Item5Appendix4aObjections 25LodgesAHR20230004DET

Cairngorms Item 5 Appendix 4a 26 Janu­ary 2024 Nation­al Park Author­ity Ügh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Agenda item 5

Appendix 4a

2023/0004/DET

Rep­res­ent­a­tions — objections

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 2023/0004/DET

Applic­a­tion Sum­mary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: 2023/0004/DET Address: Site Of Dry Ski Slope Grampi­an Road Aviemore High­land Pro­pos­al: Change of use of land for sit­ing of 27 lodges, access road, land­scap­ing Case Officer: Alan Atkins

Cus­tom­er Details

Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Mem­ber of Pub­lic Stance: Cus­tom­er objects to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Comment:Excessive amount of hol­i­day accom­mod­a­tion. Far too dom­in­eer­ing in design and insens­it­ive to sur­round­ing vil­lage. We are cry­ing out for loc­al accom­mod­a­tion for our loc­al com­munity. I am yet again dis­ap­poin­ted by prof­it­eer­ing stomp­ing all over our genu­ine com­munity needs.

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 2023/0004/DET

Applic­a­tion Sum­mary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: 2023/0004/DET Address: Site Of Dry Ski Slope Grampi­an Road Aviemore High­land Pro­pos­al: Change of use of land for sit­ing of 27 lodges, access road, land­scap­ing Case Officer: Alan Atkins

Cus­tom­er Details

Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Mem­ber of Pub­lic Stance: Cus­tom­er objects to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Comment:The lochan in the south­w­est corner of the devel­op­ment, although part of the resort foot­print, has become an import­ant food source for breed­ing Ospreys in the Strath­spey area over the last 11 years, and espe­cially since the clos­ure of the fish farm at Rothiemurchus and its cur­rent state as an impov­er­ished fish­ery. The lochan sup­ports at least 10 act­ive Osprey nests in the area each year, and is a ready food source for the birds and espe­cially in times when loc­al rivers are run­ning high/​fast or too low, the lat­ter occur­ring more fre­quently in a warmer/​drier cli­mate. Although I under­stand the lochan is used under a busi­ness arrange­ment with the resort, it brings eco-tour­ism (accom­mod­a­tion use, etc.) to the vil­lage by pho­to­graph­ers like myself, and from around the world due to the qual­ity of the loc­a­tion. The design as giv­en would severely impact the birds accept­ance as a loc­a­tion to fish, there­fore those lodges indic­ated as being closest to the lochan need remov­ing from the design as well as make sure that any trees added as part of the devel­op­ment are man­aged to make sure ingress/​egress by the birds is not affected in sub­sequent years. Mac­don­ald Resorts should appre­ci­ate that the Ospreys vis­it­ing that lochan are a cred­it to them and their agent that oper­ates it, and should not ruin nature for the sake of money

Emma Green­lees From: Sent: To: Sub­ject: Cat­egor­ies: 21 Decem­ber 2023 12:46 Plan­ning 2023/0004/DET DMS, Comments

Hav­ing seen the revised plan for 25 lodges for the above, there are still some lodges that a far too adja­cent to the pond that sup­ports for­aging Ospreys, and my objec­tion remains.

Thanks

1

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 2023/0004/DET

Applic­a­tion Sum­mary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: 2023/0004/DET Address: Site Of Dry Ski Slope Grampi­an Road Aviemore High­land Pro­pos­al: Change of use of land for sit­ing of 27 lodges, access road, land­scap­ing Case Officer: Alan Atkins

Cus­tom­er Details

Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Mem­ber of Pub­lic Stance: Cus­tom­er objects to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Com­ment: This area cur­rent use for attract­ing wild­life spe­cific­ally brings me to Aviemore a few times a year. Whilst there my tour­ist money con­trib­utes to the loc­al eco­nomy. If the cur­rent pond area is filled in it will pre­vent Ospreys from being able to fish and reduce biod­iversity. I pre­sume it will also lim­it the walk to the area on the oth­er side of the road which is also excel­lent for wild­life. The site has one ​‘unused’ old hotel block that could be con­sidered if they are really short of space. How­ever build­ing here would be a real loss of a tran­quil spot of busy Avimore

