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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 21/02/2020

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

DEVEL­OP­MENT PROPOSED:

Erec­tion of three blocks of flats (27 units) with asso­ci­ated park­ing and access at Devel­op­ment Site On Former Filling Sta­tion Grampi­an Road Aviemore Highland

REF­ER­ENCE: 2019/0363/DET

APPLIC­ANT: Cairngorm Res­id­en­tial Ltd

DATE CALLED-IN: 21 Novem­ber 2019

RECOM­MEND­A­TION: Approve sub­ject to con­di­tions and developer contribution

CASE OFFICER: Stephanie Wade, Plan­ning Officer

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 21/02/2020

CNPA Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Applic­a­tion Site

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 21/02/2020

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 if 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 build­ing cur­rently with a restaurant/​hot food take-away use. The res­id­en­tial hous­ing at Grampi­an Court can be found bey­ond this to the north and includes a mix of 2 ¹⁄₂ storey and 3 storey buildings.

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 the 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 form 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 Pro­tec­tion 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​line- applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=Q0SY08SI0CH00

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 21/02/2020

Title Draw­ing Num­ber Date on Plan* Date Received Plans Loc­a­tion Plan 0602016/A019 A 19 Septem­ber 2019 21 Novem­ber 2019 Street Elev­a­tions and Site Plan 0602016/A020 C 03 Feb­ru­ary 2020 03 Feb­ru­ary 2020 Com­par­is­on Site Plan and Street Elev­a­tion 0602016/A022 A 19 Septem­ber 2019 21 Novem­ber 2019 Site Levels 909 Rev.4 11 Decem­ber 2019 11 Decem­ber 2019 Elev­a­tions A210 Rev.B 10 Decem­ber 2019 11 Decem­ber 2019 Floor Plan A110 Rev.A 05 Novem­ber 2019 21 Novem­ber 2019 Sec­tion I A310 Rev.Α 05 Novem­ber 2019 21 Novem­ber 2019 Sec­tion 2 A311 Rev.A 05 Novem­ber 2019 21 Novem­ber 2019 Detail Stone Wall Plan 0602016/A500 01 Decem­ber 2019 11 Decem­ber 2019 Land­scape Pro­pos­als GR 100.19 SL-01 Rev.A 20 August 2019 21 Novem­ber 2019 Road Lay­out 902 Rev.4 19 Septem­ber 2019 21 Novem­ber 2019 Road Con­struc­tion Details (Sheet 1) 906 Rev.2 06 Decem­ber 2019 06 Decem­ber 2019 Road Con­struc­tion Details (Sheet 2) 907 Rev.2 19 Septem­ber 2019 21 Novem­ber 2019 Kerbing Lay­out 903 Rev.4 19 Septem­ber 2019 21 Novem­ber 2019 Swept Path Ana­lys­is 904 Rev.1 19 Septem­ber 2019 21 Novem­ber 2019 Found­a­tion Zon­ing Plan 910 Rev.2 11 Decem­ber 2019 11 Decem­ber 2019 Site Sec­tions 912 11 Decem­ber 2019 11 Decem­ber 2019 Site Sec­tions Sheet I 0602016/A021 A 05 Novem­ber 2019 21 Novem­ber 2019 Site Sec­tions Sheet 2 0602016/A023 A 05 Novem­ber 2019 21 Novem­ber 2019

