Item5AALaurelBankCommitteeReport

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 24/06/2022

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

DEVEL­OP­MENT PRO­POSED: Erec­tion of 23 self-cater­ing apart­ments, shops, hotel and under­ground park­ing at Land 80M SW Of Moun­tain Café 111 Grampi­an Road Aviemore

REF­ER­ENCE: 2021/0105/DET

APPLIC­ANT: Upland Devel­op­ments Ltd

DATE CALLED-IN: 29 March 2021

RECOM­MEND­A­TION: Approve, sub­ject to Refer­ral to Scot­tish Min­is­ters, Developer Con­tri­bu­tion and Conditions

CASE OFFICER: Emma Bryce — Plan­ning Man­ager (Devel­op­ment Management)

CNPA Plan­ning Committee

Applic­a­tion Site 0 20 40 Meters N 80 Avi­en 7 Pol Sta Aviemore High­land Resort Wks The Aviemore igh­land Resort Hall FB Hotel Crown copy­right and data­base rights 2022. Ord­nance Sur­vey Licence num­ber 100040965 Post 211.5m Super­store Centre 123 711 177 Grampi­an Road (B9152) PC 100 TCBS Car Park 213.1m TCBS The Dell of Spey MP 83.5 El Sub Sta SP CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 24/06/2022 TCB Ben­view Craigview Masts (Tele­com­mu­nic­a­tion) Police Sta Sub­way Strath­spey Rail­way El Sub Sta Sewage Works Sewage Ppg Sta 2

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 24/06/2022

SITE DESCRIP­TION, PRO­POS­AL AND HISTORY

Site Descrip­tion

1. The applic­a­tion site is loc­ated with­in the centre of Aviemore and lies on the west side of Grampi­an Road (the B9152), the main thor­ough­fare through the vil­lage. It is a brown­field site cov­er­ing an area of approx­im­ately 0.807 hec­tares. There were pre­vi­ously indi­vidu­al build­ings includ­ing two res­id­en­tial prop­er­ties (a Vic­tori­an villa known as Laurel Bank and a more con­tem­por­ary bun­ga­low Meall Buidhe), a former BT exchange build­ing and a scout hall loc­ated on the site. To the north of the site is an area that was used as a small fair­ground for young­er chil­dren. The build­ings have been demol­ished and the site has now been cleared. A num­ber of trees have also been removed from the site.

2. A ped­es­tri­an foot­way runs along the south­ern bound­ary of the site with the Tesco super­mar­ket car park lying bey­ond. The rear bound­ary (west­ern bound­ary) of the site is bounded by a private access road which serves the Aviemore High­land resort. The site gradu­ally falls from this bound­ary towards its front­age which runs along Grampi­an Road. There is a steep fall in the middle of the site where it levels and adjoins the Milton Burn to the north­ern bound­ary. A steep embank­ment lies bey­ond with the car park for an out­door equip­ment shop and a pizzer­ia lying bey­ond that on a high­er ground level.

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=QQIYLYSI0CH00

Title	Draw­ing Num­ber	Date on Plan*	Date Received
PLANS
Plan — LOC­A­TION PLAN	AVI-NORR-ZZ-XX-DR-A-0001 REV POI	17/08/21	29/03/21
Plan — SITE PLAN	AVI-NORR-ZZ-XX-DR-A-0002 REV P10	13/05/21	18/10/21
Plan — SITE LEVELS	191083 – 903 REV 6	13/08/20	18/02/22
Plan — TOPO­GRAPH­IC­AL SURVEY	CTCH-J3429-003	10/03/21	29/03/21
Plan — SELF CATER­ING APART­MENTS FLOOR PLANS	AVI-NORR-ZZ-XX-DR-A-0010- REV P03	17/08/21	29/03/21
Plan — SELF CATER­ING APART­MENTS WEST AND NORTH ELEVATIONS	AVI-NORR-ZZ-XX-DR-A-0011 REV POI	17/08/20	29/03/21
Plan — SELF CATER­ING APART­MENTS EAST AND SOUTH ELEVATIONS	AVI-NORR-ZZ-XX-DR-A-0012 REV P0Ι	17/08/20	29/03/21
Plan — PLAN — BASE­MENT LEVEL	AVI-NORR-ZZ-XX-DR-A-0020 REV P02		22/01/22
Plan — PLAN — GROUND FLOOR	AVI-NORR-ZZ-XX-		22/01/22