Emma Green­lees From: Sent: To: Sub­ject: Cat­egor­ies: 21 Decem­ber 2023 14:02 Plan­ning 2023/0004/DET – Change of use of land for sit­ing of 25 lodges, access road and land­scap­ing at Site of Dry Ski Slope, Grampi­an Road, Aviemore, High­land DMS, Comments

Hello Look­ing at the amend­ment — I can­not see by remov­ing a couple of lodges how it will reduce dis­turb the wild­life in the area. It appears to be tak­ing a lip ser­vice approach to objections.

This is an import­ant area for wild­life all year around and par­tic­u­larly in the summer.

This amount of lodges is the wrong devel­op­ment in the wrong area and ulti­mately will reduce biod­iversity in the area I do not sup­port this development

Kind Regards

1

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 2023/0004/DET

Applic­a­tion Sum­mary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: 2023/0004/DET Address: Site Of Dry Ski Slope Grampi­an Road Aviemore High­land Pro­pos­al: Change of use of land for sit­ing of 27 lodges, access road, land­scap­ing Case Officer: Alan Atkins

Cus­tom­er Details

Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Mem­ber of Pub­lic Stance: Cus­tom­er objects to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Comment:Dear Sir/​Madam, I noticed the plan­ning applic­tion for the Lodges at Mac­don­ald Aviemore resort the pond which the lodges are going to be situ­ated around, this is a man made pond and without main­ten­ance will just become a wet bog, many years ago lined the area to retain the water levels. stock the pond with trout for wild­life pho­to­graphy of Ospreys fish­ing in the early morn­ings and this is a icon­ic loc­al sched­ule 1 pro­tec­ted spe­cies under the law, while i have no objec­tion to the plan­ning applic­a­tion i know the Lodges are too close to the pond ares to allow the Ospreys to fish which i know will have an adverse effect on the spe­cies in the loc­al area with adults not find­ing enough fish to feed the Juven­iles at the nest My oth­er con­cern and a real con­cern, is that the pond is quite deep and will freeze over dur­ing the Winter months, in light of the recent tragedy in Egland with Chil­dren fall­ing through and drown­ing on thin i ice, I am typ­ing this at 6am as i haven’t been able to sleep for worry that some­thing built could lead to such an event. a secure 6ft fence all the way round the pond While i have no obec­tions to the Lodges, i know they are to close to the pond for Ospreys to fish any­more, but more than that i worry that an un-fenced pond in the winter could lead to a real tragedy.

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 2023/0004/DET

Applic­a­tion Sum­mary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: 2023/0004/DET Address: Site Of Dry Ski Slope Grampi­an Road Aviemore High­land Pro­pos­al: Change of use of land for sit­ing of 27 lodges, access road, land­scap­ing Case Officer: Alan Atkins

Cus­tom­er Details

Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Mem­ber of Pub­lic Stance: Cus­tom­er objects to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Com­ment: The Lochan in the South­w­est corner of the devel­op­ment, although part of the resort foot­print, has become an import­ant food source for breed­ing Ospreys in the Strath­spey area over the past 11 years. Espe­cially since the clos­ure of the fish farm at Rothiemurchus and it’s cur­rent status as an impov­er­ished fish­ery. The Lochan sup­ports at least 10 act­ive Osprey nests in the area each year, and is a ready source of food when river levels are low and nat­ur­al fish stocks are dimin­ished. This is becom­ing more fre­quent as the cli­mate becomes drier and warm­er. The Lochan is usd under a busi­ness arrange­ment with the resort and brings sig­ni­fic­ant eco­tour­ism to the area in terms of accom­mod­a­tion and retail. Pho­to­graph­ers from all over the world come here to pho­to­graph the Ospreys in a world class hide facil­ity due to the qual­ity of the loc­a­tion. The lodges closest to the Lochan need to be removed from the design in order to ensure that the Ospreys are not dis­turbed. As well, any trees added as part of the devel­op­ment need to be man­aged so as not to impinge upon the Lochan foot­print oth­er­wise the Ospreys would be unable to fish. Build­ing work in the vicin­ity of the Lochan should be restric­ted in the early morn­ing and late after­noons as this is why the birds typ­ic­ally feed. The resort should appre­ci­ate the kudos that the Ospreys bring to the loc­a­tion, which is a cred­it to them and the agent who man­ages and oper­ates the facil­ity. This is a well estab­lished facil­ity and feed­ing ground for these mag­ni­fi­cent migrat­ing birds and any devel­op­ment should take into account the impact it would have on one of the won­ders of nature.

