Item5AAFillingStation20180043DET

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 5 22/03/2019

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

DEVEL­OP­MENT PROPOSED:

Erec­tion of 28 apart­ments with asso­ci­ated works (amended design) at Devel­op­ment Site On Former Filling Sta­tion Grampi­an Road Aviemore Highland

REF­ER­ENCE: 2018/0043/DET

APPLIC­ANT: Cairngorm Res­id­en­tial Ltd

DATE CALLED-IN: 25 Janu­ary 2018

RECOM­MEND­A­TION: Refuse

CASE OFFICER: Kath­er­ine Don­nach­ie, Plan­ning Officer

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CNPA Plan­ning Committee

Applic­a­tion Site 0 40 80 Meters 160 Reserved Highland

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 5 22/03/2019

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 5 22/03/2019

SITE DESCRIP­TION, PRO­POS­AL AND HISTORY

Site Descrip­tion

1. The pro­posed site is loc­ated to the west of Grampi­an Road in the south­ern part of Aviemore and on the main approach into the set­tle­ment from the south. To the south west is the Youth Hostel set back from the pub­lic road and to the west is the grounds of the Aviemore High­land Resort, with wood­land with­in that com­plex sep­ar­at­ing the site from the hol­i­day lodges of the wider resort.

2. On the oppos­ite (east) side of the pub­lic road is the Perth- Inverness main rail­way line, and imme­di­ately to the north of the site is a single storey chip shop build­ing with hous­ing at Grampi­an Court fur­ther north. This hous­ing ranges in height from 2 ¹⁄₂ storey at the front to 3 storey at the rear.

3. In the wider area to the south is the main round­about entrance to Aviemore with the B970 road branch­ing off south east to Coylumbridge and Rothiemurchus. A recently approved hotel is under con­struc­tion at this corner entrance on the east side of Grampi­an Road to the north of the round­about. The exist­ing High Range motel is loc­ated to the south set back from the pub­lic road.

4. The site was pre­vi­ously occu­pied by a filling sta­tion until the 1990s along with an out­door shop/​café build­ing in the north­ern part of site which was recently demol­ished. There are two access points to the site at present. The north­ern entrance provided access and park­ing to the former café/​shop busi­ness and the south­ern entrance serves access to inform­al park­ing areas and to the south­ern end of the High­land Resort to the west.

5. The site is level at the front beside Grampi­an Road with a wooded embank­ment to the rear (west) sep­ar­at­ing the site from the Aviemore High­land Resort land­hold­ing. The wood­land on the bank­ing is lis­ted in the Ancient Wood­land Invent­ory, though much of the embank­ment appears to have been re-graded in the past with nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion seeded from the High­land resort site estab­lish­ing much of the tree cov­er on the applic­a­tion site. The trees with­in the High­land Resort land hold­ing are covered by a Tree Pre­ser­va­tion Order. There is a small island of trees in the middle of the pro­posed site on the level part front­ing Grampi­an Road.

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​l​i​n​e​-​a​p​p​l​i​c​a​t​i​o​n​s​/​a​p​p​l​i​c​a​t​i​o​n​D​e​t​a​i​l​s​.​d​o​?​a​c​t​i​v​e​T​a​b​=​s​u​m​m​a​r​y​&​k​e​y​V​a​l​=​P​3​D​F​I​T​S​I​0BY00

Title	Draw­ing Num­ber	Date on Plan*	Date Received
Site Plan over­marked with pre­vi­ous proposals	0602016/A002 revi­sion Q	09/11/18

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 5 22/03/2019

Title	Draw­ing Num­ber	Date on Plan*	Date Received
Street elev­a­tions over­marked with pre­vi­ous proposals	0602010/A0010 revi­sion D	09/11/18
Over­view Plan­ning State­ment by Rydens		Nov 2018
Pro­posed Floor Plans — Block A Floor Plans	0602018/A 100 Revi­sion D	04/10/18
Pro­posed Floor Plans — Block B Floor Plans	0602016/A 101 Revi­sion D	06/03/17
Pro­posed Floor Plans — Block C Floor Plans	0602016/A 107 Revi­sion A	04/10/18
Pro­posed Floor Plans — Block D Floor Plans	0602016/A 108	Nov 17
Pro­posed Elev­a­tions — Block A Elev­a­tion Plan	0602016/A 200 Revi­sion E	01/11/18
Pro­posed Elev­a­tions — Block B Elev­a­tion Plan	0602016/A 201 Revi­sion E	01/11/18
Pro­posed Elev­a­tions — Block C Elev­a­tion Plan	0602016/A 203 revi­sion B	01/11/18
Pro­posed Elev­a­tions — Block D Elev­a­tion Plan	0602016/A 204 Revi­sion B	01/11/18
Street Elev­a­tions with and without forest to rear of site	0602010/A0010 revi­sion C	08/11/18
Car Port Section	0602016/A 301 Revi­sion C	13/04/18
Plan — Refuse Build­ing Plan	0602016/A 400 Revi­sion B	01/11/18
Loc­a­tion Plan — Loc­a­tion Plan	0602016/A 001B	05/02/18	Needs updated new layout
Site Plan — Site Lay­out Plan	0602016/A 002 Revi­sion P	01/11/18
Land­scap­ing — Tree Con­straints Plan	0602016/A 005 Revi­sion J	01/11/18
Tree Pro­tec­tion Plan	0602016/A 006 Revi­sion D	01/11/18
Sec­tions — Cross sec­tions A‑A and B‑B	0602016/A 302 Revi­sion D	04/10/18
Sec­tions — Cross Sec­tion C‑C and D‑D	0602016/A 303 Revi­sion A	04/10/18
Infra­struc­ture — Road Lay­out Plan	902 REV 3	21/11/18
Infra­struc­ture — Kerb Lay­out Plan	903 Rev 3	21/11/18
Infra­struc­ture — Swept Path Analysis	904	05/02/18
Infra­struc­ture — Drain­age Lay­out Plan	905 Rev 2	21/11/18
Infra­struc­ture — Road Con­struc­tion Details Sheet I	906 REV I	05/02/18
Infra­struc­ture Road	907 REV I	05/02/18