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 21/02/2020

Sec­tions through Car Port Retain­ing Wall 911 Rev.2 23 Septem­ber 2019 21 Novem­ber 2019 Geo­tech­nic­al Lay­out 908 04 July 2018 21 Novem­ber 2019 Drain­age Lay­out 905 Rev.4 06 Decem­ber 2019 06 Decem­ber 2019 Tree Pro­tec­tion Plan 1099-TPP‑B 27 Septem­ber 2019 21 Novem­ber 2019 Pro­posed Site for Com­pens­at­ory Plant­ing ^0602016⁄₀₂₄ A 16 Janu­ary 2020 17 Janu­ary 2020 Car Port Sec­tion 0602016/A312 01 August 2016 03 Feb­ru­ary 2020 Sup­port­ing Doc­u­ment­a­tion Tree Sur­vey Sched­ule RR.Cb.TA.18 FinalV.3 01 Septem­ber 2019 21 Novem­ber 2019 Trans­port State­ment 21 Novem­ber 2019 Red Squir­rel Sur­vey RR.CbGrampianR d.RedS.04.17 FinalV.1.0 07 April 2017 21 Novem­ber 2019 Soil Gas Sur­vey Report CT220 01 Decem­ber 1994 21 Novem­ber 2019 Soft Land­scap­ing Man­age­ment Régime 01 Novem­ber 2018 21 Novem­ber 2019 Afford­able Hous­ing Alloc­a­tion 21 Novem­ber 2019 Exten­ded Phase I Hab­it­at Sur­vey Report 10 March 2017 21 Novem­ber 2019 Design State­ment 01 Feb­ru­ary 2020 03 Feb­ru­ary 2020 Arbor­i­cul­tur­al Impact Assess­ment and Meth­od State­ment 1099 30 Septem­ber 2019 21 Novem­ber 2019 3D Visu­al­isa­tion Images 21 Novem­ber 2019 Response from Engin­eer to Flood Team 06 Decem­ber 2019 06 Decem­ber 2019 Let­ter from Scot­tish Water 755549 20 April 2018 06 Decem­ber 2019 Quant­it­at­ive Envir­on­ment­al Risk Assess­ment Report 01 Septem­ber 2018 17 Decem­ber 2019

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 21/02/2020

Drain­age State­ment A/170084 06 Decem­ber 2019 06 Decem­ber 2019 Replant­ing Pro­pos­al Grampi­an Road 1099 16 Janu­ary 2020 17 Janu­ary 2020 Update from Applicant’s Road Engin­eers 28 Janu­ary 2020 03 Feb­ru­ary 2020 Let­ter from Agent 0602016/SD/CM 03 Feb­ru­ary 2020 03 Feb­ru­ary 2020 Update from Applic­ant- Sur­face Water Drain­age 31 Janu­ary 2020 03 Feb­ru­ary 2020

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

The applic­a­tion seeks plan­ning per­mis­sion for the erec­tion of twenty sev­en res­id­en­tial units arranged in three sep­ar­ate blocks as shown on the site plan attached at Appendix I- Plans. All three blocks are pro­posed of identic­al design and con­tain 9 units of accom­mod­a­tion each arranged over four floors. The three blocks are loc­ated adja­cent to the road extend­ing in a north-east­/­south-west­erly dir­ec­tion with the asso­ci­ated park­ing to the rear of the site along the north-west­ern site bound­ary. Block A and B are sep­ar­ated by areas of soft land­scap­ing and blocks B and C are sep­ar­ated by the intern­al access road. Block C is set back from the north-east­ern site bound­ary by 6 metres. A new vehicle access point from Grampi­an Road replaces the exist­ing, two vehicles access points on site with the intern­al access road run­ning along the rear of the accom­mod­a­tion blocks to the 41 onsite park­ing spaces. Twelve park­ing spaces are pro­posed adja­cent to the accom­mod­a­tion blocks and the remain­ing 21 park­ing spaces are pro­posed with­in a covered park­ing area to be con­struc­ted into the base of the north west­ern bank with a sedum roof. It is inten­ded that this grassed area will provide a visu­al trans­ition to the wood­land behind. The car port is pro­posed to be 7m deep with an extern­al stor­age area for the res­id­ents at the rear of the park­ing spaces for private cycle stor­age. Three D loops are also pro­posed to be installed adja­cent to the rear of the accom­mod­a­tion blocks for vis­it­or cycle park­ing. Covered bin stor­age is also pro­posed with­in the covered park­ing area and bin col­lec­tion will be privately factored.

1. The over­all build­ing mass has been broken down using a com­bin­a­tion of design ele­ments as described in the sup­port­ing Design State­ment, this states: a. ​“The fore most front wall (the middle apart­ment on each floor) is only three storeys high 9m and 13.5m wide. The 2no side flats are recessed from the front build­ing line by 900mm with this wall only 2 storeys high before the wall fur­ther steps back anoth­er 1.5m. The top­most floor then steps back a fur­ther 2m from the front build­ing line, a total set back of 4.5m. Each of the flats on the ground and first floors has a large bal­cony fea­ture set into the front walls. The second and third floor apart­ments have set back extern­al balcony/​decked areas. These fea­tures fur­ther reduce the mass of the street elev­a­tion. The roof is a shal­low, mono pitched slop­ing to the rear elev­a­tion. The lead­ing pro­jec­tion is 12m above ground level. This is Im lower than the height of the hotel cur­rently under con­struc­tion on an adja­cent site. This roof level is also 4m lower than the pre­vi­ous scheme for this site.”