Deirdre Straw From: Sent: To: Sub­ject: 12 Janu­ary 2023 12:18 Plan­ning Object­ing to plan­ing Cat­egor­ies: Pending

To whom it may con­cern, I would like to object to these 3 plan­ning applications:

22/05824/FUL Erec­tion of 22 self cater­ing apart­ments, shop, hotel and under­ground park­ing on Grampi­an Road.

22/05826/FUL change of use of land for sit­ing of 27 lodges 22/05826/FUK C22/05497/PIP Change of use from Guest house to 11 ser­vices apartments

Firstly, I under­stand CNP run as a tour­ist inform­a­tion rather than a Nation­al Park and I think this needs to change and CNP should be look­ing at oth­er Nation­al Parks to see how they run. We can­not cope with more tour­ism as we struggle with what we do have, we do not have afford­able hous­ing for loc­al people work­ing in the area to rent or buy. People are being pushed out of the vil­lage because of this, busi­nesses are hav­ing to close to give staff days off. The main road is con­ges­ted. We do not have the infra­struc­ture for more hotels or lodges.

As a nation­al park you should be pro­tect­ing the green land and sup­port­ing the com­munity, unfor­tu­nately this does not seem to be the case and it is really very sad. All plan­ning that goes through, noth­ing is in keep­ing, it is not afford­able for the loc­al com­munity and is tak­ing away pre­cious green land.

22/05824/FUL Erec­tion of 22 self-cater­ing apart­ments, shop, hotel and under­ground park­ing on Grampi­an Road. We have enough hotels in the area we do not need more, as stated above we do not have the infra­struc­ture or the people to work in these hotels and apart­ments. Where are all the staff going to come from and where will they live. Aviemore is at break­ing point and this will just give vis­it­ors a really bad vis­it­or exper­i­ence. The con­ges­tion will pol­lute the area with fumes and sound pol­lu­tion. The main road is already con­ges­ted. I pre­sume the hotel and apart­ments will also not have to pay for the new licensing.

22/05826/FUL change of use of land for sit­ing of 27 lodges, this is at McDon­alds Resort and will be tak­ing away much loved Green­land and will rew­in the feel of that area and will look very over crowded. Again we have too much hol­i­day accom­mod­a­tion as it is. I also think they should be spend­ing their money on the four sea­sons hotel rather than let­ting that go to ruin and build­ing more lodges. Years ago they already had plans to turn that into apart­ments which would be much bet­ter. Again these lodges will not need the licen­cing that is com­ing in.

22/05826/FUK C22/05497/PIP Change of use from Guest house to 11 ser­vices apart­ments, This can­not be allowed, this is a fam­ily home that did bed and break­fast for 4 rooms now plan­ning on turn­ing into 11 apart­ments, this has deck­ing all around them which will cause noise pol­lu­tion, park­ing I do not think is enough, gravel park­ing which will be noisy, neon signs and this is unmanned on a res­id­en­tial street. We have a massive issue with hous­ing and this will be the second B&B fam­ily home to be changed. If I had 1

real­ised about the plan­ning for Ver­mont, I would have objec­ted. If this is allowed, it will set a pres­id­ent for oth­er com­pan­ies to buy houses and turn into hol­i­day let apart­ments as they do not need to get the new licence for short lets and this will take away even more homes. Aviemore can­not cope with what we do have and no more apart­ments, hotels or lodges etc should be allowed until we can sort infra­struc­ture and housing.