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 5 22/03/2019

Title	Draw­ing Num­ber	Date on Plan*	Date Received
Con­struc­tion Details Sheet 2	CTCH-1544 – 001 REV A	05/02/18
Land­scap­ing — Topo­graphy Plan	HLD K319.17/SL-01 REV E	01/11/18
Land­scap­ing — soft land­scap­ing proposals
Soft Land­scape Man­age­ment and Main­ten­ance Régime		01/11/18
Man­age­ment of Wood­land Integ­rity Statement		20/12/19
Oth­er — Bat and Bird Survey		05/02/18
Oth­er — Design Statement		Updated Nov 18
Developer Con­tri­bu­tions Afford­able Hous­ing Allocation
Oth­er — Red Squir­rel Survey		05/02/18
Oth­er — Soil Gas Sur­vey Report		05/02/18
Tree Sur­vey Assess­ment and Arbor­i­cul­tur­al Implic­a­tions Assessment		28/10/18
Oth­er — Tree Sur­vey Arbor­i­cul­tur­al Assessment		05/02/18
Oth­er — Tree Sur­vey Arbor­i­cul­tur­al Assess­ment appendix III		05/02/18
Oth­er — Drain­age Statement		05/02/18
Developer Con­tri­bu­tions Afford­able Hous­ing Allocation			01/06/18
Agent’s Response to Forestry Com­ments and Visualisations			27/02/19
Agent’s Response to Con­sulta­tion Comments			13/02/19

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

1. This applic­a­tion seeks per­mis­sion for the erec­tion of twenty eight res­id­en­tial units arranged in four sep­ar­ate blocks as shown in the site plan attached as Appendix I Plans. When the applic­a­tion was ori­gin­ally sub­mit­ted it was pro­posed to erect 32 units with­in four blocks.

2. Fol­low­ing ongo­ing dis­cus­sions over a pro­trac­ted peri­od (and in response to con­cerns raised by the Plan­ning Ser­vice regard­ing the scale of the pro­pos­als and the impact on trees) a com­plete pack­age of revised plans and inform­a­tion was sub­mit­ted by the end of Decem­ber 2018. These revi­sions reduced the scale of two of the ori­gin­ally pro­posed blocks (Blocks A and C) by a storey each, res­ult­ing in loss of four units and a reduced car park­ing require­ment whereby a group of exist­ing mature Scots pine trees in the south west of the site are now pro­posed for reten­tion, with a new retain­ing wall to the rear of the new hous­ing now pro­posed to be built in short sec­tions, using sheet pil­ing, to min­im­ise dis­turb­ance to the bank and trees to the rear

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 5 22/03/2019

(west) of the site. Plans show­ing the changes com­pared to the ori­gin­al sub­mis­sion are con­tained in Appendix I- Plans.

1. Block A is now a 3 ¹⁄₂ storey (top storey attic accom­mod­a­tion) block of six flats as com­pared to eight before. Block B is a 4 ¹⁄₂ storey block of six flats unchanged from pre­vi­ous sub­mis­sion oth­er than fen­es­tra­tion and detail­ing changes. Block C is a ³⁄₂ storey (top storey attic accom­mod­a­tion) block of six flats as com­pared to eight before, and Block D is a 42 storey block of six flats unchanged from pre­vi­ous sub­mis­sion. Elev­a­tions of the pro­posed units are included in Appendix I – Plans and these include glazed entrance areas. All units will be accessed from the rear (west) where the entrance doors will be loc­ated. Pro­posed fin­ishes are roof tiles, white render walls, tim­ber effect fibre cement clad­ding and alu­mini­um clad tim­ber windows.

