Item5Appendix3bObjectionComments20190247DET

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 5 Appendix 3b 13/12/2019 AGENDA ITEM 5 APPENDIX 3B 2019/0247/DET REP­RES­ENT­A­TIONS — OBJECTION

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 2019/0247/DET Applic­a­tion Sum­mary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: 2019/0247/DET Address: Cairngorm Moun­tain Glen­more Aviemore High­land PH22 1RB Pro­pos­al: Engin­eer­ing works to smooth and re-grade land Case Officer: Stephanie Wade Cus­tom­er Details Name: Mr Alan Brat­tey Address: Pater­son Road 5 Aviemore Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Mem­ber of Pub­lic Stance: Cus­tom­er objects to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Com­ment: The Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment have declared a cli­mate emer­gency and it’s incum­bent on the CNPA to respond accord­ingly. Dis­turb­ance of the peat on the pro­posed site may lead to the release of Car­bon Diox­ide. CairnGorm Moun­tain Scot­land Ltd, as an effect­ively nation­al­ised busi­ness, has a sig­ni­fic­ant respons­ib­il­ity to pro­mote envir­on­ment­ally friendly actions, in rela­tion to its busi­ness activ­it­ies. Bull­doz­ing an area of peat­land would be very irre­spons­ible. Cli­mate change is argu­ably respons­ible for the heavy rain­fall events that we’ve wit­nessed in Strath­spey this sum­mer with the pro­spect that these may increase and intensi­fy in the future. The pro­posed actions could have the effect of enabling faster run­off of rain­wa­ter which may res­ult in flash flood­ing, down­stream. I would urge the plan­ning com­mit­tee to reject this unwar­ran­ted plan­ning application.

BSCG info From:BSCG info Sent:2 Sep 2019 23:48:59 +0100 To:Stephanie Wade;Planning Subject:BSCG Com­ment 2019.0247 Badenoch & Strath­spey Con­ser­va­tion Group Fiod­hag, Nethy­bridge, Inverness-shire PH25 3DJ Scot­tish Char­ity No SC003846 Email info@​bscg.​org.​uk Web­site bscg​.org​.uk 2 Septem­ber 2019 Dear Stephanie Wade 2019/0247/DET | Engin­eer­ing works to smooth and re-grade land | Cairngorm Moun­tain Glen­more Aviemore High­land PH22 1RB BSCG objects to the above applic­a­tion and requests the oppor­tun­ity to address the com­mit­tee when the applic­a­tion is determ­ined. Both the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment and High­land Coun­cil have declared cli­mate and eco­lo­gic­al emer­gen­cies. As is well estab­lished, the pub­lic expect pub­lic agen­cies to act accord­ingly and respond with the urgency that is needed. Nearly a year ago the world’s lead­ing cli­mate sci­ent­ists warned (in the UN IPCC report) that we have 12 years in which to adopt new ways of doing things in order to keep glob­al­warm­ing to a max­im­um of 1.5 degrees, bey­ond which the risks of cata­stroph­ic cli­mate change sig­ni­fic­antly increase. We con­sider these emer­gen­cies to be a mater­i­al plan­ning con­sid­er­a­tion. Cli­mate change makes the future of snow sports at Cairn Gorm extremely uncer­tain, with a high like­li­hood of warm­er tem­per­at­ures, and more extreme weath­er events, includ­ing extreme winds, intense pre­cip­it­a­tion and increased risk of flash flood­ing. We are very con­cerned that the CNPA has reques­ted such an incom­plete suite of sur­veys and at such a basic level of sur­vey inform­a­tion for this applic­a­tion. We regard the level of envir­on­ment­al inform­a­tion avail­able to the CNPA inad­equate for an informed decision to be taken. On the basis of the inform­a­tion provided, we do not con­sider that the CNPA can estab­lish wheth­er this applic­a­tion can meet all 4 aims of the Park. We note with con­cern the CNPA’s state­ment as to why they con­sider a Nation­al Veget­a­tion Clas­si­fic­a­tion sur­vey is unne­ces­sary, that:

