Item5CommitteeReport20230245DETDalwhinnie

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 26/04/2024

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

DEVEL­OP­MENT PRO­POSED: Form­a­tion of tour­ing motorhome / cara­van site at Land 85M North of Birchview, Dalwhinnie

REF­ER­ENCE: 2023/0245/DET

APPLIC­ANT: Mr Con­nor Fraser

DATE CALLED-IN: 13 June 2023

RECOM­MEND­A­TION: APPROVE sub­ject to conditions

CASE OFFICER: Kath­er­ine Don­nach­ie Plan­ning Officer

CNPA Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Applic­a­tion Site N 140 0 35 70 Meters whin­nie Meml 木 木木 LC Weir Hotel Dal­whin­nie Drain 360m CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 26/04/2024 GEN­ER­AL WADE’S MIL­IT­ARY RD (A889) Out­falls Crown copy­right and data­base rights 2024. Ord­nance Sur­vey Licence num­ber 100040965 PO Weir AAA 365m Out­fall Over­flow m- Pipeline GEN­ER­AL WADE’S MILIT Sluices 2

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 26/04/2024

SITE DESCRIP­TION, PRO­POS­AL AND HISTORY

Site Descrip­tion

1. The pro­posed site is loc­ated at Dal­whin­ine to the west of the A889 trunk road through the vil­lage. It com­prises around 1.9 hec­tares of mixed graz­ing land and wood­land, pre­dom­in­antly birch, togeth­er with rough land/​yard area adja­cent to an exist­ing 24 hour filling sta­tion. The site is loc­ated to the rear (west) of the filling sta­tion and extends west­wards towards the main Inverness to Perth rail­way line which runs to the west the site at a high­er level. The bound­ary of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park runs to the imme­di­ate west of the rail­way line. There is a water­course and pond to the west of the site between it and the rail­way embank­ment. Imme­di­ately north of the filling sta­tion and with­in its environs is a small park­ing area and recyc­ling point.

2. The site itself is reas­on­ably level. There are open fields to the north. On the oppos­ite (east) side of the trunk road is the Loch Ericht Hotel and fur­ther east of this is the main A9 road at a high­er level. To the south of the site is a private road which serves a num­ber of houses at Ben Alder Cot­tages and Wood­side on the oppos­ite (south) side of the minor road. This road leads under the rail­way line to Loch Ericht bey­ond, and also serves a work­shop build­ing. The Dal­whin­nie to Loch Ericht core path UBS27 runs along this access road and there is anoth­er core path UBS35 fur­ther north of the site lead­ing from Dal­whin­nie Sta­tion to the vil­lage hall which also links to oth­er paths in the wider area. An elec­tri­city line crosses over part of the site.

3. Birchview, a detached prop­erty in its own grounds, lies on the same (north) side of the private road as the devel­op­ment site and adjoins land under the applicant’s con­trol which is largely birch woodland.

4. Land to the north of the site is loc­ated with­in an area des­ig­nated on SEPA’s flood maps as being at medi­um and high risk of flood­ing as is land to the east of the main road, along with a small part of the site imme­di­ately north of the filling sta­tion which is des­ig­nated as being of low to medi­um risk of flood­ing The site is also partly loc­ated with­in an area des­ig­nated as nat­ive wood­land (birch.) The River Tru­im to the far east is des­ig­nated as part of the River Spey Spe­cial Area of Conservation,

Pro­pos­al

1. This applic­a­tion seeks full plan­ning per­mis­sion to form a 38-bay tour­ing caravan/​motorhome site. Pro­vi­sion is also pro­posed for 10 3

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 26/04/2024

overnight park­ing spaces on the south-west­ern part of the site adja­cent to the filling sta­tion yard and bound­ing onto the track to the south. This area is to be enclosed by 2.4 metre high screen fen­cing, with some plant­ing pro­posed between the fence and the track although on site there is little room for plant­ing here.

1. Access to the site will be from the exist­ing south­ern junc­tion off the filling sta­tion fore­court from the main A889 road to the imme­di­ate south of the filling sta­tion and lead­ing past the pro­posed overnight stay area. A com­pacted per­meable hard­core track will then be formed lead­ing west­wards through the site with a turn­ing ham­mer­head at the far end and loop track to serve all the caravan/​motorhome stances. Vehicles will then exit the site via a road onto the north part of the filling sta­tion fore­court onto the A889 road at the exist­ing north­ern access point. A 0.9 metre wide lit foot­path is pro­posed link­ing through from the north west­ern stance area to the main site entrance.

