Item6AA20230295DETCafeLogieColdstoneCommitteeReport

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

DEVEL­OP­MENT PRO­POSED: Erec­tion of farm shop / café / staff accom­mod­a­tion and shed and install­a­tion of free stand­ing sol­ar pan­els and asso­ci­ated works at Bal­bre­gon Farm Adja­cent To Car­rue Cot­tage Logie Cold­stone Aboyne Aberdeenshire

REF­ER­ENCE: 2023/0295/DET

APPLIC­ANT: Mr And Mrs Labib And Fiona Hassoun

DATE CALLED-IN: 17 July 2023

RECOM­MEND­A­TION: REFUSE

CASE OFFICER: Kath­er­ine Don­nach­ie Plan­ning Officer

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CNPA Plan­ning Committee

Applic­a­tion Site

0 25 50 100 Meters

Bridgend 188

Blelack N

Caima Grey­stone Fur­uy­howe Dalton Blue Cairn Alla­lo­gie Rae­bush Grave­yard Mains of Logie Dav­an Bainas­trald Milto­mof Logie Newbigg

AA A 75

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6

180m + A97 A97 GTA A BAA Crown copy­right and data­base rights 2024. Ord­nance Sur­vey Licence num­ber 100040965 176m Car­rue Cot­tage 185m 2

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6

SITE DESCRIP­TION, PRO­POS­AL AND HISTORY

Site Descrip­tion

1. The site com­prises farm­land loc­ated to the south of the A97 road from Logie Cold­stone to Din­net around I mile south of the small set­tle­ment of Logie Cold­stone. The applic­ant owns a total of around 2 hec­tares of land here as shown on the site plan out­lined in blue. It is bounded to the north by the pub­lic road with wood­land bey­ond this, to the east by the Logie Burn with an area of river­side wood­land adja­cent to the burn, to the south by the fields of Galton Farm with the access track to that farm lying to the imme­di­ate west and wood­land bey­ond. Car­rue Cot­tage, a tra­di­tion­al prop­erty, lies to the east on the oth­er side of the burn, in its own grounds and sep­ar­ated from the applic­a­tion site by the burn and some woodland.

2. The east­ern part of the site lies with­in the SEPA flood risk maps and is noted as being at low- medi­um risk of flood­ing. The Logie Burn, which runs along the east­ern bound­ary, is part of the River Dee Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion (SAC).

3. The site is presently enclosed by post and wire fen­cing and is in agri­cul­tur­al use. There is a ditch run­ning along­side part of the road­side boundary.

Pro­pos­al

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=RXMK 91S10CP00

Title Draw­ing Date on Date Num­ber Plan* Received Plan — Topo­graph­ic­al plan GRB-067- 24/04/23 13/07/23 SU-TS-01 Rev 02 Plan — Loc­a­tion Plan 2022- 01/06/23 13/07/23 041-PO4

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6

Plan — Flood Plain levels plan 2022- 01/06/23 13/07/23 and sec­tions 041-PO5 Rev A Plan — Elev­a­tions 2022- 01/06/23 13/07/23 041-PO3 Rev B Plan — Floor Plan 2022- 01/06/23 13/07/23 041-PO1 Rev A Plan — Site Plan 2022- 01/10/23 19/10/23 041-PO2 Rev I Oth­er — Eco­logy Sur­vey and 12/05/23 17/07/23 Eco­lo­gic­al Impact Assess­ment Oth­er — Flood Risk Assess­ment MNV/LHO 22/11/23 23/11/23 01/2329 V2 Oth­er — Design State­ment 12/12/23 12/12/23 Oth­er – Drain­age Report 02/06/23 13/07/23 Oth­er – Arbor­i­cul­tur­al Impact 25/05/23 13/07/23 Assess­ment and Tree Pro­tec­tion Plan Oth­er- Vis­ion State­ment 13/07/23 Oth­er — Applic­ant jus­ti­fic­a­tion 25/10/23 state­ment *Where no spe­cif­ic day of month has been provided on the plan, the sys­tem defaults to the 1^st of the month.

