Item5Appendix3Objections20200068DET

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 5 Appendix 3 12/06/2020

AGENDA ITEM 5

APPENDIX 3

2020/0068/DET

REP­RES­ENT­A­TIONS OBJECTIONS

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 2020/0068/DET

Applic­a­tion Sum­mary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: 2020/0068/DET Address: Land At Clova Estate Glen Clova Pro­pos­al: Ret­ro­spect­ive plan­ning per­mis­sion for the upgrad­ing of an exist­ing track, includ­ing widen­ing, the use of impor­ted mater­i­al and the install­a­tion of drain­age Case Officer: Edward Swales

Cus­tom­er Details Name: Mr George Allan Address: 7 Both­well Ter­race Pit­med­den Ellon

Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Mem­ber of Pub­lic Stance: Cus­tom­er objects to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Comment:I am writ­ing on behalf of the North East Moun­tain Trust (NEMT), a Scot­tish Char­ity based in the Grampi­an area, which rep­res­ents the interests of hill-goers and those who enjoy vis­it­ing wild land. NEMT mem­ber­ship, com­pris­ing twelve hill­walk­ing and climb­ing clubs along with indi­vidu­al mem­bers, totals over 900 people.

NEMT objects because the upgrad­ing of the track is of a poor stand­ard.. In addi­tion, there are aspects of the sup­port­ing state­ment which need to be cla­ri­fied. The reas­on for the upgrad­ing of the track is unclear. It is stated that it is for agri­cul­ture and forestry. Para 3.4 appears to acknow­ledge that there is sport­ing use. Is this anoth­er example of applic­ants being coy about the actu­al pur­poses of a track? Para 2.2 states that ​‘the track sup­ports the role of tour­ism and recre­ation’ but does not say how; in addi­tion, this does not fit with the state­ment that the track is for agri­cul­tur­al and forestry use. Once the true pur­pose of the track is cla­ri­fied, a decision can be taken as to wheth­er it is required at all or what its prop­er width should be. The track is described vari­ously as a ​‘track’ and a ​‘path’. This is ambigu­ous; for the sake of clar­ity, it is import­ant to stress that the applic­a­tion refers to a track and a very sub­stan­tial one at that. Des­pite what is stated, the track has a very sig­ni­fic­ant visu­al impact both close up and from vari­ous points at a dis­tance. Only one ​‘dis­tance photo’, taken from a par­tic­u­lar angle, is provided. To reduce its visu­al impact, here should be a cent­ral veget­a­tion strip.. Paras 2.3 and 2.4 raise as yet unanswered ques­tions as to wheth­er there are envir­on­ment­al impacts. Will the upgraded track con­trib­ute to flood­ing (des­pite para 2.17 which states that it reduces flood risk)?. The track is poorly con­struc­ted. The fine sur­face mater­i­al will erode, espe­cially where it is too

steep, and there are no water bars. A blue plastic cul­vert is unfin­ished-it sticks out at both ends. The worst part of the upgrade is the ditch on the west side. It is over-engin­eered and crudely con­struc­ted. It makes the track look wider than it is. In places the track is begin­ning to erode into it. Unless they already have con­sent, two aspects need to be included in the applic­a­tion. These are a) the unne­ces­sar­ily large turn­ing area at the bot­tom b) the spur track and bridge at 327 736. Is the pur­pose of the lat­ter access to the plant­a­tion? There is no track bey­ond the bridge so vehicles are churn­ing up the vegetation.

Dot Har­ris

From: Wyl­lieWK WyllieWK@​angus.​gov.​uk Sent: 13 March 2020 12:45 To: Dot Har­ris Sub­ject: FW: Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 20/00021/FULL Cat­egor­ies: Comments

Good after­noon Dot,

Please find an objec­tion to the above plan­ning application.

Kind regards,

Wal­ter Wyl­lie | Plan­ning Officer — Devel­op­ment Stand­ards | Angus Coun­cil | wylliewk@​angus.​gov.​uk | 01307 492632 | www​.angus​.gov​.uk

From: publicaccess@​angus.​gov.​uk [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 12 March 2020 22:48 To: Wyl­lieWK Sub­ject: Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 20/00021/FULL

Com­ments sum­mary Dear Sir/​Madam,

Plan­ning Applic­a­tion com­ments have been made. A sum­mary of the com­ments is provided below.