2. Sur­face water drain­age will be dealt with by per­meable sur­fa­cing of the new access tracks and stances. Grey water soakaways are pro­posed for sur­face water dis­pos­al for the wash block area and wash stand­pipe with­in the cara­van site area. Foul water will be dealt with by sep­tic tank with soakaway posi­tioned in south­west­ern part of the site. There will also be pro­vi­sion for chem­ic­al toi­let dis­pos­al facil­it­ies beside the overnight stay park­ing area.

3. Water sup­ply is pro­posed by con­nec­tion to the pub­lic sys­tem and the applic­ant has provided con­firm­a­tion from Scot­tish Water that there is suf­fi­cient capa­city to serve the devel­op­ment. A 5,000-litre under­ground water tank is also pro­posed on site.

4. Pro­posed buildings/​structures on site include: a) Recyc­ling store com­pris­ing larch boarded 1.8metre high screen fen­cing around stor­age area situ­ated adja­cent to the loop road serving stances in the north­west­ern part of site. A grey water dis­pos­al area is also pro­posed here with dis­charge to tank and stand­pipe with dis­charge to soakaway.

b) Bin col­lec­tion area, again screened by 1.8‑metre-high larch fen­cing, loc­ated adja­cent to overnight stay area.

c) Small site office meas­ur­ing around 3.6 metres by 2.4 metres, com­pris­ing portacab­in clad in tim­ber, of lean to roofed design and loc­ated at the site entrance.

d) Wash­ing and toi­let facil­it­ies com­pris­ing two lean to roofed struc­tures clad in tim­ber with access deck­ing entrance and ramp run­ning 4

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 26/04/2024

between the build­ings to offer level access. There are loc­ated near site entrance behind the filling station.

1. An indic­at­ive land­scape plan has been provided to show areas of pro­posed nat­ive plant­ing around and with­in the site. The site lay­out was revised slightly dur­ing con­sid­er­a­tion of the applic­a­tion to min­im­ise tree remov­al and to enable sit­ing of the caravan/​motorhome stances with­in the trees. Some of the motorhome/​caravan stances are set around the new access track into the birch wood­land and the remainder to the north and west are loc­ated on rough graz­ing land.

2. Pro­posed bound­ar­ies are post and wire fen­cing around the site and 2.4 metre high tim­ber screen fen­cing around the overnight stay area.

3. The applic­a­tion is sup­por­ted by doc­u­ments includ­ing: a) Con­tam­in­ated Land Study which high­lights that the main area for the cara­van site is cur­rently grass­land /​woodland with some com­pacted tracks with no pre­vi­ous con­tam­in­at­ing use, being used for agri­cul­tur­al graz­ing in the past. The area to be used for overnight park­ing and for office/​toilets is cur­rently con­creted and this will not be dis­turbed- it is there­fore sub­mit­ted that there are no con­tam­in­a­tion issues,

b) Arbor­i­cul­tur­al Impact Assess­ment, Tree Pro­tec­tion Plan and Tree Con­straints Plan based upon the ori­gin­al site lay­out which sur­veyed 140 trees on the site com­pris­ing a mix­ture of row­an, birch, and occa­sion­al pine and sitka spruce. At that time it was indic­ated that around 72 trees were to be removed– 33 of these cat­egor­ised as being of mod­er­ate qual­ity (B), 13 low qual­ity © and 26 unsuit­able for reten­tion (U). The sur­vey noted that the con­di­tion of the trees was vari­able with a sig­ni­fic­ant num­ber of the row­an hav­ing had bark stripped at lower level by horse graz­ing. It also noted that the major­ity of the U class trees were to be removed due to their con­di­tion rather than to accom­mod­ate the devel­op­ment. As noted earli­er the site lay­out was sub­sequently amended to retain more trees with the applic­ant sub­mit­ting a tree pro­tec­tion plan and sup­port­ing tree man­age­ment state­ment illus­trat­ing that few­er trees will now be removed.

c) Land­scape strategy – which explains the concept to provide some screen­ing for loc­al res­id­ents and to cre­ate a devel­op­ment nestled into the land­scape with infra­struc­ture laid out to min­im­ise tree loss.

d) Hydraul­ic Mod­el­ling Tech­nic­al Report/​Flood Risk Assess­ment under­taken to assess the risk from flood­ing from the River Tru­im with hydraul­ic mod­el­ling car­ried out. This con­cluded that the site is 5

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 26/04/2024

not at risk of flood­ing, with the site access loc­ated out­with areas at risk of flooding.

e) Drain­age Impact Assess­ment which explains that tracks and stances will be per­meable in term of sur­face water and grey and foul water will be dis­posed of via soakaways, with sup­port­ing cal­cu­la­tions provided.