2. Grass roofed car parking/​car port areas includ­ing ver­tic­al rack bike stor­age is pro­posed to the rear (west) of the flats cut into the wooded embank­ment with a retain­ing wall of just over 4 metres high pro­posed to con­tain this pro­posed park­ing areas. It is inten­ded that this grassed area will provide a visu­al trans­ition to the wood­land behind as well as amen­ity pro­vi­sion for res­id­ents and eco­lo­gic­al bene­fits. Sec­tions show­ing this are included in Appendix I- Plans. Covered bin stor­age is also pro­posed to the rear of the flats and bin col­lec­tion will be privately factored. A total of 43 park­ing spaces will be provided at the rear of the flats includ­ing the covered park­ing. This will be accessed via a cent­rally loc­ated upgraded access point onto Grampi­an Road. Pro­vi­sion is pro­posed for vis­it­or bicycle storage.

3. It was ori­gin­ally pro­posed to provide a bio­mass heat­ing build­ing also, but that has been removed and elec­tric­al stor­age heat­ers and pass­ive sol­ar gain from the south facing elev­a­tions are pro­posed instead togeth­er with build­ing to mod­ern energy effi­ciency standards.

4. Sur­face water will be dis­posed of though a sys­tem of soakaways under roads and under open space with­in the site. Con­nec­tion is pro­posed to pub­lic water and drain­age sup­plies and the applic­ants have had ini­tial dis­cus­sions with Scot­tish Water in this regard.

5. There is no afford­able hous­ing pro­posed on the site. Instead it is pro­posed to provide off site afford­able hous­ing at Slug­gan Drive off Dal­faber Drive in Aviemore. A sup­port­ing doc­u­ment from the applic­ants explains that the High­land Coun­cil Hous­ing Ser­vice agreed in 2017 to accept an over­pro­vi­sion of afford­able on that site as being on off-site con­tri­bu­tion for the 25% required from this devel­op­ment. The High­land Coun­cil pre­ferred to have cot­tage flat units at Slug­gan Drive than flats at this site.

6. The revised sub­mis­sion was duly re-advert­ised, neigh­bours and inter­ested parties re-noti­fied and rel­ev­ant con­sul­tees re-con­sul­ted in Janu­ary 2019.

7. The revised sub­mis­sion included the fol­low­ing mater­i­al: a) Over­view plan­ning state­ment explain­ing the plan­ning his­tory of the site and how the devel­op­ment has evolved in response to issues raised by the

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 5 22/03/2019

His­tory

1. Plan­ning Author­ity. This state­ment is attached in Appendix 2 — Applic­ants’ sup­port­ing information. b) Tree Pro­tec­tion Plan- out­lining that of the 370 trees sur­veyed on the site 159 will be retained and 211 removed. A tree con­straints plan detail­ing the qual­ity of trees has also been sub­mit­ted, togeth­er with a Tree Sur­vey and Arbor­i­cul­tur­al Implic­a­tions Assess­ment. c) Wood­land man­age­ment state­ment. d) Design State­ment which includes explan­a­tion of the his­tory of the pre­vi­ous com­mer­cial uses on the site and how the applic­ant has approached the design on this con­strained site. e) Developer Con­tri­bu­tions Afford­able Hous­ing Alloc­a­tion state­ment. f) More recently a state­ment respond­ing to con­cerns from con­sul­tees on tree reten­tion issues. This out­lines pro­pos­als to pro­tect trees dur­ing con­struc­tion of the retain­ing wall for the car port and sets out pro­pos­als for com­pens­at­ory plant­ing near Kin­gussie to com­pensate for tree loss. This state­ment is attached in Appendix 2: Applic­ants’ sup­port­ing information.

Plan­ning his­tory for the site includes: a) The excav­a­tion and regrad­ing of bank slope, (with­drawn) 97/00048/FULBS. b) Out­line applic­a­tion for ​‘drive through’ fast-food retail, refused by Loc­al Author­ity (98/00117/OUTBS on the basis that it rep­res­en­ted unac­cept­able over­de­vel­op­ment, in par­tic­u­lar the earth­works to the slope which would have res­ul­ted in the loss of mature and regen­er­at­ing trees with inad­equate space left for replace­ment tree plant­ing. c) Out­line plan­ning per­mis­sion gran­ted for (04/414/CP) the erec­tion of a retail unit and 8 flats on the cent­ral part of the cur­rent applic­a­tion site in Janu­ary 2006 by the CNPA fol­low­ing revi­sions to address park­ing con­cerns and to address how to min­im­ise impacts on slope and trees. d) Erec­tion of 8 flats and retail devel­op­ment ‑Approv­al of Reserved Mat­ters approved by CNPA (06/086/CP) in June 2006 for devel­op­ment of tim­ber clad stepped build­ings on the site. e) Applic­a­tion under sec­tion 42 to vary con­di­tion I of plan­ning per­mis­sion ref­er­ence num­ber 06/0062/FULBS (CNPA Approv­al 06/086/CP) to extend the above approv­al by 15 months (10/413/CP) Con­sent was gran­ted by the CNPA and a fur­ther applic­a­tion to extend the time peri­od by three more years was gran­ted in May 2012 (2012/00050/DET) This has since expired. f) Erec­tion of 32 No. Apart­ments arranged in 4 four storey blocks with asso­ci­ated park­ing, com­munity heat­ing and power unit includ­ing new access onto Grampi­an Road was with­drawn in order to address con­cerns raised by officers and con­sul­tees (2017/0198/DET). g) Pre applic­a­tion advice was also provided in 2016 by the High­land Coun­cil with input from the CNPA advising that the site was con­sidered suit­able for res­id­en­tial devel­op­ment in principle.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 5 22/03/2019