Com­ments were sub­mit­ted at 12/03/2020 10:48 PM from Mr dav­id mitchell.

Applic­a­tion Sum­mary Address: Land At Clova Estate Glen Clova Pro­pos­al: Ret­ro­spect­ive plan­ning per­mis­sion for the upgrad­ing of an exist­ing track, includ­ing widen­ing, the use of impor­ted mater­i­al and the install­a­tion of drain­age Case Officer: Wal­ter Wyllie

Click for fur­ther information

Cus­tom­er Details Name: Mr dav­id mitchell Email: Address: 6 henry street kirriemuie DD8 5DL

Com­ments Details 1

Com­menter Mem­ber of Pub­lic Type: Stance: Cus­tom­er objects to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Reas­ons for com­ment: Com­ments: No plan­ning giv­en for this. Against the policies of Cairngorm Nation­al Park. An Eye­sore . Dam­age to under­ly­ing car­bon catch­ing peat.Path will not be used for agri­cul­tur­al pur­poses but likely to trans­port shoot­ers. Envir­on­ment­al dam­age to plant­life. Will act like a drain­age pitch and affect sphag­num mosses and peat lay­ers nearby. Kind regards

This mes­sage is strictly con­fid­en­tial. If you have received this in error, please inform the sender and remove it from your sys­tem. If received in error you may not copy, print, for­ward or use it or any attach­ment in any way. This mes­sage is not cap­able of cre­at­ing a leg­al con­tract or a bind­ing rep­res­ent­a­tion and does not rep­res­ent the views of Angus Coun­cil. Emails may be mon­itored for secur­ity and net­work man­age­ment reas­ons. Mes­sages con­tain­ing inap­pro­pri­ate con­tent may be inter­cep­ted. Angus Coun­cil does not accept any liab­il­ity for any harm that may be caused to the recip­i­ent sys­tem or data on it by this mes­sage or any attach­ment. 2

scot­tish wild land group

Cam­paign­ing for the Con­ser­va­tion of Wild Land in Scotland

Pub­lish­er of Scot­tish Wild Land News

Plan­ning Author­ity Cairngorm Nation­al Park The Square Grant­own-on-Spey High­land PH26 3HG

Dear Sir

Beryl Leath­er­land Con­ven­or 57 Charles Way Limekilns Fife KY11 3LH

01/04/2020

Our Ref: CNP02DET

Plan­ning Ref­er­ence: 2020/0068/DET Ret­ro­spect­ive plan­ning per­mis­sion for the upgrad­ing of an exist­ing track, includ­ing widen­ing, the use of impor­ted mater­i­al and the install­a­tion of drain­age. Land at Clova Estate, Glen Clova.

I am writ­ing on behalf of the Scot­tish Wild Land Group to OBJECT to this applic­a­tion. We are a registered Scot­tish char­ity, SC004014. We have sev­er­al aims and object­ives, among which are the pro­mo­tion and encour­age­ment of good plan­ning policies and to cam­paign to safe­guard against inap­pro­pri­ate developments.

We con­sider that sev­er­al aspects of this track and the ret­ro­spect­ive plan­ning applic­a­tion rep­res­ent an inap­pro­pri­ate devel­op­ment in the Nation­al Park and that it does not com­ply with the require­ments or the spir­it of the Nation­al Park [Scot­land] Act 2000 or the good plan­ning policies of the Park Author­ity and the Park’s Part­ner­ship Plan.

The applic­a­tion is inad­equate as pre­cise inform­a­tion is lack­ing in sev­er­al essen­tial areas, par­tic­u­larly con­struc­tion details and the omis­sion of envir­on­ment­al pro­tec­tion meas­ures. In addi­tion, the Applicant’s agent makes assur­ances that are not backed up by evid­ence in their ​“Plan­ning State­ment”. This gives a lack of con­fid­ence as to wheth­er the con­struc­tion and neces­sary improve­ments would be/​have been car­ried out well, wheth­er the track is needed and clar­ity and pre­ci­sion regard­ing its pur­pose, wheth­er drain­age and envir­on­ment­al pro­tec­tion would be in place and imple­men­ted effect­ively, to men­tion only a few obvi­ous flaws.

