, and gen­er­ally on improved sur­faces, but requires clear mark­ing and pos­sibly some realign­ment of short sec­tions of path to be effect­ively main­tained and to avoid poten­tial con­flict with occu­pants of the lodges. This detail can be secured by condition.
3. Policy 21: Play, recre­ation and sport of NPF4 and Policy 8: Open Space, Sport and Recre­ation of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 both seek to pro­tect against the loss of val­ued amen­ity areas and play facilities.

4. Some of the activ­it­ies that the site is cur­rently used for will be less likely be pos­sible once the devel­op­ment is com­pleted. The knoll to the north of the site is occa­sion­ally used for organ­ised children’s activ­it­ies and inform­ally used for sledging in winter. There will still be a cent­ral area of open space and slop­ing areas with­in the devel­op­ment once con­struc­ted, that could still be used inform­ally but may be less well used than currently.

5. The play equip­ment area on the site is a private facil­ity but is access­ible to and pop­u­lar with the wider pub­lic too. The applic­ant has stated that they intend to relo­cate the play area to anoth­er part of the land, which makes com­mer­cial sense as it is likely to be pos­it­ive part of their offer­ing to vis­it­ing fam­il­ies. The applic­ant has many suit­able poten­tial loc­a­tions, poten­tially more

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eas­ily access­ible to a wide range of guests and the pub­lic on their land but none are part of this applic­a­tion. Giv­en that the applic­ant has expressed their will­ing­ness to relo­cate the play area to anoth­er site with­in their con­trol, a con­di­tion is recom­men­ded that only allows devel­op­ment of this applic­a­tion once an equi­val­ent play area has been opened else­where on the resort.

1. Sub­ject an appro­pri­ate con­di­tion to ensure paths are appro­pri­ately provided and pro­moted as part of the devel­op­ment and to ensure the relo­ca­tion of the play area, the devel­op­ment is con­sidered to com­ply with Policy 14: Design, qual­ity and place and Policy 21: Play, recre­ation and sport of NPF4 as well as Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing and Policy 8: Open Space, Sport and Recre­ation of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021.

Ser­vi­cing and Access

1. Policy 13: Sus­tain­able Trans­port and Policy 18: Infra­struc­ture first of NPF4 and Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing and Policy 10: Resources of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 require that devel­op­ment sites are suit­able ser­viced, loc­ated where they reduce the need to use cars for travel and if neces­sary, make appro­pri­ate con­tri­bu­tions to essen­tial infra­struc­ture. The site will be served by the pub­lic water sup­ply and con­nec­ted to the pub­lic waste water system.
2. The site is loc­ated in Aviemore, with­in a few minutes’ walk of the train sta­tion and bus routes, though it is acknow­ledged that most vis­it­ors will drive to the site. High­land Council’s Trans­port Plan­ning Team have reques­ted that a developer oblig­a­tion is required to address what they con­sider a short­age of car park­ing that will be used to mon­it­or and man­age traffic con­ges­tion on Grampi­an Road.
3. The Trans­port Plan­ning team have also objec­ted to the pro­pos­als because they don’t con­sider the trip gen­er­a­tion data provided by the applic­ant for the site to be suf­fi­cient to assess the impacts of addi­tion­al traffic on the B9152 (Grampi­an Road). Giv­en that oth­er recent plan­ning applic­a­tions that would increase traffic use of Grampi­an Road (includ­ing the recent applic­a­tion for plan­ning per­mis­sion in prin­ciple for 180 res­id­en­tial units) have not res­ul­ted in sig­ni­fic­ant require­ments for change to the B9152, it is not imme­di­ately clear why the 25 Lodges should have dif­fer­ent impacts in the con­text of the over­all site, its exist­ing uses and oth­er traffic in Aviemore. Nev­er­the­less, a con­di­tion is recom­men­ded to provide an updated traffic impact assess­ment and pro­pos­als and togeth­er with evid­ence of an agreed deliv­ery mech­an­isms with High­land Coun­cil as the trans­port plan­ning author­ity, for any improve­ments required to the off­s­ite road net­work as a res­ult of the traffic impact assess­ment, all to