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 24/06/2022

LEVEL	DR-A-0021 REV P02
Plan — PLAN — FIRST FLOOR LEVEL	AVI-NORR-ZZ-XX-DR-A-0022 REV P02		22/01/22
Plan — PLAN — SECOND FLOOR LEVEL	AVI-NORR-ZZ-XX-DR-A-0023 REV P02		22/01/22
Plan — PLAN — ROOF	AVI-NORR-ZZ-XX-DR-A-0024 REV P02		22/01/22
Plan — ELEV­A­TIONS SHEET I	AVI-NORR-ZZ-XX-DR-A-0025 REV P02		22/01/22
Plan — ELEV­A­TIONS SHEET 2	AVI-NORR-ZZ-XX-DR-A-0031 REV P02		22/01/22
Plan — ELEV­A­TIONS SHEET I	AVI-NORR-ZZ-XX-DR-A-0030 REV POI	17/08/20	22/01/22
Plan — LAND­SCAPE PROPOSALS	UDL 100.21 SL-01 REV F	02/02/21	22/01/22
Plan — LAND­SCAPE MAN­AGE­MENT PLAN	UDL 100.21 LM-01 REV C	20/05/21	16/05/22
Plan — SKETCH LAND­SCAPE PROPOSALS	UDL 100.21 SL-01 F	02/02/21	22/01/22
Plan — TREE PRO­TEC­TION PLAN	1249 — TPP	27/05/21	21/06/21
Plan — DRAIN­AGE LAYOUT	191083 – 905 REV 11	13/05/20	12/04/22
Plan — DRAIN­AGE SEC­TION AA	191083 – 906 REV I	04/08/21	26/08/21
Plan — INDIC­AT­IVE CON­STRUC­TION PHASE DRAIN­AGE PLAN	191083 907 (REV I)		12/04/22
Plan — Flood Plan and Sections	191083 001(REV 6)		14/04/22
Plan — Com­pens­at­ory Flood Storage	191083 002(REV 7)		14/04/22
Plan — ROADS LAYOUT	191083 – 904 REV 6	13/08/20	18/02/22
SUP­PORT­ING DOCUMENTS
Plan — SWEPT PATH ANALYSIS	191083 – 902 REV 5	13/08/20	16/05/22
Oth­er — DESIGN STATE­MENT REV B			20/05/22
Oth­er — TREE SCHEDULE			21/06/21
Oth­er — ARBOR­I­CUL­TUR­AL METH­OD STATEMENT			21/06/21
Oth­er — MAIN­TEN­ANCE REGIME	REV D		16/05/22
Oth­er — OTTER SURVEY	VER­SION 2		24/06/21
Oth­er — CON­STRUC­TION ENVIR­ON­MENT­AL MAN­AGE­MENT PLAN			12/04/22
Oth­er — DRAIN­AGE IMPACT ASSESSMENT	A/191083 REV 01		16/05/22
Oth­er — FLOOD RISK ASSESSMENT	191083 REVI­SION 5		14/04/22
Oth­er — TRANS­PORT ASSESSMENT	19101		16/05/22

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

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 24/06/2022

1. The applic­a­tion seeks con­sent for a mixed use devel­op­ment of 23 self-cater­ing hol­i­day apart­ments with retail units at ground floor level and an 83 bed­room hotel with asso­ci­ated accesses and parking.

2. The apart­ment block will have an ​‘L’ shaped con­fig­ur­a­tion, run­ning along the south and west­ern bound­ar­ies. The build­ing will have a simple design with a stepped form to address the change in levels over the site and design fea­tures to define the dif­fer­ent storeys. It will have a pitched roof clad in grey con­crete roof tiles and will be fin­ished in tim­ber effect and met­al clad­ding pan­els and off-white render. 6 retail units will be provided at ground floor level, 5 with­in the block run­ning along the south­ern bound­ary and a lar­ger one along the west­ern bound­ary. The first floor with provide 12 self cater­ing units with 11 units on the second floor. The apart­ments will provide twenty, 2 bed/​4 per­son and three, 3 bed/​6 per­son units. Access will be via the pub­lic space to the front of the development.

