Item5AACromdaleHousing20200009DET

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 25/06/2021

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

DEVEL­OP­MENT PRO­POSED: Erec­tion of 18 houses (8 afford­able) with asso­ci­ated drain­age and road lay­out at Land North Of Auchroisk Crom­dale Sta­tion Road Crom­dale Highland

REF­ER­ENCE: 2020/0009/DET

APPLIC­ANT: Val­ley Con­struc­tion Services

DATE CALLED-IN: 13 Janu­ary 2020

RECOM­MEND­A­TION: Approve Sub­ject to Conditions

CASE OFFICER: Emma Bryce, Plan­ning Manager

CNPA Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Applic­a­tion Site 0 40 80 160 Meters 00 ains of omdale Auchroisk Pit (dis) N PC Crom­dale Knock CG Mead­ow­field Sta­tion The Old, 186m New Can­nich Crown copy­right and data­base rights 2021. Ord­nance Sur­vey Licence num­ber 100040965 Sandys CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 25/06/2021 Sewage Works FB Track Recre­ation Ground Place Auchroisk Kirk Road 194m A A95 195m Balmen­ac A95 PC A95 197m Crom­dale A95 Tom-An-Uird View. FE 2

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 26/06/2021

SITE DESCRIP­TION, PRO­POS­AL AND HISTORY

Site Descrip­tion

1. Crom­dale is a small set­tle­ment which lies 3km east of Grant­own on Spey in the A95 trunk road which runs through the centre of the vil­lage. It has a cur­rent pop­u­la­tion of approx­im­ately 250 people.

2. The site cov­ers an area of approx­im­ately 1.2 hec­tares and is cur­rently undeveloped agri­cul­tur­al land. Part of the site is an alloc­ated site, HI as iden­ti­fied in the adop­ted Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021, and lies to the north west of the vil­lage. Exist­ing res­id­en­tial devel­op­ments lie to the north-west and south east of the site and it is bounded by Kirk Road (the C1152) to the south. The applic­a­tion site also incor­por­ates a small area of land to the north which will be accessed via a 2 metre wide foot­path. A pro­posed SUDs basin will be loc­ated in this north-west corner with the Spey­side Way adjoin­ing this part of the site bound­ary. The Burn of Crom­dale lies bey­ond to the north east.

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=QEYBR5SI0CH00

Title	Draw­ing Num­ber	Date on Plan*	Date Received
Spe­cific­a­tions — Topo­graph­ic­al Survey	CTCH-J2853-001	24/01/19	13/01/20
Site Plan — Amended Access Junc­tion Lay­out Plan	CTCH-J2844-050	09/02/21	09/02/21
Site Plan	2019 021 – 000 REV G	10/05/21	11/05/21
Site Plan — Trans­port Plan­ning Plan And Statement	2019 021 — 004 REV D	12/08/20	18/02/21
Sec­tions — Site sections	2019 021 – 005 rev d	09/04/19	18/02/21
Plan — Tree Pro­tec­tion Plan	2019 021 – 006 REV A	18/02/21	18/02/21
Pro­posed Floor Plans — Plans (Plots 11,12,13,14,17,18)	2019 021 — 020	06/08/19	18/02/21
Pro­posed Elev­a­tions — Elev­a­tions (Plots 11,12,13,14,17,18)	2019 021 – 021 REV A	06/08/19	18/02/21
Pro­posed Elev­a­tions — Extern­al Views Plots (11,12,13,14,17,18)	2019 021 022 REV A	06/08/19	18/02/21

