Item5Appendix5aObjections20230399DETOldBridgeInnBeerGarden

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 5 Appendix 5a 08/03/2024

Agenda Item 5

Appendix 5a

2023/0399/DET

Rep­res­ent­a­tions — objections

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 2023/0399/DET

Applic­a­tion Sum­mary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: 2023/0399/DET Address: Land 45M SE Of Old Bridge Inn 23 Dal­faber Road Aviemore Pro­pos­al: Change of use of land to beer garden (in ret­ro­spect) Case Officer: Katie Crerar

Cus­tom­er Details

Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Mem­ber of Pub­lic Stance: Cus­tom­er objects to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Comment:I’ve had asso­ci­ation with Spey­side since ​‘60’s; from ​‘76 resident/​working in Out­door Ed. 6‑years CNPA LOAF Object to OBI change of use based on sev­er­al key factors. Firstly, apart from weak link to CNPA Aim ​‘Pro­mote sus­tain­able econ/​social com­munity devel­op­ment’, with a beer garden per­haps gen­er­at­ing min­im­al bene­fits to com­munity & fin­an­cial return to applic­ant, reques­ted change meets no oth­er of CNPA Aims. Indeed, activ­it­ies of OBI since 2019 have restric­ted wider pub­lic use of area (incl. fam­il­ies with chil­dren & water­s­port access ~ uses more dir­ectly in line with CNPA aims) A: Conserve/​enhance n/​c her­it­age: innate in out­door activ­it­ies B: Pro­mote sus­tain­able use of nat. resources: activ­it­ies, esp. canoe­ing has little/​no det­ri­ment­al impact on nat. resources C: Pro­mote understanding/​enjoyment is under­taken daily by out­door instruct­ors & coaches D: Pro­mote sust. econ/​social com. devel­op­ment: innate in out­door activ­it­ies such as water­s­ports. Recent Govt. study found Out­door Tour­ism brings £80m+ pa to Scot eco­nomy Car Park: was developed in col­lab­or­a­tion with ori­gin­al OBI own­ers & H’land Counc, for OBI cus­tom­ers & pub­lic, incl. water­s­ports vehicles to river Dan­ger­ous Park­ing: With loss of car park since OBI ​‘takeover’ vehicles park on pave­ment, often hun­dreds of yards along Dal­faber Rd. Situ­ation already dire, in urgent need of res­ol­u­tion As a Core Path, Spey war­rants unim­peded ped­es­tri­an access + tem­por­ary vehicu­lar park­ing for un/​loading Key Access Point: With no oth­er access points between Kin­craig & Boat of Garten, said loc­a­tion must be rein­stated as a recog­nised water­s­ports access point, with ample facil­ity to turn & un/​load trail­ers Proven Flood Risk: In event of (esp. o’night) flood­ing items from this area could be car­ried off down­stream To ensure park­ing rein­stated & all stake­hold­ers can fairly use area, sug­gest Man­age­ment Plan

with CNPA tak­ing over lease & devel­op­ing area in-line with CNPA 4‑aims

SUB­MIS­SION OBJECT­ING TO OLD BRIDGE INN PLAN­NING APPLIC­A­TION ~ CHANGE OF USE FROM CAR PARK TO ​‘BEER GARDEN’ ~11/2023 (Ori­gin­al; unabridged version)

I have had asso­ci­ation with Spey­side since ​‘60’s. Since becom­ing a res­id­ent of Badenoch in 1976, I have worked in Out­door Edu­ca­tion. Served 6‑years as mem­ber of CNPA LOAF. Scot­tish Canoe River Spey Adviser 1981 – 2017, dur­ing which time I endeav­oured to bring har­mony between river users. Hon­oured to be awar­ded a BEM for this work.

I write to object to Old Bridge Inn (OBI) pro­posed change of use, based upon sev­er­al key factors.