“much of the site has been dis­turbed, which impacts on the soil con­di­tions and has led to arti­fi­cial grass com­munit­ies devel­op­ing in the area where the new track is pro­posed”. We are con­cerned that the CNPA is fail­ing to fully recog­nise and give due weight to the eco­lo­gic­al value of the exist­ing hab­it­ats. The site includes sig­ni­fic­ant areas of veget­a­tion with high degrees of nat­ur­al­ness. The site sup­ports such upland spe­cies as Dwarf Cor­nel Cornus sue­ci­ca, Cloud­berry Rubus chamaemor­us and Bog Blae­berry Vac­cini­um uli­ginosum. A rare fungus (that we under­stand is being invest­ig­ated at Kew) has been recor­ded on Inter­rup­ted Club­moss Lyco­po­di­um annotin­um in the ski area. Inter­rup­ted Club­moss grows with­in the pro­pos­al site where this fungus may be present and has not been sur­veyed for. These spe­cies grow on the pro­pos­al site amongst Crow­berry, Cow­berry, Blae­berry, Bear­berry, Wavy hair grass and Cal­luna, all spe­cies that are com­pon­ents of the NVC com­munity H18 Vac­cini­umn myr­til­lus-Deschamp­sia flexuosa heath and/​or H22 Vac­cini­um myr­til­lus- Rubus chamaemor­us heath. Both these NVC com­munit­ies are part of the European Annex 1 hab­it­at Alpine and Boreal Heaths (4060) which is a primary reas­on for selec­tion of the Cairngorms Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion. The pro­pos­al site has strong flor­ist­ic asso­ci­ations with the Annex 1 hab­it­ats for which the Cairngorms SAC is des­ig­nated, and fur­ther invest­ig­a­tion may demon­strate that it sup­ports examples of the Annex 1 hab­it­ats. The Cairngorms SAC is described by the JNCC as ​“the single most out­stand­ing site for high-alti­tude acid­ic hab­it­ats in the UK” and as the ​“super­lat­ive example” of the con­tin­ent­al hills of the east­ern High­lands. Thus hab­it­ats close by the ski area are of excep­tion­ally high value and it is import­ant that the qual­ity of hab­it­ats with­in the ski area is nev­er under­es­tim­ated and is accur­ately assessed. It has been widely claimed that the ski area was excluded from the SAC des­ig­na­tion partly due to its com­mer­cial nature. Remark­able new dis­cov­er­ies have been made in recent years, that demon­strate how rich sites in the Cairngorms can prove to be when looked at in more detail. For example, a Spring­tail new to the UK was dis­covered on Cairn Gorm close to the ski area; and a spe­cies of web cap fungi new to sci­ence was dis­covered only a few kilo­metres away grow­ing in alpine heath. The inver­teb­rate sur­vey under­taken for the Ptar­mig­an exten­sion applic­a­tion that also sur­veyed with­in the site pro­posed for arti­fi­cial ski slopes (this site is near the present pro­pos­al site), recor­ded six rare insect spe­cies classed as Nation­ally Scarce as well as the Moun­tain Bumble­bee. This bee is on the Scot­tish Biod­iversity List, a list of wild­life which Min­is­ters have iden­ti­fied as of prin­cip­al import­ance for nature con­ser­va­tion in Scot­land, and to which the Biod­iversity Duty of the 2004 Nature Con­ser­va­tion (Scot­land) Act applies. As a res­ult of the pro­pos­als, this bee would be likely to lose both under­ground nest­ing sites, that include small mam­mal holes, and for­aging hab­it­at. We note that SNH have asser­ted ​“the work pro­posed … is out­side the bound­ary of any nature con­ser­va­tion sites des­ig­nated for bio­lo­gic­al or geo­lo­gic­al interests and will not impact on any of those interests”, but have provided no evid­ence to sup­port this claim bey­ond not­ing that the pro­pos­al site is not itself des­ig­nated. Fur­ther, SNH do not assist

decision makers by provid­ing inform­a­tion on poten­tial impacts on the integ­rity of the pro­tec­ted sites. We do not con­sider that SNH’s assess­ment is val­id. We con­sider that there are poten­tial impacts on pro­tec­ted spe­cies and sens­it­ive hab­it­ats that should be con­sidered. Dot­ter­el is on the red list of high con­ser­va­tion con­cern and the pop­u­la­tion in the Cairngorms is of ​‘very high’ UK import­ance. This key Cairngorm mont­ane spe­cies is vul­ner­able to cli­mate change that can impact on crane­flies (tip­ulids). Crane­flies are a key food in the breed­ing sea­son for Dot­ter­el and require damp soils. The pro­pos­als will dis­rupt and dam­age soils and hydro­logy with poten­tial ser­i­ous adverse impacts on many soil inver­teb­rates, includ­ing tip­ulids. Ring ouzel is on the Red list of high con­ser­va­tion con­cern, is suf­fer­ing marked range con­trac­tion and is impacted by cli­mate change (Beale et al. 2006 Cli­mate change may account for the decline in Brit­ish ring ouzels Turdus torquatus. Journ­al of Anim­al Eco­logy 75). The pro­pos­als impact on an area likely to be used by breed­ing Ring Ouzel in most years. The dis­rup­tion to soils and veget­a­tion will be det­ri­ment­al to the sur­viv­al of inver­teb­rate food espe­cially import­ant for young Ring ouzel, as well as redu­cing the avail­ab­il­ity of ber­ries from dwarf shrubs (such as blae­berry) and Juni­per later in the sea­son for this spe­cies. Giv­en the access­ib­il­ity of the area to mem­bers of the pub­lic, any adverse impact on Ring Ouzel would be dam­aging to vis­it­or exper­i­ence. Snow Bunt­ing (amber lis­ted of medi­um con­ser­va­tion con­cern) and Ptar­mig­an (classed as Near Threatened in Europe) are two spe­cies that attract vis­it­ors to the area and are chal­lenged by cli­mate change. The proposal’s neg­at­ive impacts on seeds, veget­a­tion, ber­ries and cov­er are likely to be det­ri­ment­al to these attract­ive and pop­u­lar spe­cies in the area of the pro­pos­al. Moun­tain Hare, that is on the Scot­tish Biod­iversity List use the area. They are a sig­ni­fic­ant food source for golden eagle, and could be adversely impacted by the pro­pos­als. They are a spe­cial fea­ture of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park and their status in the UK has recently been down­graded to ​‘Unfa­vour­able’ (mean­ing that spe­cial con­ser­va­tion action needs to be under­taken). Cairn Gorm is well known as a site to view and pho­to­graph moun­tain hare. Like Ptar­mig­an, Dot­ter­el and Golden Eagle, they are char­ac­ter­ist­ic of the Cairngorms SAC. Cli­mate change is likely to adversely influ­ence the sub-arc­tic/alpine hab­it­ats favoured by moun­tain hares. Water Voles may also lose hab­it­at as a res­ult of changes to veget­a­tion and hydro­logy. The CNPA Board has already indic­ated that they do not con­sider that the ski area should be treated as a sac­ri­fi­cial site (this was in rela­tion to the recent applic­a­tion for plastic ski slopes near the Cas car park, close to the present pro­pos­al site, that the Board rejec­ted). Were the present pro­pos­al to be con­sen­ted, the scale and nature of oper­a­tions would have an extens­ive impact on the land­scape and nat­ur­al her­it­age of the ground between

