Item5Appendix3BObjections20200064PPPNethyREDACTED

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 5 Appendix 3B 28/08/2020

AGENDA ITEM 5

APPENDIX 3B

2020/0064/PPP

REP­RES­ES­NT­A­TIONS OBJECTIONS

Roy Turn­bull Tornis­car Nethy Bridge Inverness-shire PH25 3ED Scotland

Stephanie Wade, Case Officer, CNPA

Dear Stephanie Wade,

2020/0064/PPP | Res­id­en­tial devel­op­ment for up to 20 dwell­ing houses | Land At School Road And Craigmore Road Nethy Bridge

I object to the above plan­ning applic­a­tion for the fol­low­ing reas­ons, relat­ing the status the above pro­pos­al in the CNPA Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plans (LDP):

A) The new draft LDP provides no alloc­a­tion for devel­op­ment with­in School Wood and nor does the Nethy Bridge set­tle­ment bound­ary therein extend into School Wood. The CNP LDP 2020 Main Issues Report states,

“Sites from 2015 Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan pre­ferred for dele­tion: • H1 (alloc­ated in 2015 LDP for 15 houses) due to sig­ni­fic­ant nat­ur­al her­it­age constraints.”

This wel­come dele­tion of any alloc­a­tion for hous­ing with­in School Wood in the new LDP, and the remov­al of the set­tle­ment bound­ary, reflects the ever increas­ing appre­ci­ation of the value of ancient wood­lands in gen­er­al, and of School Wood in particular.

Moreover, the Apprais­al with­in the CNPA report for the ​“Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 6, 21^st Novem­ber 2014” con­cern­ing the pre­vi­ous applic­a­tion for hous­ing with­in School Wood (2013/0119/DET), para. 112, p.42, (which led to its refus­al), states:

“112. Fur­ther­more, the Reporter’s recom­mend­a­tion that the School Road part of site H2 (referred to as Site HI in the Pro­posed LDP) is omit­ted from the Plan is a sig­ni­fic­ant mater­i­al con­sid­er­a­tion. The cur­rent applic­a­tion pro­pos­als do not com­ply with this new and import­ant policy consideration.”

Like­wise, the pro­posed dele­tion of site ​“H1 (alloc­ated in 2015 LDP for 15 houses) due to sig­ni­fic­ant nat­ur­al her­it­age con­straints” from the new LDP is also a sig­ni­fic­ant mater­i­al con­sid­er­a­tion, and it is also the case that the cur­rent applic­a­tion pro­pos­als do not com­ply with this new and import­ant policy consideration.

The present LDP was adop­ted on 27^th March 2015. It will there­fore have exceeded its expec­ted life­time of five years by the clos­ing date for rep­res­ent­a­tions for this applic­a­tion (April 6^th), and the weight giv­en to the policies and alloc­a­tions in the old LDP are there­fore appro­pri­ately reduced in favour of those in the new LDP, which is expec­ted to be adop­ted later in 2020.

Moreover, the fact that there is wide­spread sup­port, based partly upon new evid­ence and inform­a­tion, for the new policy of delet­ing the Craigmore Road site from the new LDP, is attested by the let­ter to Alex Neil, Cab­in­et Sec­ret­ary, signed by thir­teen organ­isa­tions and dated 19^th Decem­ber 2014, (attached) that states:

“we there­fore wel­come modi­fic­a­tions that sup­port the reten­tion of nat­ive Scots pine wood­lands with high con­ser­va­tion and land­scape value (dele­tion of Nethy Bridge H1 School Road and the wood­land part of Car­rbridge H1). We note that these modi­fic­a­tions closely accord with SPP 2014, para. 194, Policy Prin­ciples, which states that the plan­ning sys­tem should ​“pro­tect and enhance ancient semi-nat­ur­al wood­land as an import­ant and irre­place­able resource, togeth­er with oth­er nat­ive or long-estab­lished woods … with high con­ser­va­tion or land­scape value”.

New inform­a­tion that was unavail­able to the Report­ers examin­ing the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan earli­er this year has emerged. In view of this we request that Scot­tish Min­is­ters modi­fy the fol­low­ing allocations:

1. Delete Nethy Bridge H1 Craigmore Road (H1 School Road has already been deleted as a modi­fic­a­tion), for the fol­low­ing reasons:

The site is now (Novem­ber, 2014) recog­nised by the CNPA as an Ancient Wood­land Invent­ory site of high quality;

H1 The new dis­cov­ery of green shield moss, an inter­na­tion­al con­ser­va­tion interest, very near

The new dis­cov­ery of Puccini­astrum goo­dyer­ae, a rar­ity on the pine­wood orch­id ​‘creep­ing ladies tresses’ near H1;

The Park Authority’s unan­im­ous refus­al in Novem­ber 2014 of an applic­a­tion that included Nethy Bridge H1, due, inter alia, to ​“sig­ni­fic­ant impact” on green shield moss ​“which could not be com­pensated for by hab­it­at cre­ation in the short to medi­um term, due to the hab­it­at needs of this spe­cies”. Giv­en these con­straints we sub­mit this Nethy Bridge H1 Craigmore Road alloc­a­tion is no longer effective.”

