Item5AANethyBridgeHousing20200064PPP

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 28/08/2020

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

DEVEL­OP­MENT PRO­POSED: Res­id­en­tial devel­op­ment for up to 20 dwell­ing houses at Land At School Road And Craigmore Road Nethy Bridge

REF­ER­ENCE: 2020/0064/PPP

APPLIC­ANT: CastleG­len Prop­er­ties (Aber­deen) Ltd

DATE CALLED-IN: 9 March 2020

RECOM­MEND­A­TION: Approve sub­ject to conditions

CASE OFFICER: Stephanie Wade, Plan­ning Officer

CNPA Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Applic­a­tion Site 100 N 0 25 50 Meters Sch 。 BCH Nethy Bridge lower Dell 02 Badanf­huar­ain A Dor­back Place 234m Crown copy­right and data­base rights 2020. Ord­nance Sur­vey Licence num­ber 100040965 Iss Drain AB AB A CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 28/08/2020 A β AG AG G 2

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 28/08/2020

SITE DESCRIP­TION, PRO­POS­AL AND HISTORY

Site Descrip­tion

1. The applic­a­tion site com­prises approx­im­ately 1.9 hec­tares of mature con­i­fer­ous plant­a­tion wood­land, loc­ated to the north-east­ern area of Nethy Bridge. The site is bound on the south by Craigmore Road with mature wood­land sur­round­ing the remainder of the site. Adjoin­ing the wood­land on the west is the res­id­en­tial cul-de-sac of Dirdhu Court and on the south­ern side of the road to Dirdhu Court are the res­id­en­tial dwell­ings of Dor­back Place. A vehicu­lar access off of Craigmore Road provides access to an off-road park­ing area with inform­al foot­paths lead­ing from here into the wood­land. The exist­ing over­head SSEN power line runs through the site adja­cent to the south­ern boundary.

2. The wider wood­land area to the north and east, known as School Wood, as well as an area adja­cent to the Hotel in Nethy Bridge, are also with­in the applicant’s con­trol with the landowner’s con­sent. Those wood­lands con­tain numer­ous form­al and inform­al paths and are pop­u­lar with loc­al res­id­ents and vis­it­ors for walk­ing, dog walk­ing and cyc­ling in particular.

3. The wood is included with­in the Ancient Wood­land Invent­ory as being Ancient Wood­land (Cat­egory 2a Semi-nat­ur­al wood­land dat­ing back to at least 1860). There are two burns which are with­in 40 metres of the devel­op­ment bound­ary which even­tu­ally flow into the Allt Mhor, form­ing part of the River Spey SAC. There are Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Areas (SACs) to the north and south of Nethy Bridge at Craigmore Wood and Abernethy.

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=Q6NWIUSI0CH00

Title	Draw­ing Num­ber	Date on Plan*	Date Received
Plans
Loc­a­tion Plan	70599⁄200	07 Feb­ru­ary 2020	09 March 2020
Site Loc­a­tion Plan	PL02 Rev.A	01 Octo­ber 2019	09 March 2020
Pro­posed Indic­at­ive Site	PLOI Rev.G	01 Feb­ru­ary 2020	09 March 2020
Lay­out Plan
Devel­op­ment Lay­out Plan	70599⁄201	07 Feb­ru­ary 2020	09 March 2020