SPE­CIF­IC POINTS

1. Ecology/​EIA. In our delib­er­a­tions, we have con­sidered the set­ting of the pro­pos­al and its loc­a­tion in the Nation­al Park, par­tic­u­larly loc­al nat­ur­al her­it­age des­ig­na­tions. The site is in the Cairngorms Mas­sif Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Area [SPA] which qual­i­fies under Art­icle 4.1 of the European Birds Dir­ect­ive [trans­posed into the Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions (Scot­land) Amended 2012]. The SPA sup­ports a breed­ing pop­u­la­tion of European import­ance of the Annex 1 spe­cies Golden Eagle, Aquila chry­sae­tos. Indeed

Web­site www​.swlg​.org​.uk Registered Scot­tish Char­ity SC004014

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Glen Clova is act­ive eagle ter­rit­ory and the writer has observed these birds of prey in the glen and sur­round­ing hills. The site ulti­mately drains into the very nearby River South Esk. This river and its trib­u­tar­ies have a Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion [SAC] recog­ni­tion, and its qual­i­fy­ing interests are Atlantic Sal­mon and Fresh Water Pearl Mus­sel. In the case of the former spe­cies, the range of eco­lo­gic­al con­di­tions in the river, due to the strong nutri­ent gradi­ent along its length, allows it to sup­port the full range of life his­tory types with sub-pop­u­la­tions of spring sal­mon, sum­mer sal­mon and grilse all being present. In the case of the Pearl Mus­sel, this par­tic­u­lar river is of immense value in the con­ser­va­tion of this spe­cies; for this reas­on it was an import­ant loc­a­tion dur­ing the Pearls in Per­il pro­ject. The South Esk is par­tic­u­larly not­able for juven­ile abund­ance which indic­ates suc­cess­ful recruit­ment in a cur­rently healthy pop­u­la­tion, rare in Scot­land. The site is at the south east­ern range of the spe­cies which depends for its sur­viv­al on a healthy sal­mon host pop­u­la­tion, clear water free of sus­pen­ded solids, an undis­turbed gravel bed and of course a lack of poach­ing. Such hab­it­ats although they are aquat­ic, are depend­ent for their health on sens­it­ive and good land man­age­ment prac­tices. We note that SNH have been con­tac­ted, and we con­sider that an EIA opin­ion re an Appro­pri­ate Assessment/​Habitats Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al is essen­tial. We are aware that SNH employ­ees will be observing the cur­rent shut­down and ask that adequate time is giv­en for their con­sid­er­a­tion of the applic­a­tion and receipt of their response. In the Plan­ning State­ment, the Applicant’s agent states at 2.13 [which should maybe be 2.23] that ​“There are not con­sidered to be sig­ni­fic­ant eco­lo­gic­al impacts asso­ci­ated with the devel­op­ment, as the pro­pos­al relates to the upgrade of an exist­ing track”; and later that there is ​“no known impact on nature con­ser­va­tion interests”. We dis­agree; no eco­lo­gic­al impacts have been assessed – there is no accom­pa­ny­ing Eco­logy Report which would identi­fy the hab­it­ats, flora and fauna present, poten­tial impacts on them due to the pro­pos­al, their sig­ni­fic­ance to qual­i­fy­ing spe­cies and sug­ges­tions for feas­ible mit­ig­a­tion. The fact that there is a track there already is totally irrel­ev­ant; improve­ment work must be car­ried out on site and hence due assess­ment must be done. Pre­sum­ably when the track was first upgraded from the ori­gin­al the poten­tial for eco­lo­gic­al dis­turb­ance was not con­sidered at that stage as there was no applic­a­tion sub­mit­ted? We are not in a pos­i­tion to judge this as we do not know the details of when the track was made. We would how­ever point out that as this could be con­sidered to be a moor­land hab­it­at that tim­ing of the improve­ment works to avoid avi­an breed­ing sea­sons could be essen­tial if there are ground nest­ing birds in the area, and a suit­able con­di­tion of plan­ning could be set.

1. Pur­pose of the track. This is very unclear, the applic­a­tion men­tions live­stock [sheep] man­age­ment thereby giv­ing an agri­cul­tur­al pur­pose, there is men­tion of forestry needs but these are not spe­cified, shooting/​hunting access require­ments [for which a full applic­a­tion is always required] and recre­ation [again, for which a full applic­a­tion is required]. It is claimed that the Applic­ant did not real­ise that a full applic­a­tion was required to build this track. We are aware, from fre­quent vis­its to the area over dec­ades that this is primar­ily a shoot­ing access track. Our view is that the Applic­ant must be more spe­cif­ic over the primary pur­pose of the track and we accept that to some extent many such tracks are multi-use, but this can be quantified.