3. The hotel will be loc­ated to the north of the site and will extend to three storeys with base­ment car­park­ing which has been incor­por­ated in response to the topo­graphy of this part of the site. The hotel offers 83 bed­rooms with ancil­lary accom­mod­a­tion, includ­ing a bar and a sep­ar­ate din­ing room/​restaurant. A simple, func­tion­al design has also been adop­ted. A semi-cir­cu­lar, single story glazed ele­ment with a ter­race is pro­posed to the elev­a­tion front­ing Grampi­an Road provid­ing addi­tion­al seat­ing for the din­ing area. The extern­al fin­ishes will be tim­ber effect clad­ding, off white render and grey con­crete roof tiles to the pitched roof.

4. The remain­ing cent­ral part of the site will form a ​‘court­yard’ space which will provide car park­ing and ser­vi­cing. A smal­ler, more form­al pub­lic realm space will be formed to the front of the court­yard to the east of the site, front­ing Grampi­an Road and the space to the front of the apart­ment block’s gable, also front­ing Grampi­an Road, and will provide an oppor­tun­ity for fur­ther pub­lic realm space. This will be land­scaped and will include seat­ing and cycle park­ing provision.

5. The devel­op­ment will neces­sit­ate the remov­al of approx­im­ately three trees, how­ever the major­ity of trees on site which are prin­cip­ally loc­ated along the edge of the Milton Burn will be retained. Fur­ther plant­ing is pro­posed through­out the site with detailed land­scape pro­pos­als hav­ing be provided.

6. The exist­ing access off Grampi­an Road (the B9152) will be used for vehicle access to the site, tak­ing the form of a single bell mouth enhanced pri­or­ity junc­tion. The junc­tion and access road will be designed to adopt­able stand­ards and pro­moted for adop­tion by the Coun­cil with min­im­um vis­ib­il­ity splays of 2.4 metres x 60 metres. Giv­en the mix of uses the access road will also be designed to indus­tri­al stand­ards. The exist­ing ped­es­tri­an foot­path that runs along the south­ern edge of the site will be upgraded and a pend will be formed on the east­ern bound­ary to allow for enhanced ped­es­tri­an move­ments between the vil­lage and the High­land Resort.

7. There are two sep­ar­ate car park­ing areas pro­posed which will provide a total of 86 car park­ing spaces. One lies to the north of the site with­in the base­ment of the hotel build­ing provid­ing a total of 40 spaces and where there will be 2 access­ible spaces loc­ated. The oth­er one is to the south and will provide a total of 37 stand­ard spaces, 2

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 24/06/2022

dis­abled spaces and 5 elec­tric vehicle char­ging spaces to sup­port the self — cater­ing units and retail ele­ment of the development.

1. The site will be ser­viced by exist­ing Scot­tish Water sew­ers although diver­sions will be required to accom­mod­ate the devel­op­ment. Sur­face water will be dealt with through the use of infilt­ra­tion devices used in accord­ance with the CIRIA pub­lic­a­tion ​‘SuDS Design Manu­al’. These will include atten­u­ation trenches at lower ground levels and for roof water areas and por­ous pav­ing for the high­er ground levels.

2. The fol­low­ing doc­u­ments have been sub­mit­ted in sup­port of the applic­a­tion: a) Design State­ment b) Drain­age Impact Assess­ment c) Trans­port Assess­ment d) Car Park Sur­veys e) Traffic Sur­vey Report f) Flood Risk Assess­ment g) Tree Pro­tec­tion Plan h) Tree Sched­ule i) Soft Land­scape Works and Five Year Main­ten­ance Régime j) Otter Sur­vey k) Rep­tile Report l) Con­struc­tion Envir­on­ment­al Man­age­ment Plan and out­line Con­struc­tion Man­age­ment Statement.

3. Plans and visu­al­isa­tions of the pro­pos­al are attached as Appendix 1.

His­tory

1. There is no recent plan­ning his­tory for this site but the CNPA gran­ted earli­er con­sents for redevel­op­ment that expired a dec­ade ago. Applic­a­tion 04/211/OUTBS gran­ted Janu­ary 2006 for Devel­op­ment of Retail and Com­munity Use with Asso­ci­ated Park­ing and 09/011/CP that exten­ded the dur­a­tion of plan­ning per­mis­sion of that con­sent for three years from May 2009.

Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Appraisal

1. A Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al [HRA] 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. In terms of the Kin­veachy Forest SPA, all con­ser­va­tion object­ives can be met. The pro­posed devel­op­ment how­ever, has the poten­tial to pre­vent the con­ser­va­tion object­ives being met for the River Spey SAC. This would occur due to the very high risk of sed­i­ment release enter­ing the Milton Burn that flows dir­ectly into the River Spey dur­ing con­struc­tion work, due to the prox­im­ity of works along­side the Milton Burn. This would affect the water qual­ity relied upon by qual­i­fy­ing spe­cies and poten­tially smoth­er hab­it­ats sup­port­ing the qual­i­fy­ing spe­cies and their food, there­fore affect­ing dis­tri­bu­tion and pop­u­la­tion levels. The applic­ants have sub­mit­ted a Construction

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 24/06/2022

Envir­on­ment­al Man­age­ment Plan (CEMP) incor­por­at­ing an out­line Con­struc­tion Meth­od State­ment (CMS). This should address the risk of sed­i­ment release through appro­pri­ate pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion and con­trol meas­ures such that pol­lu­tion risk could be min­im­ised. The CEMP also includes spe­cies pro­tec­tion meas­ures that would min­im­ise the risk of dis­turb­ance to otter. The CEMP and CMS must be secured by con­di­tion should plan­ning per­mis­sion be granted.

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	X
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	SPORT AND RECREATION
POLICY 9	CUL­TUR­AL HERITAGE
POLICY 10	RESOURCES	X
POLICY 11	DEVELOPER OBLIG­A­TIONS	X

1. All new devel­op­ment pro­pos­als require to be assessed in rela­tion to policies con­tained in the adop­ted Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan. The full word­ing of policies can be found at:

https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​w​p​-​c​o​n​t​e​n​t​/​u​p​l​o​a​d​s​/​2​0​2​1​/​0​3​/​C​N​P​A​-​L​D​P​-​2​0​2​1​-​w​e​b.pdf

Plan­ning Guidance

1. Sup­ple­ment­ary guid­ance also forms part of the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan and provides more details about how to com­ply with the policies. Guid­ance that is rel­ev­ant to this applic­a­tion is marked with a cross.

Policy I	New Hous­ing Devel­op­ment Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance (2015)
Policy 2	Sup­port­ing Eco­nom­ic Growth Non-Stat­utory Guidance	X
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	Sport and Recre­ation Non-Stat­utory Guidance

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 24/06/2022

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. NatureScot agrees with the con­clu­sions of the HRA that adverse effects on the site integ­rity of Kin­veachy Forest SPA and the River Spey SAC will be avoided for the reas­ons spe­cified in the apprais­al. A con­di­tion that the Con­struc­tion Envir­on­ment­al Man­age­ment Plan is agreed pri­or to works tak­ing place is sup­por­ted to pre­vent poten­tial pol­lu­tion and dis­turb­ance to Milton Burn and there­fore pre­vent adverse effects to the des­ig­nated spe­cies of the River Spey SAC.

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

3. SEPA object to the pro­pos­als in terms of flood risk as the pro­posed devel­op­ment and land rais­ing falls with­in the func­tion­al flood­plain. This is con­trary to Scot­tish Plan­ning Policy. They advise that if the applic­a­tion is to be recom­men­ded for approv­al con­trary to their objec­tion on flood risk, then ref­er­ence must be made to the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning (Noti­fic­a­tion of Applic­a­tions) (Scot­land) Dir­ec­tion 2009 which provides cri­ter­ia for refer­ral to Scot­tish Min­is­ters of such cases.

4. Police Scot­land has no objec­tions how­ever recom­mends the applic­ants fol­low the prin­ciples of Crime Pre­ven­tion through Envir­on­ment­al Design (CPTED) and seek fur­ther assist­ance or advice with any aspect of secur­ity for the devel­op­ment, espe­cially dur­ing the con­struc­tion phase or if CCTV and/​or oth­er elec­tron­ic secur­ity meas­ures are being considered.

5. The High­land Coun­cil Trans­port Plan­ning Team ini­tially objec­ted to the applic­a­tion on the fol­low­ing grounds:

a) Insuf­fi­cient car park­ing; b) Trip gen­er­a­tion has not been car­ried out fol­low­ing best prac­tice guidelines; c) Trip gen­er­a­tion is under­es­tim­ated; d) Impact of devel­op­ment traffic on Grampi­an Road has not been assessed; e) Scale of devel­op­ment will cause traffic man­age­ment issues on Grampi­an Road; f) Road safety issues relat­ing to HGVs mix­ing with ped­es­tri­ans; g) Addi­tion­al traffic on Grampi­an Road will pose road safety issues for vul­ner­able road users; h) Site lay­out does not con­form to prin­ciples in Design­ing Streets; i) Cycle Pro­vi­sion does not meet Coun­cil Guidelines; j) No evid­ence to show suf­fi­cient level of ser­vice for pub­lic trans­port; k) Meas­ures to pre­vent sur­face water flow­ing onto adop­ted road are inadequate.

