Item5Appendix4AGeneral

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 5 Appendix 4A 27/05/2022

AGENDA ITEM 5

APPENDIX 4A

2022/0046/DET

PUB­LIC REP­RES­ENT­A­TIONS- GENERAL

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 2022/0046/DET Applic­a­tion Sum­mary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: 2022/0046/DET Address: Ranger Base Office Cairngorm Moun­tain Glen­more Aviemore PH22 1RB Pro­pos­al: Form­a­tion of moun­tain bike track and related infra­struc­ture Case Officer: Stephanie Wade

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

Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Mem­ber of Pub­lic Stance: Cus­tom­er made com­ments neither object­ing to or sup­port­ing the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Comment:I am writ­ing on behalf of the North East Moun­tain Trust (NEMT)- Scot­tish Char­ity SCIO 008783- 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 around 1000 people.

NEMT has con­cerns about a num­ber of aspects of this application.

NEMT is opposed in prin­ciple to the devel­op­ment of moun­tain bik­ing facil­it­ies at high­er alti­tudes; nev­er­the­less, NEMT accepts that a bik­ing facil­ity on Cairngorm is part of the man­age­ment plan for the mountain.

The risk with facil­it­ies at high­er levels is that these give the impres­sion that bik­ing is gen­er­ally accept­able on hills and plat­eaus irre­spect­ive of the poten­tial dam­age to veget­a­tion. With regard to this applic­a­tion, the Vis­it­or Man­age­ment Plan states that the implic­a­tions for the European Sites bey­ond the ski area are ​‘low or nil’, pre­sum­ably because the pro­posed facil­ity is quite far down the coire but this does not remove the more gen­er­al per­cep­tion that bik­ing high up is, per se, an unprob­lem­at­ic activ­ity. Much is made in the applic­a­tion of both the yet to be pro­duced guid­ance for users of the facil­ity and the mon­it­or­ing of beha­viours fol­low­ing its open. NEMT thinks that guid­ance must be avail­able from day one and this should be agreed with the Nation­al Park and should be a form­al con­di­tion of approv­al. Con­sid­er­able reli­ance is placed on a suite of mon­it­or­ing meas­ures but noth­ing is said about what would hap­pen if this shows that the guid­ance is being ignored. The only action avail­able to the Nation­al Park would appear to be the imple­ment­a­tion of byelaws to pre­vent cyc­ling on the plat­eau (and else­where) where it was dam­aging veget­a­tion and hab­it­ats- a pos­sible but con­tro­ver­sial step.

The cycle tracks will be visu­ally intrus­ive and will fur­ther urb­an­ise the lower coire. The pro­pos­al that trees will be planted to mit­ig­ate this to a degree is wel­come. NEMT sug­gests that a tree plant­ing plan, approved by the Nation­al Park, be sub­ject to a form­al con­di­tion. NEMT thinks that addi­tion­al meas­ures to com­pensate for the det­ri­ment­al visu­al intru­sion, such as the fur­ther reseed­ing and the remov­al of redund­ant infra­struc­ture and little used tracks, should be agreed with the Nation­al Park and also made a form­al condition.

The applic­a­tion and the mas­ter­plan seems to sug­gest that this fam­ily ori­ent­ated pro­pos­al, com­ple­ment­ing more chal­len­ging facil­it­ies else­where on Spey­side, will be the extent of bik­ing infra­struc­ture in the coire. NEMT would be extremely con­cerned if, at a later stage, the com­pany brought for­ward applic­a­tions for more demand­ing courses fur­ther up the coire. NEMT asks the Park to con­firm with the com­pany that this will not be the case so that this can be repor­ted to the Plan­ning Committee.