1. This applic­a­tion seeks full plan­ning per­mis­sion to estab­lish a new busi­ness com­pris­ing farm shop / café / staff accom­mod­a­tion build­ing, farm shed, free stand­ing sol­ar pan­els and asso­ci­ated works. The sup­port­ing design state­ment explains that the applic­ants pro­pose to set up a farm grow­ing busi­ness based upon fruit trees, soft fruits (ground and hydro­ponic) and organ­ic veget­ables togeth­er with bee­hives for on-site pro­duc­tion of jams, jel­lies and rel­ishes. These products will be sold and used in the pro­posed on site build­ing which will also offer loc­ally pro­duced artis­an products and aims to serve tour­ists and the loc­al com­munity. The state­ment also explains that the site is con­sidered to be well loc­ated in rela­tion to vis­it­ors to the Burn of Vat area, ski­ers head­ing to the Lecht area, vis­it­ors to the Strath­don and Deeside are as well as gen­er­al pass­ers-by. The state­ment outlines

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6

the oth­er attrac­tions in the area such as the Cairngorm Lodges at Logie Cold­stone and the Tar­land Trails which the pro­posed devel­op­ment may sup­port, explain­ing that many of the loc­al attrac­tions are loc­ated to the north of the main A93 Bal­later to Aber­deen road whereby the site is well loc­ated to serve these attrac­tions, as opposed to con­cen­trat­ing facil­it­ies at Bal­later. It is sub­mit­ted that this will help diver­si­fy and enhance loc­al ser­vices as well as provid­ing loc­al employ­ment The design state­ment also includes inform­a­tion and images to illus­trate how the devel­op­ment may fit into the land­scape and bene­fit from a wooded back­drop along with new land­scap­ing to provide a good visu­al set­ting. It also explains that the lay­out has been designed to reflect the tra­di­tion­al pat­tern of small inform­al group­ings in the imme­di­ate area, and that the devel­op­ment will be of a smal­ler scale than these farmsteads.

1. The pro­posed devel­op­ment com­prises the fol­low­ing components:

a) Main Build­ing — L shaped 1 ¹⁄₂ storey build­ing which will house retail space and café for around 50 cov­ers. The café space will face south­wards towards the views to the hills bey­ond, with the build­ing designed to max­im­ise the out­door- indoor con­nec­tion includ­ing out­side seat­ing, large over­hangs and glazed south­ern gable. Kit­chen facil­it­ies (includ­ing a sep­ar­ate pre­par­a­tion kit­chen for on- site pro­duc­tion) are included togeth­er with office, toi­lets and staff areas. A multi-use func­tion area is also pro­posed, with the design state­ment explain­ing that this space could be used in the future for func­tions such as classes and wed­dings. This is pro­posed in the upper floor of the west wing of the build­ing. Owner/​caretakers staff accom­mod­a­tion is pro­posed by way of self-con­tained 3 bed­room flat at first floor level in the east­ern wing, with liv­ing spaces look­ing south­wards. Each room will have en-suite facil­it­ies and there will be a shared, com­mun­al kitchen/​dining area. The build­ing will be fin­ished in nat­ur­al stone facing the pub­lic road and as fea­ture work on oth­er elev­a­tions, cream wet dash render on the west wing, grey stand­ing seam roof fin­ish and met­al clad win­dows and doors. The sup­port­ing sub­mis­sion explains that the mater­i­als have been chosen for low main­ten­ance and qual­ity. Photo­vol­ta­ic pan­els are pro­posed on the south-west­ern elevation.

b) Farm Shed – of pitched roof design and meas­ur­ing some 12.3 metres by 9.5 metres is pro­posed to the north of the main build­ing. This will be used for hous­ing tools and machinery and will be fin­ished in grey pro­filed steel sheeting.

c) Two arrays of free ‑stand­ing sol­ar pan­els are pro­posed in the south­ern part of the site. These will be slop­ing pan­els sited at

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6

highest point 2.8 metres above the ground and some2.8 metres wide. The two arrays will be divided by areas of planting.

d) Two green­houses are pro­posed to the north of the sol­ar pan­el array with production/​growing area between these and the main build­ings. These are of tra­di­tion­al pitched roof glazed and met­al frame con­struc­tion with brick basecourse.

1. These pro­posed build­ings and struc­tures are loc­ated on the west­ern part of the site out­with the area iden­ti­fied as being at risk of flood­ing. Access is pro­posed from a new access point onto the A47 main road posi­tioned to achieve max­im­um vis­ib­il­ity along the road. Part of the ditch that runs along the road­side here will be cul­ver­ted to accom­mod­ate the new access point. A sec­ond­ary access is also pro­posed as out­lined below.

2. Park­ing is pro­posed between the build­ings and the pub­lic road with two park­ing areas shown, one for 20 spaces and one for 8 spaces. Vehicle turn­ing, refuse stor­age, elec­tric char­ging pro­vi­sion, dis­abled spaces and cycle park­ing are indic­ated on plan.