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 28/08/2020

| Road Lay­out Plan | ⁷⁰⁵⁹⁹⁄₂₀₂ | 07 Feb­ru­ary 2020 | 09 March 2020 | | Roads Lon­git­ud­in­al Sec­tions | ⁷⁰⁵⁹⁹⁄₂₀₅ | 07 Feb­ru­ary 2020 | 09 March 2020 | | Vehicle Swept Path Ana­lys­is | ⁷⁰⁵⁹⁹⁄₂₀₇ | 07 Feb­ru­ary 2020 | 09 March 2020 | | Ground Invest­ig­a­tion Plan | ⁷⁰⁵⁹⁹⁄₂₀₈ | 07 Feb­ru­ary 2020 | 09 March 2020 | | Pro­posed Adopt­able Areas | ⁷⁰⁵⁹⁹⁄₂₀₄ | 07 Feb­ru­ary 2020 | 09 March 2020 | | Drain­age Lay­out Plan | ⁷⁰⁵⁹⁹⁄₂₀₃ | 07 Feb­ru­ary 2020 | 09 March 2020 | | Sur­face Water Exceedance | ⁷⁰⁵⁹⁹⁄₂₀₆ | 10 Feb­ru­ary 2020 | 09 March 2020 | | Rout­ing | | | | | Tree Pro­tec­tion Plan | NBC-2002-TP | 20 Feb­ru­ary 2020 | 09 March 2020 | | Arbor­i­cul­tur­al Assess­ment | NBC-2002-AA | 20 Feb­ru­ary 2020 | 09 March 2020 | | Plan | | | | | Sup­port­ing Doc­u­ments | | | | | Plan­ning State­ment | | | 09 March 2020 | | Drain­age Impact Assess­ments | 70599/DIA/01 | 11 Feb­ru­ary 2020 | 09 March 2020 | | (4 Parts) | | | | | Pre­lim­in­ary Eco­lo­gic­al | NBC-2002- | 19 May | 27 May 2020 | | Apprais­al and Exten­ded Phase | PEA (Rev 1) | 2020 | | | I Hab­it­ats Sur­vey | | | | | Com­pens­at­ory Plant­ing | NBC‑2 – 2- | 14 Feb­ru­ary 2020 | 09 March 2020 | | Pre­lim­in­ary Eco­lo­gic­al | PEA | | | | Apprais­al and Envir­on­ment­al | | | | | Walkover Sur­vey | | | | | Tree Sur­vey Report | NBS-2002-TR | 19 Feb­ru­ary 2020 | 09 March 2020 | | Wood­land Man­age­ment | NBSW-2005- | 28 May | 29 May 2020 | | Sur­vey | TM | 2020 | | | Caper­cail­lie Sur­vey | NBSC-2006- | 19 June | 22 June 2020 | | | CHA | 2020 | |

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

This applic­a­tion seeks plan­ning per­mis­sion in prin­ciple for the erec­tion of 20 dwell­ings, includ­ing 7 afford­able units, access, and drain­age and land­scap­ing on site. An indic­at­ive site lay­out has been provided which shows the erec­tion of dwell­ings in a lin­ear form, par­al­lel to Craigmore Road and set back from the road, with the cre­ation of two vehicu­lar access points to the pub­lic road. The indic­at­ive lay­out presents the dwellings

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 28/08/2020

in two seg­ments of the site with wood­land sep­ar­at­ing the two areas. Two SUDS deten­tion basins have also been indic­ated on the plan.

1. The applic­a­tion is sup­por­ted by the fol­low­ing information:

   a) Plan­ning State­ment: sets the frame­work and policy con­text, which informed the devel­op­ment of the sub­mit­ted scheme.

   b) Drain­age Impact Assess­ment: details the assess­ment of the exist­ing drain­age and pro­posed drain­age con­nec­tions to the site. The report con­firms that for foul drain­age, it is pro­posed to con­vey foul water flows to the exist­ing Scot­tish Water foul water sew­er loc­ated in Dor­back Place. Due to the topo­graphy, it will be neces­sary to pump the wastewa­ter from the devel­op­ment to the exist­ing sew­er. Grav­ity sew­ers will con­vey foul flows to the pro­posed new pump­ing sta­tion loc­ated to the south west corner of the site. For sur­face water, due to the high sea­son­al water table, con­di­tions are not favour­able for the dis­pos­al of sur­face water by means of infilt­ra­tion type SUDs. There­fore, it is pro­posed that dis­charge to water­courses on the east and west site bound­ar­ies with atten­tion and water qual­ity being achieved by design of a suit­ably sized deten­tion basin for each catch­ment. Flow con­trols will be installed to con­trol the dis­charge from each basin. Regard­ing flood risk, the flood risk assess­ment con­firms that poten­tial flood risk from the two minor water­courses loc­ated to the east and west of the site can be mit­ig­ated by a 500mm free­board to set fin­ished floor levels above the pre­dicted 200 year flood levels. The pre­dicted 200 year flood level on the west­ern water­course is more than 2 metres below the fin­ished floor levels of the pro­posed adja­cent houses and the pre­dicted 200 year flood level on the east­ern water­course at its nearest pos­i­tion to the site is more than 1.5 metres below the fin­ished floor levels of the pro­posed adja­cent houses. Regard­ing main­ten­ance, it is pro­posed that the sur­face water sew­ers, deten­tion basins, foul water sew­ers, pump­ing sta­tion and rising main serving the devel­op­ment are put for­ward for adop­tion by Scot­tish Water.