DEVEL­OP­MENT PLAN CONTEXT

Policies

Nation­al Policy	Scot­tish Plan­ning Policy 2014 Cre­at­ing Places Design­ing Streets
Stra­tegic Policy	Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2017 — 2022
Loc­al Plan Policy	Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (2015) 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 X
POLICY 3	SUS­TAIN­ABLE DESIGN X
POLICY 4	NAT­UR­AL HER­IT­AGE X
POLICY 5	LAND­SCAPE X
POLICY 6	THE SIT­ING AND DESIGN OF DIGIT­AL COM­MU­NIC­A­TIONS EQUIPMENT
POLICY 7	RENEW­ABLE ENERGY X
POLICY 8	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: http://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​u​p​l​o​a​d​s​/​d​o​c​u​m​e​n​t​s​/Park Authority/Planning/LDP15.pdf

2. The site is loc­ated with­in the Aviemore set­tle­ment state­ment as con­tained in the 2015 Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan and has no spe­cif­ic des­ig­na­tion. The sup­port­ing text to the set­tle­ment state­ment out­lines that with­in the vil­lage res­id­ents would like to bring nature into the built envir­on­ment and improve the pub­lic realm with a stated object­ive being to improve the envir­on­ment of the vil­lage with more land­scap­ing and enhance­ments to the pub­lic realm. Gen­er­al design guid­ance is provided which high­lights that new devel­op­ment should ensure that the qual­ity of the sur­round­ing wood­land valu­able hab­it­ats is not com­prom­ised and this should include improve­ments to the wood­land set­ting and struc­ture for Aviemore. The need to reflect exist­ing hous­ing devel­op­ment in terms of pos­i­tions, dens­ity and scale is also highlighted.

3. Land dir­ectly adja­cent to the west of the applic­a­tion site is included in the approved Aviemore High­land Resort (AHR) Devel­op­ment Brief which sets out that this area forms part of green net­works and link­ages. The guid­ance for this piece of the resort land­hold­ing high­lights that wood­land is a key struc­tur­al ele­ment in the AHR land­scape and Aviemore as a whole, with oppor­tun­it­ies to retain and expand

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 5 22/03/2019

wood­land to be max­im­ised wherever pos­sible par­tic­u­larly where it would enhance and con­nect the net­work of green spaces through­out the site and sup­port biod­iversity. The cur­rent applic­a­tion site is noted on the over­view plan as a poten­tial mixed devel­op­ment area adjoin­ing the AHR site.

1. The CNPA is cur­rently con­sult­ing on the Pro­posed Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2020 and at present this has no addi­tion­al mater­i­al­ity with regard to decision mak­ing for this cur­rent application.

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 X
Policy 2	Sup­port­ing Eco­nom­ic Growth Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance X
Policy 3	Sus­tain­able Design Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance X
Policy 4	Nat­ur­al Her­it­age Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance X
Policy 5	Land­scape Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance X
Policy 7	Renew­able Energy Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance X
Policy 8	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. Net­work Rail con­firm that there are no impacts on rail­way infra­struc­ture and have no comments.

2. Scot­tish Nat­ur­al Her­it­age was con­sul­ted in rela­tion to any poten­tial impacts on NATURA sites and SSSIs in the area and have advised that there are nat­ur­al her­it­age interests of inter­na­tion­al import­ance close to the site, namely Kin­veachy and Cairngorms Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Areas des­ig­nated for their breed­ing Caper­cail­lie interests. They con­sider that the pro­pos­als are likely to have a sig­ni­fic­ant effect on these interests whereby it is neces­sary for the Plan­ning Author­ity to under­take an Appro­pri­ate Assess­ment of the impacts.