3. A Flood Risk Assess­ment (FRA) was under­taken to con­sider the likely sources and mag­nitude of flood­ing, devel­op a hydraul­ic mod­el of the site, assess the capa­city of the water­course to con­tain the 200 year plus cli­mate change event and assess the risk of flood­ing of the devel­op­ment site. The FRA shows the pre­dicted extent of flood­ing dur­ing a 200 year plus cli­mate change event, with this flood­ing poten­tially extend­ing across much of the east­ern part of the site. The area to be used for built devel­op­ment is loc­ated out­with the flood extent as noted earli­er. The floor levels of the pro­posed devel­op­ment at 172 metres AOD are noted to be above the required 600 mm free­board above max­im­um flood level. The FRA also noted that the pro­posed site access lies at the low point in the pub­lic road where flood water spills over. It there­fore recom­mends that either the access point be moved west­wards or an emer­gency access point is provided fur­ther west. This sec­ond­ary emer­gency access is now shown on the site plan. It will use the exist­ing field gate open­ing onto the A97 road and will be sur­faced in grass with geogrid or sim­il­ar rein­force­ment. Access will be restric­ted dur­ing nor­mal oper­a­tions by gate or bollard.

4. Exist­ing trees are to be retained with indic­at­ive land­scap­ing pro­pos­als shown to enhance loc­al biod­iversity by way of hedging and tree plant­ing as well as the fruit trees pro­posed on site. A stone dyke is pro­posed along the north­ern road­side bound­ary and a pond/​wetland area is pro­posed in the north-west corner of the site.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6

1. Sup­port­ing inform­a­tion has been provided as follows;

a) Arbor­i­cul­tur­al Impact Assess­ment and Tree Pro­tec­tion Plan – this con­firms that no tree felling is pro­posed with all trees on site retained includ­ing mature beech tree on the north side of the main road. Nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion of alder and wil­low wet wood­land along the Logie Burn will be pro­moted by retain­ing a fenced strip along the burn. Details of tree pro­tec­tion dur­ing con­struc­tion have been provided.

b) Eco­logy Sur­vey and Eco­lo­gic­al Impact Assess­ment – this includes phase 1 hab­it­at and pro­tec­ted spe­cies sur­veys. It con­cludes that the grass­land site is of low eco­lo­gic­al value with capa­city to enhance biod­iversity through plant­ing and regen­er­a­tion, and by provid­ing bat boxes. It recom­mends to avoid light­ing being dir­ec­ted towards to the burn The report also recom­mends vari­ous mitigation/​enhancement meas­ures includ­ing con­struc­tion works be car­ried out in accord­ance with a Con­struc­tion Envir­on­ment Man­age­ment Plan (CEMP) to ensure no pol­lu­tion of the river hab­it­at which is part of the River Dee Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion (SAC)’ pre-con­struc­tion sur­veys be under­taken for otter, squir­rels, pine marten and badgers to ensure no dis­turb­ance; and that clear­ance of ground veget­a­tion avoids the bird breed­ing season

c) Drain­age Report – this recom­mends install­a­tion of a treat­ment plant for foul drain­age as a con­ven­tion­al sep­tic tank and soakaway would not be suit­able here due to high per­col­a­tion rate. It also sets out that pump­ing may be required to con­vey dis­charge from treat­ment plant to the burn due to the topo­graphy here. The report recom­mends that sur­face water be dis­charged to a par­tial soakaway pri­or to dis­charge to the burn

d) Vis­ion state­ment- which explains the applic­ants’ vis­ion to provide a relaxed and pet friendly envir­on­ment where res­id­ents, tour­ists and trav­el­lers can relax, enjoy the views and con­nect with nature at a day out des­tin­a­tion. It also explains the applic­ants’ back­grounds and exper­i­ence and the desire to employ loc­al people.

1. A Design State­ment was sub­mit­ted which explains how the design has evolved. This sets out the mer­its of the site in terms of south facing aspect, visu­ally secluded site, wooded back­drop, easy vehicu­lar and cyc­ling access with areas of flood­ing avoided in the sit­ing of the built devel­op­ment and biod­iversity enhance­ments pro­posed through pro­posed land­scap­ing. It explains that the choice of loc­a­tion cap­it­al­ises on exist­ing attrac­tions in the area north of the Aber­deen to Bal­later A93 road, being cent­rally loc­ated rel­at­ive to these, offer­ing an oppor­tun­ity to diver­si­fy the loc­al ser­vices, as well as to ful­fil a role for loc­al res­id­ents and bring employ­ment to the area. It also explains that it will sell loc­ally sourced products and pro­duce so provid­ing direct

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bene­fits to loc­al pro­du­cers, is con­sidered to be com­ple­ment­ary /​compatible with exist­ing busi­ness activ­ity in the area with few sim­il­ar busi­nesses in this area whereby ser­vices in the Nation­al Park will be enhanced.