   c) Pre­lim­in­ary Eco­lo­gic­al Apprais­al and Exten­ded Phase I Hab­it­ats Sur­vey: An eco­lo­gic­al and Phase I Hab­it­ats Sur­vey, dated 19 Feb­ru­ary 2020, has been pre­pared and under­taken by Astell Asso­ci­ates and sub­mit­ted in sup­port of the applic­a­tion. The report demon­strates the con­sid­er­a­tion of the pro­posed development’s implic­a­tions on the eco­lo­gic­al and land­scape aspects of the site, and pro­poses fur­ther sur­vey work and mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures. The report con­firms the site sup­ports the fol­low­ing hab­it­ats: nat­ive pine­wood, mixed semi-nat­ur­al wood­land with mature and vet­er­an trees, wood­land edge/​dry dwarf scrub heath (with juni­per scrub), wet flushes (acid/​nat­ur­al), and a vari­ety of dif­fer­ent dead­wood. The wood­land on site has extra value by vir­tue of its status on the Ancient Wood­land Invent­ory as ​“Ancient of Semi-nat­ur­al ori­gin”. This is demon­strated by the pres­ence of a num­ber of ​“ancient wood­land spe­cial­ist spe­cies includ­ing the Lem­on Slug. The report notes that many of the import­ant hab­it­ats in the area will be retained and roads and houses will be designed to avoid these import­ant areas where pos­sible. Regard­ing pro­tec­ted spe­cies, the site sup­ports: brown shield moss, inter­rup­ted club­moss and creep­ing lady’s tresses smut. A small area of green shield moss was found with­in 20 metres of the site bound­ary. Four spe­cies of nation­ally scarce inver­teb­rate are known to be

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 28/08/2020

present on site, with twenty six oth­er UK BAP, nation­ally rare/​scarce or crit­ic­ally endangered inver­teb­rates found in the nearby area. Sev­er­al amber and red lis­ted wood­land birds use the site for nest­ing and for­aging. The site is likely to sup­port pop­u­la­tions of rare pine­wood spe­cial­ists includ­ing the Cres­ted Tit, Scot­tish Cross­bill and Par­rot Cross­bill. The site has par­tic­u­lar value as a dis­pers­al route for caper­cail­lie. The report notes that the devel­op­ment will res­ult in min­im­al loss of for­aging hab­it­at for otters, pine mar­tin, red squir­rels and wild­cat. Fur­ther sur­vey work required and mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures are out­line with­in the document.

d) Compensatory Planting Preliminary Ecological Appraisal and

Envir­on­ment­al Walkover Sur­vey: An eco­lo­gic­al apprais­al and walkover sur­vey of the com­pens­at­ory plant­ing site, under­taken by Astoll Asso­caites, has been sub­mit­ted in sup­port of the applic­a­tion. The report notes that the cur­rent hab­it­ats on site have low eco­lo­gic­al value and the pro­posed com­pens­at­ory plant­ing scheme will replace spe­cies-poor, semi-improved rough grass­land with nat­ive con­i­fer­ous decidu­ous wood­land, heath­land and juni­per scrub. No rare or pro­tec­ted plants, fungi, amphi­bi­ans, rep­tiles or fish are found on site. It is noted that bats may use trees on site for roost­ing and the open areas for for­aging, but not oth­er pro­tec­ted spe­cies of mam­mal use the site for for­aging or breed­ing. Regard­ing birds, mead­ow pip­its may poten­tially use the site for breed­ing although the site has low suit­ab­il­ity for ground-nest­ing birds due to high levels of dis­turb­ance from dog-walk­ers. No oth­er rare or pro­tec­ted bird spe­cies are known to use the site. It is noted that the broom scrub on site will be retained which may sup­port the pro­vi­sion­ally nation­ally scarce stilt-legged fly Micropeza lat­eral­is. The report makes a num­ber of recom­mend­a­tions includ­ing: retain­ing the cur­rent trees and areas of broom scrub on site; the car­ry­ing out of plant­ing out­with the bird breed­ing sea­son; and the reten­tion of open areas adja­cent to the build­ings around the site with inter­con­nect­ing path­ways to ret­ina the use by the gen­er­al public.

e) Tree Survey Report: The report confirms that site inspections took place on

3 occa­sions with­in Decem­ber 2019 and Janu­ary 2020 by Astell Asso­ci­ates. The report ref­er­ences the pre­vi­ous sur­vey under­taken in 2009 which col­lec­ted data on the three spe­cies on site/​l Scots pine, sil­ver birch and wil­low. The wood­land is described as hav­ing wet ground for less than 5% of the site. Large open grown wil­lows are present with smal­ler wil­lows scattered with­in the Scots pine areas. Small num­bers (less than 5 stems per hec­tare) of row­an, aspen and larix spe­cies are also present. Loc­al know­ledge and site obser­va­tion indic­ated that the wood­land was felled in 1947 and the cur­rent trees were estab­lished by nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion. The report did not sur­vey the tall, thin, close grown trees. Lar­ger trees mainly out­with the devel­op­ment site, but closely asso­ci­ated, have been sur­veyed. Out of the 19 trees sur­veyed, three are pro­posed to be felled which are rated as either low qual­ity with an estim­ated remain­ing life expect­ancy of at least ten years or as trees which can­not be retained long-term for reas­ons such as: a ser­i­ous struc­tur­al defect.