f) Design and Stra­tegic Design Reports which refers to the aspir­a­tions of the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan to encour­age tour­ism and eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment pro­pos­als in Dal­whin­nie. These reports explain that the loc­a­tion provides an ideal point to break up a long jour­ney from the south and is stra­tegic­ally loc­ated to be a launch point for the explor­a­tion of the north and west. It offers the oppor­tun­ity to relieve the mount­ing pres­sure on laybys along the A9 and oth­er trunk roads increas­ingly used by motorhomes, by provid­ing stop­over, lit­ter and waste dis­pos­al facil­it­ies. It is close to the Loch Ericht Hotel which can provide eat­ing /​drinking pro­vi­sion and it will sup­port loc­al busi­ness. The devel­op­ment is inten­ded to provide for cus­tom­ers who only need to stay overnight and for also those who wish stay longer to take advant­age of the site’s loc­a­tion. It con­cludes that the devel­op­ment will pro­mote Dal­whin­nie, help to grow it and make it more sus­tain­able for its future devel­op­ment. The reports also explain how the devel­op­ment is designed to respect the birch wood­land set­ting and will include pro­vi­sion of play/​amenity area.

g) Ser­vices Sup­ply statement.

h) Site Stand­ards report.

i) Meth­od State­ment hard­stand­ing and tracks.

j) Trans­port State­ment which explains that the site is well loc­ated to major traffic routes with the main road through the vil­lage hav­ing capa­city for the addi­tion­al traffic. It also sub­mits that the pro­posed devel­op­ment will alle­vi­ate the layby load­ing and asso­ci­ated lit­ter and waste issues encountered in the sum­mer months along this stretch of the A9 cor­ridor and fur­ther to the south by provid­ing a 9 bay ​“Late Arrival Pay and Stay” facility.

k) Light­ing Strategy which explains the pro­pos­al is for lim­ited low-level light­ing to illu­min­ate paths. This is inten­ded to be move­ment sens­it­ive to ensure that night skies remain vis­ible and that flood­ing of area with light is avoided.

I) Phase 1 Hab­it­at Sur­vey set out sur­vey work car­ried out and detailed mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures for any impacts includ­ing pre-con­struc­tion 6

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 26/04/2024

checks for pine marten, badgers, squir­rels, water voles and otter togeth­er with recom­men­ded mit­ig­a­tion at con­struc­tion stage includ­ing no dig meth­ods for path con­struc­tion. Use of down­wards point­ing light­ing, checks for ground nest­ing birds and enhancement/​management of land for newts are also recom­men­ded along with recom­mend­a­tion that any new plant­ing be of suit­able spe­cies of loc­al provenance.

m) Pre­lim­in­ary Wad­ing Bird Assess­ment which con­cluded that the plant­ing of a screen­ing wood­land band along the north edge of the site may deter nest­ing with­in the ​‘shad­ow’. How­ever, bird counts sug­ges­ted that the field has suf­fi­cient dis­place­ment capa­city which would mit­ig­ate the effect to an accept­able low level.

1. The draw­ings and doc­u­ments asso­ci­ated with this applic­a­tion are lis­ted below and are avail­able on the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity web­site unless noted otherwise:

http://​www​.eplan​ningcnpa​.co​.uk/​o​n​line- applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=RVM MX9SI0CP00

Title	Draw­ing Num­ber	Date on Plan*	Date Received
Plan — Site Location	SL101	16/08/23	05/10/23
Plan — Site Plan Existing	SA101	25/08/20	05/10/23
Plan — Site Plan Proposed	SA102	19/03/24	19/03/24
Plan — Site Landscaping	SA103	18/03/24	19/03/24
Plan — Site Traffic Arrangement	SA104	18/03/24	19/03/24
Oth­er — Arbor­i­cul­tur­al Impact
Assessment/​Method Statement	Urb­an Arb	03/05/21	05/06/23
Plan — Vis­ib­il­ity Splays	SA106	03/02/21	05/06/23
Oth­er — Con­tam­in­ated Land
State­ment		03/11/21	05/06/23
Plan — Drain­age Plan	SA108	18/03/24	19/03/24
Plan — Tree Plan Pro­posed Arrangement	SA109	04/01/24	19/03/24
Plan — Flue Vent Screen	GA103B	29/04/21	05/06/23
Plan — Entrance Layout	GA104	03/04/21	05/06/23
Plan — Floor and Elev­a­tion Plans Wash house	GA101	29/05/19	05/06/23
Plan — Floor and Elev­a­tion Plans	GA102	07/02/20	05/06/23
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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 26/04/2024