1. In terms of sus­tain­able travel, it is noted that the site is not loc­ated on a major pub­lic trans­port route with lim­ited scope for encour­aging foot traffic bey­ond the imme­di­ate area (such as those stay­ing at the Cairngorm Lodges) with most of the loc­al attrac­tions accessed by car. The devel­op­ment will cater well for such users provid­ing elec­tric char­ging and access­ible park­ing pro­vi­sion. Bicycle travel will be encour­aged by provided cycle stor­age and shower­ing facil­it­ies for staff to encour­age them to cycle to work.

2. The state­ment also explains how the design has evolved to fit into the land­scape through care­ful choice of low main­ten­ance mater­i­als pal­let and lay­out, whilst also tak­ing advant­age of south views through use of glaz­ing. It explains how the lay­out has been designed to reflect the pat­tern of rur­al group­ings in the imme­di­ate area with road­side devel­op­ment not unusu­al in this area, and the devel­op­ment itself being of a smal­ler scale than some of the farm group­ings in the area. Care has been taken with bound­ary treat­ments, includ­ing use of stone road­side dyke, to help soften any visu­al impact giv­en the road­side loc­a­tion along with care­ful land­scap­ing to cre­ate a nat­ur­al setting

3. The state­ment finally sets out how the devel­op­ment is con­sidered to com­ply with Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan policies and provides a detailed response to con­tri­bu­tions received to the application.

4. The applic­ants have also sub­mit­ted a Jus­ti­fic­a­tion State­ment which refers to the CNPA vis­it­or sur­vey and the res­ults of that sur­vey which included sug­ges­tions that there should be improved choice and qual­ity of cafes/​restaurants in the Nation­al Park, with a need for dog friendly pro­vi­sion and toi­lets. The applic­ants sub­mit that the pro­posed devel­op­ment will help achieve this. They also note this sur­vey revealed that there is a need for increased parking/​toilet facil­it­ies with­in the Nation­al Park, with ⁴⁄₅ of vis­it­ors trav­el­ling to the Nation­al Park by car. They sub­mit that without back­ing and fin­an­cial invest­ment in pub­lic trans­port this dynam­ic is unlikely to change.

5. The state­ment high­lights the import­ance of tour­ism to the Nation­al Park and the rela­tion­ship between men­tal health and the nat­ur­al envir­on­ment, sub­mit­ting that. the pro­posed devel­op­ment will provide a relaxed envir­on­ment for vis­it­ors sim­il­ar to the trend of farm shops in agri­cul­tur­al areas which are pop­u­lar with tour­ists and day trip­pers in the north-east, with no such pro­vi­sion at present in the immediate

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6

area. It also rep­res­ents agri­cul­tur­al diver­si­fic­a­tion as well as provid­ing loc­al facil­it­ies which is con­sidered to be in line with the Government’s policy that every­one should have access to very loc­al facil­it­ies in the interests of sus­tain­ab­il­ity as well as sup­port­ing the aims of the Nation­al Park.

1. This state­ment explains that the loc­a­tion has been chosen because it is mortgage/​loan free being under the applic­ants con­trol loc­ated with­in a beau­ti­ful part of the Nation­al Park on a sunny, sheltered south facing loc­a­tion with no impacts on loc­al res­id­en­tial properties.

2. Whilst acknow­ledging that the site is out­with a set­tle­ment the applic­ants high­light that it is eas­ily access­ible, being in close prox­im­ity to increas­ingly pop­u­lar attrac­tions of Tar­land Trails bike park, Loch Kinord and Burn of Vat, as well as the Deeside way itself and cyc­ling facil­it­ies in the area. The loc­a­tion is also con­sidered to be attract­ive as a wel­com­ing ser­vice area for ski­ing tour­ists in the winter with a cul­tur­al his­tory of folk­lore and legends also of interest to visitors.

3. Employ­ment oppor­tun­it­ies are sum­mar­ised as a garden­er (with poten­tial for an appren­tice), 2 cooks,/chefs sup­por­ted by 2 ‑3 kit­chen assist­ants, 4- 6 wait­ing and shop staff, and 2 clean­ers Dur­ing the sum­mer sea­son cas­u­al fruit pick­ers will also be required. Accom­mod­a­tion for a man­ager on site to main­tain vital site secur­ity as well as for any sea­son­al staff is pro­posed by way of the res­id­en­tial accommodation/​flat.