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 26/06/2021

Pro­posed Floor Plans — Plans (Plots 15,16)	2019 021 — 025	06/08/19	18/02/21
Pro­posed Elev­a­tions — Elev­a­tions (Plots 15,16)	2019 021 — 026 REV A	06/08/19	18/02/21
Pro­posed Elev­a­tions — Extern­al Views (Plots 15,16)	2019 021 — 027 REV A	06/08/19	18/02/21
Pro­posed Floor Plans — Plans And Sec­tions (Plots 7,8,9,10)	2019 021 – 030 REV A	06/08/19	18/02/21
Pro­posed Elev­a­tions — Elev­a­tions (Plots 7,8,9,10)	2019 021 – 031 REV A	06/08/19	18/02/21
Pro­posed Elev­a­tions — Extern­al Views (Plots 15,16)	2019 021 – 032 REV A	06/08/19	18/02/21
Pro­posed Floor Plans — Plans And Sec­tions (Plots 3,4,5,6)	2019 021 — 040 REV A	06/08/19	18/02/21
Pro­posed Elev­a­tions — Elev­a­tions (Plots 3,4,5,6)	2019 021 – 041 REV A	06/08/19	18/02/21
Pro­posed Elev­a­tions — Extern­al Views (Plots 3,4,5,6)	2019 021 – 042 REV A	06/08/19	18/02/21
Pro­posed Floor Plans — Plans And Sec­tions (Plots 1 And 2)	2019 021 – 050	06/08/19	18/02/21
Pro­posed Elev­a­tions — Elev­a­tions (Plots I And 2)	2019 021 – 051 REV A	06/08/19	18/02/21
Pro­posed Elev­a­tions — Extern­al Views (Plots I And 2)	2019 021 – 052 REV A	06/08/19	18/02/21
Plan — Road Lay­out Plan	CTCH-J2844-001 REV D	09/12/19	23/03/21
Plan — Drain­age Lay­out Plan	CTCH-J2844-002 REV C	09/12/19	23/03/21
Sec­tions — Road Lon­git­ud­in­al Sec­tions Sheet I Of 2	CTCH-J2844-003 REV B	09/12/19	23/03/21
Sec­tions — Road Lon­git­ud­in­al Sec­tions Sheet 2 Of 2	CTCH-J2844-004 REV A	09/12/19	23/03/21
Sec­tions — Sur­face Water Sew­er Lon­git­ud­in­al Sec­tions Sheet I	CTCH-J2844-005 REV B	09/12/19	23/03/21
Sec­tions — Foul Sew­er Lon­git­ud­in­al Sections	CTCH-J2844-006 REV B	09/12/19	23/03/21
Sec­tions — Access Junc­tion And Exist­ing Road Improve­ments sheet	CTCH-J2844-007 REV D	09/12/19	23/03/21
Sec­tions — Vehicle Swept Path Ana­lys­is — Sheet		CTCH-J2844-008 REV B	09/12/19	23/03/21
Sec­tions — Vehicle Swept Path Ana­lys­is — Sheet 2	CTCH-J2844-009 REV B	09/12/19	23/03/21

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 26/06/2021

Plan Tri­al Pit Loc­a­tion Plan	CTCH-J2844-010 REV A	09/12/19	23/03/21
Plan — Flood Route Plan	CTCH-J2844-011 REV C	09/12/19	23/03/21
Sec­tions — Junc­tion Vis­ib­il­ity Splay Sections	CTCH-J2844-012 REV B	09/12/19	23/03/21
Sec­tions — Access Junc­tion And Exist­ing Road Improve­ments sheet 2	CTCH-J2844-014	09/12/19	23/03/21

*Where no spe­cif­ic day of month has been provided on the plan, the sys­tem defaults to the Ist of the month.

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

2. The applic­a­tion seeks per­mis­sion for a res­id­en­tial devel­op­ment of 18 houses with asso­ci­ated infra­struc­ture, 8 of which are afford­able. The site will con­sist of 6 detached units, 2 four bed­room dwell­ings and 4 three bed­room dwell­ings. The remainder will be semi — detached prop­er­ties of two and three bedrooms.

3. The dwell­ings will be two storey and will be fin­ished in white wet-dash render with tim­ber clad­ding and grey uPVC. Roof areas will be clad in grey con­crete roof tiles.