Firstly, apart from a weak link to CNPA Aim D: ​‘Pro­mote sus­tain­able econ/​social com­munity devel­op­ment’, with a the pro­posed ​‘beer garden’(?) per­haps gen­er­at­ing min­im­al bene­fits to com­munity (mainly over-18’s) & fin­an­cial return to the applic­ant, the reques­ted change of use meets no oth­er of the oth­er CNPA Aims. Indeed, since circa 2017, apart from remov­ing safe park­ing, activ­it­ies of OBI have already greatly restric­ted wider pub­lic use of area in ques­tion ~ incl. fam­il­ies with chil­dren & water­s­port access to the river ~ uses more dir­ectly in line with CNPA aims. A: Conserve/​enhance natural/​cultural her­it­age: Inher­ent in the work of and aimed for by those instructing/​guiding groups in the out­doors. OBI activ­it­ies con­trib­ute noth­ing to this Aim; indeed, the oppos­ite is quite likely with (par­tic­u­larly late-night) rev­el­lers caus­ing dis­turb­ance to local/​riverside wildlife.

B: Pro­mote sus­tain­able use of nat­ur­al resources: Activ­it­ies, par­tic­u­larly water­s­ports such as canoe­ing has little/​no det­ri­ment­al impact on nat­ur­al resources. Indeed, canoe guides fre­quently, engage guests in (low pro­file) lit­ter-gath­er­ing ~ as has happened around the site being con­sidered here. The suc­cess­ful loc­al wil­low plant­ing ini­ti­at­ive to restore the integ­rity of the riverb­ank, close to the launch point at the site loc­a­tion (eroded by activ­it­ies sur­round­ing ​‘The Big Slash’ event) was instig­ated by the canoe­ing fra­tern­ity, taken for­ward by the Spey Catch­ment Ini­ti­at­ive, Scot­tish Canoe Asso­ci­ation and Scot­tish Sports Council.

C: Pro­mote understanding/​enjoyment: Under­taken daily by out­door instruct­ors & coaches in their work on the river and else­where. How­ever, the activ­it­ies developed by OBI since their tak­ing over of this site ~ pla­cing on mul­tiple pic­nic-tables, pitch­ing of mar­quees, to form an out­door drink­ing area (under­stand­able and accept­able dur­ing the pan­dem­ic) has led to a loss of pub­lic amen­ity, in terms of the areas ori­gin­al pur­pose ~ vehicle off-road park­ing for OBI pat­rons and gen­er­al pub­lic; vehicle park­ing and ample turn­ing space for the launch­ing of (non-motor­ised) craft on to the river; lim­it­ing area for fam­il­ies to enjoy river­side activ­it­ies with no prox­im­ity to horde of people drink­ing. All these factors con­trary to CNPA Aim C.

D: Pro­mote sus­tain­able economic/​social com­munity devel­op­ment: Inher­ent in out­door activ­it­ies such as water­s­ports. Recent Govt. study found Out­door Tour­ism brings £80m+ pa to Scot eco­nomy. Des­pite this fact reflect­ing the import­ance of the Out­door Tour­ism sec­tor, little or no cre­dence and/​or sup­port is exten­ded to the sec­tor by loc­al author­it­ies. Such cre­dence should be real­ised in rein­stat­ing prop­er water­s­ports access to the Spey at this key location.

Linked to Aim D: As a Core Path, the Spey war­rants, along its length, unim­peded ped­es­tri­an access, to include des­ig­nated, safe vehicu­lar park­ing for load­ing and unload­ing of boats from to/​from trailers.

With no oth­er access points between Kin­craig & Boat of Garten, the said Aviemore river­side loc­a­tion is a Key Access Point which requires to be rein­stated as a recog­nised water­s­ports access point, with ample facil­ity to manœuvre & load/​unload trailers.

This Vehicle Park­ing Area: was first developed in col­lab­or­a­tion with ori­gin­al OBI own­ers & High­land Coun­cil, to provide much essen­tial off-road park­ing for OBI cus­tom­ers & pub­lic, incl. canoe groups’ vehicles to reas­on­ably access the river.

Dan­ger­ous Park­ing: With loss of car park since OBI ​‘takeover’ vehicles park on pave­ment, often hun­dreds of yards along Dal­faber Rd. Situ­ation already dire, in urgent need of resolution.

Proven Flood Risk: In event of (esp. overnight) flood­ing, items (~ includ­ing fur­niture and food/​drinks related debris) from this area could be car­ried off downstream.