4. Plans of the pro­pos­als are attached as Appendix 1

His­tory

1. There is no spe­cif­ic plan­ning his­tory on the site. The CNPA plan­ning ser­vice input into pre applic­a­tion inquiry to Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil. Ini­tially this related to a farm shop/​café earli­er in 2022 (Ref­er­ence PRE/2022/0013) and then again later in 2022 for a farm shop, café, store and res­id­en­tial accom­mod­a­tion. Issues to be addressed were high­lighted includ­ing land­scape and eco­nom­ic impacts. (Ref­er­ence PRE/2022/0028)

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

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case is the River Dee Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion (SAC) which is des­ig­nated for its Atlantic sal­mon, fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sels (FWPM) and otter interests. The Logie Burn which runs along the east­ern bound­ary of the site feeds into the Dee.

1. The HRA con­siders that there could be poten­tial for likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects upon Atlantic sal­mon and FWPM as a res­ult of fuel or silt enter­ing the water­course dur­ing con­struc­tion with poten­tial short-term effects of changes in water qual­ity or longer term effects from smoth­er­ing of any suit­able breed­ing hab­it­ats down­stream of the works. It is con­sidered that mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures such as a site spe­cif­ic pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion plan would reduce pol­lu­tion to a min­im­al level. This would need to include meas­ures to pro­tect the Logie Burn from release of sed­i­ment or oth­er pol­lut­ants and adhere to good prac­tice guid­ance measures.

2. In terms of otter the HRA con­siders that there are no likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects giv­en that there were no rest­ing sites iden­ti­fied with­in 30 metres of the pro­posed devel­op­ment, that the built ele­ments are fur­thest away from the burn and ripari­an hab­it­ats are unaffected

3. The HRA con­cludes that, provid­ing a Pol­lu­tion Pre­ven­tion Plan is pro­duced and agreed pri­or to any works com­men­cing on site and then fully imple­men­ted dur­ing con­struc­tion, then the con­ser­va­tion object­ives will not be under­mined whereby there will not be an adverse effect on site integ­rity for the River Dee SAC. This may be secured by condition.

4. 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 7 His­tor­ic Assets

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POLICY 9 Brown­field, Vacant and Derel­ict Land, and Empty Build­ings POLICY 11 Energy POLICY 12 Zero Waste POLICY 13 Sus­tain­able Trans­port POLICY 14 Design, Qual­ity and Place POLICY 17 Rur­al Homes POLICY 20 Blue and Green Infra­struc­ture POLICY 22 Flood Risk and Water Man­age­ment POLICY 23 Health and Safety POLICY 25 Com­munity Wealth Build­ing POLICY 26 Busi­ness and Industry POLICY 28 Retail POLICY 29 Rur­al Devel­op­ment 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 X 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 X POLICY 8 OPEN SPACE, SPORT AND RECRE­ATION POLICY 9 CUL­TUR­AL HER­IT­AGE X POLICY 10 RESOURCES X POLICY 11 DEVELOPER OBLIG­A­TIONS X

1. All new devel­op­ment pro­pos­als require to be assessed in rela­tion to policies con­tained in the adop­ted Devel­op­ment Plan which com­prises Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 (NPF4) and the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021. The full word­ing of policies can be found at:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/national-planning-framework- 4/​documents/​

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and 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

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.

Policy 1 Hous­ing Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance X Policy 2 Sup­port­ing Eco­nom­ic Growth Non-Stat­utory X Guid­ance 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 X

CON­SULTA­TIONS

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

2. SEPA was con­sul­ted as the devel­op­ment lies with­in an area iden­ti­fied on their flood risk maps. Hav­ing con­sidered rep­res­ent­a­tions received which showed evid­ence of flood­ing on the site and pub­lic road they sought sub­mis­sion of a Flood Risk Assess­ment (FRA) to determ­ine the flood risk from the Logie Burn and small drain­age ditch. On receipt of a FRA to address all points they raised they have con­firmed that they do not object to the pro­pos­als not­ing that the pro­posed farm shop and café build­ing lie out­with the 200 year plus cli­mate change design flood extent. They fur­ther note that the min­im­um ground level of the build­ing is to be at least 0.44 metres above the design flood level with the fin­ished floor level to be set 0.8 metres above the design flood level thus includ­ing an appro­pri­ate free­board allow­ance to accom­mod­ate any mod­el­ling uncer­tainty. They there­fore con­sider the build­ing is unlikely to be at risk of flood­ing. They do, how­ever, recom­mend that flood resi­li­ent mater­i­als are adop­ted dur­ing con­struc­tion of the devel­op­ment giv­en the prox­im­ity to the design flood event.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6

1. With regard to the sol­ar farm, they note that under Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work Policy 22 devel­op­ment pro­pos­als at risk of flood­ing or in a flood risk area can be sup­por­ted if they are for essen­tial infra­struc­ture where the loc­a­tion is required for oper­a­tion­al reas­ons sol­ar farms are classed as essen­tial infra­struc­ture whereby this aspect is con­sidered to fall under their stand­ing advice which sets out cri­ter­ia to be met.

