Item5AABoatofGartenAffHousing20210115DET

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 24/09/2021

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

DEVEL­OP­MENT PRO­POSED: Erec­tion of four res­id­en­tial units At Land 35M South Of The Snipe, 3 Deshar Court, Boat Of Garten

REF­ER­ENCE: 2021/0115/PPP

APPLIC­ANT: The Com­munity Hous­ing Trust.

DATE CALLED-IN: 12 April 2021

RECOM­MEND­A­TION: Approve Sub­ject to Conditions

CASE OFFICER: Alan Atkins, Plan­ning Officer

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CNPA Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Applic­a­tion Site ר 05 10 20 Meters Boat f Garten AN 수 Pol Sta จ PO N と L Brack CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 24/09/2021 th (um) ε The Snipe Crown copy­right and data­base rights 2021. Ord­nance Sur­vey Licence num­ber 100040965 A 5 6 F Ter Cuilalunn Cot­tage Glena TL 2

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 24/09/2021

SITE DESCRIP­TION, PRO­POS­AL AND HISTORY

Site Descrip­tion

1. The site relates to a 0.27 hec­tares area of land, which lies 35m south of The Snipe, 3 Deshar Court, Boat of Garten. The site is gently slop­ing, in a corner of land imme­di­ately out­side the set­tle­ment bound­ary of Boat of Garten, with a fall from north to south. The site is green­field, and is cur­rently util­ised as man­aged woodland.

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=QO9NSXSI0CH00

Title	Draw­ing Num­ber	Date on Plan*	Date Received
Plans
Plan — Loc­a­tion Plan	03	01/03/2021	12/04/2021
Plan — Site Plan	01 Rev D	01/03/2021	12/04/2021
Tree Pro­tec­tion Plan	Rev A	09/03/2021	12/04/2021
Sup­port­ing Documentation
Oth­er — Drain­age Impact	3564 Issue. I	09/03/2021	12/04/2021
Assess­ment.
Oth­er — Design Statement		09/10/2020	12/04/2021
Oth­er — Private Access Checklist		08/03/2021	12/04/2021
Oth­er — Arbor­i­cul­tur­al Impact		04/03/2020	12/04/2021
Assessment/​Meth­od Statement
Oth­er — Pro­tec­ted Terrestrial		01/07/2021	05/08/2021
Mam­mal Sur­vey Report
Oth­er — Com­munit­ies Trust			24/06/2021
Afford­able Hous­ing Statement

1. This applic­a­tion seeks plan­ning per­mis­sion in prin­ciple for the erec­tion of 4 dwell­ing houses with asso­ci­ated access, ser­vi­cing arrange­ments and land­scap­ing works. It is pro­posed to devel­op four res­id­en­tial units, two self — build plots (detached units) and two semi – detached afford­able units. An indic­at­ive site lay­out has been sub­mit­ted show­ing the access arrange­ments and a short cul-de-sac with two houses to each side.

2. Regard­ing drain­age, the site is in the catch­ment of the River Spey, but, giv­en the enclosed nature of the site, there is no nat­ur­al run-off to a water course. Any sur­face water run-off will dis­charge from the site by infilt­ra­tion, and onto adjoin­ing land. There are exist­ing sew­ers loc­ated in Strath­spey Park, but it is not neces­sary for them to be diver­ted to accom­mod­ate the pro­posed hous­ing lay­out. Waste water sew­ers will be con­struc­ted for each pro­posed dwell­ing, and these will con­nect to the exist­ing sewer

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 24/09/2021

1. in Strath­spey Park. The access road will dis­charge water to a soakaway, loc­ated in an area of open space, away from the dwellings.

Vehicu­lar access is pro­posed from the north east of the site. The new access road will con­nect to the exist­ing Strath­spey Road, which is cur­rently a cul-de-sac, link­ing to the C1128 Boat of Garten Rd/​Deshar Road. A total of 8 park­ing spaces are pro­posed with­in the site to serve the dwell­ings, with spaces sited with­in the cur­til­ages of the dwell­ings. A ped­es­tri­an access link is pro­posed to be con­struc­ted through the site join­ing the exist­ing foot­path to the north. This will provide links to The Snipe and Strath­spey Road.