the bot­tom and middle sta­tions, and would run counter to any claim that the site was not being sac­ri­ficed. We are con­cerned at the land­scape impacts of the pro­pos­als that will impact on the exist­ing ter­rain and veget­a­tion cov­er. There will be sub­stan­tial areas of exposed ground that will take time to regain any­thing approach­ing a more nat­ur­al and attract­ive appear­ance. The quant­it­ies of peat that are to be removed from one part of the site and redis­trib­uted to anoth­er do notap­pear to be provided. Dis­turb­ance of peat poten­tially could lead to release of car­bon. We wel­come that the CNPA and oth­ers have recog­nised the need for a Mas­ter Plan for the HIE estate. We are con­cerned that HIE have still not provided such a Plan, in spite of hav­ing been asked to do so. We are fur­ther con­cerned that HIE/CMSL con­tin­ue to come for­ward with piece­meal and appar­ently unco­ordin­ated pro­pos­als. These inev­it­ably could con­strain and com­prom­ise the scope of a more thought through Mas­ter Plan. Such a piece­meal approach is not in line with good plan­ning and is espe­cially inap­pro­pri­ate at such a key site in the Nation­al Park. A con­sequence of this piece­meal approach to devel­op­ment is that it greatly reduces the oppor­tun­it­ies for con­struct­ive engage­ment by the pub­lic and stake­hold­ers in the Mas­ter Plan­ning pro­cess. The Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment Plan­ning Advice Note 83 on Mas­ter Plan­ning states the need for com­munity engage­ment in mas­ter plan­ning. The desirab­il­ity of pub­lic engage­ment in plan­ning wasem­phas­ised by the min­is­ter and oth­ers dur­ing the pas­sage through the par­lia­ment this year of Scotland’s new Plan­ning Bill. In August at a pub­lic meet­ing James Gibbs Area Man­ager of HIE was ques­tioned about the times­cale for a Mas­ter Plan. He indic­ated that pro­du­cing a Mas­ter Plan was to be put out to tender and that it could be a 9 – 12 month pro­cess. We con­sider it is pre­ma­ture for the CNPA to determ­ine an applic­a­tion as sig­ni­fic­ant and con­ten­tious as the present one until a Mas­ter Plan that is in line with the aims of the Park has been agreed. We are fur­ther con­cerned that there is inad­equate up to datee­co­lo­gic­al baseline inform­a­tion to inform a Mas­ter Plan. The need for arti­fi­cial snow due to the absence of the funicu­lar is anti­cip­ated by HIE/CMSL to be for the 2019 – 20 winter sea­son and pos­sibly the 2020 – 21 sea­son. HIE has made it clear that they envis­age repair­ing the funicu­lar and that the funicu­lar could be repaired in time for the 2020 – 21 sea­son. The present pro­pos­al serves as a stop gap meas­ure to facil­it­ate use of arti­fi­cial snow in the absence of the funicu­lar uplift, but it is by no means cer­tain that it will serve a sig­ni­fic­ant use­ful func­tion for more than a short peri­od. This seems to be out of line with gov­ern­ment policy on sus­tain­ab­il­ity as well as the 4^th aim of the Park which refers to ​“sus­tain­able” devel­op­ment. We can find no adequate assess­ment of risks of flash floods that the pro­pos­als could con­trib­ute to. Yet we note that there have been sev­er­al dra­mat­ic epis­odes of flooding

on the Allt Mhor in recent years. As well as health & safety implic­a­tions and dam­age to infra­struc­ture, such floods have the poten­tial to impact on nar­row headed ant nests and otters. In our view ​‘cre­at­ing a wider area of snow in a short­er time’ is not an adequate jus­ti­fic­a­tion for the attend­ant neg­at­ive envir­on­ment­al impacts. The groom­ing pro­pos­als would cre­ate long term dam­age to hab­it­ats, spe­cies and eco­sys­tems and such impacts have not been adequately assessed. The envir­on­ment­al con­sequences of the pro­pos­al are very long term. By con­trast, the present pro­pos­als are a short term stop gap meas­ure. Yours sin­cerely Gus Jones Convener.

