Item5AABadenochandStrathspeyShortTermLetControlAreaPolicyConsultation

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 5 27/1/2023

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

FOR DECISION

Title: BADENOCH AND STRATH­SPEY SHORT-TERM LET CON­TROL AREA POLICY CONSULTATION

Pre­pared by: Dan Har­ris, Plan­ning Man­ager (For­ward Plan­ning and Ser­vice Improvement)

Pur­pose

1. To inform the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee of High­land Council’s con­sulta­tion on a Draft Non- stat­utory Short-Term Sec­ond­ary Let­ting Plan­ning Policy to accom­pany Short-Term Let Con­trol Areas in High­land and to agree the CNPA’s response to the consultation.

Recom­mend­a­tion

1. That the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee agree to officers sub­mit­ting response to the con­sulta­tion that wel­comes the pro­posed plan­ning policy.

Back­ground

1. Sec­tion 26B of the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning (Scot­land) Act 1997, as amended by The Plan­ning (Scot­land) Act 2019, allows plan­ning author­it­ies to des­ig­nate Short-term Let Con­trol Areas with­in their area.

2. In August 2022, fol­low­ing a detailed con­sid­er­a­tion of the issues and pub­lic con­sulta­tion, The High­land Coun­cil sub­mit­ted a request to Scot­tish Min­is­ter to estab­lish a Short- term Let Con­trol Area cov­er­ing Ward 20: Badenoch and Strath­spey. This request was approved by Scot­tish Min­is­ters in Decem­ber 2022 and there­fore, fol­low­ing the pub­lish­ing of a des­ig­na­tion notice, the Coun­cil may des­ig­nate a Short-term Let Con­trol Area cov­er­ing Ward 20. High­land Council’s State­ment of Reas­ons for the pro­posed Short-term Let Con­trol Area is avail­able here: Short-term Let Con­trol Area | Badenoch and Strath­spey Short-term Let Con­trol Area — State­ment of Reas­ons (high​land​.gov​.uk).

3. Fol­low­ing the des­ig­na­tion of the Con­trol Area, short-term lets with­in Ward 20 will be clas­si­fied as a sep­ar­ate use to a dwell­ing­house and there­fore any pro­posed changes of use to short-term lets will require plan­ning permission.

Draft Non-stat­utory Short-Term Sec­ond­ary Let­ting Plan­ning Policy

1. High­land Coun­cil has developed and is con­sult­ing (to 3 Feb­ru­ary 2023) on a plan­ning policy to deal with changes of use to short-term lets with­in the Con­trol Area. CNPA

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 5 27/1/2023

officers have been involved and sup­por­ted the policy devel­op­ment. The pro­posed plan­ning policy is shown in the box below.

Draft Non-stat­utory Short-Term Sec­ond­ary Let­ting Plan­ning Policy

With­in a Short-term Let Con­trol Area, plan­ning per­mis­sion will not be gran­ted if the devel­op­ment res­ults in the loss of a dwell­ing­house to the short-term sec­ond­ary let sec­tor, except in one of the fol­low­ing circumstances:

1. Where extens­ive refur­bish­ment of a long-term empty dwell­ing­house is pro­posed to bring the build­ing back into act­ive use.
2. The pro­pos­al is for the upper floor(s) above a com­mer­cial unit with­in a defined Town Centre.
3. The pro­pos­al relates to a dwell­ing­house with no few­er than four bed­rooms, as the dwell­ing­house exis­ted at the date of the estab­lish­ment of a short-term let Con­trol Area or as ori­gin­ally built.
4. It is an estab­lished short-term sec­ond­ary let prop­erty in a long-estab­lished dwellinghouse.

All pro­pos­als for short-term sec­ond­ary let­ting should com­ply with the fol­low­ing criteria:

a) The site is with­in 800m of pub­lic trans­port con­nec­tions or act­ive travel link, link­ing to ser­vices and facil­it­ies. If the prop­erty is bey­ond the 800m dis­tance, a Developer Con­tri­bu­tion may be sought to improve act­ive travel and/​or tour­ist vehicu­lar facil­it­ies, in agree­ment with the Coun­cil Trans­port & Act­ive Travel Teams; b) The pro­pos­al avoids cre­at­ing an unac­cept­able det­ri­ment­al impact on the pri­vacy, amen­ity and char­ac­ter of the loc­a­tion and estab­lished uses. The Coun­cil will gen­er­ally not sup­port the change of use of flat­ted prop­er­ties to the short-term sec­ond­ary let sec­tor due to the poten­tial adverse impact on res­id­en­tial amen­ity. c) Suf­fi­cient com­mer­cial waste stor­age space is provided with­in the cur­til­age of the short-term sec­ond­ary let prop­erty and con­sid­er­a­tion is giv­en to the loc­a­tion of the col­lec­tion point for this waste, to the sat­is­fac­tion of the Coun­cil Waste Man­age­ment Team; d) Park­ing pro­vi­sion is in accord­ance with the ​‘Res­id­en­tial Park­ing Stand­ards’ as set out in the Coun­cil ​‘Road & Trans­port Guidelines for New Developments’.

1. The full draft policy and sup­port­ing text are avail­able to view here: Short-term Let Con­trol Area | Draft STL CA Plan­ning Policy Con­sulta­tion Ver­sion (high​land​.gov​.uk).

2. The policy is inten­ded to pro­tect the use of smal­ler dwell­ings and prop­er­ties that are in high demand by those who want to live in the Short-term Let Con­trol Area (cur­rently only Badenoch and Strath­spey). The policy also con­tains cri­ter­ia inten­ded to ensure any short-term let prop­er­ties are adequately ser­viced and avoid sig­ni­fic­ant impacts on pri­vacy, amen­ity and character.

Pro­posed CNPA Con­sulta­tion Response

1. CNPA officers are sat­is­fied that the pro­posed policy cov­ers mat­ters that are rel­ev­ant and would sup­port the imple­ment­a­tion of the Short-term Let Con­trol Area for

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 5 27/1/2023

Badenoch and Strath­spey. The policy includes defin­i­tions to provide clar­ity and is con­sidered appro­pri­ate for the estab­lish­ment of the con­trol area. We recom­mend a simple response from the CNPA that sup­ports the pro­posed plan­ning policy.

Next Steps

1. High­land Coun­cil will con­sider responses to the con­sulta­tion and then final­ise a non- stat­utory plan­ning policy that would be approved and adop­ted through High­land Council’s com­mit­tee struc­ture as the plan­ning author­ity cov­er­ing Badenoch and Strath­spey. At that stage, CNPA officers would bring a paper to the CNPA Plan­ning Com­mit­tee pro­pos­ing adop­tion of the same non-stat­utory policy with­in the Badenoch and Strath­spey part of the Nation­al Park.

2. The non-stat­utory policy or any revised ver­sions would be applied to plan­ning applic­a­tions for short term let uses of dwell­ing houses until the CNPA has pre­pared the next Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (LDP) for the Nation­al Park. That LDP will incor­por­ate plan­ning policy on short-term let­ting and fol­low the stat­utory pro­cesses of the LDP to replace the non-stat­utory policy. It is pos­sible that the form of the policy will change in future fol­low­ing exper­i­ence of imple­ment­a­tion and of mon­it­or­ing the impact of the con­trol area.

Dan Har­ris danharris@​cairngorms.​co.​uk