1. The applic­a­tion is sup­por­ted by the fol­low­ing inform­a­tion: a) Design State­ment: out­lines the eth­os behind the chosen design solu­tions for the devel­op­ment. b) Afford­able Hous­ing State­ment: this provides a com­pre­hens­ive jus­ti­fic­a­tion for the devel­op­ment of this par­tic­u­lar site. The Com­munit­ies Hous­ing Trust (the applic­ants) explains the back­ground to the choice of site, explains the loc­al hous­ing need and the arrange­ments for the deliv­ery of the afford­able units. It also addresses pos­sible impacts on travel and exist­ing path net­work, arbor­i­cul­ture, eco­logy and the envir­on­ment. c) Drain­age Impact Assess­ment: details the exist­ing drain­age arrange­ments and pro­posed drain­age design for new con­nec­tions to the site. d) Arbor­i­cul­tur­al Impact Assessment/​Methodology State­ment: includes a full sur­vey of all exist­ing trees on the site. Implic­a­tions of the pro­posed devel­op­ment and tree man­age­ment and pro­tec­tion meas­ures are addressed through an Arbor­i­cul­tur­al Meth­od Statement.

2. Plans of the pro­pos­al are included with­in Appendix 1.

His­tory

1. There is no rel­ev­ant plan­ning his­tory for this site.

Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Appraisal

1. A Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al (HRA) has been under­taken to con­sider the effects of the pro­pos­al upon the net­work of Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Areas (SPA) des­ig­nated for caper­cail­lie. The HRA con­cludes that the con­ser­va­tion object­ives for the qual­i­fy­ing interests of the SPA sites will not be com­prom­ised by the pro­posed devel­op­ment and that there is no effect on integ­rity of the sites. NatureScot have agreed with the find­ings of the HRA and that there will be no sig­ni­fic­ant increase in dis­turb­ance risk to caper­cail­lie and there­fore no adverse effect on site integ­rity for these European sites. A copy of the HRA is avail­able to view in Appendix 2.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 24/09/2021

DEVEL­OP­MENT PLAN CONTEXT

Policies

Nation­al Policy	Scot­tish Plan­ning Policy 2014
Stra­tegic Policy	Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2017 – 2022
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 I	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 DESIGN OF DIGIT­AL COM­MU­NIC­A­TIONS EQUIPMENT
POLICY 7	RENEW­ABLE ENERGY
POLICY 8	OPEN SPACE, SPORT AND RECREATION
POLICY 9	CUL­TUR­AL HERITAGE
POLICY 10	RESOURCES	X
POLICY 11	DEVELOPER CON­TRI­BU­TIONS	X

1. All new devel­op­ment pro­pos­als require to be assessed in rela­tion to policies con­tained in the adop­ted Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan. The full word­ing of policies can be found 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​-​2​0​2​1​-​w​e​b.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 I	New Hous­ing Devel­op­ment Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance (2015)	X
Policy 2	Sup­port­ing Eco­nom­ic Growth Non-Stat­utory Guidance
Policy 3	Sus­tain­able Design Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance (2015)	X
Policy 4	Nat­ur­al Her­it­age Sup­ple­ment­ary Guidance	X
Policy 5	Land­scape Non-Stat­utory Guidance	X
Policy 7	Renew­able Energy Sup­ple­ment­ary 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 Con­tri­bu­tions Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance (2015)	X

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 24/09/2021

CON­SULTA­TIONS

Sum­mary of the Main Issues Raised by Consultees

1. Scot­tish Water has no objec­tions to the pro­posed devel­op­ment, but can advise that it will be neces­sary to sub­mit a Pre- Devel­op­ment Enquiry (PDE) Form dir­ectly to Scot­tish Water in order that a full capa­city apprais­al of the site can be car­ried out.

2. High­land Coun­cil Trans­port Plan­ning Team note that a form­al applic­a­tion for Strath­spey Park to become a pub­licly adop­ted road is required. There­fore, a suit­ably worded con­di­tion should be included requir­ing this and cla­ri­fy­ing that the road will require a form­al Road Con­struc­tion Con­sent (RCC) applic­a­tion to High­land Council.

3. The pro­posed lay­out includes a new road­side foot­way into the site. This does not appear to con­nect dir­ectly with the exist­ing foot­way along Strath­spey Park. There­fore, a suit­ably worded con­di­tion should be included, requir­ing the arrange­ments for con­nect­ing the foot­way in this devel­op­ment with the exist­ing foot­way to be sub­mit­ted to and approved by the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity, in con­sulta­tion with High­land Coun­cil Trans­port Plan­ning Team.

4. It is also recom­men­ded that suit­ably worded con­di­tions should be included requir­ing details of the park­ing pro­vi­sion (with a min­im­um of 2 park­ing spaces per dwell­ing) and a dimen­sioned road lay­out with suit­able vehicle tracks for refuse col­lec­tion should be sub­mit­ted to and approved by the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity, in con­sulta­tion with The High­land Coun­cil Trans­port Plan­ning Team.