To ensure safe park­ing is rein­stated & all stake­hold­ers can fairly use area, I sug­gest cre­ation of a Man­age­ment Plan for the area in ques­tion, with a Loc­al Author­ity (per­haps CNPA) tak­ing over the lease from Seafield Estate (held presently by OBI) to devel­op and ulti­mately oversee/​monitor the area in-line with the Main Aims of the Nation­al Park. With some thought­ful land­scap­ing allow­ing for an exten­sion of the area, sec­tions could be des­ig­nated to allow for, rein­state­ment of adequate safe park­ing and reas­on­able water­s­ports vehicu­lar access to the river­side and still per­haps cre­ation of a mod­est, attract­ive actu­al beer garden close to the Old Bridge Inn ~ but cer­tainly not to the mag­nitude recently approved by the High­land Coun­cil Licens­ing Board, with no con­sid­er­a­tion of (exist­ing) inad­equate park­ing and loss of pubic amenity.

1^st Novem­ber 2023

Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 2023/0399/DET Loss of Reas­on­able Pub­lic Amenity/​Limiting of Access to Spey Riverb­ank. Linked with Dan­ger­ous Park­ing already occur­ring on Dal­faber Rd., by Old Bridge Inn ~ only to be exacer­bated by a form­al change of use from much needed car­park & access point to ​‘Beer Garden’. (Here ~ examples of dan­ger­ous park­ing, etc. 2020 – 23)

The OLD BRIDGE Inn & Bunkhouse

Listen Eat Drink Spey­side CAR PARK & GARDEN

Hey, you! The Pic­nic & Canoe Crew Show what you do, make a break, make a move! Eating/​drinking/​parking for OBI cus­tom­ers only. No canoe trail­ers (drop off only). The Rock­Steady OBI Crew

Hey, you! The Pic­nic & Canoe Crew Show what you do, make a break, make a move!

Eating/​drinking/​parking for OBI cus­tom­ers only. No canoe trail­ers (drop off only).

• The Rock­Steady OBI Crew — The OLD BRIDGE Inn Bunkhouse

SC65 KGV

OLDE ARK H5 DEC DEN RULES OF

THE OLD BRIDGE INN FOOD MENU AVAIL­ABLE ONLINE INSIDE 12 – 2:30 PLEASE FINO A TABLE, THEN ORDER AT BAR

H5 DEC RULES OF BONT MOVE TALES KEE­TIMA­PART VERY­ONE MUST BE SEATED PLEASE USE BAN’S

bank​house​.com plat­in­um edi­tion Eidos plat­in­um SP22 BDV

RX63 ZFO

BNGI LPL

ESS CARR SV66 AEX

496 BESSA­CARR

CM53 RYL

ERFIST20 3 EERFEST2 0 23 BEER­ME BAE­AE­ARF E SAT 20 2 3 BEER­FEST ST2 20238EERFES ER E 02 B 2 EERFEST2023 BEER­FEST R LES­FYNE ALES R PINE ALES FYNE AL

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 2023/0399/DET

Applic­a­tion Sum­mary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: 2023/0399/DET Address: Land 45M SE Of Old Bridge Inn 23 Dal­faber Road Aviemore Pro­pos­al: Change of use of land to beer garden (in ret­ro­spect) Case Officer: Katie Crerar

Cus­tom­er Details

Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Mem­ber of Pub­lic Stance: Cus­tom­er objects to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Comment:I am a uni­ver­sity aca­dem­ic spe­cial­ising in out­door envir­on­ment­al edu­ca­tion. I reg­u­larly teach on the Spey and have pub­lished research on the socio-eco­nom­ics of recre­ation on the river. I sup­por­ted SNH in devel­op­ing the SOAC. I was pre­vi­ously a bio­lo­gist, spe­cial­ising in sal­mon enhancement.