Recyc­ling Stores | | | Plan — Floor and Elev­a­tion Plans Site Office | GA105 | 26/04/21 | 05/06/23 Plan — New Clear­wa­ter Con­nec­tion Plan | 008214-NC-001-OB | 12/05/21 | 05/06/23 Plan — Tree Constraints/​Protection Plan | Urb­an Arb Draw­ing | 04/05/21 | 05/06/23 Plan — Tree Pro­tec­tion Plan sheet 1 of 2 | Urb­an Arb Draw­ing | 04/05/21 | 05/06/23 Plan — Tree Pro­tec­tion Plan sheet 2 of 2 | Urb­an Arb Draw­ing | 04/05/21 | 05/06/23 Plan — Site Trans­its Over­view | ST101 | 25/01/21 | 04/01/24 Plan — Site Trans­it North South | ST102 | 25/01/21 | 04/01/24 Plan — Site Trans­it East West | ST103 | 25/01/21 | 04/01/24 Oth­er — Light­ing Strategy | | 02/05/21 | 05/06/23 Oth­er — Exten­ded Phase 1 Hab­it­at Sur­vey and Assess­ment | BE20-227 | 01/01/21 | 05/06/23 Oth­er — Foul Load­ings | | | 05/06/23 Oth­er — Hydraul­ic Mod­el­ling Tech­nic­al Note | AEG0608 PH19 | 31/01/23 | 05/06/23 Oth­er — Klargester Sigma Sep­tic Tank Guide | | | 05/06/23 Oth­er — Meth­od State­ment Hard­stand­ing and Tracks | | 02/07/21 | 05/06/23 Oth­er — Pre­lim­in­ary Wader Bird Assess­ment | BE18-212 | 19/05/21 | 05/06/23 Oth­er — Scot­tish Water Capa­city Con­firm­a­tion | DSCAs-0036711-V7Y | 20/04/21 | 05/06/23 Oth­er — Ser­vices Sup­ply State­ment | | | 05/06/23 Oth­er — Soakaway Pre­lim­in­ary Suit­ab­il­ity Screen­ing | BE18-219 | 08/01/21 | 05/06/23 Oth­er — Stra­tegic Design Report | | | 05/06/23 Oth­er — Trans­port State­ment | | 04/02/21 | 05/06/23 Oth­er — Water Require­ment | | 18/03/21 | 05/06/23 Oth­er — Drain­age Impact Assess­ment | | | 04/01/24

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 26/04/2024

Oth­er — Site Stand­ards | | | 04/01/24 Oth­er — Design Report | | | 04/01/24 Oth­er — Flood Risk Assess­ment | AEG0608 PH19 | 31/01/23 | 04/01/24 Oth­er — Land­scape Strategy | | | 19/04/24 Oth­er — Tree Pro­tec­tion Meth­od State­ment Rev A | | | 19/04/24 *Where no spe­cif­ic day of month has been provided on the plan, the sys­tem defaults to the 1^st of the month.

1. Plans of the pro­pos­als are attached as Appendix 1.

His­tory

1. A plan­ning applic­a­tion for the form­a­tion of tour­ing motorhome/​caravan site was with­drawn in Novem­ber 2022 to enable the applic­ant to address issues raised by SEPA. The cur­rent applic­a­tion is a revised sub­mis­sion. (Ref­er­ence 2021/0065/DET).

2. Pre applic­a­tion advice was provided in 2020 (Ref­er­ence PRE/2020/0024).

HAB­IT­ATS REG­U­LA­TIONS APPRAISAL

1. A Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al (HRA) has been under­taken to con­sider the poten­tial effects of the devel­op­ment upon the con­ser­va­tion object­ives of the Natura sites lis­ted with­in the HRA doc­u­ment which is attached as Appendix 2. The Natura site in this case is the River Spey Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion (SAC) which is des­ig­nated for its Atlantic sal­mon, sea lamprey, fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sels (FWPM) and otter interests. The River Tru­im which runs to the far east of the site on the oth­er side of the main road is a trib­u­tary of the Spey.

2. The HRA con­siders that there could be poten­tial for likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects upon Atlantic sal­mon, sea lamprey and FWPM giv­en that the River Tru­im is some 100 metres to the east of the site with a pond loc­ated to the north west of the site some 5 metres away from the nearest pro­posed works (bound­ary fence) with this pond drain­ing to the Truim.

3. Whilst there is no works pro­posed in the SAC there is poten­tial for indir­ect impacts from con­struc­tion activ­it­ies e.g. sed­i­ments or fuels 9

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 26/04/2024

enter­ing the Tru­im with poten­tial tem­por­ary effects of changes in water qual­ity and if sig­ni­fic­ant amounts of sed­i­ment reach the water­course then poten­tial long ‑term effects from smoth­er­ing of hab­it­ats which are used by sal­mon for spawn­ing and hab­it­ats suit­able for sup­port­ing FWPM. Sim­il­arly for sea lamprey there is poten­tial for pol­lu­tion from con­struc­tion activ­it­ies indir­ectly impact­ing upon spawn­ing sub­strates and water quality.