The above let­ter was signed by thir­teen organ­isa­tions, namely: Cairngorms Cam­paign, Amphi­bi­an and Rep­tile Con­ser­va­tion Badenoch and Strath­spey Con­ser­va­tion Group Inver­teb­rate Con­ser­va­tion Trust Coille Alba Friends of the Earth Scot­land John Muir Trust North East Moun­tain Trust Ram­blers Scot­land Scot­tish Badgers Scot­tish Cam­paign for Nation­al Parks Scot­tish Wild Land Group Wood­land Trust Scotland.

B) Devel­op­ments since the adop­tion of the 2015 LDP

The 2015 LDP was adop­ted before a num­ber of import­ant rel­ev­ant devel­op­ments, includ­ing: • the Par­is Cli­mate Agree­ment at the IPCC COP21 in Decem­ber 2015, • the IPCC Spe­cial Report on ​“Glob­al Warm­ing of 1.5°C” in 2018 (see: https://​www​.ipcc​.ch/​sr15/)

• • • The Roy­al Soci­ety and the Roy­al Academy of Engin­eer­ing Report on Green­house Gas Remov­al in the UK, 2018, see, https://​roy​also​ci​ety​.org/​t​o​pics- poli­cy/­pro­ject­s/­green­house-gas-removal/ ​‚which states that amongst the Key Actions required for the UK to achieve net zero are to ​“Pur­sue rap­id ramp-up of forest­a­tion, hab­it­at res­tor­a­tion, and soil car­bon sequest­ra­tion, across large UK land-areas.”

The Inter­gov­ern­ment­al Sci­ence-Policy Plat­form on Biod­iversity and Eco­sys­tem Ser­vices (IPBES) ( see https://​www​.ipbes​.net/​a​s​s​e​s​s​m​e​n​t​-​r​e​p​o​r​t​s/ldr ) issued fur­ther dire warn­ings con­cern­ing the loss of glob­al biod­iversity. The Chair of IPBES, Pro­fess­or Robert Wat­son, states that the IPBES report will ​“delve more deeply than any­thing before into the causes of nature col­lapse, chief among which is the con­ver­sion of forests, wet­lands and oth­er wild land­scapes into ploughed fields, dam reser­voirs and con­crete cit­ies. Three-quar­ters of the world’s land sur­face has been severely altered, accord­ing to the leaked draft. Human­ity is also decim­at­ing the liv­ing sys­tems on which we depend by emit­ting car­bon diox­ide and spread­ing invas­ive species.”

these cul­min­ated in the Scot­tish Government’s and High­land Council’s Declar­a­tions of a Cli­mate and Eco­logy Emer­gency in May 2019. In address­ing the Scot­tish Par­lia­ment, Cli­mate Change Sec­ret­ary Roseanna Cun­ning­ham stated:

“Last week anoth­er UN body, the Inter­gov­ern­ment­al Sci­ence-Policy Plat­form on Biod­iversity and Eco­sys­tem Ser­vices, issued a warn­ing about the dam­age human beings are caus­ing to the plan­et. It finds that the drivers of dam­age have accel­er­ated over the past 50 years.” I sub­mit that these import­ant nation­al and inter­na­tion­al devel­op­ments require • • • that par­tic­u­lar atten­tion should be giv­en by plan­ning author­it­ies to pro­tect­ing and enhan­cing biod­iversity-rich and car­bon sequest­rat­ing hab­it­ats, such as the Craigmore Road site in the ancient wood­land site of School Wood, and that such con­sid­er­a­tions bear with greatest force with­in a Nation­al Park, the First and over-rid­ing Aim of which is to con­serve and enhance the nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age of the area, and that there can be no more crit­ic­al time to apply such con­sid­er­a­tions than with­in the year that Scot­land will host the gov­ern­ments of the World dur­ing the COP 26 con­fer­ence, when the cru­cial import­ance of pro­tect­ing and enhan­cing nat­ur­al car­bon sinks and biod­iversity refuges, such as ancient wood­lands will engender par­tic­u­lar con­cern and atten­tion, and in which Scotland’s Nation­al parks must lead by example.

C) An Error in the CNPA Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan Examination

The above con­sid­er­a­tions demon­strate that new loc­al inform­a­tion has come to light and import­ant new nation­al and inter­na­tion­al policies have been developed, which are under intense scru­tiny, since the 2015 LDP was under con­struc­tion. All of which, I sub­mit, strongly indic­ates that the H1 [Craigmore Road] site is no longer effective.

How­ever, in addi­tion, I sub­mit that the con­sid­er­a­tions of the Report­ers with respect to the [Craigmore Road] site con­tains a ser­i­ous error of fact that under­mines the alloc­a­tion of the [Craigmore Road] site with­in the 2015 LDP. This is explained below*:

*(Please note that the Craigmore Road site is H2 in the 2010 LDP, and H1 in the 2015 LDP, and School Road vice versa. For clar­ity, there­fore, I have simply referred to either [School Road] or [Craigmore Road] in any ref­er­ence to these sites, rather than using H1 or H2.)

The Design State­ment of the present applic­ant draws atten­tion to the ​“Report­ers’ Decision to the Pro­posed CNPA LDP 2015” and quotes the fol­low­ing extract from the Report­ers’ Exam­in­a­tion (pub­lished by the DPEA, Date of Report: 8 Septem­ber 2014):

“Nev­er­the­less, I find that in this case the wood­land there is less com­plete and the set­ting is not totally undis­turbed. Indeed there are already some houses and oth­er built devel­op­ments in and adjoin­ing the wood­lands on either side of Craigmore Road to the east and south of the [Craigmore Road] site.” [my emphasis]

That state­ment fol­lows an assess­ment of the [School Road] site that con­cludes that ​“the sig­ni­fic­ant adverse impacts of even a lim­ited amount of hous­ing on the [School Road] site clearly out­weigh the bene­fits of allow­ing even a lim­ited amount of new hous­ing devel­op­ment at this sens­it­ive loc­a­tion.” That reas­on­ing led to the remov­al of the School Road site from the 2015 LDP.