THE Cairngorms CAM­PAIGN www​.cairngorm​s​cam​paign​.org​.uk email: cairngormscampaign@​gmail.​com Cairngorms Cam­paign The Firs Crath­ie Bal­later AB35 5TJ Ref: Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 2019/0247/DET Cairngorm Moun­tain, Engin­eer­ing Works to regrade land The Cairngorms Cam­paign is object­ing to this applic­a­tion for a num­ber of reas­ons, many of which have been well described in the oth­er let­ters of objec­tion to which we add our voice, but in the interests of not wast­ing time, will not repeat here. We also request that the plan­ning pro­cess addresses the points raised in two pieces writ­ten by park​swatch​scot​land​.co​.uk, ​“The future of snowsports and the envir­on­ment at Cairn Gorm Aug 27” and ​“HIE’s pro­pos­als to smooth and regrade land at Cairn Gorm Aug 21, 2019.” Above all we want to see;

1. the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity (CNPA) fol­low through on its ​“Cairngorm Moun­tain – CNPA Work­ing Prin­ciples” paper agreed by the CNPA Board and authored by the Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer, in April 2019 and
2. the CNPA start to take prac­tic­al steps to address the cli­mate change crisis the plan­et is facing, not delay while con­tinu­ing to approve devel­op­ments that add to the prob­lem. Land use is cru­cial to the solu­tion or oth­er­wise of the cli­mate crisis. Why is such a devel­op­ment being pro­posed which will clearly con­trib­ute fur­ther towards the cli­mate crisis when there are already exist­ing altern­at­ives for act­ive leis­ure pur­suits. Are the claimed gains of mak­ing it easi­er to get to the snow and a longer sea­son really what we should be doing? The Cairngorms Cam­paign does not think so. The his­tory of High­land and Islands Enter­prise (HIE) mis­man­age­ment on Cairn Gorm has been well pub­li­cised such that it is now fea­tur­ing in nation­al news pieces and also being scru­tin­ised by Audit Scot­land. The CNPA as a pub­licly fin­anced body and with the aims of the nation­al park to sat­is­fy also has a respons­ib­il­ity for what hap­pens on Cairn Gorm. Its lack of action to date to stop HIE mak­ing a fur­ther mess is increas­ingly mak­ing us won­der if you con­done it? Susan Mat­thews (Con­ven­or) 31^st August 2019 The Cairngorms Cam­paign is a recog­nised Scot­tish Char­ity No. SC005523 and a com­pany lim­ited by guar­an­tee com­pany no.179159 The Cairngorms Cam­paign is a mem­ber of Scot­tish Envir­on­ment Link

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 2019/0247/DET Applic­a­tion Sum­mary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: 2019/0247/DET Address: Cairngorm Moun­tain Glen­more Aviemore High­land PH22 1RB Pro­pos­al: Engin­eer­ing works to smooth and re-grade land Case Officer: Stephanie Wade Cus­tom­er Details Name: Mr George Paton Address: 56 Bal­nafettack Road INVERNESS Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Mem­ber of Pub­lic Stance: Cus­tom­er objects to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Com­ment: Please con­sider the fol­low­ing as an OBJEC­TION to this Plan­ning Applic­a­tion. Without, in a lengthy format, repeat­ing points, and going over the same ground (no pun inten­ded) I wish to record my agree­ment, and share the examples, of the oth­er Object­ors. Of par­tic­u­lar import­ance, is the fact, that des­pite repeated requests from CNPA and oth­ers, no Cairngorm Mas­ter Plan has been presen­ted by HIE…. There has not even been any Con­sulta­tion with any oth­er Groups/​Individuals/​Parties ! So those present­ing this Applic­a­tion are so obvi­ously ..Totally out of Order !! Also of import­ance is the per­form­ance, and openly vis­ible incom­pet­ence, of the Moun­tain Oper­a­tions Team, and their flag­rant abuse of Plan­ning Con­sent and the Moun­tain Land­scape with the replace­ment Shiel­ing uplift from 3 years ago! This ​“Pro­ject” was also incred­ibly badly man­aged by CNPA Planning………which makes me want to raise the Pro­pos­al that a Totally Inde­pend­ent Organ­isa­tion must be involved from the out­set, regard­ing any sort of devel­op­ment on Cairngorm ! I stress again……there has to be a com­pleted Mas­ter­plan for Cairngorm……..at a Plan­ning Meet­ing some months ago at the Lecht Ski Centre, this was asked for and reques­ted ! This Applic­a­tion must NOT BE GRANTED….it can only lead to a cata­strophe ! Think of the future !