4. Vehicu­lar access will via a new junc­tion off Kirk Road. New ped­es­tri­an access will be formed to provide a link to the exist­ing foot­path which runs along the main thor­ough­fare through Crom­dale (the A95). A new foul sew­er pipe will be laid under­neath the pro­posed access roads to col­lect the foul water from each dwell­ing and con­vey it to an exist­ing com­bined sew­er to the east of the site bound­ary. Sur­face water will be col­lec­ted by tra­di­tion­al road gul­lies and a new uPVC sur­face water sew­er which will drain to a pro­posed deten­tion basin which will be loc­ated to the north west of the site. This will be a land­scaped area accessed via a 2 metre wide foot­path which will link into the exist­ing path net­work and the Spey­side Way.

5. A num­ber of sup­port­ing doc­u­ments have been provided as fol­lows: a) Sus­tain­able Design State­ment b) Topo­graph­ic­al Sur­vey c) Con­struc­tion State­ment d) Breed­ing Bird Sur­vey e) Trans­port Plan­ning Plan and State­ment f) Drain­age Impact Assess­ment g) Flood Risk Assess­ment h) Flood Route Plan i) Tree Pro­tec­tion Plan

His­tory

1. There is no rel­ev­ant his­tory for this site.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 26/06/2021

Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al (HRA)

1. A Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al 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 fol­low­ing qual­i­fy­ing interests have Likely Sig­ni­fic­ant Effects which res­ult in con­ser­va­tion object­ives not being met and as such the pos­sib­il­ity of an adverse effect on site integ­rity; River Spey SAC: Otter, Atlantic sal­mon, sea lamprey, fresh water pearl mus­sel (dis­turb­ance and pol­lu­tion dur­ing con­struc­tion phase in par­tic­u­lar the con­struc­tion of the SUDs out­flow and foul drain con­nec­tion, sed­i­ment release from ground works, entrap­ment of spe­cies, dis­turb­ance from recre­ation­al activ­ity of pub­lic). The HRA con­cludes that it is not pos­sible to con­clude that the con­ser­va­tion object­ives would all be met for all of the qual­i­fy­ing interests, how­ever straight­for­ward good prac­tice mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures could be applied to ensure that all the con­ser­va­tion object­ives could be met. The apprais­al requires the inclu­sion of the fol­low­ing plan­ning con­di­tions on any sub­sequent decision notice: the sub­mis­sion of a Spe­cies Pro­tec­tion Plan and appoint­ment of an Eco­lo­gic­al Clerk of Works, the sub­mis­sion of a Con­struc­tion Envir­on­ment­al Man­age­ment Plan.

3. Regard­ing the rel­ev­ant Anagach Woods SPA and the qual­i­fy­ing interest of Caper­cail­lie, the HRA con­cludes that there will not be any likely sig­ni­fic­ant effect to Caper­cail­lie and as such this con­ser­va­tion object­ive of the rel­ev­ant SPA is met.

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 OBLIG­A­TIONS	X

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 26/06/2021

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​0​/​1​1​/​C​N​P​A​-​L​D​P​-​2​0​2​0​-​a​s​-​M​o​d​i​fied- for-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 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

CON­SULTA­TIONS

Sum­mary of the main issues raised by consultees

1. Scot­tish Water have no objec­tion to the pro­pos­als but sug­gest the applic­ant com­pletes a Pre-Devel­op­ment Enquiry form ensur­ing the devel­op­ment can be serviced.

2. NatureScot sug­gest any impacts on the Crom­dale Burn could affect the Spey SAC and SSSI, and there­fore stand­ard best prac­tice should be adhered to dur­ing any con­struc­tion. They also sup­port the HRA and its recom­mend­a­tions under­taken by CNPA.