And the Report­ers’ reas­ons for includ­ing the [Craigmore Road] site in the 2015 LDP, in con­tra­dis­tinc­tion to the remov­al of the [School Road] site, were sub­stan­tially based on that asser­tion that ​“there are already some houses and oth­er built devel­op­ments in and adjoin­ing the wood­lands on either side of Craigmore Road to the east and south of the [Craigmore Road] site.” How­ever, I sub­mit that that asser­tion is false. It is simply untrue.

There are no houses or any oth­er built devel­op­ments to the east or south of the [Craigmore Road] site on either side of Craigmore Road, neither with­in School Wood to the north of Craigmore Road, nor in Cul­stank Moss to the south of Craigmore Road. Indeed, the nearest build­ings south and east of the [Craigmore Road] site occur at Badan­fuar­an (the Lazy Duck), but these are 250 metres south of Craigmore Road and are com­pletely screened by the inter­ven­ing pine­wood of Cul­stank Moss, mak­ing Badan­fuar­an invis­ible from the Craigmore Road.

Both School Road and Craigmore Road pro­ceed from the Caus­er Cross­roads and past the houses at Dirdhu Court with there­after School Wood on one side of their respect­ive road, and either Bal­n­agow­an Wood along School Road or Cul­stank Moss along Craigmore Road from the Lazy Duck track respect­ively on the oth­er side of the road. All of those woods are con­firmed by the Scot­tish Nat­ur­al Her­it­age Ancient Wood­land Invent­ory map (Scale 1:46232, based on SNH data, avail­able on request) to be ​“Ancient (of semi-nat­ur­al ori­gin)”. School Road pro­ceeds for a dis­tance of c.414 metres bey­ond Dirdhu Court to the School grounds with undeveloped pine­woods on either side. Craigmore Road pro­ceeds for a dis­tance of c.540 metres between the Lazy Duck track and the Craigmore junc­tion with undeveloped pine­woods on either side.

Thus, Craigmore Road presents a some­what great­er length of road with undeveloped ancient wood­land on either side of it, than does School Road.

Thus the Report­ers’ con­sid­er­a­tions con­cern­ing the [Craigmore Road] site were based upon demon­strably false inform­a­tion. Had the Report­ers cor­rectly assessed the set­ting of the [Craigmore Road] site and its sur­round­ing ancient wood­lands, then in apply­ing the same cri­ter­ia by which they assessed both sites, they would have been bound to con­clude that the reas­ons for the remov­al of the [Craigmore Road] site from the 2015 LDP were at least as press­ing as those per­tain­ing to the [School Road] site. Had the [Craigmore Road] site also been removed from the 2015 LDP, it is, of course, unlikely that the present applic­a­tion would be proceeding.

Such a pro­ced­ur­al error, hav­ing giv­en, I sub­mit, false jus­ti­fic­a­tion to the con­tinu­ation of the [Craigmore Road] site with­in the 2015 LDP, should not now lead to the grant­ing of planning

con­sent for such an import­ant site for biod­iversity, land­scape and the vil­lage set­ting as the [Craigmore Road] site. Sum­mary 1. The new LDP provides no alloc­a­tion for devel­op­ment with­in School Wood. That is a sig­ni­fic­ant mater­i­al con­sid­er­a­tion and an import­ant policy con­sid­er­a­tion. 2. 3. The 2015 LDP has been adop­ted for more than five years and is out­dated. Know­ledge of the biod­iversity value of the Craigmore Road site con­tin­ues to accu­mu­late and shows it to be a biod­i­verse-rich ancient wood­land site. 4. 5. There is wide­spread sup­port for sav­ing School Wood from devel­op­ment. Nation­al and inter­na­tion­al con­cern increas­ingly sup­ports sav­ing and restor­ing biod­i­verse-rich and car­bon sequest­rat­ing sites such as ancient wood­lands, and are par­tic­u­larly press­ing in the year of COP 26. 6. The alloc­a­tion of the Craigmore Road site in the 2015 LDP was based upon demon­strably false inform­a­tion and is there­fore unsound.

Please note that I wish to address the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee dur­ing the con­sid­er­a­tion of this applic­a­tion at the plan­ning meet­ing, sub­ject to arrange­ments with oth­er objectors.

Yours sin­cerely Roy Turnbull

THE Cairngorms CAMPAIGN

Scot­tish Char­ity No. SC005523 Lim­ited Com­pany No. 179159 Alex Neil Cab­in­et Sec­ret­ary for Social Justice, Com­munit­ies & Pen­sion­ers’ Rights The Scot­tish Par­lia­ment Holyrood Edin­burgh EH99 1SP Ian Lawson CVO Dir­ect­or, Cairngorms Cam­paign East­er Califer Farm Forres Moray­shire IV36 2RN 19^th Decem­ber 2014

Dear Cab­in­et Sec­ret­ary, Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan as Sub­mit­ted to Scot­tish Min­is­ters. Request for modifications.