3. To assist with this work SNH advised that in their opin­ion the devel­op­ment will not adversely affect these interests in view of the small scale of the devel­op­ment in rela­tion to the pop­u­la­tion of Aviemore as a whole; the small increase in vis­it­ors com­pared to num­bers already recre­at­ing in the area; the loc­a­tion with­in Aviemore in an area already well used by vis­it­ors; and the exist­ing pro­vi­sion of suit­able recre­ation­al routes which avoid sens­it­ive hab­it­ats in the area which are eas­ily access­ible from the development.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 5 22/03/2019

1. Scot­tish Water was con­sul­ted and has not respon­ded to date.

2. Roy­al Soci­ety for the Pro­tec­tion of Birds (RSPB) was con­sul­ted by the Loc­al Author­ity and advised that they had no view on the mer­its of the pro­pos­al. How­ever they wished to high­light that the pro­posed devel­op­ment is with­in con­veni­ent walk­ing, cyc­ling and driv­ing dis­tance of sev­er­al woods that sup­port Caper­cail­lie whereby it could lead to increased recre­ation­al usage with poten­tial for dis­turb­ance to Caper­cail­lie. The Soci­ety has high­lighted its con­cern regard­ing cumu­lat­ive impacts of hous­ing devel­op­ments in Spey­side and con­sider it is neces­sary for a Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tion Apprais­al to be under­taken to determ­ine the impacts on the con­ser­va­tion object­ives of the des­ig­nated sites.

3. High­land Coun­cil Envir­on­ment­al Health was con­sul­ted in view of the ori­gin­al pro­pos­al for bio­mass unit no response has been received to date and this ele­ment of the devel­op­ment has now been removed.

4. High­land Coun­cil Flood Risk Man­age­ment Team ini­tially objec­ted due to the lack of inform­a­tion with regards to the man­age­ment of sur­face water. On receipt of fur­ther inform­a­tion the Team advised that they accept the pro­posed drain­age design on the basis that the design­er is sat­is­fied that the tests were under­taken cor­rectly as there is lim­ited inform­a­tion in this regard. Con­di­tions are reques­ted to secure (1) sup­port­ing cal­cu­la­tions to demon­strate that suf­fi­cient stor­age to accom­mod­ate the I in 200 year cli­mate change event is being provided and (2) details of the named factor and main­ten­ance for the drain­age system.

5. High­land Coun­cil Forestry Officer com­men­ted on the ori­gin­al sub­mis­sion high­light­ing that a tree pro­tec­tion plan would be required, and rais­ing con­cern that the lay­out did not take account of exist­ing wood­land with the tree sur­vey com­pleted after the design was final­ised. The scale of wood­land loss (great­er than 0.1ha)meant that the Scot­tish Government’s Con­trol of Wood­land Remov­al Policy applied which pre­sumes in favour of pro­tect­ing wood­land, with remov­al only per­mit­ted where it would achieve sig­ni­fic­ant and clearly defined addi­tion­al pub­lic bene­fits and com­pens­at­ory plant­ing provided.

6. On sub­mis­sion of addi­tion­al inform­a­tion the Officer high­lighted a num­ber of points of lack of clar­ity in the sub­mis­sion. The officer noted that out of the 376 trees iden­ti­fied in the sur­veys, only 46 were to be retained and these did not appear to be the best qual­ity trees but rather were in pos­i­tions where they could be retained whilst bet­ter qual­ity trees were to be removed to facil­it­ate the devel­op­ment. Con­cern was also raised that felling of lar­ger pines with­in the site would expose many of the retained pines togeth­er with oth­er trees out­with the site and lying with­in the bound­ary of the Tree Pre­ser­va­tion Area to the west in the Mac­don­ald Resort land­hold­ing. No com­pens­at­ory plant­ing is pro­posed oth­er than with­in the site and the works required for the retain­ing wall at the rear of the site would almost cer­tainly res­ult in more tree loss.

7. The officer con­cluded that the pro­pos­al would have a highly sig­ni­fic­ant effect on exist­ing trees/​woodland on site, an adverse impact on the land­scape with replant­ing pro­pos­als inad­equate to com­pensate for pro­posed tree loss. Fur­ther­more con­cern was raised that the pro­pos­als would impact on the over­all integ­rity of the woodland

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 5 22/03/2019

which is lis­ted in the ancient wood­land invent­ory and do not pro­tect and enhance ancient semi nat­ur­al wood­land as required by policy. The officer there­fore recom­men­ded that the scale of wood­land loss be greatly reduced to retain mature Cat­egory A and B pine trees and iden­ti­fied on plan the area con­sidered to be develop­able on site.

1. A site meet­ing was held with the applic­ants, the Forestry Officer and CNPA staff to dis­cuss how these con­cerns could be addressed and the applic­ants sub­mit­ted the revised sub­mis­sion which is now being con­sidered. At this time the applic­ants were asked to recon­sider the lay­out with a view to pro­tect­ing trees, min­im­ising tree loss and provid­ing suf­fi­cient com­pens­at­ory and mit­ig­a­tion plant­ing, togeth­er with details of how they inten­ded to deliv­er the devel­op­ment without adverse impacts on trees par­tic­u­larly in rela­tion to con­struc­tion of the pro­posed retain­ing wall with­in the wood­land slope.