3. Trans­port Scot­land does not object to the grant­ing of per­mis­sion, how­ever fol­low­ing fur­ther con­sulta­tion on the revised site bound­ary, they now recom­men­ded a con­di­tions requir­ing com­pli­ance with the sub­mit­ted draw­ing detail­ing the foot­path con­nec­tion onto land under their ownership.

4. The High­land Coun­cil Cor­por­ate Address Gaz­etteer Team encour­age the applicant/​agent to sub­mit a request for the nam­ing of a new street in the event that plan­ning per­mis­sion and/​or Roads Con­struc­tion Con­sent are granted.

5. The High­land Coun­cil Con­tam­in­ated Land Officer has no com­ments to make in respect of this application.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 26/06/2021

1. The High­land Coun­cil Flood Risk Man­age­ment Team has reviewed the inform­a­tion provided by the Applic­ant related to flood­ing and drain­age and objects to the applic­a­tion until fur­ther inform­a­tion is sub­mit­ted for review. It has been agreed that this can be addressed through the impos­i­tion of a sus­pens­ive con­di­tion attached to any con­sent gran­ted. They are sat­is­fied that the relo­ca­tion of the SUDs basin and any earth­works are now out­with the floodplain.

2. The High­land Coun­cil Trans­port Plan­ning Team ori­gin­ally objec­ted to the pro­pos­als, how­ever fol­low­ing dis­cus­sions with the applic­ant and the sub­mis­sion of revi­sions to the pro­posed new junc­tion and road lay­out, they have now with­drawn their objec­tions. They wel­come the relo­cated junc­tion and revised lay­out and sup­port the intro­duc­tion of a 20mph speed lim­it along with a traffic calm­ing fea­ture which will alle­vi­ate traffic impacts. They have recom­men­ded that fur­ther con­sid­er­a­tion be giv­en to the lay­out and that if no revised lay­out is sought they recom­mend that any per­mis­sion gran­ted includes a suit­ably worded con­di­tion requir­ing traffic calm­ing details be sub­mit­ted. They wel­come the new 2m wide road­side foot­way along the north east­ern side of Kirk Road.

3. The sub­mit­ted Trans­port Plan­ning Plan and State­ment Draw­ing indic­ates that the nearest bus stops are with­in 300m of the closest house, how­ever, it is sug­ges­ted that some of the houses will be bey­ond the recom­men­ded 400m max­im­um walk­ing dis­tance. Giv­en this, they recom­mend that High­land Coun­cil Pub­lic Trans­port Team are asked to cla­ri­fy what level of fin­an­cial con­tri­bu­tion this devel­op­ment should make towards enhan­cing the avail­ab­il­ity of on-demand pub­lic transport.

4. The newly pro­posed com­bined sur­face water drain­age sys­tem with deten­tion basin and out­flow con­nec­tion to the water­course named Burn of Crom­dale as set out in the revised Drain­age Impact Assess­ment (DIA) is con­sidered to be acceptable.

5. High­land High­life sug­gests facil­it­ies cov­er­ing the Crom­dale area has capa­city to serve the pro­posed num­ber of addi­tion­al res­id­ents which the devel­op­ment would give rise to.

6. The High­land Coun­cil Forestry Officer objects to the pro­posed devel­op­ment. The pro­posed drain­age in the north-east corner is likely to adversely affect some trees and could be redesigned to min­im­ise this impact.

7. Tree pro­tec­tion meas­ures for neigh­bour­ing prop­er­ties is wel­come how­ever the Root Pro­tec­tion Areas have no jus­ti­fic­a­tion of how they were cal­cu­lated and needs to be con­firmed. The applic­ant will need to have a pro­fes­sion­al arbor­i­cul­tur­ist provide a Tree Pro­tec­tion Plan to BS:5837. The tree plant­ing with­in the site is wel­comed how­ever the spe­cies should be broadened to be more appro­pri­ate for the development.

8. CNPA Out­door Access Officer wel­comes the inclu­sion of the path into the vil­lage, and that it will be built to an adopt­able standard.