1. These impacts could be mit­ig­ated by adher­ence to a pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion plan and the HRA con­cludes that there will not be an adverse effect on site integ­rity if a site-spe­cif­ic Pol­lu­tion Pre­ven­tion Plan is secured, and imple­men­ted, by con­di­tion. The HRA high­lights that this plan should include stand­ard good prac­tise such as main­tain­ing a min­im­um 30 metres buf­fer for stor­ing chemicals/​concrete wash out or any oth­er poten­tially pol­lut­ing activity.

2. In terms of otter as there was no evid­ence of otter dur­ing the eco­lo­gic­al assess­ment of the site with lim­ited hab­it­at for otter they were not con­sidered further.

3. Nature Scot have con­firmed agree­ment with these conclusions.

DEVEL­OP­MENT PLAN CONTEXT

Policies

Nation­al Policy	Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 (NPF4) Scot­land 2045
POLICY 1	Tack­ling the Cli­mate and Nature Crises
POLICY 2	Cli­mate Mit­ig­a­tion and Adaptation
POLICY 3	Biod­iversity
POLICY 4	Nat­ur­al Places
POLICY 5	Soils
POLICY 6	Forestry, Wood­land and Trees
POLICY 9	Brown­field, Vacant and Derel­ict Land, and Empty Buildings
POLICY 12	Zero Waste
POLICY 13	Sus­tain­able Transport
POLICY 14	Design, Qual­ity and Place
POLICY 20	Blue and Green Infrastructure
POLICY 22	Flood Risk and Water Management
POLICY 23	Health and Safety
POLICY 25	Com­munity Wealth Building
POLICY 29	Rur­al Development
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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 26/04/2024

POLICY 30 | Tourism

Stra­tegic Policy	Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2022 – 2027
Loc­al Plan Policy	Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (2021)
Those policies rel­ev­ant to the assess­ment of this applic­a­tion are marked with a cross
POLICY 1	NEW HOUS­ING DEVELOPMENT
POLICY 2	SUP­PORT­ING ECO­NOM­IC GROWTH	x
POLICY 3	DESIGN AND PLACEMAKING	x
POLICY 4	NAT­UR­AL HERITAGE	x
POLICY 5	LAND­SCAPE	x
POLICY 6	THE SIT­ING AND DEISGN OF DIGIT­AL COM­MU­NIC­A­TIONS EQUIPMENT
POLICY 7	RENEW­ABLE ENERGY
POLICY 8	OPEN SPACE, SPORT AND RECREATION
POLICY 9	CUL­TUR­AL HERITAGE
POLICY 10	RESOURCES	x
POLICY 11	DEVELOPER OBLIG­A­TIONS

1. All new devel­op­ment pro­pos­als require to be assessed in rela­tion to policies con­tained in the adop­ted Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan. The full word­ing of policies can be found at: https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​w​p​-​c​o​n​t​e​n​t​/​u​p​l​o​a​d​s​/​2​0​2​1​/​0​3​/​C​N​P​A​-LDP- 2021-web.pdf

Plan­ning Guidance

Policy 1	Hous­ing Sup­ple­ment­ary Guidance
Policy 2	Sup­port­ing Eco­nom­ic Growth Non-Stat­utory Guidance	x
Policy 3	Design and Place­mak­ing Non-Stat­utory Guidance	x
Policy 4	Nat­ur­al Her­it­age Non-Stat­utory Guidance	x
Policy 5	Land­scape Non-Stat­utory Guidance	x
Policy 7	Renew­able Energy Non-Stat­utory Guidance
Policy 8	Open Space, Sport and Recre­ation Non-Stat­utory Guidance
Policy 9	Cul­tur­al Her­it­age Non-Stat­utory Guidance
Policy 10	Resources Non-Stat­utory Guidance	x
Policy 11	Developer Oblig­a­tions Sup­ple­ment­ary Guidance

1. Sup­ple­ment­ary guid­ance also forms part of the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan and provides more details about how to com­ply with the policies. Guid­ance that is rel­ev­ant to this applic­a­tion is marked with a cross. ।।

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 26/04/2024

CON­SULTA­TIONS

1. A sum­mary of the main issues raised by con­sul­tees now follows:

2. Net­work Rail – has no objec­tions in prin­ciple. How­ever, due to the close prox­im­ity to the oper­a­tion­al rail­way they request that applic­ant takes into account the need to under­take con­struc­tion in a safe man­ner which does not dis­turb the oper­a­tion of the nearby rail­way and be aware of any embank­ments and sup­port­ing struc­tures which are close to the devel­op­ment. Appro­pri­ate advis­ory notes should be attached to any plan­ning con­sent which may be granted.