1. The applic­ants have endeav­oured to address the issues raised by the Trans­port Plan­ning team, how­ever, con­cerns remain regard­ing the impact the devel­op­ment will potentially

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 24/06/2022

have on Grampi­an Road by gen­er­at­ing sig­ni­fic­antly more traffic than the site’s pre­vi­ous uses, that the devel­op­ment has insuf­fi­cient car park­ing pro­vi­sion and the pro­posed cycle pro­vi­sion is unac­cept­able. The devel­op­ment also does not have appro­pri­ate ser­vi­cing arrange­ments. Trip gen­er­a­tion data provided by the applic­ant has not been car­ried out using best prac­tice and there­fore the full vehicu­lar impact has not been assessed. There will be no pub­lic trans­port ser­vice avail­able at week­ends and no mit­ig­a­tion has been put for­ward by the applic­ants to address this. Not­with­stand­ing these con­cerns, should the applic­a­tion be recom­men­ded for approv­al, the Trans­port Plan­ning Team recom­mends a num­ber of con­di­tions which will assist is address­ing these out­stand­ing concerns.

1. The High­land Coun­cil Flood Risk Man­age­ment Team object to the pro­posed devel­op­ment on the grounds of poten­tial flood risk. They are con­cerned about the mod­el­ling of the down­stream cul­vert and the devel­op­ment encroach­ing into the iden­ti­fied flood plain. They state that a 6m water­course buf­fer, meas­ured from the top of the bank of the water­course, should be kept free from new devel­op­ment. In terms of drain­age they recom­mend the detailed drain­age design to be secured through a plan­ning condition.

2. The High­land Coun­cil Forestry Officer raises con­cern regard­ing con­struc­tion work tak­ing place with iden­ti­fied tree root pro­tec­tion areas. They seek fur­ther details of what is pro­posed in terms of drain­age con­struc­tion works and the impact of pro­tec­ted trees. Cur­rent drain­age pro­pos­als con­flict with the pro­posed tree pro­tec­tion meas­ures. They con­sider the pro­posed tree plant­ing to be weak and seek a more sig­ni­fic­ant and mean­ing­ful areas of tree plant­ing with­in the development.

3. CNPA Out­door Access Officer recom­mends that the devel­op­ment sup­ports the deliv­ery of recom­mend­a­tions made in the Act­ive Aviemore Report.

4. CNPA Land­scape Advisor states that the devel­op­ment site has land­scape capa­city for the type of mixed devel­op­ment pro­posed, how­ever, there are sev­er­al land­scape and visu­al design sens­it­iv­it­ies asso­ci­ated with the site. In addi­tion to its loc­a­tion with­in the Nation­al Park, it is an import­ant and prom­in­ent loc­a­tion with­in Aviemore and its redevel­op­ment should relate to exist­ing build­ings, its topo­graphy and the reten­tion of key views that all con­trib­ute to the dis­tinct Spe­cial Land­scape Qual­it­ies and sense of place. There is a need to rein­force and enhance its front­age onto Grampi­an Road and pro­tect and enhance the adja­cent Milton Burn.

5. It is their view that the devel­op­ment would res­ult in some sig­ni­fic­ant adverse land­scape and visu­al effects. In sum­mary these would be:

a) The scale of the build­ings would con­trast with nearby build­ings along Grampi­an Road. These would appear pro­por­tion­ally massive and over­bear­ing, obstruct­ing key views. b) The lay­out of the pro­pos­al con­trasts with the loc­al land­scape pat­tern and lin­ear streets­cape of Grampi­an Road. c) The archi­tec­tur­al design does not respond to the dis­tinct land­scape char­ac­ter or loc­al ver­nacu­lar. d) New tree, hedge, shrub and grass­land plant­ing is wel­comed, how­ever, is unam­bi­tious and the design concept and struc­ture is unclear and not appro­pri­ate for this

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 24/06/2022

prom­in­ent site. There is insuf­fi­cient space provided for the exist­ing trees, pro­posed trees and green space. e) The devel­op­ment would have a det­ri­ment­al impact on the Milton Burn. f) The pro­posed small pub­lic area of open space will not provide a high qual­ity land­scape design in terms of rein­for­cing or enhan­cing the dis­tinct land­scape char­ac­ter­ist­ics, visu­al amen­ity and SLQs of Aviemore.