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Plan­ning Team 14 The Square Grant­own on Spey PH26 3HG The Dulaig Seafield Aven­ue Grant­own-on-Spey PH26 3JG 31 August 2019 Objec­tion to Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 2019/0247/DET — Engin­eer­ing works to smooth and re-grade land Cairngorm Moun­tain I wish to object to this plan­ning applic­a­tion and request that the CNPA Plan­ning Com­mit­tee rejects this applic­a­tion. My reas­ons for objec­tion are:

1. Con­flict with CNPA’s Work­ing Prin­ciples for Cairngorm Moun­tain dated 5 April 2019 Para­graph 3b makes it very clear that mas­ter­plan for Cairn Gorm needs to be in place and that any plan­ning applic­a­tion should be part of this mas­ter­plan. No mas­ter­plan is in place to enable assess­ment of how this applic­a­tion fits into the over­all mas­ter­plan. CNPA Plan­ning Author­ity will lose all cred­ib­il­ity if it approves this applic­a­tion without an agreed mas­ter­plan being in place. As an example, focus­sing on one small corner of what should be in a mas­ter­plan, giv­en all the dif­fi­culties in oper­at­ing the Snow Fact­ory last winter, there is not even basic reas­sur­ances giv­en that the prob­lems with the Snow Fact­ory have been resolved, and how snow mak­ing will func­tion min­im­ising energy and car­bon foot­print this winter, or any oth­er winter. A robust mas­ter­plan is neces­sary to provide needed assur­ance that all parts of the Cairn Gorm busi­ness are adequately planned and sup­port each oth­er to provide a sus­tain­able busi­ness for the future. To re-emphas­ise the issue – no mas­ter­plan in any accept­able form exists. There is no recog­ni­tion of cli­mate change in any of the sup­port­ing doc­u­ments, thus this applic­a­tion can­not be con­sidered to be cog­nis­ant of cli­mate change scen­ari­os as required by para­graph 3c. Para­graph 3h requires that any invest­ment should be in keep­ing with the moun­tain envir­on­ment. This is clearly not the case with this plan­ning applic­a­tion as moun­tain veget­a­tion and hab­it­at is being trashed by the pro­posed sig­ni­fic­ant cut and fill earth­works. Addi­tion­ally, the drain­age pro­pos­als will have a major effect loc­ally on the envir­on­ment and are very likely to exacer­bate flood risk down­hill from the pro­posed work. This mat­ter has not been addressed in the applic­a­tion doc­u­ments. 1

2. Envir­on­ment­al Assess­ment Doc­u­ments cov­er­ing envir­on­ment­al assess­ment as woe­fully inad­equate to the extent that there is a strong argu­ment that this plan­ning applic­a­tion should nev­er have been val­id­ated by High­land Coun­cil. The opin­ions giv­en by the High­land Coun­cil plan­ning officer, repor­ted in the pre-applic­a­tion dis­cus­sion sec­tion of the plan­ning applic­a­tion form, lack com­pet­ence and under­stand­ing of the work to be com­pleted and of the moun­tain envir­on­ment. The only doc­u­ments provided con­tain­ing any envir­on­ment­al assess­ment inform­a­tion are:

   • Work­ing with the Envir­on­ment at Cairngorm (dated 2018). This is essen­tially a gen­er­ic doc­u­ment and does not refer dir­ectly to the pro­posed engin­eer­ing works. It is puzz­ling to under­stand the pur­pose of the doc­u­ment and its rel­ev­ance to this applic­a­tion. Was it just a vaguely rel­ev­ant doc­u­ment that the applic­ant had lying about? The eco­lo­gic­al sur­vey report by Enviro­Centre. The scope of this report is far too nar­row and omits much of the envir­on­ment­al assess­ment that should be car­ried out to sup­port this highly envir­on­ment­ally sens­it­ive applic­a­tion. Hav­ing read the Enviro­Centre eco­lo­gic­al report, I do not see any evid­ence pro­duced by them to sup­port the claims that these works are straight for­ward and without sig­ni­fic­ant eco­lo­gic­al dam­age. On the con­trary the report high­lights: that the four UK BAP Pri­or­ity hab­it­ats found on the site are at risk. There is no evid­ence pro­duced in the oth­er sup­port­ing doc­u­ments that excav­a­tion work can and will avoid these UK BAP Pri­or­ity hab­it­ants. the report states that any work pro­posed with­in 100m of any of these hab­it­ats may require fur­ther sur­vey­ing pri­or to work com­men­cing to determ­ine the GWDTE status. This will apply to ALL of the pro­posed works and should have been car­ried out before this applic­a­tion was sub­mit­ted. the report high­lights issues with bird dis­turb­ance which will lim­it the work to after August. Fur­ther­more, there is an import­ant caveat that the eco­lo­gic­al data con­tained in the report is only val­id until June 2020 and there­after the eco­lo­gic­al sur­vey work will need to be repeated. There is no chance that this engin­eer­ing work can be com­menced, far less com­pleted, before this winter. Giv­en the con­straint on dis­turb­ance of nest­ing birds, the Enviro­Centre report will be inval­id and needs to be repeated and inde­pend­ently assessed before any site work can com­mence. The glar­ing omis­sion in this applic­a­tion is the assess­ment of onsite and more import­antly off site flood risk. The applic­a­tion form is erro­neous in stat­ing that the pro­posed work will not increase flood risk else­where. This issue has been high­lighted in Nick Kempe’s blog on Park­swatch Scot­land entitled, ​“The future of snowsports and the envir­on­ment at Cairn Gorm”. The key part of this blog cov­er­ing off­s­ite flood risk is repeated here (cred­its to Nick Kempe and Alan Brat­tey): 2