3. Trans­port Scot­land was con­sul­ted as the access is onto a trunk road. They have con­firmed no objec­tion to the proposals.

4. Scot­tish Water has no objec­tions. They note that there is cur­rently suf­fi­cient capa­city in the Dal­whin­nie Water Treat­ment Works to ser­vice the devel­op­ment but note that fur­ther invest­ig­a­tions may require to be car­ried out once a form­al con­nec­tion applic­a­tion has been sub­mit­ted to them. They have also con­firmed that there is no pub­lic wastewa­ter infra­struc­ture in the area, so the applic­ant will require to invest­ig­ate private treat­ment options. They also note that sur­face water dis­charge will not be per­mit­ted to any com­bined sew­er system.

5. Scot­tish Fire and Res­cue Ser­vice advised that they only com­ment on plan­ning applic­a­tions in rela­tion to access and water sup­plies. They high­light that the High­land Coun­cil will con­sult them on licens­ing of a caravan/​camping site and if they had any concerns/​objections they would inform the Coun­cil. The license would not be gran­ted until the Fire and Res­cue Ser­vice were sat­is­fied that any fire safety con­cerns had been addressed. They referred to Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment guid­ance on cara­van sites which may be used by the Plan­ning Author­ity if they wish to con­sider points raised by object­ors. This guid­ance is also used by the Fire and Res­cue Ser­vice if con­duct­ing site inspec­tions etc.

6. With regard to water sup­ply issues, the Ser­vice have con­firmed that an altern­at­ive water sup­ply for fire­fight­ing pur­poses com­pris­ing a water tank cap­able of storing/​providing at least 5000 litres of water may be accept­able, provid­ing there is access and hard­stand­ing no more than 60 metres from the pro­posed build­ing. The tank may be bur­ied with an easy open hatch or have a 100 mm round thread female adapter for fire ser­vice con­nec­tion. Regard­ing access, the Ser­vice con­firm that the pro­posed access is accept­able at this stage, although if the pro­pos­als change at the build­ing war­rant stage the Ser­vice will require to be recon­sul­ted. 12

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 26/04/2024

1. Nature Scot was con­sul­ted on the Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al (HRA) under­taken by the CNPA. They have con­firmed agree­ment with its con­clu­sions provid­ing that an appro­pri­ate Pol­lu­tion Pre­ven­tion Plan is imple­men­ted as a con­di­tion which will pre­vent adverse effects to the site integ­rity of the River Spey SAC.

2. SEPA note that, based on their maps, the site lies partly with­in an area shown to be at risk of flood­ing from the River Tru­im and that with the pre­vi­ous with­drawn applic­a­tion they had asked for con­firm­a­tion that the topo­graph­ic inform­a­tion used with­in the hydraul­ic mod­el­ling was appro­pri­ate. They note that the Flood Risk Assess­ment (FRA) has been updated for the cur­rent sub­mis­sion with a topo­graph­ic­al sur­vey car­ried out for the site and sur­round­ing area. Whilst not­ing that there are some remain­ing uncer­tain­ties in the hydraul­ic mod­el­ling, they are sat­is­fied that the con­clu­sions of the FRA and flood extents provided are in accord­ance with oth­er avail­able inform­a­tion on flood risk for this loc­a­tion. The res­ults show that the pitches will avoid areas of flood risk and are loc­ated on land above the 1 in 1000 year (includ­ing cli­mate change) flood level with a 0.6 metre free­board provided to those pitches adja­cent to the flood extent. Oth­er pitches and access road are fur­ther from the edge of the flood extent with some free­board provided. It is also noted that safe ped­es­tri­an access and egress can be provided from the site.

3. They con­clude that they are sat­is­fied that there is unlikely to be sig­ni­fic­ant flood risk to the devel­op­ment, nor any increase in flood risk as a res­ult of the devel­op­ment and have no objections.

4. The High­land Coun­cil Flood Risk Man­age­ment Team con­firm that they have no objec­tions in rela­tion to flood risk or access not­ing that the sub­mit­ted FRA shows that site access lies out­with the flood risk area. They ini­tially objec­ted on the grounds of insuf­fi­cient drain­age inform­a­tion in rela­tion to how areas of exist­ing and pro­posed hard­stand­ing includ­ing roads and pitches would be drained.