2. The Forestry Officer has con­sidered this revised sub­mis­sion and con­cluded that it still fails to address the con­cerns raised. The Officer has high­lighted that out of the 370 trees sur­veyed 211 are to be removed i.e. 57% which still rep­res­ents a sig­ni­fic­ant impact on the integ­rity of the wood­land. Con­struc­tion work is also pro­posed with­in the root pro­tec­tion areas of a fur­ther 35 trees and one out­with the site. No clear details have been provided as to how these trees will be sat­is­fact­or­ily pro­tec­ted and the officer remains con­cerned that they will not sur­vive par­tic­u­larly giv­en the level changes between the trees and the retain­ing wall struc­ture where the land slopes.

3. The sup­port­ing site sec­tions do not illus­trate excav­a­tion required behind the wall or how it will be con­struc­ted to ensure no adverse impacts on exist­ing trees. It is also high­lighted that giv­en the sig­ni­fic­ance of the poten­tial loss and the scale of the retain­ing wall an abor­i­cul­tur­al meth­od state­ment should have been sup­plied as was sought from the out­set. The Officer also notes that the mater­i­al has high­lighted that 22 of the trees to be retained are in poor con­di­tion, have poten­tial for remedi­al man­age­ment but their remov­al may be neces­sary in the future. Accord­ingly the officer con­siders that there is poten­tial for up 268 of the trees end­ing up removed.

4. The officer has con­cluded that whilst some efforts have been made to min­im­ise tree loss this has not been suc­cess­ful and the pro­pos­als are con­sidered to be over­de­vel­op­ment which will have an adverse impact on a sig­ni­fic­ant area of wood­land lis­ted in the ancient wood­land invent­ory, as well as upon the edge of the retained wood­land. Accord­ingly the Officer con­tin­ues to object to the application.

5. High­land Coun­cil Hous­ing Team was con­sul­ted in rela­tion to the pro­posed arrange­ments for deliv­ery of afford­able hous­ing. To date no response has been received.

6. High­land Coun­cil Con­tam­in­ated Land Team advised that the soil/​gas report sub­mit­ted is insuf­fi­cient to sup­port the applic­a­tion and a full site invest­ig­a­tion is required. If the applic­a­tion were approved a plan­ning con­di­tion is required to secure this and any remedi­ation required.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 5 22/03/2019

1. High­land Coun­cil Trans­port Plan­ning Team ini­tially raised con­cerns regard­ing cycle pro­vi­sion, dis­abled park­ing pro­vi­sion, ped­es­tri­an links through the site bound­ary wall to pro­mote con­nectiv­ity, waste man­age­ment pro­vi­sion and made com­ment on the detail of the road­side foot­way and lighting.

2. The Team has been re-con­sul­ted on the revised sub­mis­sion and advise that vis­it­or cycle pro­vi­sion has not been cla­ri­fied and needs to be loc­ated out­side or near the main build­ing entrance. Res­id­en­tial cycle pro­vi­sion also requires to be cla­ri­fied in terms of the access­ib­il­ity of the ver­tic­al cycle rack facil­ity pro­posed. Park­ing pro­vi­sion is adequate sub­ject to cla­ri­fic­a­tion on the con­fig­ur­a­tion of the dis­abled park­ing space and ped­es­tri­an access point should be provided with­in the bound­ary wall. The team have also com­men­ted in rela­tion to foot­way and light­ing arrange­ments and will require fur­ther bin pro­vi­sion in the future if the applic­ants private bin col­lec­tion arrange­ments do not con­tin­ue and the Coun­cil is expec­ted to pick up bins. The Team con­clude that they have no objec­tion sub­ject to these issues being resolved.

3. CNPA Out­door Access Team ini­tially sought details of how the devel­op­ment would link with, and con­trib­ute to, act­ive travel improve­ments as part of the Act­ive Aviemore ini­ti­at­ive, improve per­meab­il­ity through the site, and provide secure cycle parking.

4. The Team was re-con­sul­ted on the revised sub­mis­sion and note that whilst the devel­op­ment is cent­rally loc­ated with a range of act­ive and sus­tain­able travel options, fur­ther detail on act­ive travel has still not been fully addressed.

5. In order to help pro­act­ively pro­mote and sup­port act­ive travel the Team recom­mend that a path link be provided at the north­ern end of the site to assist safe ped­es­tri­an move­ment and that a travel pack be provided to res­id­ents pro­mot­ing more active/​sustainable modes of travel.

6. CNPA Eco­logy Officer ini­tially reques­ted fur­ther inform­a­tion relat­ing to bat and bird sur­veys, Arbor­i­cul­tur­al Impact Assess­ment and mitigation/​compensation pro­pos­als, Con­struc­tion Meth­od State­ment includ­ing details of tree pro­tec­tion and revised SUDS proposals.