3. The drain­age pro­pos­als and their poten­tial con­sequences Drain­age Pipe install­a­tion route Plan scale 1:200 2019/0247/DET Base Sta­tion Day Lodge 73,633 m Lower Drain­age piper­mute 48.2 m 6.8m Lower Loop Path Upper Drain­age pipe route Car Park Tow Track 0m 25 m 50 m 75 m 100 m 15.0 m106.21m Drain­age Plan from Plan­ning Portal – 12^th August Much of the ground in the ski area has been heav­ily mod­i­fied by engin­eer­ing works which go back to the 1960s. This has included flat­ten­ing some areas, mound­ing oth­ers and the install­a­tion of drain­age chan­nels. The cur­rent applic­a­tion pro­poses that pre­vi­ous drain­age chan­nels dug through the site should be replaced by 450mm plastic cul­verts and then filled in. The inten­tion behind this is to reduce the amount of arti­fi­cial snow that is needed to cov­er the area and reduce the amount that melts as a res­ult of water flow­ing under it. There is a logic to this but no con­sid­er­a­tion is giv­en to the con­sequences. The cre­ation of cul­verts will not pre­vent water, wheth­er from melt­ing arti­fi­cial snow or oth­er­wise, from flow­ing down this slope. What the cul­verts will do is reduce the amount of water flow­ing onto the slope from ABOVE and chan­nel this water under the new piste. The Plan­ning Applic­a­tion then pro­poses that this water should be released into silt traps placed on the banks above the Allt Mhor burn. That tells you that these cul­verts are going to increase the rate at which sed­i­ment and soils are to be washed off the moun­tain – oth­er­wise there would be no need for silt traps. There are two aspects to the issue. Photo cred­it Alan Brat­tey 3

First, the cur­rent drain­age ditches have, in the 50 or so years since they were cre­ated, re- wil­ded. They now form sinu­ous water­courses which have clogged up with veget­a­tion includ­ing spagh­num mosses which have gradu­ally turned into peat cre­at­ing areas of bog. Poor for ski­ing no doubt but all this helps to hold back the water and has cre­ated new hab­it­ats. Else­where they would be val­ued pre­cisely because of their water reten­tion prop­er­ties. The former drain­age ditch now sup­ports a pro­fu­sion of Bog Asphodel – photo cred­it Alan Brat­tey As an aside, the Sup­port­ing Inform­a­tion to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion claims ​“the work required will be min­im­al to keep the ditch intact”. This defies belief, the ditch is not going to be main­tained intact, rather it’s going to be filled in. Upper Drain­age P Upper Drain Area E ciruge shew­ing view down slage along At Cha water­course basi tales from upper footandge ref of people shews in the Sem­in­ated away from De water­course with trup imme­di­ately below HOPE Pipe Page 38 of 30 Pho­tomont­age show­ing the cur­rent drain­age chan­nels and the course of the pro­posed cul­verts. The lower photo shows how water from the cul­verts will out­pour onto the banks above the Allt Mhor Straight­en­ing water courses and chan­nel­ling water through pipes can only increase the rate at which water flows down the moun­tain. 4

The second issue is that cre­at­ing smooth slopes will simply add to the prob­lem. The Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity should have all the evid­ence it needs for this from what has happened at the Shiel­ing Rope Tow which is loc­ated above the pro­posed begin­ners’ area. The track there has con­tin­ued to wash out ever since plan­ning per­mis­sion was gran­ted. The top open cul­vert on the Shiel­ing Rope tow track which has very recently been cleared of debris. Photo Cred­it Alan Brat­tey 24^th August Fol­low­ing parkswatch’s expos­ure on 13^th August of the fail­ure of HIE to meet plan­ning require­ments and main­tain the cul­verts on the Shiel­ing track free of debris (see here), Cairngorm Moun­tain Scot­land Ltd appears to have star­ted to clear the cul­verts. While this has reduced the risk of the loose mater­i­al on the track below the cul­vert being washed out from above, that mater­i­al is still very vul­ner­able to being washed out by heavy rain­fall such as that exper­i­enced recently. All the cul­verts below are still blocked and the con­sequences obvi­ous. Photo Cred­it Alan Brat­tey. How much of this eroded mater­i­al will end up being chan­nelled down into the pro­posed 5