5. On receipt of a drain­age assess­ment the Team has con­firmed that now have no objec­tions. They note that an infilt­ra­tion strategy for sur­face water gen­er­ated on hard­stand­ing and for foul drain­age is pro­posed. Evid­ence has been provided of accept­able soakaway test­ing with con­firm­a­tion provided that new hard­stand­ing will be per­meable with the pro­posed infilt­ra­tion beds inten­ded to cater for any water that fails to infilt­rate through the por­ous hard­stand­ing. It is also noted that the sys­tem will be privately main­tained which is accept­able for this com­mer­cial devel­op­ment. 13

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 26/04/2024

1. They note that foul drain­age is out­with their remit and recom­mend that SEPA be con­sul­ted on foul drain­age and chem­ic­al waste dis­pos­al and nearby water­courses. Note — In this regard SEPA has con­firmed that this is covered by their stand­ing guid­ance which includes guid­ance on chem­ic­al waste disposal.

2. High­land Coun­cil Con­tam­in­ated Land Officer has no con­cerns in respect of con­tam­in­ated land issues relat­ing to devel­op­ment on the grazing/​woodland areas. With regard to the oper­a­tion­al filling sta­tion which forms part of the site, the Officer had pre­vi­ously had con­cerns regard­ing poten­tial for vapour and gas migra­tion and intru­sion to new struc­tures on site. On the basis that it was con­firmed that all new build­ings and struc­tures to be erec­ted on the site (for example the new wash facil­it­ies build­ing and site office) were to be raised off the ground to a height which would allow vent­il­a­tion under­neath the build­ings; there would be no break­ing out of the ground or install­a­tion of found­a­tions; there would be no ser­vice entry points from ground level to any build­ing; there would be no water sup­ply to the office build­ing situ­ated dir­ectly behind the filling sta­tion; and that ser­vices to the wash facil­ity build­ing would be mit­ig­ated to pre­vent migra­tion of vapours into the build­ing, or pen­et­ra­tion of water sup­ply pipes by hydro­car­bons the Officer has no objections.

3. High­land Coun­cil Envir­on­ment­al Health Officer raised con­cern that due to the close prox­im­ity to exist­ing houses noise from the oper­a­tions could impact upon the amen­ity of res­id­ents. Whilst not­ing that the prox­im­ity to the A9 will mean that back­ground noise levels are high­er than in oth­er rur­al loc­a­tions the officer noted that there was still poten­tial for noise/​disturbance. No objec­tions are raised provid­ing con­di­tions are attached cov­er­ing site waste man­age­ment plan, restric­tion of tim­ing of vehicu­lar access to site, oper­a­tion of motorhome engines/​generation pro­hib­ited when sta­tion­ary, imple­ment­a­tion of bound­ary fen­cing around overnight stay area, approv­al of details of light­ing and dust sup­pres­sion dur­ing construction.

4. At the time of the ini­tial response a bund was shown between the cara­van stances and Birchview (the house to the south of the site) and the Envir­on­ment­al Health Ser­vice noted that this could offer some mit­ig­a­tion. This bund pro­pos­al is no longer pro­posed fol­low­ing dis­cus­sion on the details/​location/​visual impact with trees/​vegetation now pro­posed. The officer has advised that plant­ing does not offer much in the way of noise atten­u­ation unless it is at least 15m thick and densely planted with the effect­ive­ness depend­ent on the times of year when the site is open and wheth­er the trees are decidu­ous. How­ever, the Officer expects that noise and dis­turb­ance should be con­trolled by 14

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 26/04/2024

adequate site man­age­ment. It is fur­ther noted that, whilst increased plant­ing might help in provid­ing a visu­al bar­ri­er to improve pri­vacy for res­id­ents and redu­cing per­cep­tion of noise, it is not some­thing the Ser­vice would recom­mend a con­di­tion on, although they do sup­port increased planting.

1. The High­land Coun­cil Trans­port Plan­ning Team ini­tially advised, that amongst oth­er mat­ters, the intern­al road should be designed to reduce the speed of traffic to 11 mph and that suit­able park­ing bays should be provided On receipt of fur­ther inform­a­tion from the applic­ants, which included cla­ri­fic­a­tion that cycle stores were not being provided because if tour­ing hol­i­day makers take bikes they will keep them at their pitch so that the bikes are access­ible, the Team has con­firmed no objec­tions to the proposal.