2. Con­struc­tion details. The applic­a­tion as presen­ted is very inad­equate and lacks essen­tial detail.

3.1. Design: the track goes straight up a slope, only slightly diag­on­ally from the dia­grams provided, and in order to avoid erosion of the pro­posed loose sur­face appro­pri­ate track design should be/​have been employed. No site-spe­cif­ic details have been giv­en oth­er than a hand drawn sketch, which does not reflect the level of care and design required. There is no evid­ence that either the excel­lent SNH guid­ance doc­u­ment has been referred to and acted on or, should the primary pur­pose be claimed forestry use, that used by the forestry industry. 3.2. Robust­ness: the track will be car­ry­ing vehicles, some of them heavy. There are no con­struc­tion details spe­cify­ing how the track will be/​has been built for its sus­tain­able use over a long peri­od of 2

time. If its found­a­tions, drain­age and sit­ing are not designed appro­pri­ately for the site then it will suf­fer dam­age and need future main­ten­ance as well as con­tinu­ing to be an eye­sore. 3.3 Drain­age. High levels of pre­cip­it­a­tion are typ­ic­al of the Glen and there tends to be rap­id run off, so erosion of sur­faces and effect­ive drain­age are major con­sid­er­a­tions. There is no dis­cus­sion of how the track and its sur­round­ings will be/​have been pro­tec­ted from erosion, In par­tic­u­lar there is no sub­mis­sion of how, dur­ing con­struc­tion, the sys­tems and tech­niques used will avoid the silt­ing of the nearby trib­u­tary of the South Esk. If there is inad­equate drain­age provided by cross drains and effect­ively sited cul­verts then there will be over­spill. Silt­ing of the trib­u­tary will lead to pol­lu­tion by sus­pen­ded solids of the SAC, which would be an offence. It may be decided after con­sid­er­a­tion that the size of this devel­op­ment does not jus­ti­fy a full CAR licence, but spe­cif­ic advice should be sought from SEPA, par­tic­u­larly on silt trap­ping tech­niques and their main­ten­ance and on post construction/​improvement man­age­ment. We have read the ini­tial SEPA response and are famil­i­ar with their doc­u­ment­a­tion on these aspects and the rel­ev­ant reg­u­lat­ory régime. From a site vis­it by a col­league it is noted that there is only one very crude cul­vert at present and that there are no cross drains/​water bars. In addi­tion the exist­ing drain­age ditch along the west side of the track is poorly con­struc­ted and is in a ter­rible state in some sec­tions, with the left bank being very unsightly with no veget­a­tion man­age­ment and the right bank erod­ing badly. There is a need for res­tor­a­tion and improve­ment. 3.4. Mater­i­als to be used: There is no men­tion of the type [loc­al?], its appear­ance, source [the applic­a­tion head­ing men­tions impor­ted mater­i­al], the require­ment if any for bor­row pits and their sit­ing and pro­posed res­tor­a­tion post con­struc­tion. 3.5. Peat: there is no men­tion of wheth­er peat­land is on site and if so how any dis­turb­ance can be avoided [or loc­al res­tor­a­tion could be car­ried out]. This aspect should be con­sidered to ensure com­pli­ance with CNP policy and the Park’s Part­ner­ship Plan. 3.6. Waste Stor­age and Col­lec­tion; these aspects are not men­tioned at all, espe­cially waste from con­struc­tion traffic and mater­i­als used. 3.7.The track width is excess­ive. There is a lack of clar­ity on what the even­tu­al track width is pro­posed to be but giv­en a work­ing 10 metre width, this can anti­cip­ated to be far too great.

1. Visu­al Impact: The track cur­rently is quite dom­in­ant in views on the approach to the upper nar­row­er Glen Clova for some dis­tance when approach­ing north­wards on the B955. It detracts from the view into the clas­sic­al deep, steep sided entrance to this gla­ci­ated land­scape and is visu­ally intrus­ive. It is con­spicu­ous and detracts from its set­ting in the land­scape. The insens­it­ive line the track takes, its width, and the par­tic­u­lar sur­face mater­i­al used con­trib­ute to this; there has been no attempt at mit­ig­a­tion and from the cur­rent applic­a­tion there is no mit­ig­a­tion pro­posed. The photo provided [Fig 2 at 2.9] is wide angled, and is taken under low light con­di­tions, as are the oth­er pho­tos of track sec­tions. Pho­tos from view­points that typ­ic­ally visu­al recept­ors would use should be provided instead. In 2.18 of the Plan­ning State­ment it states that the track upgrade is visu­ally neg­li­gible, we disagree.