9. CNPA Eco­logy Advisor states hab­it­at sur­vey work has con­firmed that there are no hab­it­ats of high con­ser­va­tion value with­in the devel­op­ment area and no hab­it­ats asso­ci­ated with GWDTE’s. Hab­it­ats of loc­al con­ser­va­tion value occur with­in the

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 26/06/2021

sur­vey area, but out­with the devel­op­ment foot­print and are not likely to be impacted. Mam­mal sur­vey work con­firms that otter are present and use the Crom­dale Burn. No con­firmed holts were loc­ated but pos­sible rest­ing sites are present upstream of the devel­op­ment. Fur­ther mit­ig­a­tion is required to address impacts on otter dur­ing con­struc­tion. There are issues with the land­scap­ing plan, SUDS design and Tree Pro­tec­tion Plan which need to be addressed.

1. The Crom­dale Burn is adja­cent to the east­ern side of the devel­op­ment and forms part of the River Spey SAC. An HRA is required to assess the impacts of the devel­op­ment on the Crom­dale Burn dur­ing construction.

2. The tree pro­tec­tion plan does not include the trees in the north-east corner beside the pro­posed SUDS scheme and this requires to be addressed. Tree pro­tec­tion is provided for trees adja­cent to the bound­ary where house plots are pro­posed – but this does not appear to have been based on a tree sur­vey or an assess­ment of root pro­tec­tion area.

3. CNPA Land­scape Advisor states the lay­out and high dens­ity of some of the houses would con­trast to the typ­ic­al land­scape pat­tern of the area. Although the dens­ity has been lowered since the ori­gin­al sub­mis­sions it is con­sidered that fur­ther space could be util­ised to lower the dens­ity fur­ther. Tree plant­ing is pro­posed along the North West and North East­ern edges of the site. The sit­ing of these out­with private gar­dens and a com­mit­ment that they will be ​‘main­tained by the factor’ is wel­come, as too are the pro­posed beech hedges which should con­trib­ute pos­it­ively to the loc­al land­scape char­ac­ter. Fur­ther inform­a­tion is required on how these areas of trees and grass­land will be man­aged and maintained.

4. The latest Site and Land­scape Plans show some low level shrub plant­ing and trees but the qual­ity of the land­scape design pro­pos­als for the SuDS remains poor and does not fol­low good prac­tice guid­ance recom­men­ded dur­ing the ini­tial con­sulta­tions for the devel­op­ment. This should be covered by a sus­pens­ive plan­ning condition.

5. Crom­dale Com­munity Coun­cil have not made any com­ments in rela­tion to this application.

REP­RES­ENT­A­TIONS

1. The applic­a­tion was advert­ised when it was ori­gin­ally sub­mit­ted and there were 10 rep­res­ent­a­tions object­ing, 7 in sup­port and I com­ment­ing on the pro­pos­als. Fur­ther con­sulta­tion was under­taken fol­low­ing an amend­ment to the site bound­ary. A fur­ther 3 let­ters of objec­tion have been received from pre­vi­ous respond­ents and one fur­ther com­ment has been received.

2. Cop­ies of all the pub­lic rep­res­ent­a­tions can be found at Appendix 3. The fol­low­ing is a sum­mary of the objec­tions. a) Con­cern regard­ing wheth­er there has been an appro­pri­ate level of con­sulta­tion under­taken with ser­vice pro­viders like NHS Scot­land and the Emer­gency Ser­vices. b) There are con­cerns regard­ing the suit­ab­il­ity of Kirk Road for access­ing a devel­op­ment of this scale.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 26/06/2021