2. They fur­ther note that although the site access is at risk of flood­ing an addi­tion­al emer­gency access route is now pro­posed and they have no objec­tion on this basis either. They do, how­ever, note that this mat­ter of emer­gency access is con­sidered to be largely the remit of the loc­al author­ity whereby the plan­ning author­ity should work closely with the flood risk man­age­ment, roads build­ing stand­ards and emer­gency plan­ning func­tions to determ­ine wheth­er this risk is con­sidered to be acceptable.

3. Nature Scot ini­tially noted that the site was adja­cent to the Logie Burn which is in the River Dee SAC. They advised that they did not con­sider that the interests of the SAC would be adversely affected if works were car­ried out in accord­ance with a con­struc­tion meth­od state­ment, con­clud­ing that the CNPA would require to carry out an appro­pri­ate assess­ment of the impacts. Nature Scot was duly con­sul­ted on the Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al (HRA) under­taken by the CNPA and have con­firmed agree­ment with its conclusions.

4. Scot­tish Water has no objec­tions to the pro­pos­als, con­firm­ing in terms of water sup­ply that there is cur­rently suf­fi­cient capa­city in the Bal­later water treat­ment works – the applic­ants will require to make a form­al applic­a­tion for con­nec­tion and this mat­ter will then be con­sidered fur­ther. They also con­firm that there is no pub­lic waste water infra­struc­ture in the area. They also note that the devel­op­ment lies with­in a drink­ing water catch­ment where a Scot­tish Water abstrac­tion is loc­ated. This is a rel­at­ively large catch­ment, and they con­sider the devel­op­ment to be suf­fi­ciently dis­tant from the intake whereby it is con­sidered to be low risk. How­ever, they high­light that water qual­ity must be pro­tec­ted dur­ing con­struc­tion and there­after. In par­tic­u­lar mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures will be required dur­ing install­a­tion of the cul­vert under the new access point and when clear­ing the exist­ing road­side ditch, with ref­er­ence made to their guid­ance in this regard

5. Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil Flood Risk and Coast Pro­tec­tion Team ini­tially sought sub­mis­sion of an FRA and set out mat­ters to be addressed. On receipt of the FRA, they reques­ted sub­mis­sion of a plan which over­layed the mod­elled flood extent on the site plan in order to estab­lish which areas of the devel­op­ment were with­in the flood plain

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6

and to con­sider the impact of the sol­ar farm as they had con­cerns about any impacts down­stream or in the flood plain should the pan­els block debris or get washed away. They also sought con­firm­a­tion that there would be no land rais­ing on the site. On receipt of fur­ther inform­a­tion from the applic­ants on these points the Team sought cla­ri­fic­a­tion on the detail and future main­ten­ance of the sur­face water drain­age arrange­ments, the devel­op­ment strategy for deal­ing with any exist­ing drain­age that may be affected, and the siz­ing of the cul­vert for the new access road. The applic­ants have provided a response explain­ing the that the new cul­vert will be suit­ably sized to be at least the same size as exist­ing cul­verts, all as reques­ted by SEPA, and that the cattle grid at the site entrance could be designed to drain back to the ditch with silt trap to catch any sur­face water cross­ing the access. They have also advised that the sur­fa­cing of the park­ing area can be designed to ensure per­meab­il­ity and respon­ded to oth­er points of detail. The Flood Risk Team have now advised that their con­cerns with the Flood Risk Assess­ment are now addressed and that the final details of sur­face water drain­age may be addressed by plan­ning con­di­tion togeth­er with details of the siz­ing of culverts.

1. Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil Infra­struc­ture Ser­vices Roads Devel­op­ment – has no objec­tions to the pro­pos­als sub­ject to con­di­tions being imposed regard­ing pro­vi­sion of vis­ib­il­ity splays, turn­ing area, sur­fa­cing and con­struc­tion of new access, and pro­vi­sion of bin stor­age and park­ing. They were con­sul­ted on the emer­gency access pro­pos­al and con­firmed no objec­tion to this aspect either sub­ject to it being formed as per the sub­mit­ted plans, being closed off by a gate and used only in emer­gency situations.

2. Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil Waste Man­age­ment Team has been con­sul­ted and no com­ments have been provided to date.

3. Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil Archae­ology Team – advise that no archae­olo­gic­al mit­ig­a­tion is required

4. Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil Developer Oblig­a­tions Team – advise that as the devel­op­ment is for a busi­ness premises with staff accom­mod­a­tion built in then developer oblig­a­tions and afford­able hous­ing con­tri­bu­tions are not required.

5. Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil Envir­on­ment­al Health Ser­vice ini­tially reques­ted fur­ther inform­a­tion on the private water sup­ply arrange­ments if it was not pro­posed to con­nect to the pub­lic water sys­tems. On con­firm­a­tion that the devel­op­ment was to be con­nec­ted to the pub­lic sup­ply they have no com­ments oth­er than to note the

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6

premises would require to be registered with them in terms of the food safety act.

1. Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil Con­tam­in­ated Land Officer – ini­tially sought addi­tion­al inform­a­tion on pre­vi­ous use of land and on receipt of such inform­a­tion has con­firmed no objec­tions as there is no indic­a­tion of any past use which may have caused contamination

2. CNPA Out­door Access Officer – notes that there are no nearby exist­ing access routes which would be affected and no nearby paths to provide oppor­tun­it­ies for link­ing to or enhan­cing access networks

3. CNPA Eco­logy Officer no objec­tions sub­ject to appro­pri­ate mit­ig­a­tion for any impacts includ­ing pre-con­struc­tion checks for pro­tec­ted spe­cies (and for birds if work com­mences dur­ing the bird breed­ing sea­son); con­trol of light­ing to avoid light­ing hab­it­ats along the Logie Burn and wood­land edge; sub­mis­sion of a Con­struc­tion Envir­on­ment­al Man­age­ment Plan includ­ing a site spe­cif­ic pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion plan to pro­tect the water envir­on­ment; and imple­ment­a­tion of tree pro­tec­tion meas­ures set out in the tree pro­tec­tion plan. Finally, biod­iversity enhance­ments set out in the sup­port­ing eco­logy stud­ies would require to be imple­men­ted and over­seen by an exper­i­enced ecologist.

4. CNPA Land­scape Officer- notes that the site is fairly dis­crete with­in the wider land­scape due to the pres­ence of adja­cent wood­land although it is clearly vis­ibly by people trav­el­ling along the A97 road (albeit fleet­ing) as well as by some loc­al res­id­ents. It lies with­in a land­scape of mixed wood­land, agri­cul­ture, and set­tle­ment beside the A97 road with the land­scape char­ac­ter descrip­tion high­light­ing the import­ance of the Logie Burn and stone dykes as land­scape features.

5. The officer con­cludes that the pro­posed devel­op­ment would gen­er­ally relate to the loc­al land­scape char­ac­ter, visu­al amen­ity, and the Spe­cial Land­scape Qual­it­ies of the Nation­al Park. At a broad level, the pro­pos­al would fit with­in the exist­ing patchy land­scape pat­tern of farms, houses, wood­land, and agri­cul­tur­al fields, although its com­mer­cial func­tion out­with a set­tle­ment would seem slightly out of place and the farm shop and café build­ing would appear large in scale and be prom­in­ent with­in the imme­di­ate vicin­ity. This could be mit­ig­ated by chan­ging the ori­ent­a­tion of the build­ing and/​or redu­cing the main build­ing into separate/​linked units smal­ler in scale. The effects of the park­ing could be mit­ig­ated by sens­it­ive choice of sur­fa­cing appro­pri­ate to rur­al area and the use of unstained ver­tic­al wood clad­ding may be the most suit­able choice for some of the walls of the build­ings. It is noted that if nat­ur­al stone is used then the choice of stone including

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6

dress­ing and block size and meth­od of lay­ing must relate to the loc­al vernacular.

1. The officer also notes that the pro­pos­al includes some pos­it­ive land­scape ele­ments such as con­tem­por­ary archi­tec­tur­al fea­tures, a line of trees and stone wall along the A97 main road, a wild­life pond, hedging and fruit trees, and, import­antly, no tree felling is pro­posed togeth­er with pro­tec­tion meas­ures for exist­ing trees.

2. The officer high­lights that it will be import­ant that the final design details and mater­i­als relate to the rur­al land­scape set­ting with fur­ther inform­a­tion required on the detail of land­scap­ing, fin­ishes, bound­ar­ies, design of sol­ar farm and con­struc­tion meth­od state­ment. This could be addressed by sus­pens­ive plan­ning conditions.