5. There is a form­al objec­tion to the pro­pos­als by the High­land Coun­cil Trans­port Plan­ning Team in response to the sub­mit­ted Drain­age Impact Assess­ment and pro­posed soakaway. Fur­ther inform­a­tion is required in order to cla­ri­fy emer­gency over­flow arrange­ments for the pro­posed infilt­ra­tion trench.

6. There is a form­al objec­tion from the High­land Coun­cil Trans­port Plan­ning Team in response to the sub­mit­ted SuDS details. It is not clear wheth­er the SuDS arrange­ments meet the require­ments of SuDS Manu­al. Con­firm­a­tion is required from SEPA that they do not have any issues with the cur­rent pro­posed arrangement.

7. A suit­ably worded con­di­tion should be included, requir­ing that the sur­face water drain­age, and SuDS meas­ures for the pro­posed new road should be sub­mit­ted to and for the approv­al of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity, in con­sulta­tion with the High­land Coun­cil Trans­port Plan­ning Team.

8. High­land Coun­cil Forestry Officer objects to the pro­posed devel­op­ment due to loss of wood­land. No Tree Con­straints Plan has been sub­mit­ted des­pite it being referred to in the Applic­a­tion. This should be sub­mit­ted in sup­port of the applic­a­tion. The Tree Pro­tec­tion Plan (TPP) shows two areas of tree reten­tions on site, but these are rel­at­ively small in com­par­is­on with the over­all wood­land area of the site. The TPP also shows fur­ther small areas of pro­tec­tion for trees out with the site, how­ever not all trees just out­side the site have been shown on the TPP there­fore the impact could be great­er than indic­ated. There is no spe­cific­a­tion of the site bound­ary and this could

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 24/09/2021

leave the tree pro­tec­tion bar­ri­ers as dis­con­nec­ted frag­ments. The tree pro­tec­tion bar­ri­ers need to be con­nec­ted to ensure no con­struc­tion activ­ity is under­taken in the RPAs of retained trees. The TPP does not show the exist­ing foot­path along the north­ern side of the site and shown on Site Plan. The tree pro­tec­tion pro­pos­als on the TPP would con­flict with this path and so the TPP would need to be revised to address this. The Design State­ment notes that… ​‘Tree con­straints and pro­tec­tion issues are covered in the attached Arboreal Impact Assess­ment’. The issues are how­ever not addressed. The AlA iden­ti­fies the sig­ni­fic­ant impact the devel­op­ment will have on trees and offers pro­tec­tion for small areas of trees on and around the site. How­ever, there are only indic­at­ive tree plant­ing pro­pos­als on-site and no off-site tree plant­ing pro­pos­als. Both on and off-site plant­ing would be required to adequately com­pensate for the extent of wood­land loss pro­posed, in order to com­ply with the Con­trol of Wood­land Remov­al policy.

1. High­land Coun­cil Floods Team has no objec­tions to the pro­posed development.

2. CNPA Eco­logy Officer states that if the applic­a­tion is sup­por­ted, the fol­low­ing are required at full plan­ning stage: a) Sur­veys for pro­tec­ted anim­als on, and around, the site; b) A land­scape plan, detail­ing pro­pos­als for tree plant­ing, and seed mixes for the infilt­ra­tion bed, for eco­lo­gic­al bene­fit; c) Details of any cut and fill required to level the site, and any impacts that this may have on trees adja­cent to the site; d) Details of com­pens­a­tion, includ­ing man­age­ment details for the pro­posed enhance­ment of the adjoin­ing wood­lands (will require off – site arrange­ments); e) An Arbor­i­cul­tur­al Impact Assess­ment, and Tree Pro­tec­tion Plan are required at full plan­ning stage; and f) A detailed land­scape plan will be required at full plan­ning stage. Land­scap­ing for the roads soakaway must include a nat­ive spe­cies rich seed mix. Full details of pro­posed on site tree plant­ing must be provided.

3. CNPA Land­scape Officer states that the devel­op­ment would change the land­scape char­ac­ter of the site through the loss of trees and the encroach­ment into the wood­land of the built up area. The scale of the devel­op­ment is small and the effect would not be sig­ni­fic­ant on the wider wood­land and vil­lage land­scape. Recent devel­op­ment has already pushed back the wood­land edge. The indic­at­ive lay­out would intro­duce a poor access to the wood­land and there­fore con­sid­er­a­tion should be giv­en to this. The loss of wood­land cov­er is sig­ni­fic­ant for the site, how­ever this would be neg­li­gible for the wider village.