1. CNPA Eco­logy Advisor is now sat­is­fied that the required sur­vey work in rela­tion to otters and rep­tiles has been under­taken. They remain con­cerned regard­ing the prox­im­ity of the devel­op­ment to the ripari­an cor­ridor of the Milton Burn. They state that fur­ther inform­a­tion includ­ing sec­tions are sub­mit­ted to clearly demon­strate how the ripari­an strip will be incor­por­ated into the devel­op­ment and the impact of the raised deck on this. They also remain con­cerned about the pro­posed SuDS not provid­ing biod­iversity bene­fit and recom­mend the inclu­sion of swift bricks to be incor­por­ated into the development.

2. Aviemore and Vicin­ity Com­munity Coun­cil has provided com­ments object­ing to the pro­pos­als (full copy avail­able to view at Appendix 3):

a) The pro­posed extern­al fin­ishes are con­sidered visu­ally obtrus­ive and out of char­ac­ter and thus a more sym­path­et­ic fin­ish should be sought; b) The height is out of scale with its sur­round­ings, how­ever it is noted the gable facing Grampi­an Road has been stepped and as such is sim­il­ar to the prop­erty that was pre­vi­ously on the site; c) Access from Grampi­an Road will cause traffic man­age­ment issues and fur­ther mit­ig­a­tion should be con­sidered. There are insuf­fi­cient elec­tric vehicle char­ging points.

REP­RES­ENT­A­TIONS

1. The applic­a­tion was advert­ised when it was ori­gin­ally sub­mit­ted and five let­ters of objec­tion to the pro­pos­als were received, includ­ing one from the Badenoch and Strath­spey Con­ser­va­tion Group. Fol­low­ing the sub­mis­sion of amend­ments and sub­sequent neigh­bour noti­fic­a­tion and pub­li­city, a fur­ther 18 let­ters of objec­tion have been received.

2. Cop­ies of all the third-party rep­res­ent­a­tions can be found at Appendix 4. The fol­low­ing is a sum­mary of the objections.

a) This form of devel­op­ment con­tra­venes the aims of the Nation­al Park by not pro­tect­ing and enhan­cing the nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age of the Park; b) Lack of afford­able hous­ing to address the needs of the loc­al com­munity and hous­ing crisis in the area; c) Intro­duc­tion of fur­ther unne­ces­sary tour­ist accom­mod­a­tion; d) No com­munity bene­fit; e) Too high, over-dom­in­ant and over devel­op­ment and urb­an­isa­tion of the site to the det­ri­ment of Aviemore; f) Inap­pro­pri­ate design and extern­al fin­ishes; g) Loss of amen­ity for neigh­bour­ing loc­al residents;

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h) Det­ri­ment­al impact on the integ­rity of the Milton Burn which is part of the River Spey SAC; i) Cumu­lat­ive impact of the devel­op­ment on the des­ig­nated site down­stream; j) Impact on pro­tec­ted spe­cies (otter, lamprey, stone­fly). k) Insuf­fi­cient sur­vey work under­taken and full suite of sur­veys required; l) Insuf­fi­cient space for adequate green land; m) Increased risk of flood­ing giv­en insuf­fi­cient sur­face water drain­age details; n) SuDS design not fully sus­tain­able; o) Sig­ni­fic­ant traffic implications;

APPRAIS­AL

1. The main plan­ning con­sid­er­a­tions are con­sidered to be: the prin­ciple of devel­op­ment; land­scape, sit­ing and design; envir­on­ment­al issues; amen­ity; flood­ing and sur­face water man­age­ment; access, park­ing and sus­tain­able travel and developer contributions.

Prin­ciple

1. Aviemore plays a key role as an employ­ment and ser­vice centre for the wider Badenoch and Strath­spey area. Loc­al Plan policy sup­ports oppor­tun­it­ies for busi­ness growth and those which will increase Aviemore’s attract­ive­ness as a tour­ist and recre­ation destination.

