Item5AdoptionOfNonStatutoryGuidanceCommitteePaper

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 26/03/2021

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

FOR DECIS­ON

Title: ADOP­TION OF NON-STAT­UTORY GUIDANCE

Pre­pared by: Nina Caudrey, Plan­ning Officer (Devel­op­ment Plan­ning) Dan Har­ris, Plan­ning Man­ager (Devel­op­ment Planning)

Pur­pose of Report To ask the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee to adopt 7 items of non-stat­utory guid­ance to sup­port the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021.

Recom­mend­a­tion: That the Board to adopt the fol­low­ing 7 items of non-stat­utory guid­ance to sup­port the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021:

I. Sup­port­ing Eco­nom­ic Growth II. Nat­ur­al Her­it­age III. Land­scape IV. Renew­able Energy V. Resources VI. Open Space, Sport and Recre­ation VII. Cul­tur­al Heritage

Back­ground

1. The Plan­ning Com­mit­tee approved the Nat­ur­al Her­it­age, Renew­able Energy, Land­scape and Cul­tur­al Her­it­age Non-stat­utory Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance (NSG) doc­u­ments for pub­lic con­sulta­tion at com­mit­tee on 24 April 2020 and the Sup­port­ing Eco­nom­ic Growth, Resources and Open Space, Sport and Recre­ation NSG doc­u­ments for pub­lic con­sulta­tion on 26 June 2020.

2. Both pub­lic con­sulta­tion peri­ods sub­sequently ran for 6 weeks, with some organ­isa­tions giv­en an exten­sion to respond where the impact of cov­id-19 con­strained their capa­city at that time.

3. The guid­ance doc­u­ments will sup­port the imple­ment­a­tion of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 (LDP). Some minor amend­ments to all of the policies or their sup­port­ing text were required fol­low­ing exam­in­a­tion. Where required, the guid­ance doc­u­ments have been updated to reflect the revised wording.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 26/03/2021

1. None of the post-exam­in­a­tion policy changes sig­ni­fic­antly altered the main con­tent of the guid­ance documents.

2. The pur­pose of the guid­ance doc­u­ments is to provide sup­port­ing inform­a­tion for the rel­ev­ant policy in the LDP. They sup­ple­ment site spe­cif­ic advice that would be giv­en at the pre-applic­a­tion stage of plan­ning pro­pos­als. The doc­u­ments sign­post read­ers to the key issues to con­sider and to more detailed inform­a­tion provided by organ­isa­tions with a stat­utory remit for the par­tic­u­lar top­ic (eg NatureScot, His­tor­ic Envir­on­ment Scot­land, SEPA, etc). The sign­post­ing approach helps keep the guid­ance doc­u­ments con­cise and read­er friendly, while also redu­cing the risk of the con­tent being super­seded and becom­ing incor­rect over time.

This report presents a numer­ic­al sum­mary of the changes sug­ges­ted by respon­ders and wheth­er it was pos­sible to make such changes. Appendix I is an anonymised table of all the responses received, along with wheth­er the guid­ance doc­u­ments have been amended and the reas­ons why/​why not.

High­lights

1. The bul­lets below provide a sum­mary of key points arising from ana­lys­is of the con­sulta­tion responses:

a) Responses were received from 16 sep­ar­ate indi­vidu­als or organ­isa­tions as a res­ult of the con­sulta­tion. Most com­men­ted on more than one of the guid­ance doc­u­ments, res­ult­ing in 46 responses in total.

b) 13 out of the 16 respond­ents wel­comed or oth­er­wise sup­por­ted the guid­ance doc­u­ments they com­men­ted on or respon­ded to inform the CNPA that they had not com­ments to make.

c) The 16 respon­ders made 172 sep­ar­ate sug­ges­tions for amend­ing the con­tent of the guid­ance doc­u­ments. Of these, 60 res­ul­ted in changes being made, while 112 of the sug­ges­ted changes were not pos­sible (see below) or con­sidered to already be covered by the guidance.

d) A num­ber of the responses reques­ted changes to the LDP policy text and/​or reques­ted that addi­tion­al top­ics were included in the guid­ance. How­ever, the guid­ance can­not intro­duce any addi­tion­al require­ments or top­ics not con­tained in the rel­ev­ant policy of the LDP. There­fore such changes were not possible.

e) There were 13 sug­ges­tions made in rela­tion to the Sup­port­ing Eco­nom­ic Growth guid­ance doc­u­ment, one of which was suit­able for address­ing with minor changes to the guidance.

f) There were 31 sug­ges­tions made in rela­tion to the Nat­ur­al Her­it­age guid­ance doc­u­ment, 14 of which were suit­able for address­ing with minor changes to the guid­ance (4 were addressed through changes required after exam­in­a­tion to strengthen the Nat­ur­al Her­it­age policy in rela­tion to ancient woodlands).

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 26/03/2021

g) There were 31 sug­ges­tions made in rela­tion to the Land­scape guid­ance doc­u­ment, 5 of which were suit­able for address­ing with minor changes to the guidance.

h) There were 26 sug­ges­tions made in rela­tion to the Renew­able Energy guid­ance doc­u­ment, 12 of which were suit­able for address­ing with minor changes to the guidance.

i) There were 35 sug­ges­tions made in rela­tion to the Cul­tur­al Her­it­age guid­ance doc­u­ment, 7 of which were suit­able for address­ing with minor changes to the guidance.

j) There were 22 sug­ges­tions made in rela­tion to the Resources guid­ance doc­u­ment, 18 of which were suit­able for address­ing with minor changes to the guidance.

k) There were 17 sug­ges­tions made in rela­tion to the Open Space, Sport and Recre­ation guid­ance doc­u­ment, 3 of which were suit­able for address­ing with minor changes to the guidance.

Next Steps

1. Fol­low­ing adop­tion, the non-stat­utory sup­ple­ment­ary guid­ance will be pub­lished to be used along­side the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021.

Appen­dices Appendix I — Table of Con­sulta­tion Responses Appendix 2 — Sup­port­ing Eco­nom­ic Growth Appendix 3 — Nat­ur­al Her­it­age Appendix 4 — Land­scape Appendix 5 — Renew­able Energy Appendix 6 — Resources Appendix 7 — Open Space, Sport and Recre­ation Appendix 8 — Cul­tur­al Heritage

Nina Caudrey Dan Har­ris March 2021 ninacaudrey@​cairngorms.​co.​uk danharris@​cairngorms.​co.​uk