In rela­tion to the aims of the park A Conserve/​enhance natural/​cultural her­it­age The pro­pos­als would have neg­at­ive impact, increas­ing use, and dis­turb­ing wild­life, par­tic­u­larly noc­turn­al species

B Pro­mote sus­tain­able use of nat­ur­al resources As above

C Pro­mote under­stand­ing and enjoy­ment The loc­a­tion is cur­rently valu­able for enjoyment/​recreation, but the pro­pos­al would reduce such access

D Pro­mote sus­tain­able economic/​social com­munity devel­op­ment Any mod­est eco­nom­ic bene­fits from this devel­op­ment have no rela­tion­ship with the pur­poses of the park

The pro­pos­al would have a neg­at­ive impact on activ­it­ies (par­tic­u­larly access for canoe-sport) that have neg­li­gible neg­at­ive impacts on the envir­on­ment and pos­it­ive bene­fits for B, C and D. It would severely impact a key access point to the river (which is a Core Path) redu­cing oppor­tun­it­ies for recreational/​educational groups. This loc­a­tion has been used for many dec­ades estab­lish­ing it as

a de facto right of way. There are no oth­er prac­tic­al access points between Kin­caig and Boat of Garten mak­ing the trip too long for many groups.

Imped­i­ments to access at such a key point will reduce fre­quency and num­ber of pad­dlers using the river (par­tic­u­larly edu­ca­tion­al groups). This has been increas­ing stead­ily since our 2003 study for the Spey Catch­ment Man­age­ment Plan, which showed that there were >5600 pad­dler days a year gen­er­at­ing £1.7m for the loc­al eco­nomy. This will be far great­er now. Sal­mon angling was about 6x this value, but as stocks con­tin­ue to decline it is import­ant to see canoe­ing as grow­ing in rel­at­ive eco­nom­ic sig­ni­fic­ance, par­tic­u­larly out­with the core tour­ist season.

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 2023/0399/DET

Applic­a­tion Sum­mary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: 2023/0399/DET Address: Land 45M SE Of Old Bridge Inn 23 Dal­faber Road Aviemore Pro­pos­al: Change of use of land to beer garden (in ret­ro­spect) Case Officer: Katie Crerar

Cus­tom­er Details

Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Stance: Cus­tom­er objects to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Com­ment: This is a river access point of sig­ni­fic­ant his­tor­ic­al interest that pred­ates the Land Reform (Scot­land) Act 2003 and as a res­ult of it has had stat­utory sig­ni­fic­ance there­after. Also the Spey is part of the Core Path Net­work mak­ing this not just a loc­al mat­ter but a nation­al one. Because of the vis­it­ors from all over the world this now becomes an inter­na­tion­al issue. Through the plan­ning pro­cess we need to ensure unim­peded and respect­ful access for all users, loc­al, nation­al and international.

This pro­pos­al will inev­it­ably lead to user con­flict. Con­sider the situ­ation where there are groups of canoeists access­ing or egress­ing the river car­ry­ing 4 – 5 metre 30 kg craft try­ing to thread there way between cus­tom­ers drink­ing alco­hol in a crowded envir­on­ment. Iron­ic­ally, the canoeists would then arrive at Dal­faber Road which is even more crowded with traffic which, because of this pro­pos­al, vehicles that could have parked in the river car­park are now com­pet­ing for increas­ingly dimin­ish­ing park­ing spaces on Dal­faber Road. The situ­ation we need to avoid is one group of users drink­ing alco­hol and party­ing and anoth­er try­ing to nego­ti­ate their way through this crowd of rev­el­lers car­ry­ing heavy equipment.

It is not clear how the pro­pos­al as it stands can be recept­ive to flood warn­ings. With the daily fluc­tu­ations of the Spey there is a con­sid­er­able risk of the pro­posed fur­nish­ings being washed away caus­ing lit­ter, nuis­ance and risk as recent overnight events there have shown.

The out­door noise foot­print moves will extend from the build­ing to the river yet no wild­life sur­vey has been provided to determ­ine the extent of wild­life interference.

This sole and exclus­ive use takes little account of the indi­vidu­al aims of CNPA a, b, c, or d, nor how these might be integ­rated, coordin­ated and man­aged in a sus­tain­able way.

This pro­pos­al is det­ri­ment­al to access, safety and the integ­rated aims of the CNPA.