4. If the applic­a­tion is to be sup­por­ted the fol­low­ing inform­a­tion and changes are required to be con­di­tioned for sub­mis­sion at a later stage and pri­or to final determ­in­a­tion of the details for the site: a) Change the path lay­out and fence to improve the exper­i­ence of enter­ing (and exit­ing) the wood­land it is recom­men­ded that the lay­out is revised to take the rear gar­dens up to the exist­ing ones and allow access along the road side. At the point of entry into the wood­land an attract­ive fence and pos­sibly gate along with appro­pri­ate land­scape could be provided to improve this threshold. Sim­il­arly on the east­ern side where the access path is close to the existing

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 24/09/2021

fence line. This should be allowed more space and a sim­il­ar entrance fea­ture provided;

b) Landscape plan – a landscape plan should be provided to show how the site will

be planted. This must include street trees and in addi­tion trees and plant­ing in adja­cent ​‘blue land’ areas. Plant­ing must reflect the nat­ur­al set­ting and fea­ture nat­ive spe­cies extens­ively; and

c) Possible changes to tree protection plan – if the layout changes in any way the

tree pro­tec­tion plan may need to be redesigned accordingly.

1. CNPA Out­door Access Officer notes that the devel­op­ment will impact on Core Path LBS69 and access rights. The lay­out of the devel­op­ment will ensure access can con­tin­ue to the woods from Deshar Court. How­ever, it is not clear how access will be main­tained along Core Path LBS69. Details of how this route will be accom­mod­ated around the site bound­ary should be provided. The path must be no less than 1.5m wide and be fully sur­faced. A main­ten­ance plan for the path should also be included.

2. Boat of Garten Com­munity Coun­cil sup­ports this application.

REP­RES­ENT­A­TIONS

1. There have been nine­teen let­ters of objec­tion sub­mit­ted. Cop­ies of the pub­lic responses can be viewed in Appendix 3. The main points of objec­tion are sum­mar­ised as fol­lows: a) The pro­posed devel­op­ment will lead to a loss of pri­vacy for neigh­bour­ing prop­er­ties. b) The pro­posed devel­op­ment is con­trary to Policy I of The Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan. c) The pro­posed devel­op­ment site is not an iden­ti­fied, alloc­ated site. d) The devel­op­ment site is out with the iden­ti­fied set­tle­ment bound­ary. e) The pro­posed devel­op­ment will res­ult in adverse effects on the loc­al wild­life, and pro­tec­ted areas. f) The pro­posed devel­op­ment is likely to have an adverse impact on the loc­al paths net­work. g) The visu­al appear­ance of the pro­posed devel­op­ment is not in – keep­ing with the loc­al area.

2. The RSPB have sub­mit­ted com­ments and state that there will be likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects on Caper­cail­lie, as a qual­i­fy­ing fea­ture of the Aber­nethy Forest SPA, Craigmore Wood SPA, Kin­veachy Forest SPA, and Cairngorms SPA. Insuf­fi­cient inform­a­tion has been provided to allow any assess­ment of the impacts on Caper­cail­lie, oth­er pro­tec­ted spe­cies and areas.

APPRAIS­AL

1. The main plan­ning con­sid­er­a­tions are con­sidered to be: the prin­ciple of devel­op­ment; the impact upon the land­scape; envir­on­ment­al impacts; ser­vi­cing and access; and developer contributions.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 24/09/2021

Prin­ciple of Development

1. Policy 1: New Hous­ing Devel­op­ment of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 sup­ports new hous­ing devel­op­ment only where it is loc­ated with­in an iden­ti­fied set­tle­ment bound­ary sub­ject to that devel­op­ment meet­ing the require­ments for the set­tle­ment and rein­for­cing and enhan­cing the char­ac­ter of the set­tle­ment. This site, how­ever lies just out with the set­tle­ment boundary.

2. Boat of Garten is a small thriv­ing com­munity, how­ever, giv­en envir­on­ment­al con­straints, no new hous­ing alloc­a­tions have been iden­ti­fied with­in the vil­lage. It is, how­ever recog­nised there is a need for small scale hous­ing oppor­tun­it­ies to meet loc­al need, in par­tic­u­lar afford­able hous­ing and com­munity owned hous­ing and this is echoed in the set­tle­ment object­ives set out with­in the adop­ted Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021.