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 21/02/2020

1. All units will be accessed from the rear (north-west) where entrance doors will be loc­ated. Pro­posed fin­ishes are: painted white rendered elev­a­tions with ele­ments of fibre-cement weather­board­ing col­oured ​“iron grey” and ​“sail cloth”; mer­lin grey col­oured met­al sheet roof­ing with met­al rain water goods; alu-clad extern­al win­dows and doors and extern­al glass bal­us­trad­ing to apart­ment block bal­conies with met­al hand rail­ings. The units of accom­mod­a­tion are pro­posed to be heated by elec­tric­al stor­age heat­ers and pass­ive sol­ar gain from the south facing elev­a­tions togeth­er with the use of mod­ern, energy effi­cient build­ing mater­i­als for the construction.

2. Sur­face water will be dis­posed of through 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.

3. A stone wall with nat­ur­al stone cop­ing is pro­posed to be erec­ted behind the vis­ib­il­ity splays, on the south-east­ern site bound­ary. The wall will have a height of 0.8 metres and the exist­ing pave­ment along Grampi­an road and adja­cent to the site is pro­posed to be relo­cated to join the car­riage­way edge for the length of the devel­op­ment. Regard­ing soft land­scap­ing, the ground sur­round­ing the accom­mod­a­tion blocks is pro­posed to be laid to grass with fea­ture areas of plant­ing of shrubs and trees. Replace­ment tree plant­ing on the bank includes: mature pine trees, birch and row­an trees and nat­ive shrubs. An area of com­pens­at­ory plant­ing to mit­ig­ate against the tree loss on site is pro­posed at Kin­gussie. The loc­a­tion Plan of this is attached at Appendix I- Plans.

4. The applic­a­tion is sup­por­ted doc­u­ments include the fol­low­ing doc­u­ment­a­tion: a. Design State­ment: Over­all plan­ning state­ment explain the plan­ning his­tory of the site and how the devel­op­ment has evolved in response to issues raised by the Plan­ning Author­ity from pre­vi­ous sub­mis­sions. b. Tree Pro­tec­tion Plan: out­lining that of the 370 trees sur­veyed on the site, 179 will be retained and 191 removed. A tree con­straints plan detail­ing the qual­ity of trees has also been sub­mit­ted, togeth­er with a Tree Sur­vey and Arbor­i­cul­tur­al Implic­a­tions Assess­ment. C. Developer Con­tri­bu­tions Afford­able Hous­ing Alloc­a­tion state­ment. d. Replant­ing Pro­pos­al: details the loc­a­tion of a 14.75 hec­tare site to the north of Kin­gussie for the com­pens­at­ory plant­ing of 200 nat­ive trees. The site is man­aged by a Com­munity Wood­land Group and the pro­pos­al is to plant 40 Scots pine, 50 row­an, 40 hazel, 20 sessile oak, 15 gean, 15 bird cherry, 15 crab apple and 15 grey willow.