c) The width of Kirk Road and how it is not suit­able to accom­mod­ate increased levels of traffic. d) Hous­ing design and dens­ity pro­posed is not in keep­ing with sim­il­ar prop­er­ties in the area. e) The pro­posed shop with­in the devel­op­ment needs to con­sider what pro­duce it sells to be a viable option for the devel­op­ment and vil­lage as a whole. f) Pro­posed tree and hedge plant­ing will inter­fere with vis­ib­il­ity. g) The sit­ing of the afford­able units will res­ult in over­look­ing and loss of pri­vacy to exist­ing adja­cent prop­er­ties. h) Con­cern regard­ing the pro­posed foot­path along the A95 encroach­ing onto private land. i) The pos­i­tion of exist­ing tele­graph poles where the pro­posed entrance will be. j) The new foot­path will only be half lit which raises secur­ity issues. k) Part of the devel­op­ment will be sited on land out­with the set­tle­ment bound­ary. l) Oth­er points raised have ques­tioned the drain­age plans sub­mit­ted, tree plant­ing plans and pro­tec­tion, the phas­ing of the devel­op­ment giv­en that oth­er devel­op­ment in the area is unfin­ished and the factor­ing of the site.

1. Sup­port for the applic­a­tion has stated that addi­tion­al hous­ing and retail is bene­fi­cial for the vil­lage as a whole.

APPRAIS­AL

Prin­ciple

1. Policy 1: New Hous­ing Devel­op­ment, of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 sup­ports new hous­ing that is loc­ated on an iden­ti­fied alloc­ated site or with­in iden­ti­fied set­tle­ment bound­ary. The site prin­cip­ally lies with­in the bound­ary of the alloc­ated site, HI as iden­ti­fied in the adop­ted loc­al plan. The pro­posed dwell­ings will all be sited with­in the bound­ary of the allocation.

2. Policy 1.5 seeks to ensure devel­op­ments provide 25% afford­able hous­ing pro­vi­sion. In this instance 8 of the pro­posed 18 units will be afford­able homes and as such com­plies with this policy cri­ter­ia and meets the require­ments of Policy 1.

3. The prin­ciple of the pro­posed res­id­en­tial devel­op­ment is con­sidered to be accept­able sub­ject to com­pli­ance with oth­er rel­ev­ant Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan policies.

Lay­out, Amen­ity and Design

1. 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 encour­ages 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 the cent­ral spine road and ter­min­at­ing a small cul-de-sac which will accom­mod­ate the afford­able units. The site lies between exist­ing res­id­en­tial devel­op­ments and the pro­posed lay­out and dens­ity respects that of the adja­cent devel­op­ment. The pro­posed SUDs basin will be

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 26/06/2021

loc­ated in a dip to the north of the site adja­cent to the Crom­dale Burn and Spey­side Way tak­ing into con­sid­er­a­tion the more open and pas­tor­al part of the site. The pro­pos­als are con­sidered to com­ply with Policies I and 3 in this respect.

1. In terms of res­id­en­tial amen­ity Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 seeks to ensure that new devel­op­ment pro­tects the amen­ity cur­rently enjoyed by neigh­bours and affords suf­fi­cient private amen­ity ground and off street park­ing. Each prop­erty will be set with­in reas­on­ably sized plots with 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 has its own private garden and car park­ing pro­vi­sion. The pro­pos­al there­fore com­plies with Policy 3 in this respect.

2. Finally in terms of design, Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 requires that all new devel­op­ment deliv­ers high stand­ards of design and place­mak­ing that con­trib­utes to mak­ing a sense of place and improves qual­ity of life. It should min­im­ise the effect of cli­mate change and make sus­tain­able use of resources. The pro­posed dwell­ings will be a mix of detached and semi-detached, two storey dwell­ings which will incor­por­ate tra­di­tion­al pro­por­tions, fea­tures and fin­ish­ing mater­i­als with a ten­ure blind approach to the afford­able units, ensur­ing the are not dis­tin­guish­able from the open mar­ket units. 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 an open field with exist­ing res­id­en­tial devel­op­ment to either side. It is in close prox­im­ity to the Spey­side Way and the Crom­dale Burn and is read­ily vis­ible from wider views approach­ing Crom­dale from the A95, Kirk Road and from the Spey­side Way. The pro­posed dens­ity of 18 units on the site, giv­en the alloc­a­tion recom­mends 20 units, is con­sidered accept­able. There have been sev­er­al amend­ments to the scheme and it is recog­nised the applic­ants have endeav­oured to address ori­gin­al con­cerns regard­ing the pro­posed lay­out and land­scap­ing. Addi­tion­al trees are now pro­posed along the north-west and east­ern edges of the site and beech hedging is now pro­posed for the main plot bound­ar­ies. A play park and amen­ity space are also included in the pro­pos­als to the east of the site.