3. Policy 1: New Hous­ing Devel­op­ment of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 nor­mally seeks the pro­vi­sion of afford­able hous­ing with­in devel­op­ment schemes of at least 25% of the devel­op­ment. In this case the pro­pos­al is for 50% afford­able hous­ing pro­vi­sion. How­ever, where hous­ing is pro­posed in loc­a­tions that would not nor­mally be sup­por­ted, policy requires 100% afford­able hous­ing pro­vi­sion where jus­ti­fied. It is recog­nised that there are excep­tion­al cases where the deliv­ery of 100% afford­able hous­ing is not viable, and as such a lim­ited amount of open mar­ket hous­ing may be sup­por­ted to cross-sub­sid­ise the afford­able hous­ing. How­ever, evid­ence must be provided that shows: a) the whole devel­op­ment com­prises a min­im­um of two afford­able houses; b) the open mar­ket ele­ment is the min­im­um required to provide the neces­sary sub­sidy to facil­it­ate the devel­op­ment of the afford­able ele­ment; and c) the afford­able hous­ing could not be delivered without the input of the sub­sidy provided by the open mar­ket ele­ment of the proposal.

4. This applic­a­tion is for a small scale devel­op­ment which has been put for­ward for con­sid­er­a­tion by the Com­munity Hous­ing Trust on behalf of the Boat of Garten com­munity to provide 4 new dwell­ings, 2 of which will be afford­able units. Sup­port­ing inform­a­tion has been provided by the Com­munity Hous­ing Trust which con­firms that the deliv­ery of two homes for afford­able rent in this pro­pos­al would not be pos­sible without using a cross sub­sidy mod­el, using both pub­lic and private fund­ing. In this case using the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment Rur­al Hous­ing Fund and an agree­ment with the Reidhaven Trust to sell the land to C.H.T. for £1, for the bene­fit of the community.

5. The doc­u­ment con­firms that it was iden­ti­fied that there was a lack of afford­able ren­ted accom­mod­a­tion for older people in Boat of Garten, and this applic­a­tion will provide 2 wheel­chair access­ible bun­ga­lows, aimed at alle­vi­at­ing that iden­ti­fied need. The 2 afford­able dwell­ings will be ren­ted at the social rent level, as set by the Scot­tish Government.

6. The prin­ciple of hous­ing on this site in this instance is con­sidered to be accept­able in terms of Policy I: New Hous­ing Devel­op­ment, sub­ject to com­pli­ance with oth­er rel­ev­ant Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan policies.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 24/09/2021

Land­scape Impacts

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. Devel­op­ment that does not com­ple­ment or enhance the land­scape char­ac­ter of the Nation­al Park and the set­ting of the pro­posed devel­op­ment will be per­mit­ted only where: a) any sig­ni­fic­ant adverse effects on the spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies of the Nation­al Park are clearly out­weighed by social or eco­nom­ic bene­fits of nation­al import­ance; and b) all the adverse effects on the set­ting of the pro­posed devel­op­ment have been min­im­ised and mit­ig­ated through appro­pri­ate sit­ing, lay­out, scale, design and con­struc­tion to the sat­is­fac­tion of the plan­ning authority.

2. The pro­pos­al will res­ult in the loss of approx­im­ately 50 birch and pine trees, some of which are mature or semi mature, and which form an out­er edge to the wider wood­land. The reten­tion of a few lar­ger trees is wel­comed and this will off­set some of the impact, how­ever the remov­al of this num­ber of trees will alter the char­ac­ter of the site and its rela­tion­ship to the rest of the wood­land. Indeed the site will change from its cur­rent wood­land char­ac­ter, albeit dis­turbed wood­land, to an exten­sion of the village’s hous­ing area. There will be small reduc­tion in the amen­ity of those prop­er­ties imme­di­ately adja­cent, how­ever, the devel­op­ment is small in scale and the effect will be neg­li­gible for the wider vil­lage. The site slopes from north to south, and fur­ther tree loss may be required, depend­ing on the level of cut and fill required for the site.

3. An Arbor­i­cul­tur­al Impact Assess­ment, a Tree Pro­tec­tion Plan and a Wood­land Com­pens­a­tion and Plant­ing Plan have been sub­mit­ted in sup­port of the applic­a­tion. These doc­u­ments aim to address the pro­posed loss of the wood­land through appro­pri­ate mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures to ensure the safety and pro­tec­tion of trees being retained on site and in the adja­cent wood­land and sub­sequent com­pens­at­ory plant­ing. Not­with­stand­ing this, a fully detailed Land­scape Main­ten­ance and Man­age­ment Plan would be required at any detailed plan­ning applic­a­tion stage. This would have to include details on how the site would be planted and how the pro­posed plant­ing would reflect the nat­ur­al set­ting and extens­ively fea­ture nat­ive spe­cies. Con­sid­er­a­tion would also have to be giv­en to appro­pri­ate street plant­ing. This would ensure a high qual­ity scheme is delivered which will help min­im­ise poten­tial impacts.