plastic cul­verts and then depos­ited into silt traps above the Allt Mhor? Even if HIE then main­tain those silt traps, and their record is not good, where are they then going to depos­it the silt and grains of gran­ite? Even if the beginner’s area were far bet­ter restored than the Shiel­ing tow slope, water still needs to flow some­where and when it does so it will cre­ate new water­courses and new hab­it­ats. Even­tu­ally these may infill with veget­a­tion and slow the rate of water run off from the moun­tain but until that hap­pens, just as with the arti­fi­cial cul­verts on the shiel­ing track, the rate of water run off will increase. The Eco­lo­gic­al Assess­ment implies as much, even if it describes the water­courses cre­ated by earli­er drain­age work as ​“un-nat­ur­al” and treats the con­sequent wet heath as undesir­able: Fol­low­ing cre­ation of the lin­ear ski tows and pistes run­ning straight down the slope, the nat­ur­al run off drains from the hill to cre­ate un-nat­ur­al water­courses, away from the cur­rent cul­verts and nat­ur­al drains. These wet paths have suc­ceeded to areas of wet heath, and include sev­er­al pools on flat­ter ground. Re-design­ing the cul­verts or drain­age to allow for any alter­a­tion of the sur­face land­scape is advised to min­im­ise any fur­ther Inund­a­tion of these areas, as the wet heath hab­it­at appears to be expand­ing as a res­ult, and this will affect the qual­ity of any land man­age­ment for winter sports activ­ity. The CNPA should be draw­ing the oppos­ite con­clu­sion from this, that cre­at­ing a new beginner’s ski area on ground that, through nat­ur­al pro­cesses has nat­ur­ally rever­ted to bog over time is not sens­ible and that drain­ing it will have con­sequences that have not been prop­erly assessed. Increas­ing flood risks The CNPA needs to look at how increased water run off from Cairn Gorm will then add to what runs down into Glen More. The evid­ence for the con­sequences is well doc­u­mented. At the end of last year I repor­ted to loc­al Coun­cil­lor and High­land Coun­cil con­vener, Bill Lob­ban, the amount of mater­i­al that had piled up by the road bridge over the Allt Mhor on the way up to the ski area. 6

Allt Mhor bridge Novem­ber – viewed from below – note how the left side of the bridge was half blocked with boulders I am pleased to say that High­land Coun­cil cleared the block­age which could have ended up in anoth­er dis­aster: Allt Mhor flood of August 1978 This rel­at­ively recent flood on the Allt Mhor, drain­ing the Cairngorm ski slopes, demon­strates the sig­ni­fic­ant flood haz­ard rep­res­en­ted by moun­tain streams (McEwen and Wer­ritty, 1988). The flood on the 4^th August was triggered by an intense sum­mer thun­der­storm in which 33.5 mm of rain­fall fell in 1 hour, equi­val­ent to around 5% of the aver­age annu­al rain­fall of Edin­burgh. The high dis­charge caused severe erosion of gravel bluffs over­look­ing the river at the below the Sug­ar Bowl and mobil­ised boulders over 0.5 m in dia­met­er. The road bridge was swept away and frag­ments of tar­mac can still be found in the gravel bars below the present bridge. http://​www​.land​forms​.eu/​c​a​i​r​n​g​o​r​m​s​/​f​l​o​o​d​s.htm The heavy rain­fall late July/​August, how­ever, shows the prob­lem has not gone away: 7

Just above the bridge, the piled up veget­a­tion and boulders gives an idea of the extent and power of the recent floods. Photo Cred­it Alan Brat­tey. Allt Mhor bridge viewed from above. The flood­ing has cre­ated a new bank of boulders the oppos­ite side of the bridge to that which was infilled last year. Photo cred­it Alan Brat­tey. Just above the bridge are trees which, if washed against the bridge, could rap­idly res­ult in the chan­nel under it block­ing and the whole struc­ture being swept away. Photo Cred­it Alan Brat­tey. 8

The pro­pos­als to cre­ate a begin­ners ski area – and then at a later stage fur­ther new engin­eered ski slopes – can only add to this flood­ing. That should be reas­on enough for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity to reject the whole Applic­a­tion as not being thought through.