f) Woodland Management Survey: A woodland management report has been

sub­mit­ted regard­ing the pro­posed man­age­ment plan of the trees to main­tain eco­logy at School Wood. The report con­firms that the School Wood Scots pine and under­story veget­a­tion are to be retained untouched, and the Nor­way spruce

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 28/08/2020

will be retained at present. The smal­ler, supressed tress are pro­posed to be felled and the wood stacked at stump as wild­life hab­it­at. The Lodge­pole pine in the north-west and west area are pro­posed to be felled in three oper­a­tions at 5 year inter­vals. Mit­ig­a­tion includes the cre­ation of a ripari­an buf­fer strip along the banks of the Caochan Fhuar­ain, which will provide cov­er for otters. The doc­u­ment also pro­poses the cre­ation of a more var­ied wood­land struc­ture, and provides fur­ther details of the com­pens­at­ory plant­ing area adja­cent to Nethy­bridge Hotel.

g) Capercaillie Survey: Considers the impact of the proposal on capercaillie and

con­cludes that the pro­pos­al would not have an adverse impact on caper­cail­lie, with the pro­posed site hav­ing no poten­tial as breed­ing hab­it­at and not­ing that most of the pro­posed devel­op­ment site already falls with­in a 150m dis­turb­ance zone from paths, roads and settlements.

1. Indic­at­ive plans of the pro­pos­al are included with­in Appendix I.

His­tory

1. An applic­a­tion seek­ing out­line plan­ning per­mis­sion for the erec­tion of 40 dwell­ings and busi­ness units was sub­mit­ted to The High­land Coun­cil in Feb­ru­ary 2002 (ref: 02/45/OUTBS). The High­land Coun­cil resolved in Septem­ber 2002 to grant out­line plan­ning per­mis­sion, sub­ject to a sec­tion 75 Leg­al Agree­ment to cov­er mat­ters includ­ing the pro­vi­sion of afford­able plots for self-build pur­poses and the under­tak­ing of cer­tain off-site works.

2. In March 2009, an applic­a­tion was made for approv­al of the Mat­ters Spe­cified in Con­di­tions (MSC)- Applic­a­tion No. 09/052/CP. This applic­a­tion was refused at the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Plan­ning Com­mit­tee on the 07 Janu­ary 2011. In sum­mary the reas­ons for refus­al were:

   a) The pro­pos­al con­tra­vened the terms of the out­line plan­ning per­mis­sion (High­land Coun­cil ref. no. 02/00045/OUTBS).

   b) Essen­tial required detail and sur­veys were not provided in sup­port of the cur­rent devel­op­ment proposal.

   c) The pro­posed lay­out of the hous­ing and busi­ness unit sites would give rise to tree loss in this wood­land setting.

   d) The pro­posed devel­op­ment did not meet the site spe­cif­ic require­ments asso­ci­ated with the hous­ing alloc­a­tion and the eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment alloc­a­tion, in the Nethy Bridge set­tle­ment pro­pos­als map in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Plan 2010.

   e) The pro­posed devel­op­ment failed to adequately respond to the char­ac­ter­ist­ics of the site and failed to reflect its unique set­ting on the wood­land peri­phery of a tra­di­tion­al high­land village.

   f) The pro­posed devel­op­ment failed to demon­strate that it would not adversely impact on exist­ing out­door access oppor­tun­it­ies in the imme­di­ate vicinity.

   g) Insuf­fi­cient detail was provided in this applic­a­tion to demon­strate sens­it­ive sit­ing and high qual­ity design in keep­ing with loc­al char­ac­ter and his­tor­ic and nat­ur­al envir­on­ments. The detail provided also failed to demon­strate that the devel­op­ment would not accord with fun­da­ment­al sus­tain­able design principles.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 28/08/2020

1. The decision was sub­sequently the sub­ject of an appeal which was dis­missed by the Report from the Scot­tish Government’s Depart­ment of Plan­ning and Envir­on­ment­al Appeals (DPEA) on 18 July 2011.

2. Dur­ing the Second World War, the site was occu­pied for a few years by a saw­mill oper­ated by the Cana­dian Army Forestry Corp, but there are few vis­ible signs remain­ing on the ground and geo­tech­nic­al samples from the site found no evid­ence of contamination.