2. The High­land Coun­cil Trad­ing Stand­ards Officer noted that the adjoin­ing pet­rol filling sta­tion (PFS) is cur­rently cer­ti­fic­ated by them as the Pet­ro­leum Enforce­ment Author­ity. The cer­ti­fic­ate hold­er is respons­ible for the safe stor­age of pet­ro­leum spir­it and the safe oper­a­tions of the PFS. The Team will require clear sig­nage to be put in place, alert­ing those enter­ing the area that parts of the PFS install­a­tion are present and present a danger should warn­ing signs not be fol­lowed. They are par­tic­u­larly aware of the risk of fire and explo­sion should these warn­ings not be fol­lowed when the PFS is oper­at­ing as unmanned. The areas referred to are spe­cific­ally the vent pipe stack and the tank farm where appro­pri­ate sig­nage will be required. They con­sider that the sig­nage should be placed on the vent stack and on the gable end build­ing at the tank farm as there will be an increase of foot traffic to the site. These mat­ters will be part of the PFS risk assess­ment doc­u­ment, held by the cer­ti­fic­ate hold­er and a vis­it to the PFS will be under­taken by the Team to ensure appro­pri­ate sig­nage and doc­u­ment­a­tion is in place if per­mis­sion is granted.

3. CNPA Eco­logy Officer ini­tially sought addi­tion­al inform­a­tion to assess the applic­a­tion. On receipt of addi­tion­al inform­a­tion, the officer has noted that tree felling has been min­im­ised whereby sig­ni­fic­ance of effects on wood­land is con­sidered to be slight sub­ject to sub­mis­sion of updated tree pro­tec­tion plan and arbor­i­cul­tur­al assess­ment, with works super­vised by an exper­i­enced arbor­i­cul­tur­al clerk of works. It is also noted that sur­vey work was car­ried out to identi­fy poten­tial to sup­port pro­tec­ted spe­cies and there is poten­tial for con­struc­tion activ­it­ies to dis­turb spe­cies. This may be mit­ig­ated by car­ry­ing out pre- con­struc­tion sur­veys with any spe­cies pro­tec­tion plans sub­mit­ted for approv­al. 15

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 26/04/2024

1. In terms of breed­ing birds, it is noted that sur­vey work was under­taken. Although this did not meet stand­ard guid­ance for assess­ing wader pop­u­la­tions, it is con­sidered that as the devel­op­ment is pro­posed with­in or close to an exist­ing wood­land edge it is unlikely to impact on breed­ing waders who typ­ic­ally do not nest close to wood­land cov­er, with the devel­op­ment avoid­ing the open marshy ground on the adja­cent fields which is likely to be used by waders. Mit­ig­a­tion for impacts on birds is pro­posed by avoid­ing work dur­ing breed­ing sea­son and if this is not pos­sible then car­ry­ing out nest­ing bird checks and pre­par­ing Spe­cies Pro­tec­tion Plans.

2. The officer has noted with regard to the water envir­on­ment that whilst there are no obvi­ous water­courses with­in the site a small pond and drain have been iden­ti­fied close to the site bound­ary. Mit­ig­a­tion for any poten­tial pol­lu­tion can be achieved through imple­ment­ing a Con­struc­tion Meth­od Statement.

3. With regard to biod­iversity, it is noted that there are some enhance­ment meas­ures detailed with­in the applicant’s eco­lo­gic­al reports includ­ing man­age­ment meas­ures for graz­ing to enhance grass­lands on site and tree plant­ing (both com­pens­a­tion and enhance­ment) using nat­ive spe­cies already present in the area e.g. birch, row­an and hazel. The officer also noted that oth­er hab­it­at enhance­ment meas­ures could be used such as using any felled mater­i­als to cre­ate hab­it­at for insects and oth­er spe­cies and install­a­tion of bird and bat boxes around the site. It was recom­men­ded that a state­ment from the applic­ant demon­strat­ing meth­ods for deliv­ery of pos­it­ive effects be sub­mit­ted pri­or to determination.

4. On this over­all basis no objec­tions are raised.

5. CNPA Land­scape Officer sought fur­ther inform­a­tion on impact on trees and provided con­sid­er­able input on key trees to be retained. On receipt of revised plans show­ing lay­out revised to min­im­ise impacts on trees the Officer has no objec­tions to the pro­pos­als sub­ject to con­di­tions to ensure that trees are sat­is­fact­or­ily pro­tec­ted, and that suit­able land­scap­ing is secured includ­ing land­scap­ing beside the screen fen­cing to the south of the overnight stay park­ing area.

6. CNPA Out­door Access Officer has no sig­ni­fic­ant com­ments to make in respect of pub­lic access or access issues gen­er­ally. The officer how­ever advises that on the basis that the pro­pos­als may devel­op and attract more vis­it­ors to the area it would be appro­pri­ate to con­sider incor­por­at­ing suit­able information/​interpretative mater­i­al with­in the design and lay­out. This would be aimed at assist­ing vis­it­ors in under­stand­ing loc­al land uses where cer­tain restric­tions may occur 16

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 26/04/2024

(e.g. deer stalk­ing sea­son) along with prin­ciples of respons­ible access. This could be achieved through stra­tegic­ally placed panel/