3. The CNPA Land­scape Officer has wel­comed a num­ber of changes, how­ever, remains con­cerned that the pro­posed devel­op­ment does not fit with the exist­ing loc­al land­scape char­ac­ter. They are con­cerned in par­tic­u­lar about the pro­posed SUDs in that its design does not fol­low good prac­tice guid­ance and there­fore does not enhance the land­scape char­ac­ter of this area. They recom­mend a sus­pens­ive con­di­tion requir­ing the redesign of this ele­ment to ensure it fully responds to the loc­al landscape

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 26/06/2021

char­ac­ter, ties in with the topo­graphy of the site – includ­ing the steep knoll to the east of the dis­used rail­way – and incor­por­ates care­fully selec­ted plant species.

1. Sub­ject to suit­ably worded con­di­tions to ensure the prop­er estab­lish­ment and long term man­age­ment of the pro­posed land­scap­ing scheme and for a fully redesigned SUDs scheme the 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 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.

2. The site lies adja­cent to the Crom­dale Burn which forms part of the River Spey SAC and there­fore a Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al has been under­taken by CNPA to assess any impacts on the qual­i­fy­ing interests. NatureScot has been con­sul­ted and are in agree­ment 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 the sub­mis­sion of a Spe­cies Pro­tec­tion Plan and the appoint­ment of a suit­ably qual­i­fied Eco­lo­gic­al Clerk of Works to over­see its imple­ment­a­tion and the sub­mis­sion and approv­al of a Con­struc­tion Envir­on­ment­al Man­age­ment Plan

3. Fol­low­ing ini­tial con­cerns regard­ing the level of sur­vey work that had been under­taken, a num­ber of sur­veys have been car­ried out by the applic­ant in rela­tion to pro­tec­ted spe­cies and these are wel­comed. The CNPA Eco­logy Advisor also has raised con­cern regard­ing the pro­posed design of the SuDS deten­tion basin not fol­low­ing good prac­tice guidelines. They do not sup­port it in its cur­rent form, recom­mend­ing it is redesigned to take account of and com­ple­ment the exist­ing land­form, intro­du­cing a more semi- nat­ur­al fea­ture with water and appro­pri­ate veget­a­tion. They are also con­cerned about tree pro­tec­tion meas­ures and recom­mend a more detailed tree survey.

4. Sub­ject to the impos­i­tion of these recom­men­ded con­di­tions, the pro­posed devel­op­ment will com­ply with the terms of Policy 4 of the Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021.

Flood­ing and Sur­face Water Drainage

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.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 26/06/2021

1. The High­land Coun­cil Flood Risk Man­age­ment Team object to the pro­pos­als on the grounds that there is insuf­fi­cient evid­ence and inform­a­tion regard­ing the siz­ing of the basin and the post devel­op­ment sur­face water dis­charge rates. It has been agreed that this can be addressed through the impos­i­tion of a con­di­tion requir­ing a sub­mis­sion and approv­al of a final drain­age design with cal­cu­la­tions con­firm­ing that all storms up to and includ­ing the 200 year plus cli­mate change event will be accom­mod­ated with­in the pro­posed basin.