Recent His­tory

1. An applic­a­tion for the ​“erec­tion of 58 houses, asso­ci­ated roads and foot­ways” at land at School Road and Craigmore Road (ref. 2013/0119/DET), was sub­mit­ted in April 2013 and determ­ined at the Novem­ber 2014 Plan­ning Com­mit­tee. The applic­a­tion pro­posed the dwell­ings to be erec­ted on two par­cels of land with 14 of the dwell­ings pro­posed at an L‑shaped area of land of 1.65 hec­tares which would have been accessed off Craigmore Road. The com­mit­tee sub­sequently refused plan­ning per­mis­sion. In sum­mary the reas­ons for refus­al were:

   a) The pro­pos­al is exten­ded bey­ond the set­tle­ment boundary.

   b) Lack of mit­ig­a­tion for loss of ancient wood­land and impacts on green shield moss.

   c) The pro­posed devel­op­ment was con­trary to Nat­ur­al Her­it­age Sup­ple­ment­ary Plan­ning Guidance.

   d) Lack of evid­ence that the devel­op­ment would not harm pro­tec­ted species.

   e) Lack of evid­ence that the devel­op­ment would not harm oth­er hab­it­ats and species.

   f) Impacts on land­scape character.

   g) Lack of evid­ence of the sus­tain­ab­il­ity of the development.

   h) Lack of inform­a­tion on afford­able hous­ing provision.

   i) Lack of amen­ity space.

   j) Lack of altern­at­ive access provision.

Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al (HRA)

1. A Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al has been under­taken to con­sider the effects of the pro­pos­al upon the con­ser­va­tion object­ives of the Natura Sites of the fol­low­ing des­ig­nated areas: River Spey Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion (SAC) and the Craigmore Wood Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Area (SPA). A copy of the HRA is included in Appendix 2.

2. The HRA con­cludes that there will not be any adverse effects on the site integ­rity of Craigmore Wood SPA. It also con­cludes that with appro­pri­ate stand­ard mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures cov­er­ing pol­lu­tion and silta­tion pre­ven­tion details as well as SUDs, that would have to be addressed through fur­ther applic­a­tions for mat­ters spe­cified in con­di­tions, there will not be an adverse effect on site integ­rity for the River Spey SAC.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 28/08/2020

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
POLICY 2	SUP­PORT­ING ECO­NOM­IC GROWTH
POLICY 3	SUS­TAIN­ABLE DESIGN
POLICY 4	NAT­UR­AL HERITAGE
POLICY 5	LAND­SCAPE
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
POLICY 11	DEVELOPER CON­TRI­BU­TIONS

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 des­ig­nated in the Nethy Bridge set­tle­ment state­ment of the Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015 for hous­ing devel­op­ment under the des­ig­na­tion HI: Craigmore Road where it is stated as fol­lows: this site has capa­city for around 15 units in the east of the vil­lage. Devel­op­ment of the site will retain enough wood­land to allow for move­ment of spe­cies between areas of wood­land to the sides of the site and retain the wood­land set­ting of this part of the vil­lage. A small water course runs near to the site and a flood risk assess­ment may be required I sup­port of any fur­ther plan­ning applic­a­tion or reserved mat­ters. The HI site with­in the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan cov­ers area of land as included with­in this 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 1	New Hous­ing Devel­op­ment Non-Stat­utory Guidance
Policy 2	Sup­port­ing Eco­nom­ic Growth Non-Stat­utory Guidance
Policy 3	Sus­tain­able Design Non-Stat­utory Guidance
Policy 4	Nat­ur­al Her­it­age Sup­ple­ment­ary Guidance
Policy 5	Land­scape Non-Stat­utory Guidance
Policy 7	Renew­able Energy Sup­ple­ment­ary Guidance

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 28/08/2020

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

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2020

1. The emer­ging Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (“Pro­posed Plan”) which will cov­er the peri­od 2020 – 2025 is cur­rently under exam­in­a­tion, with a report and recom­mend­a­tions from the DPEA cur­rently expec­ted by the end of August. The Pro­posed Plan out­lines the CNPA’s pre­ferred approach to the next five years. The cur­rent alloc­a­tion of the site has not been car­ried for­ward to the Pro­posed Plan, prin­cip­ally because of the impacts on ancient wood­land habitat.

2. Unless an ele­ment of the Pro­posed Plan did not receive objec­tions, only very lim­ited weight can be giv­en to it in decision-mak­ing until the firstly the report­ers Exam­in­a­tion Report and recom­mend­a­tions have been received, and secondly until the Pro­posed Plan itself is adop­ted. The CNPA did receive objec­tions to the remov­al of this site from the Pro­posed Plan so were mat­ters for the report­ers to consider.