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

His­tory

1. 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

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 21/02/2020

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 (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 fol­low­ings revi­sions to address park­ing con­cerns and to address how to min­im­ise impacts on the 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). 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. This applic­a­tion 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. h) Applic­a­tion ref: 2018/0043/DET for the erec­tion of 28 apart­ments with asso­ci­ated works (amended design) was refused by the CNPA plan­ning com­mit­tee on March 2019 for the fol­low­ing reas­ons: a. The pro­posed devel­op­ment is con­trary to Policy 1: New Hous­ing Devel­op­ment and Policy 3: Sus­tain­able Design of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015 as it does not rein­force and enhance the char­ac­ter of the set­tle­ment nor is it sym­path­et­ic to the tra­di­tion­al pat­tern and char­ac­ter of the sur­round­ing area, loc­al ver­nacu­lar and loc­al dis­tinct­ive­ness due to: i. Its scale, design, lay­out and mass­ing which does not reflect the loc­al town­scape and char­ac­ter and will res­ult in a devel­op­ment which unac­cept­ably dom­in­ates the area. ii. The lack of suf­fi­cient land­scap­ing, open space and tree reten­tion or replace­ment to cre­ate a land­scape set­ting that reflects the char­ac­ter of this south­ern approach to the town centre which is presently char­ac­ter­ised by built devel­op­ment inter­spersed and framed by wood­land and green areas which cre­ate an attract­ive entrance into Aviemore; iii. The lack of oppor­tun­it­ies to enhance biod­iversity. b. The pro­posed devel­op­ment is con­trary to Policy 5: Land­scape and Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Her­it­age of the Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015 as it does not con­serve and enhance the land­scape char­ac­ter and spe­cial qual­it­ies of the Nation­al Park and in par­tic­u­lar the set­ting of the pro­posed devel­op­ment; adverse impacts have not been sat­is­fact­or­ily min­im­ised and mit­ig­ated; and adverse impacts upon wood­land have not been mit­ig­ated or com­pensated because: i. The scale and lay­out of the devel­op­ment is such that it will unac­cept­ably dom­in­ate the land­scape on this key entrance into Aviemore cre­at­ing a

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 21/02/2020

devel­op­ment which does not con­serve and enhance a land­scape cur­rently set by wood­land and built fea­tures which are sens­it­ively set with­in open or wooded grounds. ii. The loss of trees with­in the site will remove key com­pon­ents of the land­scape set­ting of the site. iii. There is a lack of evid­ence to demon­strate that exist­ing trees can be retained in rela­tion to the con­struc­tion of the pro­posed retain­ing wall which will then fur­ther adversely impact upon the land­scape set­ting. iv. Pro­pos­als for com­pens­at­ory wood­land plant­ing are not deliv­er­able; c. The pro­posed devel­op­ment is con­trary to Policy 3: Sus­tain­able Design and Policy 10: Resources of the Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015 as it does not at present: i. Max­im­ise all oppor­tun­it­ies for respons­ible out­door access includ­ing links onto the exist­ing path net­work due to the lack of dir­ect, segreg­ated path links to Grampi­an Road. ii. Provide details of a scheme to deal with poten­tial con­tam­in­a­tion and any required remedi­al action; d. The pro­posed devel­op­ment is con­trary to Policy 11 Developer Con­tri­bu­tions of the Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015 as a mech­an­ism for the pay­ment of developer con­tri­bu­tions has not been finalised.

Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Assess­ment (HRA)

1. A Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Assess­ment has pre­vi­ously been under­taken (for plan­ning applic­a­tion ref­er­ence 2018/0043/DET determ­ined in March 2019) to con­sider the effects of the pro­pos­al upon the con­ser­va­tion object­ives of the Natura Sites of the Spe­cial pro­tec­tion Areas (SPA) in the area. A copy of the HRA is included at Appendix 2.

2. The assess­ment high­lighted the need to assess the pro­pos­al against its likely sig­ni­fic­ant effect on Caper­cail­lie as there are poten­tial risks of increased dis­turb­ance to Caper­cail­lie. The HRA con­cluded that the erec­tion of the apart­ments on Grampi­an Rd was not likely to increase the levels of recre­ation at the SPAs over and above the exist­ing level of recre­ation. This means that the dis­turb­ance to caper­cail­lie in the SPAs is not likely to increase, there­fore the pop­u­la­tions of caper­cail­lie in these SPAs will not be effected and sub­sequently, any indir­ect impacts on the SPAs through reduced move­ment of birds is not likely. The HRA con­firmed that there is no adverse effect upon the integ­rity of the fol­low­ing Natura Sites.

3. Fol­low­ing advice from SNH, the HRA from the pre­vi­ous applic­a­tion (as out­lined above) has been reviewed. The two most sali­ent points are that the base con­di­tions for caper­cail­lie and recre­ation has not changed sig­ni­fic­antly since the first HRA and that the num­ber of units has in fact been reduced from 32 to 27. The HRA con­cluded that the assess­ment, based upon the best avail­able sci­entif­ic evid­ence and advice offered from SNH, showed that there was not a likely sig­ni­fic­ant effect from the pro­posed devel­op­ment upon the qual­i­fy­ing fea­tures or the con­ser­va­tion object­ives for the fol­low­ing Natura sites:

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 21/02/2020

a. Aber­nethy Forest SPA b. Anagach Woods SPA c. Cairngorms SPA d. Craigmore Wood SPA e. Kin­veachy Foresty SPA

1. It was there­fore con­cluded that the pro­posed devel­op­ment would not adversely affect the integ­rity of any of these sites. Con­sid­er­ing the points made above, this con­clu­sion of the pre­vi­ous HRA is main­tained for the cur­rent application.