Please do not allow these to go ahead and please start treat­ing the area as a pro­tec­ted area. Kind regards

2

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 22/05826/FUL

Applic­a­tion Sum­mary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: 22/05826/FUL Address: Site Of Dry Ski Slope Grampi­an Road Aviemore Pro­pos­al: Change of use of land for sit­ing of 27 lodges, access road, land­scap­ing Case Officer: Roddy Dowell

Cus­tom­er Details

Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Mem­ber of Pub­lic Stance: Cus­tom­er objects to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Comment:Consideration must be giv­en to the fact that these lodges are only the start of a very large devel­op­ment pro­pos­al of short-term let accom­mod­a­tion and hous­ing schemes.

The traffic gen­er­ated will add addi­tion­al pres­sure to Grampi­an Road which is already congested.

Aviemore needs addi­tion­al recre­ation­al infra­struc­ture included in plans.

There is a lack of green space.

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 22/05826/FUL

Applic­a­tion Sum­mary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: 22/05826/FUL Address: Site Of Dry Ski Slope Grampi­an Road Aviemore Pro­pos­al: Change of use of land for sit­ing of 27 lodges, access road, land­scap­ing Case Officer: Roddy Dowell

Cus­tom­er Details

Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Mem­ber of Pub­lic Stance: Cus­tom­er objects to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Com­ment: I strongly object to this devel­op­ment that will erad­ic­ate a very pop­u­lar green space that is used for recre­ation­al pur­poses by the loc­al com­munity and vis­it­ors. The children’s play­park is an essen­tial activ­ity hub of fam­ily life and is very well used and would be a massive loss to our com­munity. The green spaces must be pro­tec­ted for leis­ure and recre­ation or Aviemore risks becom­ing a huge tour­ist con­crete jungle. There is already an enorm­ous sup­ply of hol­i­day accom­mod­a­tion. Enough is enough. Please con­sider the implic­a­tions of the loss of this green area on our loc­al com­munity. The swim­ming pool at this site is already out of bounds for loc­als and only access­ible to the guests of the Mac­don­alds resort. This in itself has been a huge blow for people that actu­ally live here.

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 22/05826/FUL

Applic­a­tion Sum­mary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: 22/05826/FUL Address: Site Of Dry Ski Slope Grampi­an Road Aviemore Pro­pos­al: Change of use of land for sit­ing of 27 lodges, access road, land­scap­ing Case Officer: Roddy Dowell

Cus­tom­er Details

Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Mem­ber of Pub­lic Stance: Cus­tom­er objects to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Com­ment: This takes away green space, of which there is very little left in Aviemore and also a children’s play­ground. As usu­al there are no staff in Aviemore to main­tain and clean these addi­tion­al lodges as there is no accom­mod­a­tion for loc­al people or work­ers. This needs to be addressed before any oth­er tour­ist devel­op­ments. We need homes for loc­als, not more hol­i­day accommodation.

Emma Green­lees From: Sent: To: Sub­ject: Cat­egor­ies: BSCG info info@​bscg.​org.​uk 06 Feb­ru­ary 2023 23:52 Plan­ning; Alan Atkins 2023/0004/DET Com­ment Com­ments, Request to Speak

Badenoch & Strath­spey Con­ser­va­tion Group Fiod­hag, Nethy­bridge, Inverness-shire PH25 3DJ email info@​bscg.​org.​uk Scot­tish Char­ity SC003846 Web­site bscg​.org​.uk/

Alan Atkins CNPA Grant­own on Spey 6 Feb­ru­ary 2023 Dear Alan Atkins 2023/0004/DET | Change of use of land for sit­ing of 27 lodges, access road, land­scap­ing | Site Of Dry Ski Slope Grampi­an Road Aviemore Highland

The Badenoch & Strath­spey Con­ser­va­tion Group wishes to object to the above applic­a­tion and we request the oppor­tun­ity to address the com­mit­tee when the applic­a­tion is determined.