3. Fol­low­ing receipt of the Exam­in­a­tion Report from the report­ers the CNPA will need to sub­mit an amended plan to Scot­tish Min­is­ters to gain con­sent to adopt. It should be noted that Min­is­ters can also dir­ect the CNPA to refuse to accept changes recom­men­ded by the Report­er. Though rare, this occurred when the cur­rent adop­ted LDP was sub­mit­ted in 2014.

4. If the Exam­in­a­tion Report is received by the CNPA pri­or to the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee decision, officers will orally update the com­mit­tee on any rel­ev­ant recom­mend­a­tions with­in it and implic­a­tions for the determ­in­a­tion of this application.

CON­SULTA­TIONS

Sum­mary of the main issues raised by consultees

1. Scot­tish Nat­ur­al Her­it­age (SNH) were con­sul­ted on the applic­a­tion and Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al (HRA) and have con­firmed that they agree with the con­clu­sions of the HRA.

2. Scot­tish Water has no objec­tion to the applic­a­tion, how­ever note that this does not con­firm that the pro­posed devel­op­ment can cur­rently be ser­viced. They con­firm that there is cur­rently suf­fi­cient capa­city in the Aviemore Water Treat­ment Works for the sup­ply of water. The pro­posed devel­op­ment would be ser­viced by Nethy Bridge Waste Water Treat­ment Works and the applic­ant would need to sub­mit a form­al con­nec­tion applic­a­tion to Scot­tish Water after full plan­ning per­mis­sion has been gran­ted to con­firm capacity.

3. High­land Coun­cil Trans­port Plan­ning Team ori­gin­ally noted that fur­ther inform­a­tion would be required to address the fol­low­ing matters:

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 28/08/2020

a) Cla­ri­fic­a­tion on the avail­ab­il­ity and access­ib­il­ity of school and pub­lic bus ser­vices is required.

b) Details of vis­ib­il­ity splays at intern­al and extern­al road junc­tions are required;

c) Trans­verse cross sec­tions togeth­er with an earth­works out­line draw­ing required to show the pro­posed main road and house plots rel­at­ive to exist­ing ground levels and identi­fy the cut/​fill require­ments through­out the site;

d) Suit­able inform­a­tion shall be provided regard­ing the loc­a­tion of exist­ing and pro­posed util­it­ies appar­at­us serving the development;

e) A park­ing strategy or the devel­op­ment should be clearly set out and explained. The level and detail of car park­ing pro­vi­sion shall com­ply with the Council’s Roads and Trans­port Guidelines for New Devel­op­ments, Chapter 6;

f) Pro­vi­sion for the stor­age and col­lec­tion of waste mater­i­als for all phases of devel­op­ment shall be made in accord­ance with the require­ments of the Council’s sup­ple­ment­ary plan­ning guid­ance, Man­aging Waste in New Developments;

g) Street light­ing shall be provided to the sat­is­fac­tion of the Council’s Area Light­ing Engineer;

h) In the interests of the safety and secur­ity for both motor­ised and non-motor­ised road users, it is recom­men­ded that Craigmore Road is upgraded to serve the new development.

1. The Team sub­sequently con­firmed that they have no objec­tion to the above out­stand­ing mat­ters being addressed by con­di­tions in any plan­ning prin­ciple per­mis­sion granted.

2. High­land Coun­cil Con­tam­in­ated Land Officer notes the site appears to be pre­vi­ously undeveloped land although a sug­ges­tion has been made that WW2 muni­tions were bur­ied on site at the end of the war. The Officer has reviewed the Fairhurst Geo-envir­on­ment­al and Geo­tech­nic­al Inter­pret­at­ive Report which described the soil as nat­ur­al super­fi­cial depos­its encountered in all six bore­holes drilled on site. There was no evid­ence of con­tam­in­a­tion or muni­tions. Giv­en the lack of evid­ence of poten­tial con­tam­in­a­tion, there is no require­ment for fur­ther site invest­ig­a­tion. The Officer sug­gests the inclu­sion of an inform­at­ive to make the applic­ant aware of the poten­tial for bur­ied munitions.

3. High­land Coun­cil Flood Risk Devel­op­ment Team has reviewed the sub­mit­ted inform­a­tion togeth­er with the Flood Risk Assess­ment and con­firm that they have no objec­tion to the pro­pos­al sub­ject to the inclu­sion of a con­di­tion requir­ing the final detailed drain­age design to be sub­mit­ted for review and approval.