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 (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 POLICY 8 SPORT AND RECRE­ATION POLICY 9 CUL­TUR­AL HER­IT­AGE X 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

1. 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.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 21/02/2020

1. 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 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.

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 Policy 8 Sport and Recre­ation Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance X Policy 9 Cul­tur­al Her­it­age Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance Policy 10 Resources Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance X Policy 11 Developer Con­tri­bu­tions Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance X

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2020

1. The emer­ging Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (“Pro­posed Plan”) which will cov­er the peri­od of 2020 – 2025 is cur­rently being pro­gressed. The pro­posed plan has been through a pub­lic con­sulta­tion pro­cess and the form­al responses have been assessed and sub­mit­ted along with all oth­er rel­ev­ant mater­i­als to Scot­tish Min­is­ters for exam­in­a­tion. As the exam­in­a­tion of the Pro­posed Plan is yet to start, the Pro­posed Plan and its con­tents cur­rently carry lim­ited weight.

CON­SULTA­TIONS A sum­mary of the main issues raised by consultees

1. Trans­port Scot­land has no objec­tion to the proposal.

2. Scot­tish Nat­ur­al Her­it­age (SNH) con­firmed that their pre­vi­ous com­ments made on 14 Feb­ru­ary 2018 in rela­tion to the pre­vi­ous applic­a­tion (2018/0043/DET) are still applic­able. Their com­ments primar­ily high­lighted poten­tial con­cerns relat­ing to increased dis­turb­ance to caper­cail­lie asso­ci­ated with Kin­veachy and Cairngorms SPAs, as a res­ult of the increased use of sur­round­ing wood­land by residents.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 21/02/2020

1. The 2018 com­ments are sum­mar­ised as fol­lows: a. SNH con­sider that the pro­pos­als are likely to have a sig­ni­fic­ant effect on the NATURA site interests whereby it is neces­sary for the Plan­ning Author­ity to under­take an Appro­pri­ate Assess­ment of the impacts. 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.

2. Scot­tish Envir­on­ment Pro­tec­tion Agency (SEPA) refers to their stand­ing advice and do not have any spe­cif­ic com­ments relat­ing to the scheme.

3. Scot­tish Water has no objec­tion but high­light that this does not con­firm that the pro­posed devel­op­ment can cur­rently be ser­viced. They note that there is cur­rently suf­fi­cient capa­city in the Aviemore Water Treat­ment Works and there is cur­rently suf­fi­cient capa­city in the Aviemore Waste Water Treat­ment Works. How­ever, they advise that once a form­al con­nec­tion applic­a­tion is sub­mit­ted to the Agency after full plan­ning per­mis­sion has been gran­ted, they will review capa­city at that time and advise the applic­ant accord­ingly. Scot­tish Water also note from their records that the devel­op­ment pro­pos­al impacts on exist­ing assets and there­fore they encour­age the applic­ant to con­tact the Asset Impact Team to identi­fy the poten­tial conflicts.

4. Net­work Rail con­siders that the pro­pos­al will have no impact on rail­way infra­struc­ture and there­fore have no objec­tions or spe­cif­ic com­ments to this application.

5. The High­land Coun­cil Flood Risk Man­age­ment Team ori­gin­ally objec­ted to the applic­a­tion and reques­ted the sub­mis­sion of fur­ther drain­age inform­a­tion in sup­port of the application.