1. Con­struc­tion Meth­od State­ment Details of the areas to be cut and filled (amount­ing to about 1 hec­tare) are provided, but no meth­od state­ment has been provided to describe how this work is to be car­ried out, what machinery it is inten­ded to use and what res­tor­a­tion work is pro­posed. Giv­en the sens­it­iv­ity of this moun­tain envir­on­ment, without a detailed con­struc­tion meth­od state­ment, the con­tents of which are shown to rely on envir­on­ment­al and eco­lo­gic­al impact assess­ment, this applic­a­tion should not be approved as there are no means to assess what col­lat­er­al impact the works will have and wheth­er any mit­ig­a­tion is con­tem­plated. It is totally unsat­is­fact­ory for such a key doc­u­ment to be left to be agreed between the applic­a­tion and the plan­ning author­ity through a plan­ning con­di­tion, even if the applic­ant had an excel­lent envir­on­ment­al track record. In this case, suc­cess­ive oper­at­ors of the Cairn Gorm busi­ness have routinely failed to com­ply with envir­on­ment­al con­di­tions, and enforce­ment from the rel­ev­ant plan­ning author­it­ies has been neg­li­gible. There is one item of mer­it that I can find in the applic­a­tion and that is the sug­ges­ted envir­on­ment­al enhance­ments bur­ied at the end of the Enviro­Centre report (sec­tion 4.3). Although min­im­al­ist in approach, this is at least a start, how­ever, it would seem that the applic­ant (Cairngorm Moun­tain Scot­land Ltd) has ignored this. There is only one con­clu­sion that the CNPA Plan­ning Com­mit­tee can come to with this applic­a­tion and that is to reject the applic­a­tion in its entirety. Yours faith­fully, Dr Gor­don Bul­loch 9

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 2019/0247/DET Applic­a­tion Sum­mary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: 2019/0247/DET Address: Cairngorm Moun­tain Glen­more Aviemore High­land PH22 1RB Pro­pos­al: Engin­eer­ing works to smooth and re-grade land Case Officer: Stephanie Wade Cus­tom­er Details Name: Mr Gra­ham Gar­foot Address: 14 Calf Close Walk Jar­row, Tyne & Wear. Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Mem­ber of Pub­lic Stance: Cus­tom­er objects to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Com­ment: I wish to object to this plan­ning applic­a­tion by CMSL to bull­doze 9,300 sq. m. of Cor­rie Cas. I have sent my detailed objec­tions in an email as the space here is inadequate.

Plan­ning objec­tion. I refer you to my posts on Park­swatch­scot­land on 25/07/2019, titled The Future For uplift On Cairngorm – Envir­on­ment­al Aspects and 21/08/2019 titled HIE’s pro­pos­al to smooth and regrade land at Cairngorm, as being my main objec­tions but I wish to add the fol­low­ing objec­tions to the plan­ning applic­a­tion:- These state­ments are from CMSL. (1) ​“From the start of pro­duc­tion to the 16/01/2019 an area of 668sq.m. was covered with 508 cu. m. filling in voids”. (2) ​“the wasted snow filling voids will be reduced con­sid­er­ably….. res­ult­ing in increased cov­er­age in a short­er times­cale”. (3) ​“Areas of Work. With ref­er­ence to the sup­port­ing HIE doc­u­ment ​“Work­ing with the envir­on­ment at Cairngorm” the fol­low­ing sec­tions apply to these works; 11, 12, 14,16,19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 27, 28, 29, 30.”. Objec­tions. (1) The volume of infilling as per the applic­a­tion is for a total of 114 cu. m. in areas A ‑F and J. There being no indic­a­tion as to the pos­i­tions of the voids that were filled by the oth­er 394 cu. m. of snow­mak­ing. The wasted snow filling voids is there­fore only about 22% of the amount claimed. If a depth of say 0.5m is requires as a base, then the 508 cu. m. of ​“wasted” snow will only cov­er an extra 1016 sq. m. The total for the snow cov­er­age will there­fore be 1684sq.m. not the 9,300 sq. m. reques­ted by this applic­a­tion. (2) The volume of mater­i­al removed by the bull­doz­ing of Areas G, H & I is 161 cu.m., the volume of Area L is not spe­cified. It appears there­fore that there will be an excess of about 46 cu. m. If this is to be part of the infill for Area K, 72 cu. m., where is the rest of this infill com­ing from? (3) If Area K is required as a H & S meas­ure, why was it not part of the H&SE inspec­tion of 06/12/2018 and why is it not to the same height as the tow base? It would appear to be no more than a dump­ing ground for excess mater­i­als. (4) Sec­tion 4 of the HIE doc­u­ment ​“Work­ing with the envir­on­ment at Cairngorm” must apply to the works involved. Omit­ting it is a pre­sump­tion that these works can be car­ried out at any time of the year. (5) Is the 9,300 sq. m. the total area of areas A – N or is it the total area covered by the works bound­ar­ies? (6) The inspec­tion by Enviro­centre Ltd. cov­ers the whole of the area of approx­im­ately 77,000 sq. m. pro­posed as a begin­ner zone by the SE Group in their

reports to HIE. Is this cur­rent applic­a­tion just the tip of the ice­berg with fur­ther applic­a­tions to fol­low? (7) Tak­ing into con­sid­er­a­tion that the Snow­fact­ory failed to per­form as expec­ted in its’ tri­al in the ²⁰¹⁷⁄₁₈ sea­son and again after its’ pur­chase in the ²⁰¹⁸⁄₁₉ sea­son, a fail­ure to per­form this year will mean all this work will have been for noth­ing. (8) The release of the Aud­it­or General’s report into HIE’s accounts for 2018/