Emma Green­lees

From: Sent: To: Sub­ject: Cat­egor­ies: 06 Novem­ber 2023 16:37 Plan­ning Old Bridge Inn Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Emma G, Comments

Good Morn­ing,

I Apo­lo­gise for this late e.mail I am one of the two River Spey Advisors.

As a pro­fes­sion­al in the out­doors for 35 years and joint Spey Advisor for 3years i feel a protest against the applic­a­tion at the old Bridge Inn applic­a­tion has to be aired. in the strongest way.

The Old Bridge Inn access and Egress point is integ­ral to river jour­neys and exper­i­ences and of late it has been massively compromised.

a pre­vi­ous River Spey Advisor has worked tire­lessly to con­stantly pro­mote and devel­op this site for paddle sport users with a repair, pro­tec­tion of the access and egress point to help andim­prove for paddles­ports users. on the areas Since and post Cov­id the Old Bridge Inn have util­ised this area as a Beer Garden and com­pletely taken over the site mak­ing it nai on impossible to use for paddlesports….

On busy days there you are josst­ling and work­ing round to move water craft,. This, as a Canoe Guide with groups really is a Wrong fin­ish to a Jour­ney tak­ing away from all the edu­ca­tion of the areas nat­tur­al beauty, and wil­der­ness, fin­ish­ing with a group of folk drink­ing and quite often inap­pro­pri­ate beha­viour is hard to swal­low„ com­pletely detract­ing from our cli­ents experience .

With this increased useage comes a lot more Traffic, caus­ing the inev­it­able park­ing issues. If you have a Van, Vehicle tow­ing a trail­er you can­not Pass, Turn, Park mak­ing the site unuseable.

there is Also the issue of emer­gency ser­vice access which i know has been an issue.

Loc­al res­id­ence access for Old Dal­faber Road has i know also been voiced as an issue.

As a Joint Spey Advisor, i have had more e.mails and rants from paddles­ports users com­pla­ing of the cur­rent unwork­able situation.

I have, in my capa­city as Advisor had sup­port from oth­er­Com­pan­ies, work­ing on the Spey G2 Out­doors, Loch Insch Water­s­ports, Loch Mor­lich Water­s­ports, Camer­on Bar­racks, Glen­mo­reLodge to name but a few all voicing concern.

I can­not emphas­ize enough, this applic­a­tion affects a far wider audi­ence and i, as a joint advisor strongly oppose this applic­a­tion as it has so many far reach­ing consequences…

I appre­ci­ate your time on this and i hope the oth­er sides con­cerns can be taken into account. 1

Kind Regards

SCA Joint River Spey Access Advisors 2

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 2023/0399/DET

Applic­a­tion Sum­mary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: 2023/0399/DET Address: Land 45M SE Of Old Bridge Inn 23 Dal­faber Road Aviemore Pro­pos­al: Change of use of land to beer garden (in ret­ro­spect) Case Officer: Katie Crerar

Cus­tom­er Details

Address: c/​o Spey Fish­ery Board 1 Neth­er Borlum Aber­lour AB38 7SD

Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Mem­ber of Pub­lic Stance: Cus­tom­er objects to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Comment:The Spey Catch­ment Ini­ti­at­ive under­took £24,000 worth of improve­ment works to the amen­ity area and boat launch site at this loc­a­tion in 2019, to improve access for river users, halt worsen­ing bank erosion and improve land­scape and wild­life value. The increas­ing use of the area as a beer garden and espe­cially the encroach­ment of tem­por­ary struc­tures, tables, benches, etc is neg­at­ively affect­ing these object­ives espe­cially by impair­ing access for launch­ing boats. We would object to the plan­ning applic­a­tion unless strict con­di­tions are in place to main­tain per­man­ently clear access to the river to the point of the bol­lards, suf­fi­cient to allow unload­ing of canoes etc off vehicles for launch­ing. We would also dis­cour­age excess­ive use of the areas closest to the water­line for any activ­it­ies which increase erosion, destabil­ise the banks or trample regen­er­at­ing veget­a­tion. We do not object to the high­er areas to the sides of the site being used as a beer garden as long as oth­er user’s needs are considered.