2. Sub­ject to this con­di­tion the pro­posed devel­op­ment is con­sidered to com­ply with Policy 10: Resources of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021.

Access and Servicing

1. 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. A pro­posed path now links the devel­op­ment with an exist­ing foot­way which runs along the main thor­ough­fare through the vil­lage (the A95). The new foot­way will adjoin an exist­ing foot­way on land which is under the own­er­ship of Trans­port Scot­land, who have raised no objec­tions to this. A new road­side foot­way along the north east­ern side of the site con­nects to the access with the Old Sta­tion. The Trans­port Plan­ning Team ini­tially raised objec­tions to the lay­out, how­ever, a revised lay­out, provides a sat­is­fact­ory lay­out allow­ing for vehicle man­oeuv­rab­il­ity and the free move­ment of ped­es­tri­ans. They wel­come the intro­duc­tion of a traffic calm­ing fea­ture which com­prises a raised table, how­ever recom­mend a con­di­tion requir­ing fur­ther traffic calm­ing meas­ures to ensure the speed lim­its are restric­ted with­in the development.

3. Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing also states that all new devel­op­ment must include an appro­pri­ate means of access, egress and space for off street park­ing. There was con­cern regard­ing the pro­posed new access from the C1152 Kirk Road and the impact of this on the safety of users of the new junc­tion. The vehicu­lar access has been reposi­tioned with exten­ded vis­ib­il­ity splays and the pro­posed intro­duc­tion of a 20mph speed lim­it with­in the vicin­ity of the access, with the cur­rent 30mph speed lim­it being moved fur­ther north bey­ond the old bridge over the former rail­way. The Coun­cil are sup­port­ive of this and recom­mend details of this be sub­mit­ted for approv­al to ensure the appro­pri­ate Traffic Reg­u­la­tion Order and Traffic Calm­ing meas­ures can be imple­men­ted pri­or to the occu­pa­tion of the devel­op­ment. Pro­posed park­ing pro­vi­sion for each plot is con­sidered suf­fi­cient and accords with the Council’s guidelines.

4. Sub­ject to the recom­men­ded con­di­tions it is con­sidered that the pro­pos­als com­ply with Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021.

Infra­struc­ture and 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

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 26/06/2021

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.

1. No fur­ther improve­ments to exist­ing edu­ca­tion, ser­vices and facil­it­ies have been iden­ti­fied there­fore there is no require­ment for the applic­ants to make any con­tri­bu­tions in this instance.

Oth­er Issues Raised in Con­sulta­tions and Representations

1. All rel­ev­ant issues raised by con­sul­tees and third parties have been addressed above. Any oth­er mat­ters raised are not mater­i­al in the determ­in­a­tion of this application.

CON­CLU­SION

1. The applic­a­tion is for new hous­ing on an alloc­ated site with­in an iden­ti­fied set­tle­ment. The site is con­sidered cap­able of being developed and ser­viced without any sig­ni­fic­ant land­scape or envir­on­ment­al impacts sub­ject to the recom­men­ded con­di­tions. Any remain­ing points of detail that have not been suf­fi­ciently addressed will be resolved through the impos­i­tion of appro­pri­ate con­di­tions. Sub­ject to these recom­men­ded con­di­tions the pro­posed devel­op­ment is con­sidered to com­ply with the policies con­tained with­in the adop­ted Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan and approv­al is there­fore recommended.

RECOM­MEND­A­TION

That Mem­bers of the Com­mit­tee sup­port a recom­mend­a­tion to APPROVE the erec­tion of 18 houses (8 afford­able) with asso­ci­ated drain­age and road lay­out at land north of Auchroisk Crom­dale Sta­tion Road Crom­dale High­land 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 a fully detailed land­scap­ing scheme both hard and soft land­scap­ing pro­pos­als and the future main­ten­ance and man­age­ment of the pro­posed scheme has been sub­mit­ted to and approved in writ­ing by the Cairngorms National