4. The pro­posed devel­op­ment of four houses will deliv­er two afford­able homes, in an area where there is a demon­strable loc­al need. It is con­sidered that in this instance, the eco­nom­ic and social bene­fits of address­ing this loc­al need for afford­able hous­ing out­weighs the poten­tial impact on the loc­al land­scape char­ac­ter. The pro­posed loss of trees will res­ult in a change in the char­ac­ter and appear­ance of this part of the wood­land with mar­gin­al encroach­ment into the wood­land of the built up area. How­ever, giv­en this is a very small scale devel­op­ment, its dir­ect impacts will be con­fined solely to the site, and will not have a sig­ni­fic­ant adverse impact on the char­ac­ter of the wider wood­land or the spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies of the Nation­al Park. Fur­ther­more, poten­tial land­scape impacts can be mit­ig­ated by ensur­ing robust tree pro­tec­tion and land­scape man­age­ment meas­ures are in place which will aim to

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 24/09/2021

address the loss of wood­land char­ac­ter and ensure the safety and pro­tec­tion of both the retained wood­land and the pro­posed and future landscape.

1. Sub­ject to an appro­pri­ate land­scape man­age­ment and main­ten­ance régime which includes com­pens­at­ory plant­ing, the pro­pos­al is con­sidered cap­able of com­ply­ing with Policy 5: Land­scape of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021.

Envir­on­ment­al Issues — Des­ig­nated Sites and Pro­tec­ted Species

1. Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Her­it­age of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 seeks to ensure that there is no adverse impact upon des­ig­nated areas, pro­tec­ted spe­cies or biod­iversity whilst Policy 10: Resources sets out the need to fully con­sider impacts on flood­ing and water resources.

2. Although the baseline is a wood­land, with small areas of open space, the CNPA Eco­logy Officer con­firms that, giv­en the prox­im­ity of pro­tec­ted sites, there are, poten­tial eco­lo­gic­al issues, with par­tic­u­lar ref­er­ence to badgers and red squir­rels. The pro­posed devel­op­ment is con­sidered to have con­nectiv­ity with the Aber­nethy Forest SPA, Craigmore Wood SPA and Kin­veachy Forest SPA and there­fore a Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al (HRA) was required. The HRA (Appendix 2) con­cluded that the con­ser­va­tion object­ives for the qual­i­fy­ing interests would not be com­prom­ised by the pro­posed devel­op­ment. NatureScot were con­sul­ted on the HRA and agreed with its find­ings, in that there would be no sig­ni­fic­ant increase in dis­turb­ance risk to Caper­cail­lie and no adverse effect on site integ­rity for Capercaillie.

3. The hab­it­ats with­in the site have poten­tial to sup­port pro­tec­ted mam­mals, in par­tic­u­lar to provide nest­ing oppor­tun­it­ies for red squir­rel and for­aging badgers. A Ter­restri­al Mam­mals Sur­vey Report has been sub­mit­ted which has determ­ined which pro­tec­ted mam­mals are using the site and hab­it­ats with­in dis­turb­ance dis­tance, par­tic­u­larly red squir­rel and badger.

4. There is poten­tial for the pro­pos­al to impact on red squir­rels and fur­ther sur­vey work would be required to con­firm drey use before any tree felling takes place. A Spe­cies Pro­tec­tion Plan for red squir­rels will be required to be under­taken detail­ing the neces­sary sur­vey work and mit­ig­a­tion required.

5. In terms of breed­ing birds, no sur­vey inform­a­tion is required as the site is heav­ily dis­turbed and is unlikely to provide sig­ni­fic­ant nest­ing hab­it­at. Avoid­ance of tree felling dur­ing the peri­od from Feb­ru­ary until Septem­ber will avoid dis­turb­ance to any birds breed­ing in the applic­a­tion site.

6. At present, it is not clear wheth­er the SUDs arrange­ments meet the require­ments of the guid­ance as con­tained with­in the CIRIA SUDs Manu­al. As such, con­firm­a­tion is required from SEPA that they do not have any issues with the cur­rent pro­posed drain­age arrangement.

7. The design of the SUDs scheme for the site will determ­ine the level of impact that the pro­posed devel­op­ment may have on the site. There­fore, details of the SUDS pro­vi­sion will be required at a detailed plan­ning applic­a­tion stage.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 24/09/2021

1. Sub­ject to the inclu­sion of the recom­men­ded sus­pens­ive con­di­tions, the pro­pos­al is con­sidered to com­ply with Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Her­it­age and Policy 10: Resources of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 with regards to its impact on the des­ig­nated areas, pro­tec­ted spe­cies and the water environment.