2. Oth­er Fea­tures to Con­sider: There is a spur track at a new/​temporary look­ing bridge at NG 327

3. Bey­ond the bridge the track con­tin­ues to forest as a churned up route, not as a con­struc­ted track. Do i] the bridge and ii] the track to the forest have con­sent, for example by Pri­or Noti­fic­a­tion? Sim­il­arly does the large turn­ing area at the bot­tom of the track have or need per­mis­sion? These fea­tures are not men­tioned in the cur­rent applic­a­tion. In the case of the bridge, this is merely a flat wooden planked struc­ture loc­ated over a water course; there are no robust found­a­tions or any bank pro­tec­tion meas­ures to avoid col­lapse under the weight of vehicles etc and hence pol­lu­tion by soil and silt­ing of the water course, which drains into the nearby South Esk even­tu­ally. This requires some care­ful improve­ment and mit­ig­a­tion tech­niques used to pre­vent pol­lu­tion at source.

4. Plan­ning State­ment sub­mit­ted as Sup­port­ing Inform­a­tion: we are in dis­agree­ment with the con­tent, much of which we respect­fully sug­gest is irrel­ev­ant. Sev­er­al asser­tions are made that are 3

inac­cur­ate and/​or not sup­por­ted by evid­ence to jus­ti­fy them, such as claims regard­ing com­pli­ance. For instance, in 3.2 it is stated that the applic­a­tion com­plies with the Tay­plan. This is unevid­enced and we would argue that in this very rur­al con­text and sense of place that for example, the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan is far more rel­ev­ant, yet that isn’t con­sidered at all. It is worth men­tion­ing that the pre­sump­tion against new upland tracks in the lat­ter [maybe at a high­er level than this one] indic­ates the level of con­cern the Park author­it­ies have regard­ing the pro­lif­er­a­tion of tracks in the NP. The agent fur­ther at 2.19 states that the cur­rent track is nat­ive to the con­struc­tion of rur­al tracks in this lower part of the glen; we would point out that this illus­trates that sev­er­al loc­al tracks built maybe before the 2014 Order were indeed con­struc­ted to unsat­is­fact­ory stand­ards. In 2.16, 2.20, 3.4 to men­tion just a few examples, asser­tions are made with no evid­ence base to sup­port them. In 2.17 ​“drain­age upgrades” are men­tioned but there is no detail of them and why they can be regarded as upgrades. A point is made that the track will sup­port tour­ism and recre­ation but there is no dis­cus­sion of how this track might con­trib­ute to that; sim­il­arly access would be unsuit­able for many people.

For the reas­ons out­lined in this cor­res­pond­ence we strongly object to his ret­ro­spect­ive applic­a­tion. In sum­mary, the track as it stands is in con­flict with the aims of the Nation­al Park, spe­cific­ally ​“a] to con­serve and enhance the nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age of the area”. We have addi­tion­al con­cerns regard­ing nat­ur­al her­it­age, visu­al impacts, poor drain­age, insens­it­ive con­struc­tion and veget­a­tion res­tor­a­tion, and the pur­pose and need for the track. If a track can be jus­ti­fied in this loc­a­tion and with a defined pur­pose, then we sug­gest that the exist­ing track is restored to one that is more in keep­ing with an access track of reas­on­able width, sens­it­ively con­struc­ted to SNH guidelines and bear­ing in mind the require­ments of the loc­al qual­i­fy­ing spe­cies of the SAC and SPA, with its appear­ance mit­ig­ated to sit less intrus­ively in the land­scape. Sur­veys and assess­ments would be required and the plan­ning author­ity of the Nation­al Park would need to set appro­pri­ate con­di­tions to help ensure a sat­is­fact­ory outcome.

Should you have any quer­ies at all about the con­tents of this let­ter, please con­tact me

Yours sin­cerely

Beryl Leath­er­land Con­ven­or 4

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