Our organ­isa­tions strongly sup­port Scotland’s nation­al parks as exem­plars of sus­tain­able devel­op­ment, safe­guard­ing land­scapes, hab­it­ats and spe­cies of nation­al and inter­na­tion­al import­ance. We also sup­port a plan­ning pro­cess that is based on up-to-date evid­ence, that is oper­ated to help deliv­er bene­fits for all by safe­guard­ing nat­ur­al cap­it­al, and takes appro­pri­ate account of the need for wise stew­ard­ship of areas of prime import­ance for biodiversity.

In the sub­mit­ted Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park we there­fore wel­come modi­fic­a­tions that sup­port the reten­tion of nat­ive Scots pine wood­lands with high con­ser­va­tion and land­scape value (dele­tion of Nethy Bridge H1 School Road and the wood­land part of Car­rbridge H1). We note that these modi­fic­a­tions closely accord with SPP 2014, para. 194, Policy Prin­ciples, which states that the plan­ning sys­tem should ​“pro­tect and enhance ancient semi-nat­ur­al wood­land as an import­ant and irre­place­able resource, togeth­er with oth­er nat­ive or long-estab­lished woods … with high con­ser­va­tion or land­scape value”.

New inform­a­tion that was unavail­able to the Report­ers examin­ing the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan earli­er this year has emerged. In view of this we request that Scot­tish Min­is­ters modi­fy the fol­low­ing allocations:

1. Delete Nethy Bridge H1 Craigmore Road (H1 School Road has already been deleted as a modi­fic­a­tion), for the fol­low­ing reasons:

• • The site is now (Novem­ber, 2014) recog­nised by the CNPA as an Ancient Wood­land Invent­ory site of high qual­ity; The new dis­cov­ery of green shield moss, an inter­na­tion­al con­ser­va­tion interest, very near H1;

• • The new dis­cov­ery of Puccini­astrum goo­dyer­ae, a rar­ity on the pine­wood orch­id ​‘creep­ing ladies tresses’ near H1; The Park Authority’s unan­im­ous refus­al in Novem­ber 2014 of an applic­a­tion that included Nethy Bridge H1, due, inter alia, to ​“sig­ni­fic­ant impact” on green shield moss ​“which could not be com­pensated for by hab­it­at cre­ation in the short to medi­um term, due to the hab­it­at needs of this species”.

Giv­en these con­straints we sub­mit this Nethy Bridge H1 Craigmore Road alloc­a­tion is no longer effective.

1. Delete both Car­rbridge H2 and remain­ing part of H1 (the wood­land part of H1 has already been deleted as a modi­fic­a­tion), for the fol­low­ing recent discovery:

• These flower-rich long-estab­lished grass­lands which are of high biod­iversity value, sup­port­ing the moun­tain bumble bee, wood ants and oth­er not­able inver­teb­rates, were dis­covered to sup­port import­ant pop­u­la­tions of the Cairngorms Nature Action Plan short­l­is­ted spe­cies Crim­son Wax­cар in autumn 2014.

1. Amend alloc­a­tion and set­tle­ment bound­ary of Inver­druie & Coylumbridge T1, for the fol­low­ing reas­ons: • • Report­ers cor­rectly iden­ti­fied that the alloc­a­tion and set­tle­ment bound­ary did not reflect the exist­ing cara­van site and recom­men­ded modi­fic­a­tion; How­ever, new access and stances that are out­with the exist­ing site were cre­ated without plan­ning per­mis­sion and a ret­ro­spect­ive applic­a­tion has been with­drawn. The Report­ers do not appear to have been made aware of this inform­a­tion and recom­men­ded that T1 be enlarged and the set­tle­ment bound­ary exten­ded to include this area, appar­ently incor­rectly believ­ing it to be part of the exist­ing site. This modi­fic­a­tion extends T1 to the European site boundary.

We sug­gest the bound­ary of T1 and the set­tle­ment bound­ary should be mod­i­fied again to accur­ately fol­low the exist­ing, per­mis­sioned, cara­van site.

If adop­ted in its present form, the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan would have an adverse impact on irre­place­able nat­ur­al cap­it­al, with last­ing costs for present and future generations.

We request that Scot­tish Min­is­ters adopt the above sug­ges­ted modi­fic­a­tions to help ensure that the new Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan safe­guards the excep­tion­al nat­ur­al her­it­age of Scotland’s largest Nation­al Park. Yours truly

irect­or, Cairngorms Cam­paign Peter Mint­ing, Scot­tish Pro­ject Officer, Amphi­bi­an & Rep­tile Conservation

Gus Jones, Con­vener, Badenoch & Strath­spey Con­ser­va­tion Group

Craig Mac­adam, Dir­ect­or Scot­land, Bug­life — The Inver­teb­rate Con­ser­va­tion Trust

John Par­rott, Dir­ect­or, Coille Alba

Richard Dix­on, Dir­ect­or, Friends of the Earth Scotland

Stu­art Brooks, Chief Exec­ut­ive, John Muir Trust

Dav­id Windle, Chair­man, North East Moun­tain Trust

Helen Todd, Cam­paigns and Policy Officer, Ram­blers Scotland

Eddie Palmer, Chair­man, Scot­tish Badgers

Ross Ander­son, Chair­man, Scot­tish Cam­paign for Nation­al Parks

John Mil­ne, Con­ven­or, Scot­tish Wild Land Group

Car­ol Evans, Dir­ect­or, Wood­land Trust Scotland

Stephanie Wade Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity 14 The Square Grant­own on Spey Scot­land PH26 3HG bug­life Scot­land Balal­lan House, 24 Allan Park Stirl­ing, FK8 2QG Tele­phone: 01786 447 504 E‑mail: scotland@​buglife.​org.​uk 31^st March 2020