6. Fol­low­ing the applicant’s sub­mis­sion of the required details, the Flood Risk Man­age­ment Team removes its objec­tion and has the fol­low­ing com­ments: a. Drain­age: giv­en the applicant’s geo­tech­nic­al inform­a­tion, infilt­ra­tion test res­ults, the design with a nom­in­al infilt­ra­tion rate of 1×105 m/​s appears appro­pri­ate to the site. They require no fur­ther evid­ence in this regard. b. Exceedance flows for a I in 200 year return peri­od storm event are pro­posed to be atten­u­ated with­in the site (with­in the below ground drain­age net­work). Detailed cal­cu­la­tions are incor­por­ated into the Drain­age State­ment Rev 4. The Drain­age Lay­out draw­ing has been cor­res­pond­ingly updated to Rev 4 reflect­ing increased atten­u­ation capa­city. C. The Team note that there is no inten­tion for Scot­tish Water to vest the drain­age sys­tem though the access bell­mouth and its drain­age are pro­posed for pub­lic adop­tion by the High­land Coun­cil. The out­line sched­ule of main­ten­ance for the

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 21/02/2020

private areas of the sys­tem is noted and this will remain the Applicant’s respons­ib­il­ity until form­ally handed over to the appro­pri­ate organ­isa­tion. d. The foul sys­tem is pro­posed for vest­ing by Scot­tish Water with suit­able capa­city likely to be available.

1. The High­land Coun­cil Trans­port Plan­ning Team has provided the fol­low­ing com­ments, sur­mised under the sub­head­ings below: a. Drain­age: The Team note that the sur­face water drain­age sys­tem is not a sys­tem the Coun­cil would gen­er­ally con­sider appro­pri­ate because: 1) when under­tak­ing minor and or major main­ten­ance oper­a­tions, res­id­ents access is likely to be adversely affected and 2) the weight from traffic driv­ing over soakaways can cause them to com­press lead­ing to the roads integ­rity being dam­aged. The Trans­port Plan­ning Team there­fore reques­ted the developer to provide con­firm­a­tion that they accept and recog­nise the impact of the sur­face water arrange­ments. b. Cycle Pro­vi­sion: The Trans­port Plan­ning Team reques­ted cla­ri­fic­a­tion on the pro­posed num­ber of cycles to be accom­mod­ated in each bike store and evid­ence to demon­strate cyc­lists will be able to store their bike/​s and retrieve them safely. The Coun­cil con­firm that they do not gen­er­ally sup­port the use of ver­tic­al cycle racks, because it puts people at risk from a manu­al hand­ling injury. c. Park­ing: The park­ing space pro­vi­sion being pro­moted here is accept­able. Tο demon­strate that all park­ing spaces are suit­ably sized, the Team recom­mend that basic park­ing space dimen­sions are provided on the Road Lay­out. d. Access­ib­il­ity: The Team would expect a devel­op­ment of this nature to include ped­es­tri­an access points in the pro­posed bound­ary fence/​wall to reduce the con­flict between ped­es­tri­ans and traffic. e. Road Lay­out: Upon reflec­tion the Coun­cil wish to main­tain the exist­ing safety buf­fer strip between ped­es­tri­ans walk­ing along the foot­way and road users. They there­fore require the cur­rent foot­way lay­out to be retained. In addi­tion, the Coun­cil note that the bell­mouth type junc­tion is no longer sup­por­ted by the Coun­cil and to encour­age drivers to slow down before man­oeuv­ring into the site, the Coun­cil are seek­ing a drive­way cross­ing type entrance. f. Waste Man­age­ment: The Team have com­men­ted in rela­tion to the waste man­age­ment and note that fur­ther bin pro­vi­sion would be required in the future should the private bin col­lec­tions cease. They there­fore request the num­ber of bins is increased to 14 bins. g. Road adop­tion: Cur­rent road adop­ted bound­ary is unchanged. h. Roads Author­ity Per­mis­sion: The applic­ant will be required to apply to the Coun­cil for a Road Con­struc­tion Con­sent. i. Con­clu­sion: The Coun­cil has no objec­tion to the devel­op­ment sub­ject to these issues being resolved.

2. The High­land Coun­cil Forestry Officer was con­sul­ted on the pro­pos­al but has not provided any comments.

3. The High­land Coun­cil Con­tam­in­ated Land Officer notes that the site was formerly a pet­rol sta­tion and sub­ject to a con­tam­in­a­tion invest­ig­a­tion which found asbes­tos in shal­low soils at one loc­a­tion and that the area is with­in a radon inter­me­di­ate risk zone. The Officer recom­mends that a post determ­in­a­tion planning

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 21/02/2020

con­di­tion is attached to any sub­sequent decision requir­ing the sub­mis­sion and agree­ment of a report to val­id­ate the remedi­ation of asbes­tos soil con­tam­in­a­tion on site.