Envir­on­ment­al Issues – Woodland

1. Policy 4.3: Wood­land of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 states that wood­land remov­al for devel­op­ment will only be per­mit­ted where it com­plies with the Scot­tish Government’s Policy on the Con­trol of Wood­land Remov­al and where remov­al of the wood­land would achieve clearly defined addi­tion­al pub­lic bene­fits. The policy goes on to state there is a strong pre­sump­tion against remov­al of ancient semi-nat­ur­al wood­land, includ­ing sites in the Ancient Wood­land Invent­ory, which is con­sidered to be an irre­place­able resource.

2. The High­land Coun­cil Forestry Officer has objec­ted to the pro­pos­als due to the loss of wood­land. They seek fur­ther tree pro­tec­tion meas­ures and com­pens­at­ory plant­ing both on and off the site. In this instance, the small area of wood­land, which is the sub­ject of this applic­a­tion, is not with­in the Ancient Wood­land Invent­ory and is con­sidered to not sig­ni­fic­antly con­trib­ute to the exist­ing wider wood­land area. Its eco­lo­gic­al value can be pro­tec­ted through the imple­ment­a­tion of appro­pri­ate mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures. Fur­ther­more, as dis­cussed pre­vi­ously, its remov­al will res­ult in a clear social gain for the loc­al area. It is con­sidered that rel­ev­ant forestry issues can be addressed at a detailed plan­ning applic­a­tion stage. The pro­pos­al is, there­fore, con­sidered cap­able of com­ply­ing with Policy 4.3: Wood­land of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan.

Ser­vi­cing and Access

1. Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing and Policy 10: Resources of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 set out the need for new devel­op­ment to be sat­is­fact­or­ily ser­viced and without harm to resources or the environment.

2. A Drain­age Impact Assess­ment has been sub­mit­ted and the Council’s Flood Risk Man­age­ment team are sat­is­fied with the pro­posed drain­age arrange­ments. Sur­face water will be stored in areas of per­meable block pav­ing and gravel soakaways. Scot­tish Water has no objec­tions but require the applic­ant to sub­mit a form­al applic­a­tion to them fol­low­ing the grant­ing of any per­mis­sion to review capacity.

3. The High­land Coun­cil Trans­port Plan­ning team have raised objec­tions to the pro­posed use of soakaway SuDS fea­tures unless there is a viable emer­gency over­flow arrange­ment in place. They also do not sup­port the pro­posed use of infilt­ra­tion trenches and state that a SuDS arrange­ment needs to meet the require­ments of the CIRIA SUDS Manu­al or that SEPA con­firms they have no con­cerns with the treat­ment arrange­ments as pro­posed. As such they recom­mend that a suit­ably worded con­di­tion requir­ing the sur­face water drain­age and SuDS meas­ures for the pro­posed road be sub­mit­ted for sub­sequent approval.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 24/09/2021

1. In view of their com­ments it is there­fore con­sidered that with the inclu­sion of a rel­ev­ant and suit­ably worded con­di­tion, the pro­posed sur­face water and foul water drain­age meas­ures are con­sidered to be cap­able of com­ply­ing with Policy 10: Resources of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021.

2. Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 states that all new devel­op­ment must include an appro­pri­ate means of access, egress and space for off street park­ing. The devel­op­ment will be sat­is­fact­or­ily accessed by a new access road, which will link into the exist­ing pub­lic routes, Strath­spey Park.

3. The site will be accessed via Strath­spey Park, which runs off the main Deshar Road (C1128). The Trans­port Team notes that this is cur­rently a private road, how­ever if it is to serve an addi­tion­al four dwell­ings, the road will be required to be pub­licly adop­ted by the Loc­al Author­ity. The extent of road requir­ing adop­tion would have to include the new roads infra­struc­ture pro­posed to serve the new dwell­ings. There is adequate off street vehicu­lar park­ing pro­vi­sion to serve the scheme although a min­im­um of 2 spaces per dwell­ing will be required at the detailed plan­ning stage. The intern­al road lay­out is based on one access road, with a turn­ing point, which links to Strath­spey Park, and a new foot­way. It is unclear how the new foot­way will con­nect with the exist­ing foot­way on Strath­spey Park and there­fore, a con­di­tion is recom­men­ded requir­ing details of the pro­posed con­nec­tion of the new foot­way to the exist­ing one on Strath­spey Park. Fur­ther details are also required to demon­strate dimen­sioned road lay­out with suit­able vehicle tracks for refuse col­lec­tion wagon.