7. The Officer was re-con­sul­ted on the revised sub­mis­sion and addi­tion­al sur­vey mater­i­al provided and notes that there is no suit­able bat roost poten­tial. Pre-con­struc­tion sur­veys will be required for squir­rels and breed­ing birds.

8. Recom­mend­a­tions are made for improv­ing the SUDS scheme to help provide hab­it­at mit­ig­a­tion, amend­ing the land­scape main­ten­ance plan to remove all ref­er­ences to weed killer and for changes to the pro­posed land­scap­ing to improve its suc­cess on the ground. The Officer also high­lights the lack of com­pli­ance with the con­trol of wood­land remov­al policy.

9. A Hab­it­at Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al has been car­ried out in view of the poten­tial for the devel­op­ment to impact upon Natura sites in the area in rela­tion to the poten­tial for the devel­op­ment to increase recre­ation levels in Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Areas (SPA) in the area. This is attached as Appendix 3. The HRA con­cludes that the

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 5 22/03/2019

devel­op­ment will not res­ult in sig­ni­fic­ant dis­turb­ance to Caper­cail­lie and will not have a sig­ni­fic­ant effect on any oth­er con­ser­va­tion object­ive or upon the integ­rity of the sites. No mit­ig­a­tion is required.

1. CNPA Land­scape Officer sets out that the site is highly prom­in­ent on the south­ern approach into Aviemore with the wood­land sur­round­ings fram­ing views into the set­tle­ment. Whilst built ele­ments at this end of Aviemore are an eclect­ic mix, the trees and wood­land on both sides of the road have a uni­fy­ing effect and con­trib­ute sub­stan­tially to loc­al char­ac­ter and the amen­ity of the gen­er­al pub­lic includ­ing road users. This part of Aviemore, on the edge of the urb­an core, provides a visu­al exper­i­ence of sub­stan­tial gaps between the built form which rein­force the inter­play between the town­scape and wider land­scape. This is an import­ant char­ac­ter­ist­ic which is sens­it­ive to inap­pro­pri­ate change. The lin­ear form of the site is enhanced by the under­ly­ing land­form with the steep wooded slope on the west­ern edge rein­for­cing the visu­al fram­ing of the site.

2. The pro­posed devel­op­ment is not con­sidered to respond pos­it­ively to this town­scape char­ac­ter and urb­an edge loc­a­tion due to its scale, form and place­ment, and would have an adverse land­scape impact in its own right and in rela­tion to the pro­posed tree loss. It is con­sidered that the devel­op­ment itself will have a sig­ni­fic­ant adverse visu­al impact when trav­el­ling along Grampi­an Road or by rail, where it will be exper­i­enced as one large block with any gaps between the blocks only exper­i­enced when view­ing the devel­op­ment straight on.

3. The Officer con­cludes that the site has poten­tial for devel­op­ment and due to its loc­a­tion on the prin­ciple route into Aviemore from the south (both road and rail) it has poten­tial to enhance the area. The cur­rent pro­pos­al does not achieve this, and are con­sidered to rep­res­ent over-devel­op­ment of the site’s capa­city, par­tic­u­larly with ref­er­ence to the dens­ity, scale, form, mass­ing levels of amen­ity space, extens­ive earth works and tree loss which will res­ult in an adverse impact on the land­scape and town­scape char­ac­ter. Accord­ingly a rad­ic­al re-think of the devel­op­ment was recom­men­ded with recom­mend­a­tions made of key aspects to consider.

4. The officer was re-con­sul­ted on the revised sub­mis­sion and has noted the key changes in terms of reduc­tion in num­ber of units lead­ing to a reduc­tion in height of two of the blocks, reduced car park­ing allow­ing reten­tion of three mature scots pine, repla­cing roofs of car port from sedum to grass and reduced tree remov­al from 330 to 211, togeth­er with increased tree and shrub planting.

5. Whilst these changes are con­sidered to be pos­it­ive they do not address the fun­da­ment­al con­cerns raised regard­ing the scale and dens­ity of devel­op­ment and its impact upon the trees that char­ac­ter­ise the site and con­trib­ute pos­it­ively to the town­scape and wider land­scape character.

6. Key con­cerns can be sum­mar­ised as: a) Unac­cept­able loss of trees that cur­rently char­ac­ter­ise the site and con­trib­ute pos­it­ively to its sur­round­ings – the visu­al exper­i­ence from Grampi­an Road would be large sol­id blocks dom­in­at­ing the streets­cape with the visu­al exper­i­ence of the scots pine that would remain sub­stan­tially diminished.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 5 22/03/2019

b) Inap­pro­pri­ate scale and mass­ing of devel­op­ment which will visu­ally dom­in­ate the sense of arrival into Aviemore — at present the sur­round­ing town­scape is char­ac­ter­ised by a mix­ture of built forms rel­at­ively low in scale and mod­est in mass which allows the under­ly­ing land­scape to visu­ally dom­in­ate and frame the sense of arrival into this part of Aviemore.