1. The High­land Coun­cil Cor­por­ate Address Gaz­etteer Team (CAG) wish to high­light to the applic­ant, the street nam­ing and num­ber­ing pro­cess and encour­age the applic­ant to sub­mit a request in the event plan­ning per­mis­sion is granted.

2. CNPA Land­scape Officer provided the fol­low­ing com­ments on the latest sub­mis­sion of the scheme: a. Gen­er­al: Over­all this is an improved design. There is a bet­ter rela­tion­ship between the build­ings and the streets­cape and the land­scape plan has mit­ig­ated some of the land­scape and visu­al effects of the prom­in­ent site; b. Exist­ing Trees: There is great­er inform­a­tion on exist­ing tree loc­a­tion and which ones will be removed to facil­it­ate the devel­op­ment. The retain­ing wall is bet­ter detailed as well. The Officer con­siders that more trees will be required to be removed how­ever the High­land Coun­cil Forestry Officer advice should be sought to the like­li­hood and extend of all pro­posed and pos­sible tree loss. The pro­pos­al for replace­ment wood­land is noted; C. Wall Detail: The Officer notes that although the pro­posed wall design is not quite the same as the wall on the oppos­ite side of the road, it does use nat­ur­al stone as a clad­ding and cop­ing and is con­sidered accept­able. d. Plant­ing: Over­all the new plant­ing is con­sidered accept­able and likely to mit­ig­ate the loss of trees on site, in time and the dir­ect effects of the new build­ings. How­ever, the Officer notes that there are insuf­fi­cient tech­nic­al details on the plant­ing, ground pre­par­a­tion, and plant. Neither is there suf­fi­cient detail for the turf area of the car­port roof. e. Replace­ment Wood­land: The new pro­posed area for the replace­ment wood­land is con­sidered accept­able how­ever it is con­sid­er­ably lar­ger than needed. The prin­ciple of adding the trees through­out this area will not res­ult in a replace­ment of the wood­land but it would con­trib­ute to the scrub of the area. How­ever to com­ply with the replace­ment of wood­land policy and to max­im­ise the eco­lo­gic­al and land­scape bene­fits, the trees should be planted in a group at stand­ard forest centres. This should be loc­ated where the con­nectiv­ity to oth­er wood­land will be enhanced. The best place is on the west end of the pro­posed area on the upper slopes close to the prop­erty called Tingh­er­hiea. The spe­cies mix is con­sidered accept­able except for the grey wil­low. These should be replaced by an addi­tion­al 15 sessile oak. These trees will require pro­tec­tion from deer and rab­bits. It must be either fenced or tubed. The plant­ing plan and full plant­ing plan and main­ten­ance sched­ule will fol­low. f. Over­all: This is an improved scheme and over­all is accept­able in prin­ciple; how­ever some details are still required to be resolved includ­ing site plant­ing and land­scape details.

3. CNPA Con­ser­va­tion Man­ager notes that fol­low­ing advice from SNH, the HRA from the pre­vi­ous applic­a­tion (March 2018) has been reviewed. The two most sali­ent points are that the base con­di­tions for caper­cail­lie and recre­ation has not changed sig­ni­fic­antly since the first HRA and that the num­ber of units has in fact been reduced

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 21/02/2020

from 32 to 27. The HRA con­cluded that the assess­ment, based upon the best avail­able sci­entif­ic evid­ence and advice offered from SNH, showed that there was not a likely sig­ni­fic­ant effect from the pro­posed devel­op­ment upon the qual­i­fy­ing fea­tures or the con­ser­va­tion object­ives for the fol­low­ing Natura sites: a. Aber­nethy Forest SPA b. Anagach Woods SPA Cairngorms SPA c. d. Craigmore Wood SPA e. Kin­veachy Foresty SPA

1. It was there­fore con­cluded that the pro­posed devel­op­ment would not adversely affect the integ­rity of any of these sites. Con­sid­er­ing the points made above, this con­clu­sion of the pre­vi­ous HRA is main­tained for the cur­rent application.

2. CNPA Out­door Access Officer has examined the latest sub­mis­sion of the pro­pos­al. The officer pre­vi­ously advised the applic­ant of the need to ensure the act­ive travel policy is accoun­ted for appro­pri­ately how­ever these meas­ures have not been incor­por­ated with­in the cur­rent sub­mis­sion. In light of this the Officer requires