4. High­land Coun­cil Forestry Officer was con­sul­ted but has not provided any spe­cif­ic comments.

5. CNPA Eco­logy Officer notes that the pre­lim­in­ary eco­lo­gic­al assess­ment shows that the site is a rich and diverse area for biod­iversity and fully jus­ti­fies its inclu­sion with­in the Ancient Wood­land Invent­ory. The Officer advises that the site com­prises of ancient semi-nat­ur­al wood­land hab­it­at of high eco­lo­gic­al value and the fea­tures present with­in the site indic­ate that the wood­land is a rich and com­plex resource. The indic­at­ive plan seeks to mit­ig­ate the impact upon the site how­ever even after this, the

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 28/08/2020

officer con­siders that it will have a high sig­ni­fic­ant and adverse eco­lo­gic­al effect. The mit­ig­a­tion pro­posed is through the site lay­out design, improve­ment of oth­er hab­it­at and pro­vi­sion of new hab­it­at, chiefly more wood­land. How­ever, there is insuf­fi­cient inform­a­tion to be clear on how effect­ive this mit­ig­a­tion might be due to the acknow­ledged lim­it­a­tions of the PEA and lack of inform­a­tion on the man­age­ment of the wider wood­land and new plant­ing. It is widely accep­ted that the loss of ancient wood­land is con­sidered irre­place­able and there­fore com­pens­a­tion for loss of this resource is not possible.

1. Fol­low­ing the sub­mis­sion of the updated eco­lo­gic­al apprais­al which included an updated otter sur­vey, the Officer con­firms that the sur­vey found no sign of otter use with­in the 200m sur­vey area. The evid­ence of otter activ­ity earli­er in the year but lack of recent activ­ity sug­gests that otter are using the area infre­quently and known to vis­it­ing in spring months as there is an increase in food sup­ply. They are not cur­rently using the area with­in the site or to 200m from the site for breed­ing. The Officer there­fore con­cludes that an impact on otter breed­ing in the area though the pro­pos­als is not likely. Simple mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures will need to be put in place through a Spe­cies Pro­tec­tion Plan to avoid dis­turb­ance dur­ing con­struc­tion. A pre-con­struc­tion sur­vey must also take place which would be included as a plan­ning con­di­tion. The Officer also provides a sum­mary of con­di­tions to be included and dis­charged as part of a mat­ters spe­cified in con­di­tion applic­a­tion which includes; fur­ther sur­vey work, tree con­straints and pro­tec­tion plans, Con­struc­tion man­age­ment plan, wood­land man­age­ment plans, spe­cies pro­tec­tion plans and full details of the com­pens­at­ory plant­ing area.

2. A Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tion Apprais­al has also been under­taken by the Team which con­cludes that mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures are required to ensure that all con­ser­va­tion object­ives of the sites can be maintained.

3. CNPA Land­scape Officer con­siders that the pro­pos­al will res­ult in a sig­ni­fic­ant change to the land­scape char­ac­ter of the site. This will be an adverse effect upon the char­ac­ter how­ever this is par­tially mit­ig­ated through the indic­at­ive lay­out which seeks to main­tain trees with­in the site between and around the new hous­ing and provide addi­tion­al tree plant­ing. The design of the build­ings will be very import­ant in determ­in­ing the over­all char­ac­ter of the site, this can­not be assessed at this point. The pro­pos­al will also sig­ni­fic­antly affect the land­scape char­ac­ter of the set­ting of the vil­lage and change the nature of the entrance on Craigmore Road. This effect is adverse and will be loc­al­ised due to the lim­ited vis­ib­il­ity of the site from the sur­round­ing areas. The pro­posed new wood­land will be a sig­ni­fic­ant bene­fit to the land­scape of the vil­lage by enhan­cing its wood­land char­ac­ter close to the vil­lage centre and provid­ing an attract­ive recre­ation facil­ity in the long term. The Officer also recom­mends that should per­mis­sion be gran­ted for this applic­a­tion then addi­tion­al inform­a­tion would be required as reserved mat­ters, includ­ing: a full tree pro­tec­tion plan, land­scape details and a man­age­ment plan, details of the land for school learn­ing and its man­age­ment plan, full details of the com­pens­at­ory planting,

4. CNPA Out­door Access Officer has the fol­low­ing com­ments regard­ing the sub­mit­ted scheme:

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 28/08/2020

a) The site and its imme­di­ate sur­rounds con­tain a num­ber of inform­al paths which are cur­rently sub­ject to reg­u­lar use, pre­dom­in­antly by loc­al residents.

b) These paths inter­face with the pub­lic road (Craigmore Road) adja­cent to which an inform­al car park­ing area has developed at NJ 01370 20580 which sup­ports pub­lic use of the path net­work in the locality.

c) The Officer advises that should the pro­posed devel­op­ment impinge upon or lead to the loss of exist­ing inform­al access oppor­tun­ity avail­able to the pub­lic, then this impact requires iden­ti­fic­a­tion and suit­able mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures to coun­ter­act any poten­tial per­man­ent loss. The Officer notes the sub­mit­ted plan­ning state­ment indic­ates the like­li­hood of fur­ther work on this sub­ject should an applic­a­tion be pro­gressed which the Officer welcomes.

d) The Officer sug­gests that the above task should include an exer­cise towards map­ping those pub­lic access routes likely to be affected to ensure that all are iden­ti­fied and allow suit­able mit­ig­a­tion to be drawn up and examined.