2. Policy 2.1: Town Centres First of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 sup­ports high foot­fall retail, com­mer­cial and leis­ure devel­op­ment where they are loc­ated with­in an iden­ti­fied town centre. The applic­a­tion site lies with­in Aviemore’s town centre bound­ary and is well loc­ated in terms of access to ser­vices and amen­it­ies. The LDP iden­ti­fies the site as a mixed-use devel­op­ment oppor­tun­ity. The site which was formerly occu­pied by sporad­ic­ally loc­ated res­id­en­tial units and a small fun­fair has now been cleared and offers a suit­able loc­a­tion for this type of devel­op­ment which will provide facil­it­ies with­in the heart of the vil­lage and would con­trib­ute to the vital­ity and viab­il­ity of this exist­ing town centre.

3. Policy 2.2: Tour­ist Accom­mod­a­tion of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 sup­ports tour­ist related accom­mod­a­tion where it has no adverse envir­on­ment­al or amen­ity impacts on the site or neigh­bour­ing areas, where it con­trib­utes to/​supports the pro­vi­sion of a wide range of vis­it­or accom­mod­a­tion options includ­ing low cost accom­mod­a­tion and sup­ports or con­trib­utes to a year round eco­nomy. The devel­op­ment of 23 self-cater­ing two and three bed­room hol­i­day apart­ments and the 83 bed­room hotel with ancil­lary facil­it­ies will provide a mix of tour­ist accom­mod­a­tion options. This in turn will attract a range of vis­it­ors to the area through­out the year.

4. Giv­en the above it is con­sidered that the prin­ciple of the devel­op­ment accords with Policy 2: Sup­port­ing Eco­nom­ic Growth of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 sub­ject to com­pli­ance with oth­er rel­ev­ant Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan policies.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 24/06/2022

Land­scape, Sit­ing and Design Issues

1. Policy 5: Land­scape of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 pre­sumes against devel­op­ment that does not con­serve and enhance the land­scape char­ac­ter and spe­cial qual­it­ies of the Nation­al Park and in par­tic­u­lar the set­ting of the pro­posed devel­op­ment. Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 requires design state­ments to accom­pany all devel­op­ment pro­pos­als to demon­strate the pro­pos­als have been designed to be sym­path­et­ic to the tra­di­tion­al pat­tern and char­ac­ter of the sur­round­ing area, loc­al ver­nacu­lar and loc­al dis­tinct­ive­ness whilst encour­aging innov­a­tion in design and use of mater­i­als. Devel­op­ment should seek to use mater­i­als and land­scap­ing that will com­ple­ment the set­ting of the development.

2. The site has been cleared but his­tor­ic­ally had a lim­ited num­ber of build­ings on it with garden spaces. The pro­posed devel­op­ment will con­trast sig­ni­fic­antly with its cur­rent open char­ac­ter and with pre­vi­ous devel­op­ment on the site, but would also be con­sist­ent with a busy town centre loc­a­tion. The Land­scape Advisor has expressed con­cern with regard to the poten­tial impact on the site’s land­scape and visu­al design sens­it­iv­it­ies. They recom­men­ded fur­ther ana­lys­is of the site and a revised lay­out and design. The applic­ant has con­sidered the recom­mend­a­tions and provided some addi­tion­al mater­i­al in sup­port of the applic­a­tion. The Land­scape Adviser remains con­cerned that these do not go far enough to address the issues raised. Aviemore has developed over time in a prin­cip­ally lin­ear form, with an assor­ted com­pos­i­tion of archi­tec­tur­al styles and pub­lic realm com­ple­men­ted by vary­ing land­scape ele­ments. The scale and lay­out of the pro­posed devel­op­ment, how­ever, has had to take ref­er­ence from the con­straints of this par­tic­u­lar site — its form, topo­graphy, eco­lo­gic­al value and its loc­a­tion and access off the key route (Grampi­an Road B9152) through Aviemore.

3. It is recog­nised that this devel­op­ment will be indi­vidu­al in char­ac­ter and appear­ance and will be in con­trast to the loc­al land­scape pat­tern and lin­ear streets­cape, although the Grampi­an Road front­age of Aviemore already has a wide vari­ety of forms of devel­op­ment in the vicin­ity. The most sig­ni­fic­ant dif­fer­ence in the pro­posed devel­op­ment is from the height of build­ings which are a storey or more high­er than most build­ings nearby, though not incon­sist­ent with a busy town centre loc­a­tion. The height of build­ings will inev­it­ably have some impact on views across the site towards the hills west of the A9.