4. It is con­sidered that with appro­pri­ate con­di­tions applied to this applic­a­tion for plan­ning per­mis­sion in prin­ciple, the pro­pos­al com­plies with Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021.

Developer Con­tri­bu­tions

1. Policy 11: Developer Oblig­a­tions of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 states that where devel­op­ment cre­ates a need to increase or improve pub­lic ser­vices, facil­it­ies or infra­struc­ture, or mit­ig­ate adverse effects, the developer will be required to make a fair and reas­on­able con­tri­bu­tion in cash or in kind towards addi­tion­al costs or require­ments. The pro­posed devel­op­ment will not have a sig­ni­fic­ant effect on any infra­struc­ture or facil­it­ies in the loc­al area.

Oth­er Issues Raised in Con­sulta­tions and Representations

1. The applic­a­tion is for plan­ning per­mis­sion in prin­ciple and as such all details, includ­ing design and extern­al fin­ishes will be con­sidered at the detailed plan­ning applic­a­tion stage. All oth­er mat­ters raised by con­sul­tees and third parties have been addressed above.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 24/09/2021

CON­CLU­SION

1. This small unal­loc­ated site lies just out­side the set­tle­ment bound­ary and is cur­rently an area of dis­turbed wood­land. The intro­duc­tion of hous­ing on this site will ful­fil an iden­ti­fied loc­al hous­ing need which will bene­fit the loc­al com­munity through the pro­vi­sion of both self-build and social rent units. Any iden­ti­fied issues and points of detail that have not been suf­fi­ciently addressed at this stage will be resolved through the impos­i­tion of suit­able con­di­tions as detailed in the para­graphs above. Sub­ject to these recom­men­ded con­di­tions, the pro­posed devel­op­ment is con­sidered to com­ply with the policies con­tained with­in the adop­ted Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 and approv­al is there­fore recommended.

RECOM­MEND­A­TION

That Mem­bers of the Com­mit­tee sup­port a recom­mend­a­tion to Approve the applic­a­tion for Plan­ning Per­mis­sion in Prin­ciple for the Erec­tion of four res­id­en­tial units at Land 35M South Of The Snipe, 3 Deshar Court, Boat Of Garten sub­ject to the fol­low­ing conditions:

Those con­di­tions lis­ted below in bold text are sus­pens­ive con­di­tions, which require to be dis­charged pri­or to imple­ment­a­tion of the development.

Con­di­tions

1. No devel­op­ment shall com­mence on site until the fol­low­ing details are sub­mit­ted to and approved in writ­ing by the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity, act­ing as Plan­ning Author­ity, in con­sulta­tion with the High­land Coun­cil, where appropriate:

   a) Design, siting/​location and extern­al appear­ance of build­ings, open space and any oth­er struc­tures; b) Detailed plan of the pro­posed lay­out of build­ings and all ancil­lary devel­op­ment (includ­ing drain­age pro­vi­sion and SUDs) on a con­tour base plan to demon­strate a good fit with land­form and loc­al hydro­logy; c) Exist­ing and fin­ished ground levels in rela­tion to Ord­nance Datum with site sec­tions to demon­strate them in rela­tion to the site and sur­round­ing areas; d) Detailed spe­cific­a­tion of all extern­al mater­i­als – note: samples may be required; e) Detailed land­scap­ing plan with full spe­cific­a­tion for on-site and any off site plant­ing. All spe­cies should be nat­ive, typ­ic­al of the area, and of loc­al proven­ance. Details of any cut / fill required to level the site should also be included. This must include street trees and in addi­tion trees and plant­ing in adja­cent ​‘blue land’ areas. The Land­scape Plan shall be imple­men­ted in full dur­ing the first plant­ing sea­son fol­low­ing com­mence­ment of devel­op­ment; f) Long term land­scape main­ten­ance sched­ule and man­age­ment plan for all plant­ing areas;

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 24/09/2021

g) Tree sur­vey, Arbor­i­cul­tur­al Impact Assess­ment and Tree Pro­tec­tion Plan for the site in accord­ance with BS8537. The tree pro­tec­tion meas­ures shall be imple­men­ted in full in accord­ance with the details of the approved tree pro­tec­tion plan pri­or to the com­mence­ment of devel­op­ment. (NB. There may be changes to the tree pro­tec­tion plan — if the lay­out changes in any way the tree pro­tec­tion plan may need to be redesigned accord­ingly); h) Eco­lo­gic­al sur­veys, for pro­tec­ted anim­als in and around the site, and spe­cies pro­tec­tion plans (where rel­ev­ant) for red squir­rel and badger; i) Bound­ary treat­ments includ­ing design, height and mater­i­als; j) Access arrangements,