Dear Stephanie, Applic­a­tion Num­ber: 2020/0064/PPP Pro­pos­al: Res­id­en­tial devel­op­ment for up to 20 dwell­ing houses. Land At School Road And Craigmore Road Nethy Bridge. Thank you for the oppor­tun­ity to respond to this con­sulta­tion. Bug­life objects to plan­ning per­mis­sion being gran­ted for this applic­a­tion due to the loss of irre­place­able hab­it­ats, which is against Scot­tish plan­ning policy, and the impact this will have on rare and endangered inver­teb­rates. Bug­life notes that although the applic­a­tion is a reduc­tion in the over­all num­ber of units from the rejec­ted 2013 applic­a­tion (applic­a­tion num­ber: 2013/0119/DET), it rep­res­ents an increase in the size and impact of the Craigmore Road devel­op­ment area, from 1.65 hec­tares for 14 dwell­ings, to 1.97 hec­tares for 20 dwell­ings. The sub­mit­ted Pre­lim­in­ary Eco­lo­gic­al Apprais­al and Exten­ded Phase 1 Hab­it­at Sur­vey doc­u­ment indic­ates that the site is com­posed of a diverse mix of hab­it­ats with dry dwarf heath shrub, semi-nat­ur­al con­i­fer­ous wood­land and semi-nat­ur­al mixed wood­land. This sur­vey was con­duc­ted on the 31^st of Decem­ber 2019 and 1^st Janu­ary 2020 and due to the time of year was not a sur­vey focused on inver­teb­rates but on the hab­it­ats and what they could poten­tially sup­port. For this cur­rent sur­vey, a search on the Nation­al Biod­iversity Net­work (NBN) Atlas for inver­teb­rates recor­ded 1km of the pro­posed devel­op­ment was com­pleted. This search found 43 spe­cies of inver­teb­rate that are Nation­ally Scarce, Nation­ally Rare or UK Biod­iversity Action Plan Pri­or­ity Spe­cies; the sur­vey report indic­ates that only 30 of these are poten­tially present on the site. Many of the inver­teb­rate spe­cies iden­ti­fied in this search require dead­wood hab­it­at, ancient Cale­do­ni­an pine­wood or are asso­ci­ated with wood ants and their nests. The use of NBN sourced data in this plan­ning applic­a­tion is a breach of licence (https://​docs​.nbn​at​las​.org/​g​u​i​d​a​n​c​e​-​o​n​-​t​h​e​-​d​e​f​i​n​i​t​i​o​n​-​o​f​-​n​o​n​-​c​o​m​m​e​r​c​i​a​l​-use/). NBN data can be used to Pres­id­ent — Ger­maine Greer Chair­man — Mark Felton CEO — Matt Shard­low Bug­life — The Inver­teb­rate Con­ser­va­tion Trust is a lim­ited com­pany by guar­an­tee Com­pany No: 4132695 Registered Char­ity No: 1092293 Scot­tish Char­ity No: SC040004 Registered in Eng­land at The Lindens, 86 Lin­coln Road, Peter­bor­ough, PE1 2SN www​.bug​life​.org​.uk @buzz_dont_tweet