4. The site is how­ever, iden­ti­fied for a mixed used devel­op­ment oppor­tun­ity with­in the adop­ted Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan and there­fore any future redevel­op­ment on this prom­in­ent cent­ral loc­a­tion would be expec­ted to res­ult in new form of devel­op­ment that would change the char­ac­ter of the streets­cape. The design eth­os is to cre­ate a focal point with­in the town centre. The devel­op­ment will intro­duce uses that are inten­ded to attract people (tour­ist accom­mod­a­tion, res­taur­ants, cafés and shops) and includes a pub­lic amen­ity space front­ing Grampi­an Road. It is envis­aged that this will evolve into a ​‘people gath­er­ing point’ which in turn will cre­ate a form­al hub with­in the centre of the vil­lage. Giv­en its prom­in­ence and anti­cip­ated status it is con­sidered essen­tial that the devel­op­ment is of a high stand­ard and incor­por­ates high qual­ity extern­al fin­ishes and land­scap­ing fea­tures to max­im­ise its appeal and encour­age people to vis­it and use the space. Should the applic­a­tion be sup­por­ted it is recom­men­ded that con­di­tions requiring

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 24/06/2022

fur­ther details of these ele­ments are recom­men­ded to ensure the devel­op­ment is of the qual­ity that will con­trib­ute to the enhance­ment of its surroundings.

1. There are a lim­ited num­ber of trees remain­ing on the site and these are in a nar­row, but visu­ally and eco­lo­gic­ally import­ant ripari­an strip to the east of the side adja­cent to the Milton Burn. The pro­pos­als identi­fy three of these for remov­al and some meas­ures are pro­posed to pro­tect the remain­ing trees. It is recog­nised that the trees and veget­a­tion with­in this part of the site make a sig­ni­fic­ant con­tri­bu­tion to the site visu­ally and eco­lo­gic­ally. It is recom­men­ded that a con­di­tion is attached to any con­sent requir­ing the sub­mis­sion of and approv­al appro­pri­ate tree pro­tec­tion meas­ures to ensure the reten­tion of these import­ant nat­ur­al land­scape fea­tures of the site.

2. Not­with­stand­ing the con­cerns raised, the pro­pos­al will intro­duce a new form of devel­op­ment on a con­strained, brown field site with­in the town centre. On bal­ance and sub­ject to appro­pri­ately worded con­di­tions attached to any con­sent relat­ing to mater­i­als, land­scap­ing, light­ing and tree pro­tec­tion, it is con­sidered that the pro­pos­als could com­ply with Policy 5: Land­scape and Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021.

Envir­on­ment­al Issues

1. Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Her­it­age of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al 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. Policy 10: Resources of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 requires that all devel­op­ment should avoid unac­cept­able det­ri­ment­al impacts on the water envir­on­ment and should demon­strate that any impacts can be adequately mitigated.

2. The area to the east of the of the site incor­por­ates a stretch of the Milton Burn which flows dir­ectly into the River Spey Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion. This ripari­an strip is of high eco­lo­gic­al value and it is essen­tial that meas­ures are put in place to ensure its pro­tec­tion. As such a 6 metre wide buf­fer strip has been iden­ti­fied where hab­it­ats should be retained as exist­ing. There will, how­ever, be unavoid­able works which will encroach into this area to allow for changes to the drain­age infra­struc­ture, strength­en­ing of the head­wall and the form­a­tion of the hotel’s lower park­ing level. The Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al iden­ti­fied meas­ures neces­sary to ensure the pro­posed devel­op­ment would not adversely effect the integ­rity of the River Spey SAC. A fully detailed Con­struc­tion Envir­on­ment­al Man­age­ment Plan (CEMP) incor­por­at­ing an out­line Con­struc­tion Man­age­ment State­ment (CMS) has been sub­mit­ted which details work­ing meth­ods for the con­struc­tion phase, and provid­ing works are car­ried out in strict accord­ance with this, there will not be impacts on the integ­rity of the River Spey SAC.

3. In terms of the wider site, it is recom­men­ded that an updated Tree Pro­tec­tion Plan is required to reflect changes to the drain­age pro­pos­als and to spe­cific­ally detail how works with­in the Root Pro­tec­tion Areas (RPAs) will be car­ried out to ensure exist­ing trees are fully pro­tec­ted. The Eco­logy Officer has also noted that the CEMP makes ref­er­ence to the inclu­sion of bird and bat boxes. These should be required through the

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 24/06/2022

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