The devel­op­ment would res­ult in the loss of a val­ued green space in Aviemore. Aviemore is in great­er need of more green spaces for inform­al recre­ation, due to the pop­u­la­tion of the town grow­ing, yet green recre­ation­al areas are being lost to built devel­op­ment (for example, recently on the pony field).

The 162 bed­spaces of this pro­pos­al would be a major increase in such pro­vi­sion, and can be pre­dicted to add to the recre­ation­al dis­turb­ance (walk­ing, run­ning, bik­ing, etc) in the Strath­spey wood­lands sup­port­ing caper­cail­lie, such as Kin­veachy, Rothiemurchus and Glen­more. As is very well estab­lished, the caper­cail­lie pop­u­la­tion of Strath­spey is low and recre­ation­al dis­turb­ance inhib­its caper­cail­lie from using hab­it­at that is oth­er­wise suit­able. Dis­turb­ance thereby effect­ively reduces the amount of hab­it­at avail­able to capercaillie.

The lochan is a feed­ing area for osprey and also an eco­tour­ism facil­ity, both of which would be neg­at­ively impacted by the devel­op­ment due to its close proximity.

The core path run­ning through the site would, as a res­ult of the devel­op­ment, pass close to some lodges. This would detract from the present high qual­ity exper­i­ence of this path.

We are con­cerned that the devel­op­ment will res­ult in the loss of some trees on the site; and that the tar­mac sur­face for paths will sig­ni­fic­antly detract from the nat­ur­al char­ac­ter of the exist­ing wood­land paths. We are fur­ther con­cerned at the land­scape impacts of the devel­op­ment and the impacts on views to and from Craigellachie.

Yours sin­cerely 1

Gus Jones Con­vener 2

Emma Green­lees From: Sent: To: Sub­ject: Cat­egor­ies: BSCG info info@​bscg.​org.​uk 11 Janu­ary 2024 23:53 Plan­ning ²⁰²³⁄₀₀₀₄ Com­ments Emma G, Comments

CNPA Grant­own on Spey 11 Janu­ary 2024 Dear Alan Atkins Badenoch & Strath­spey Con­ser­va­tion Group Fiod­hag, Nethy­bridge, Inverness-shire PH25 3DJ Scot­tish Char­ity No. SC003846 Email info@​bscg.​org.​uk Web­site bscg​.org​.uk/ Addi­tion­al Com­ments 2023/0004/DET |Change of use of land for sit­ing of 25 lodges, access road, land­scap­ing. Site of Dry Ski Slope, Grampi­an Road, Aviemore, High­land. Thank you for provid­ing the oppor­tun­ity to make fur­ther com­ments on this altered applic­a­tion. 1

We con­sider that the reduc­tion of lodges from 27 to 25 and oth­er alter­a­tions to the site lay­out do not make a mater­i­al dif­fer­ence to the impacts of the pro­posed development.

The altered devel­op­ment would still res­ult in the loss of a valu­able green space in Aviemore. Such amen­ity green areas are of increas­ing import­ance due to the grow­ing pop­u­la­tion of Aviemore as well as the increas­ing num­bers of vis­it­ors; and the area of green spaces con­tin­ues to decrease, due to loss to built devel­op­ment. A cur­rent example of such a decrease is the loss of much of the pony field, to the devel­op­ment presently under construction.

The altered pro­pos­als would impact on the qual­ity of exper­i­ence for users of the core path and inform­al paths that cross the site, includ­ing the path link­ing access to Craigel­lach­ie NNR with the Aviemore Orbit­al. This path, which appears to be routed partly along one of the new roads through the site and, like the core path, will be close by lodges, would lose much of its set­ting and char­ac­ter. The devel­op­ment would also detract from the views from this path.