1. Nethy Bridge and Vicin­ity Com­munity Coun­cil sup­port the pro­pos­al. They request that the devel­op­ment is car­ried out in a sens­it­ive way with dwell­ings to be built on cleared spaces among the trees thus allow­ing as many semi-mature trees to sur­vive. They also request that the belt of trees adja­cent to the road are retained. Regard­ing the pro­posed com­pens­at­ory plant­ing area, the Com­munity Coun­cil would prefer if the plant­ing took place on oth­er areas of land around the fringes as this is cur­rently an open space.

2. The Com­munity Coun­cil express interest in the com­munity tak­ing own­er­ship of part of the forest adja­cent to Nethy Bridge Golf Course along School Road which could be man­aged in per­petu­ity for the bene­fit of the vil­lage. Whilst that is an admir­able aspir­a­tion, Com­mit­tee mem­bers should note that any such trans­fer of land would be out­side the plan­ning pro­cess and would not be a rel­ev­ant con­sid­er­a­tion in the determ­in­a­tion of this plan­ning applic­a­tion. A copy of the Com­munity Council’s com­ments can be viewed at Appendix 4.

REP­RES­ENT­A­TIONS

1. The applic­a­tion was advert­ised when first sub­mit­ted. Over 50 let­ters have been received in response to the advert­ise­ment, with 53 object­ing, one respond­ent not­ing their sup­port and a fur­ther respond­ent provid­ing gen­er­al com­ments. Cop­ies of the pub­lic responses can be viewed at Appendix 3. A sum­mary of the com­ments is provided below:

2. From the let­ters of objec­tion, the main points are sum­mar­ised as:

   a) There should be a pre­sump­tion against devel­op­ment on ancient wood­land sites; Area is cur­rently irre­place­able ancient wood­land. Scot­tish Plan­ning Policy requires ancient wood­land to be protected;

   b) Rare and pro­tec­ted spe­cies of flora and fauna this ancient wood­land sus­tains would also be des­troyed. No evid­ence sup­plied of what spe­cies exist there;

   c) Area is a wild­life cor­ridor or steep­ing stone between Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Areas which are the hab­it­at of pri­or­ity spe­cies includ­ing the capercaillie;

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 28/08/2020

d) The trees, other growth and soil of this area will go towards meeting the UK's

leg­ally bind­ing tar­get of net zero green­house gas emis­sions by 2050 to help mit­ig­ate cli­mate change;

e) Species of this area form part of the biodiversity the UK must not lose;

f) CNPA Partnership Plan has as its first aim to “conserve and enhance the natural

and cul­tur­al her­it­age of the area” and it says ​“if there is a con­flict between the first aim and any of the oth­ers then great­er weight must be giv­en to the first aim”;

g) Previous 3 applications for the same site have been refused;

h) Inappropriate house building- houses should be for local need not second homes;

i) CNPA should suspend all consideration until after covid 19 restrictions removed;

j) Full consideration should be given to 2020 Proposed Plan and give it precedence

over the old 2015 Plan.- not des­ig­nated for hous­ing in the pro­posed LDP;

k) Contrary to planning aims and policies including aims of the CNPA, Scottish

Plan­ning Policy an 2020 Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan;

l) Contrary to policies: conservation and enhancement of natural heritage and

sus­tain­able use of nat­ur­al resources;

m) Main ecological and environmental evidence provided by the developer is based

on flawed inad­equate report;

n) Compensatory planning will not replace the diversity and ecological richness of

what will be destroyed;

o) Proposal is contrary to Scottish Government's ambition to address the climate

and eco­lo­gic­al emer­gency and increas­ing wood­land cover;

p) Contrary to the 4 aims of the National Park;

q) Insufficient information to demonstrate the proposal wouldn't negatively impact

on pro­tec­ted spe­cies includ­ing lack of a lepid­op­tera sur­vey to assess impact on moths and butterflies;

r) Impact of residential use with surrounding natural environment and associated

res­id­en­tial paraphernalia;

s) Detract from established wooded landscape character and