1. The officer con­cludes that the amend­ments fall short of meet­ing the con­cerns raised pre­vi­ously. A more sens­it­ive scheme could be accom­mod­ated on this ​‘key’ site into Aviemore which con­serves and enhances the town­scape and land­scape char­ac­ter and visu­al qual­it­ies of the site and its sur­round­ings. This could be achieved through a design that responds to its con­text by redu­cing sub­stan­tially the scale, form and foot­print of the build­ing and its asso­ci­ated facil­it­ies so that it can sit com­fort­ably with­in the pre­vi­ously developed part of the site.

2. Aviemore and Vicin­ity Com­munity Coun­cil con­sider that the site is a good one for infill devel­op­ment. How­ever they objec­ted to the ori­gin­al sub­mis­sion on the fol­low­ing grounds and request to be heard at Com­mit­tee: a) Over­de­vel­op­ment. b) Out of scale not­ing that the devel­op­ment is incor­rectly described as 4 storeys not 4 12. No devel­op­ment of this scale in the area. c) Devel­op­ment does not rein­force char­ac­ter of set­tle­ment or con­serve and enhance its dis­tinct­ive char­ac­ter­ist­ics. d) ​“Land­scape” includes built ele­ments of the land­scape and Aviemore at this end is open, not built up. Devel­op­ment will not fit in with this and will be impos­ing with city like vista as opposed to the rur­al feel of the set­tle­ment. e) Insuf­fi­cient park­ing pro­vi­sion in area where park­ing is at a premi­um f) Off-site afford­able hous­ing pro­vi­sion cre­ates ​“them and us situ­ation with no details provided on loc­a­tion and man­age­ment of the off-site pro­vi­sion. g) Safety require­ments must be met with bio­mass boil­er pro­vi­sion. Note Bio­mass is no longer proposed.

3. The Com­munity Coun­cil was re-con­sul­ted on the revised sub­mis­sion and has main­tained their objec­tion. Their com­ments are attached as Appendix 4. Their com­ments emphas­ise that the devel­op­ment is out of scale with oth­er devel­op­ment in the area; the visu­al impact is mis­rep­res­en­ted in the visu­al­isa­tions; and off-site afford­able hous­ing pro­vi­sion is already built before this has been agreed as an accept­able approach. The Com­munity Coun­cil con­cludes that whilst the site is good one for hous­ing, the scale of the pro­posed devel­op­ment is totally dis­pro­por­tion­ate to all oth­er build­ings in Aviemore and fails to reflect exist­ing hous­ing in terms of pos­i­tions, dens­ity and scale, thus fail­ing to com­ply with Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan policies.

4. The applic­ants’ agent has respon­ded to the con­cerns raised by con­sul­tees and in par­tic­u­lar those relat­ing to land­scape impacts and this response is attached as Appendix 2, where they explain why in their opin­ion, the wood­land loss is less sig­ni­fic­ant than Forestry Officer states and how the devel­op­ment has been designed to reduce the dom­in­ant form by redu­cing size and scale, artic­u­lat­ing blocks and using fin­ish­ing forms and mater­i­als to fur­ther break down the mass of the buildings.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 5 22/03/2019

REP­RES­ENT­A­TIONS

1. Two objec­tions to the applic­a­tion were received when the applic­a­tion was first sub­mit­ted and these are attached as Appendix 5 (a) These raise the fol­low­ing con­cerns: a) Applic­a­tion incom­plete as no elev­a­tions of block A. Note – elev­a­tions of block A have been provided. b) Applic­a­tion mis­lead­ing as there are five storeys not four. c) Pro­posed build­ings will be two stor­ies high­er than any oth­ers in area apart from the Four Sea­sons Hotel. Highest oth­er build­ings in area are at Grampi­an Court, per­pen­dic­u­lar to Grampi­an Road, and which are not prom­in­ent. d) South­ern entrance to Aviemore is pleas­ant and open – pro­posed devel­op­ment is out of char­ac­ter with this and would intro­duce a city feel. e) The design state­ment inac­cur­ately ref­er­ences an out­door shop which was demol­ished in 2017. f) Loss of pine trees includ­ing healthy ones det­ri­ment­al to envir­on­ment and area where these trees are an import­ant fea­ture g) Insuf­fi­cient park­ing pro­vi­sion. h) Pro­pos­al con­trary to the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (2015) policies as it is dis­pro­por­tion­ate to oth­er build­ings in the area, fails to reflect exist­ing hous­ing devel­op­ment in terms of pos­i­tion, dens­ity and scale. i) Addi­tion­al vehicle move­ments will be harm­ful to the envir­on­ment and road safety. j) Adverse impacts on wild­life in par­tic­u­lar red squir­rels through loss