The prox­im­ity of lodges to the pond areas in terms of dis­turb­ance to wild­life, includ­ing for­aging osprey, is not mater­i­ally altered. Osprey known to use this pond for feed­ing include indi­vidu­als asso­ci­ated with des­ig­nated sites and undes­ig­nated sites, with the stocked pond provid­ing an excep­tion­al facil­ity and inspir­a­tion­al exper­i­ence. This exist­ing busi­ness would be com­prom­ised by the development.

Otter and badger are noted in the CNPA Ecologist’s report. That no rest­ing places were found does not reduce the import­ance of the site in its cur­rent state for these anim­als to for­age with­in and move through. Otters at this site are highly likely to be part of the River Spey SAC population.

As well as feed­ing on stocked fish, Otter may also feed on water birds attrac­ted to the pond.

Otter are well known to travel long dis­tances and can be dis­tant from a water course. Both otter and badger feed on rab­bits, which the exist­ing hab­it­at includ­ing grass­land, can sup­port. The site also provides hab­it­at for badgers to for­age on worms.

The intro­duc­tion of roads for the devel­op­ment would cre­ate a new Road Traffic Acci­dent mor­tal­ity haz­ard for amphi­bi­ans asso­ci­ated with the ponds. Cumu­lat­ive impacts of such mor­tal­ity in the Aviemore area need to be taken account of. In addi­tion road drains and insur­mount­able curbs can present a trap haz­ard to amphi­bi­ans, as at Dal­faber where they can become trapped in the road drains.

There is too little eco­lo­gic­al sur­vey inform­a­tion provided for the CNPA to make prop­erly informed assess­ments of the scale and nature of impacts on biodiversity.

The Com­munity Bene­fit State­ment and Com­munity Wealth Build­ing State­ment relate to an entirely dif­fer­ent applic­a­tion and do not appear to bear any rel­ev­ance to the present application.

The Tree Sur­vey is incom­plete; sig­ni­fic­ant num­bers of trees have appar­ently been assessed as groups of trees rather than as indi­vidu­als; it has not been demon­strated that the devel­op­ment can avoid sig­ni­fic­ant adverse impacts on trees sub­ject to TPO; and as crown spreads and root pro­tec­tion areas have not been assessed for all trees, the roots of TPO trees are likely to be damaged.

Much of the land­scap­ing pro­pos­als are wholly inap­pro­pri­ate for this site.

The man­age­ment pro­posed includes use of herb­i­cides, pesti­cides and fun­gi­cides, which should not be used on this site.

Non-nat­ive spe­cies of shrubs are pro­posed for plant­ing, which are wholly inap­pro­pri­ate in this con­text. 2

Grass areas are pro­posed to be mown every 2 weeks in the grow­ing sea­son. This is not nature friendly, and cre­ates prob­lems of dis­pos­al of very large quant­it­ies of mow­ings. Else­where in the Aviemore Centre mow­ings are dumped in extremely large quant­it­ies year on year, above the Milton Burn, with obvi­ous adverse impacts on wild­life hab­it­ats and amenity.

NPF4 Policy 1 requires ​“sig­ni­fic­ant weight” to be giv­en to the cli­mate and nature crises, with the Policy Out­come inten­ded to be ​“Zero car­bon, nature pos­it­ive places”. The present pro­pos­als run counter to deliv­er­ing this out­come: they would res­ult in the loss of a green space that con­trib­utes to sup­port­ing biod­iversity and coun­ter­ing cli­mate change.

NPF4 Policy 3 has the Policy Intent to pro­tect biod­iversity, reverse biod­iversity loss, deliv­er pos­it­ive effects from devel­op­ment, and strengthen nature net­works. The pro­pos­als would deliv­er the reverse of all of these, through hab­it­at loss, degrad­a­tion and fragmentation.

Yours sin­cerely Gus Jones Con­vener 3