3. Cro­mar Com­munity Coun­cil advised that they con­sul­ted the nearby com­munity of Logie Cold­stone dur­ing the sum­mer and the only con­cerns expressed related to poten­tial flood risk. They note that fur­ther work on flood­ing has been under­taken since. These com­ments are attached as Appendix 3

REP­RES­ENT­A­TIONS

1. The applic­a­tion was advert­ised and a total of 17 let­ters of rep­res­ent­a­tion have been received – 9 object­ing, one not­ing gen­er­al com­ments and 7 sup­port­ing. A copy of these com­ments are attached as Appen­dices 4 (a) (b) and ©. Key issues from those object­ing are sum­mar­ised as follows:

a) Elec­tric char­ging pro­vi­sion not in line with Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment build­ing standards.

b) Increased traffic arising from bring­ing in mater­i­al to sell and dis­pos­ing of waste as well as vis­it­ors will cause road safety issues.

c) Unsuit­able loc­a­tion with no footpaths/​bike access it is only access­ible by car.

d) Road safety con­cerns ‑dan­ger­ous sec­tion of road which often suf­fers from sur­face water and flood­ing lead­ing to accidents

e) Flood­ing issues on site already which will increase with cli­mate change and are more extens­ive than shown on SEPA’s flood maps- detailed inform­a­tion on pre­vi­ous flood events provided.

f) Impacts on qual­ity of adja­cent private water sup­ply from flood­ing and on anim­al wel­fare (poten­tial pol­lu­tion to anim­al drink­ing supplies).

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6

g) Con­cern regard­ing impacts on quant­ity of private water sup­ply if devel­op­ment is not con­nec­ted to the pub­lic water supply.

h) Suit­ab­il­ity of pro­posed foul drain­age sys­tems which may be affected by flood­ing and cause contamination.

i) Adverse impacts upon wild­life in area.

j) Impacts on bees on exist­ing bee colon­ies due to com­pet­ing for for­aging in loc­al areas.

k) Dogs poten­tially wor­ry­ing live­stock with no secure dog walk­ing area for this pro­posed dog friendly busi­ness, and poten­tial issues with dog fae­ces which could cause pol­lu­tion to sens­it­ive area such as the Logie Burn (which is part of a SAC) as well as pol­lu­tion of the pro­posed pro­duc­tion grow­ing areas.

I) Addi­tion­al amen­ity impacts for neigh­bour­ing prop­er­ties as a res­ult of addi­tion­al people, wed­dings, etc.

m) Impact on farm­ing works and anim­al wel­fare- this type of devel­op­ment would be more suit­ably loc­ated beside a set­tle­ment rather than beside agri­cul­tur­al land.

n) Poten­tial light pollution.

o) Adequacy of refuse and recyc­ling facil­it­ies with waste man­age­ment issues rais­ing ver­min issues.

p) Adequacy of park­ing – no dis­abled parking.

q) Wild­fire risk from increased events at the site, vis­it­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic and poten­tial for sparks from mal­func­tion­ing equipment.

r) No jus­ti­fic­a­tion for green­field site – quer­ies raised regard­ing lim­ited extent of land to sup­port organ­ic pro­duc­tion with no busi­ness case sub­mit­ted to jus­ti­fy choice of site or how it will sup­port loc­al eco­nomy, con­trary to plan­ning policies.

s) No jus­ti­fic­a­tion for staff accom­mod­a­tion for shop and café – may be fore­run­ner of move to a res­id­en­tial prop­erty should the devel­op­ment not succeed.

t) Shop to serve loc­al com­munity would be wel­comed but should be in vil­lage loc­a­tion no passing trade to sus­tain such a shop with pre­vi­ous shop in Din­net clos­ing due to oper­at­ing costs/​lack of support.

u) This type of use may impede oth­er farms and busi­nesses from expanding/​diversifying and have impacts on loc­al businesses.

1. Key Issues from those sup­port­ing are as follows:

a) Loc­al employ­ment will allow people to stay in rur­al area, provide out­let for loc­al artis­an pro­du­cers and provide loc­ally pro­duced fruit and veg for the area. It will also provide com­munity space/​café for vis­it­ors and locals.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6

b) Will provide loc­al shop in area where nearest pro­vi­sion is at Aboyne or Bal­later with eld­erly res­id­ents rely­ing on sporad­ic bus service.

c) Dog friendly, qual­ity café/​shop will add to the areas attrac­tions and provide eco­nom­ic bene­fits, provid­ing sup­port to the use of oth­er nearby attractions/​facilities and attract more people to the area, and to spend locally.

APPRAIS­AL

1. Sec­tion 25 of the 1997 Act as amended requires applic­a­tions to be determ­ined in accord­ance with the Devel­op­ment Plan. This now com­prises the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 and the Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4(NPF4). Where there is con­flict between policies, NPF4 policies will be used.

2. The main plan­ning con­sid­er­a­tions in this case are the prin­ciple of devel­op­ment, the impact upon land­scape, sit­ing and design, envir­on­ment­al impacts