help define the interest which requires com­mer­cial sur­vey but should not be used to assess a sites inher­ent biod­iversity value and sub­mit­ted in lieu of sur­veys. Bug­life would also like to insist that data must be sourced from Loc­al Envir­on­ment­al Records Centres, as they con­tain the most com­pre­hens­ive and cur­rent spe­cies data, as stated in the Chartered Insti­tute of Eco­logy and Envir­on­ment­al Man­age­ment (CIEEM) Guidelines for Access­ing and Using Biod­iversity Data doc­u­ment (http://​nbis​.org​.uk/​s​i​t​e​s​/​d​e​f​a​u​l​t​/​f​i​l​e​s​/​d​o​c​u​m​e​n​t​s​/​G​u​i​d​e​lines for Access­ing and Using Biod­iversity Data. pdf). Pre­vi­ous sur­veys of inver­teb­rates at this site in rela­tion to the pre­vi­ous devel­op­ment pro­pos­als from 2013 (applic­a­tion num­ber: 2013/0119/DET) have iden­ti­fied almost 450 spe­cies of inver­teb­rate, of which 40 were Loc­al, 16 Nation­ally Scare Not­able B, 3 Near Threatened, 3 Red Data Book 3 (Rare), 1 Red Data Book 2 (Vul­ner­able) and 1 was pro­vi­sion­ally a Red Data Book 1 (endangered); two spe­cies are on the Scot­tish Biod­iversity List and one spe­cies is a UK Biod­iversity Action Plan pri­or­ity spe­cies. How­ever, it is cur­rently unclear which of the spe­cies recor­ded relate to the cur­rent area, as the 2013 applic­a­tion con­sisted of two sep­ar­ate nearby devel­op­ment sites. How­ever, it is clear that the hab­it­ats present are import­ant for a wide range of wild­life spe­cies and have the poten­tial to sup­port a num­ber of spe­cies of inver­teb­rates with con­ser­va­tion des­ig­na­tions. The site is also with­in the Strath­spey Import­ant Inver­teb­rate Area (IIA), one of a series of IIAs iden­ti­fied for sup­port­ing nation­ally import­ant pop­u­la­tions of inver­teb­rates, and the hab­it­at on which they rely. It is import­ant that a thor­ough sur­vey of inver­teb­rates be com­pleted on site to ensure that spe­cies act­ive at dif­fer­ent times of the year are accoun­ted for and that this inform­a­tion is made avail­able pri­or to a decision being made. The eco­lo­gic­al apprais­al report itself says that: ​“Fur­ther sur­veys dur­ing the spring and sum­mer are neces­sary to determ­ine the value of the site for rare inver­teb­rates”. This site sup­ports ancient wood­land and this is an irre­place­able hab­it­at and its loss should be avoided, in line with plan­ning policy. The devel­op­ment sites are part of a lar­ger com­plex of wood­land that has small vari­ations in hab­it­at with­in a very fine scale. Dif­fer­ent spe­cies of inver­teb­rate will like or need these small vari­ations, or ​‘micro-hab­it­ats,’ and may have very spe­cif­ic require­ments, for example cer­tain food plants. A key part of the value of this area is the warm, south facing wood­land edge with dry semi-nat­ur­al grass­land, which is rel­at­ively unusu­al in this area and import­ant for spe­cies such as Pine­wood mason bee (Osmia uncin­ate), and the hov­er­fly Chamaesyrphus scae­voides. Para­graph 194 of the Scot­tish Plan­ning Policy states that ​“The plan­ning sys­tem should… seek bene­fits for biod­iversity from new devel­op­ment where pos­sible, includ­ing the res­tor­a­tion of degraded hab­it­ats and the avoid­ance of fur­ther frag­ment­a­tion or isol­a­tion of hab­it­ats”. Para­graph 195 states that ​“Plan­ning author­it­ies, and all pub­lic bod­ies, have a duty under the Nature Con­ser­va­tion (Scot­land) Act 2004 to fur­ther the con­ser­va­tion of biod­iversity”. With the inform­a­tion cur­rently avail­able, it is impossible for the loc­al author­ity to assess the poten­tial biod­iversity impacts of this devel­op­ment. How­ever, the hab­it­ats on site are irre­place­able with the poten­tial to impact on nation­ally rare and scarce inver­teb­rates. In sum­mary, Bug­life objects to this applic­a­tion due to the lack of inform­a­tion or rel­ev­ant inver­teb­rate sur­vey and the poten­tial to impact on an assemblage of nation­ally and rare inver­teb­rates, and the hab­it­ats on which they rely. Pres­id­ent — Ger­maine Greer Chair­man — Mark Felton CEO — Matt Shard­low Bug­life — The Inver­teb­rate Con­ser­va­tion Trust is a lim­ited com­pany by guar­an­tee Com­pany No: 4132695 Registered Char­ity No: 1092293 Scot­tish Char­ity No: SC040004 Registered in Eng­land at The Lindens, 86 Lin­coln Road, Peter­bor­ough, PE1 2SN www​.bug​life​.org​.uk @buzz_dont_tweet

Do not hes­it­ate to con­tact us if you would like more inform­a­tion on any of the points raised and please can we be kept up to date with the pro­gress of this applic­a­tion. Yours sincerely

Suz­anne Bur­gess Scot­land Man­ager Pres­id­ent — Ger­maine Greer Chair­man — Mark Felton CEO — Matt Shard­low Bug­life — The Inver­teb­rate Con­ser­va­tion Trust is a lim­ited com­pany by guar­an­tee Com­pany No: 4132695 Registered Char­ity No: 1092293 Scot­tish Char­ity No: SC040004 Registered in Eng­land at The Lindens, 86 Lin­coln Road, Peter­bor­ough, PE1 2SN www​.bug​life​.org​.uk @buzz_dont_tweet From:Aurelie Walk­er-Dean Sent:2 Apr 2020 16:52:32 +0100 To:Planning Subject:2020/0064/PPP | Res­id­en­tial devel­op­ment for up to 20 dwell­ing houses | Land At School Road And Craigmore Road Nethy Bridge Hello, I am writ­ing to object to the above plan­ning applic­a­tion. I am grate­ful for the research con­cluded by esteemed eco­lo­gist Roy Turn­bull, and have based my response on his find­ings with which I whole­heartedly agree. The new draft LDP provides no alloc­a­tion for devel­op­ment with­in School Wood and nor does the Nethy Bridge set­tle­ment bound­ary therein extend into School Wood. The CNPA state, ​“We are required by law to ensure that our Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan is kept up-to-date and reviewed every 5 years.” The new LDP was planned to be adop­ted in April 2020, states Sites from 2015 Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan pre­ferred for dele­tion: H1 (alloc­ated in 2015 LDP for 15 houses) due to sig­ni­fic­ant nat­ur­al her­it­age con­straints. If the new LDP had been adop­ted this month the CNPA would be almost cer­tainly required to refuse the Craigmore Road applic­a­tion. Some points about the applic­a­tion: < School Wood is an Ancient Wood­land Site. i) The Wood­land Trust in its objec­tion to the pre­vi­ous applic­a­tion (2014) stated: ​“We believe that ancient wood­land is amongst the most pre­cious and biod­i­verse hab­it­ats in the UK and is a finite resource which should be pro­tec­ted.” ii) Scot­tish Plan­ning Policy states:

1. Ancient and semi-nat­ur­al wood­land is an import­ant and irre­place­able nation­al resource that should be pro­tec­ted and enhanced, as should oth­er nat­ive and long estab­lished wood­lands with high nature con­ser­va­tion value. The Scot­tish Forestry Strategy iden­ti­fies the pro­tec­tion of wood­lands of high biod­iversity value as an import­ant con­sid­er­a­tion in the devel­op­ment man­age­ment pro­cess. Wood­land of high nature con­ser­va­tion value should be iden­ti­fied in devel­op­ment plans along with rel­ev­ant policies for its pro­tec­tion and enhance­ment.” iii) The Con­trol of Wood­land Remov­al Policy states: There will be a strong pre­sump­tion against remov­ing the fol­low­ing types of wood­land: ancient semi-nat­ur­al wood­land; wood­lands lis­ted as Plant­a­tions on Ancient Wood­land Sites (PAWS). There will also be a strong pre­sump­tion against wood­land remov­al where it would lead to frag­ment­a­tion or dis­con­nec­tion of import­ant forest hab­it­at net­works. (SNH state that School Wood is an ​“Ancient Wood­land Site, cur­rently sup­port­ing wood­land of plant­a­tion char­ac­ter”, ie PAWS) iv) The Cairngorms Nation­al Park Forest Strategy 2018 states: ​“The wood­lands of the Cairngorms are of nation­al and inter­na­tion­al import­ance because they con­tain the largest remain­ing areas of semi-nat­ur­al wood­land hab­it­ats in Bri­tain!” and under­takes to ​“Con­tin­ue to pro­tect ancient and semi-nat­ur­al wood­lands from fur­ther dam­age and frag­ment­a­tion.” < Irre­place­able Wood­land The applic­ant pro­poses to provide com­pens­at­ory plant­ing of 1,97 ha of nat­ive wood­land at a site NW of the Nethy Bridge hotel, cur­rently ​“an area of inform­al open space” with ​“little eco­lo­gic­al value.” How­ever, the fact that ancient wood­land is ​“irre­place­able” (as stated in the above SPP para 146) is now well estab­lished. Indeed, as long ago as 1991, the then Nature Con­servancy Coun­cil for Scot­land, in its response to the First Draft of High­land Council’s Loc­al Plan in 1991 stated Wood­land is a vital com­pon­ent of the Badenoch and Strath­spey land­scape and fun­da­ment­al to the con­ser­va­tion of aspects highly import­ant to nature con­ser­va­tion. NCCS ❑ emphas­ises the essen­tial dif­fer­ence between rem­nants of the nat­ive wood­land and plant­a­tion or newly planted groups of trees for amen­ity. Semi-nat­ur­al wood­lands ☐ are not re-cre­at­able; new stands of trees and plant­a­tion do not com­pensate for the loss of the semi-nat­ur­al areas and addi­tion­ally are often not of such high amen­ity and aes­thet­ic value. < Risk to Caper­cail­lie The RSPB stated the fol­low­ing in its sub­mis­sion to the 2013 applic­a­tion for 58 houses at School Road and Craigmore Road in School Wood: ​“We are con­cerned about the risk that the pro­posed devel­op­ment would lead to unac­cept­able dis­turb­ance to breed­ing caper­cail­lie in the nearby Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Areas (SPAs) of Craigmore Wood and Aber­nethy Forest. The like­li­hood that people liv­ing in the houses (and their vis­it­ors) would use these SPAs for recre­ation, or that people cur­rently using the pro­posed devel­op­ment site for recre­ation would be dis­placed into the SPAs, and hence increase dis­turb­ance levels, is not addressed in this applic­a­tion. Caper­cail­lies are par­tic­u­larly sus­cept­ible to recre­ation­al dis­turb­ance, espe­cially from dogs off the leash. This spe­cies, which is in severe nation­al decline, is now largely con­fined to Strath­spey and is afforded the highest level of pro­tec­tion under UK and European law.” < Bug­life (the Inver­teb­rate Con­ser­va­tion Trust) state in its sub­mis­sion to this present applic­a­tion: ​“Pre­vi­ous sur­veys of inver­teb­rates at this site in rela­tion to the pre­vi­ous devel­op­ment pro­pos­als from 2013 (applic­a­tion num­ber: 2013/0119/DET) have iden­ti­fied almost 450 spe­cies of inver­teb­rate, of which 40 were Loc­al, 16 Nation­ally Scare Not­able B, 3 Near Threatened, 3 Red Data Book 3 (Rare), 1 Red Data Book 2 (Vul­ner­able) and 1 was pro­vi­sion­ally a Red Data Book 1 (endangered); two spe­cies are on the Scot­tish Biod­iversity List and one spe­cies is a UK Biod­iversity Action Plan pri­or­ity spe­cies. How­ever, it is cur­rently unclear which of the spe­cies recor­ded relate to the cur­rent area, as the 2013 applic­a­tion con­sisted of two sep­ar­ate nearby devel­op­ment sites.” ​“This site sup­ports ancient wood­land and this is an irre­place­able hab­it­at and its loss should be avoided, in line with plan­ning policy. The devel­op­ment sites are part of a lar­ger com­plex of wood­land that has small vari­ations in hab­it­at with­in a very fine scale. Dif­fer­ent spe­cies of inver­teb­rate will like or need these small vari­ations, or micro- hab­it­ats, and may have very spe­cif­ic require­ments, for example cer­tain food plants. A key part of the value of this area is the warm, south facing wood­land edge with dry semi-nat­ur­al grass­land, which is rel­at­ively unusu­al in this area and import­ant for spe­cies such as Pine­wood mason bee (Osmia uncin­ate), and the hov­er­fly Chamaesyrphus scae­voides.” ​“In sum­mary, Bug­life objects to this applic­a­tion due to the lack of inform­a­tion or rel­ev­ant inver­teb­rate sur­vey and the poten­tial to impact on an assemblage of nation­ally and rare inver­teb­rates, and the hab­it­ats on which they rely.” < CNPA pre­vi­ous applic­a­tion refus­al The pre­vi­ous applic­a­tion (2014) for 58 houses in School Wood, includ­ing 14 detached houses at the Craigmore Road site was refused by the CNPA for numer­ous reas­ons. The CNPA Plan­ners Report into the applic­a­tion included the fol­low­ing com­ments con­cern­ing the Craigmore Road site: APRAIS­AL, para.111 the line of detached houses at Craigmore Road, [ … ] is [not] con­sidered to rein­force and enhance the char­ac­ter of the set­tle­ment of Nethy Bridge.. para. 120 ☐The pro­posed devel­op­ment on Craigmore Road risks sim­il­ar impacts from a sub­urb­an approach to the lay­out of open space, drive­ways and bound­ar­ies. para. 121 Policy 6 Land­scape requires that devel­op­ment com­ple­ments and enhances the land­scape char­ac­ter of the Nation­al Park and in par­tic­u­lar the set­ting of the pro­posed devel­op­ment. The CNPA Land­scape Officer has advised that while the pro­pos­als for tree felling and plant­ing around the devel­op­ment would, over time, give a set­ting and con­text that is con­sist­ent with Nethy Bridge as a forest vil­lage, the cur­rent pro­pos­als for the lay­out and design of hous­ing and amen­ity space do not meet CNP Loc­al Plan policy 6 or Scot­tish gov­ern­ment guid­ance. RECOM­MEND­A­TION 6 ☐the sub­urb­an form of the Craigmore Road devel­op­ment, com­bined with the extent of the tree felling, do not relate well to the land­scape char­ac­ter of this part of Nethy Bridge. You may wish to con­sider wheth­er the presently pro­posed two areas of hous­ing pro­posed (i) 6 detached houses and one block of four ter­raced houses, and ii) two blocks of four and one block of 2 ter­raced houses) the CNPA. < Otters. X should be sim­il­arly appraised by

Otters are pro­tec­ted under The Con­ser­va­tion (Hab­it­ats & c.) Reg­u­la­tions 1994, the Wild­life and Coun­tryside Act (Sched­ule 5) 1981, as amended by the Nature Con­ser­va­tion (Scot­land) Act 2004, and are also a European pro­tec­ted spe­cies under Annex IV of the EC Hab­it­ats Dir­ect­ive 1994. Although the Eco­lo­gic­al Apprais­al for the developer notes that ​“the increased risk of dog attacks on otters from this devel­op­ment can­not be dis­reg­arded. In a pre­vi­ous con­sulta­tion for a devel­op­ment on this site, a mem­ber of the pub­lic repor­ted a dog attack on an otter cub at the Allt Mor.” It also states that, ​“No signs of otters were found on site or with­in a 100m buf­fer around the site” How­ever, in the last week sev­er­al signs of otter activ­ity (includ­ing spraints) have appeared along the Caochan Fhuar­ain both upstream and down­stream and close to the pro­posed devel­op­ment site. This illus­trates how an eco­lo­gic­al sur­vey only under­taken for a short peri­od in winter inev­it­ably misses import­ant inform­a­tion. Thank you for your kind con­sid­er­a­tion, Aure­lie Walk­er-Dean Dav­id Dean From:David Dean Sent:2 Apr 2020 19:53:09 +0100 To:Planning Subject:Planning Applic­a­tion Objec­tion 2020/0064/PPP | Res­id­en­tial devel­op­ment for up to 20 dwell­ing houses on land at Craigmore Road Nethy Bridge Dear Sir/​Madam, We wish to object to the above plan­ning applic­a­tion sub­mit­ted for approv­al in prin­ciple. We have to say that com­ing but six years after the pre­vi­ous applic­a­tion for few­er dwell­ings on this site we are aston­ished to see the mat­ter revived not to speak of the approx­im­ately 33% increase in num­ber of houses pro­posed. The pre­vi­ous applic­a­tion that was refused included 10 houses on 1.6ha at Craigmore Road. As res­id­ent own­ers for the last forty five years of neigh­bour­ing Badanf­huar­ain, now home also to The Lazy Duck Hostel we were kept fully appraised of the pre­vi­ous applicant’s pro­pos­als and argu­ments togeth­er with the flow of objec­tions which brought about the application’s even­tu­al rejec­tion. In 2014 CNPA Plan­ners con­cluded in their apprais­al :- para­graph 111 ​“The line of detached houses at Craigmore Road is not con­sidered to rein­force and enhance the char­ac­ter of the set­tle­ment of Nethy Bridge.” Para­graph 120 refer­ring by com­par­is­on to a sep­ar­ate applic­a­tion for