Item6AABeachanCourtReport20190275DET

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 6 15/11/2019

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

DEVEL­OP­MENT PROPOSED:

Erec­tion of 13 res­id­en­tial units (8 cot­tage flats, 4 semi-detached houses, I bun­ga­low) (afford­able homes) at Land 150M NW Of Beachen Court, Grant­own On Spey

REF­ER­ENCE:

2019/0275/DET

APPLIC­ANT:

High­land Hous­ing Alliance

DATE CALLED-IN:

2 Septem­ber 2019

RECOM­MEND­A­TION:

APPROVE SUB­JECT TO CONDITIONS

CASE OFFICERS:

Kath­er­ine Don­nach­ie, Plan­ning Officer, Rob­bie Cal­vert, Gradu­ate Planner

CNPA Plan­ning Committee

Applic­a­tion Site

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 6 15/11/2019

SITE DESCRIP­TION, PRO­POS­AL AND HISTORY

Site Descrip­tion

1. The applic­a­tion site was ori­gin­ally graz­ing land and is loc­ated on the north-west side of Grant­own-on-Spey. It is situ­ated with­in a wider hous­ing devel­op­ment site at Beachen Court/​Seafield Aven­ue which was approved in 2016 in terms of the road, plot lay­out, infra­struc­ture and land­scap­ing for a total of 43 units (ref­er­ence 2016/0060/DET). A copy of this ori­gin­ally approved lay­out is attached as Appendix I.

2. The site itself is ​“L” shaped, bisec­ted by an access road which is now con­struc­ted across the wider site from Seafield Aven­ue, and it is cur­rently dis­turbed land related to the ongo­ing con­struc­tion site. It is loc­ated towards the east­ern side of the lar­ger hous­ing site, bounded to the south by recently con­struc­ted social hous­ing beside Dulaig Court approved in 2016 (ref­er­ence 2015/0394/DET) and to the east by the grounds of the Dulaig, a large detached prop­erty in its own grounds which con­tains mature trees. To the west the site is bounded by a pro­posed ​‘vil­lage green’ com­mon area con­nect­ing the cur­rent applic­a­tion site to the rest of the devel­op­ment and approved as part of the wider plot lay­out. There is fur­ther wood­land bey­ond this to the far west with­in which the former rail­way line now a core path runs. To the north of the site is land­scaped amen­ity land lead­ing down to Seafield Aven­ue, and the grounds of Revoan anoth­er large detached prop­erty set with­in its own grounds. This site loc­a­tion is shown in more detail in Appendix 2 Plans which con­tains plans of the pro­posed development.

3. In terms of the over­all con­text of the applic­a­tion site, the lower part of the wider devel­op­ment site here is bounded to the west by the Kylin­tra Burn which leads into the River Spey Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion (SAC). This burn also runs along the road­side to the north bound­ary along Seafield Aven­ue, and with­in the wider site. The over­all site access runs through this land. A SUDS pond has been con­struc­ted here too, to the imme­di­ate west of the drive to the Dulaig.

4. Land to the far west on the oth­er side of the former rail­way is Ancient Wood­land. On the oth­er (east) far side of Grant­own lies Anagach Woods, which are des­ig­nated as a Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Area (SPA) for Caper­cail­lie interest. The River Spey Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion (SAC), des­ig­nated for its Atlantic sal­mon, lamprey, fresh water pearl mus­sel and otter interest lies to the south of Grant­own, dis­tant from the devel­op­ment site. The River Spey is also des­ig­nated as a Site of Spe­cial Sci­entif­ic Interest (SSSI) for these interests.

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​l​i​n​e​-​a​p​p​l​i​c​a​t​i​o​n​s​/​a​p​p​l​i​c​a​t​i​o​n​D​e​t​a​i​l​s​.​d​o​?​a​c​t​i​v​e​T​a​b​=​s​u​m​m​a​r​y​&​k​e​y​V​a​l​=​P​W​Z​S​U​7​S​I​0BY00

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 6 15/11/2019

Title	Draw­ing Num­ber	Date on Plan*	Date Received
Site Lay­out Plan	PL-90 – 100	May, 2019	21/10/2019
	Revi­sion D
Sec­tion Plan	PL-00 – 200	June, 2019	21/10/2019
	Revi­sion B
Pro­posed Loc­a­tion Plan	PL-90 – 101	01/07/19	23/10/19
Land­scape Plan	100.19 SL-01	21/06/19	08/10/2019
	Revi­sion C
Gen­er­al Arrange­ment 2B4P Flats	00 100	March, 2018	21/10/2019
	Revi­sion D
Gen­er­al Arrange­ment 2B 3P Detached Bungalow	BT4 RTI 00 100 Revi­sion B	May, 2019	21/10/2019
5 year Main­ten­ance Plan		07/10/19	08/10/19
Sup­port­ing Inform­a­tion from agent		20/10/19	20/10/19
Sup­port­ing Design Statement		01/07/19	01/07/19

*Where no spe­cif­ic day of month has been provided on the plan, the sys­tem defaults to the Ist of the month.

1. As noted earli­er the over­all plot lay­out, infra­struc­ture and land­scap­ing has been pre­vi­ously approved and the cur­rent applic­a­tion now seeks full plan­ning per­mis­sion for 13 res­id­en­tial units on part of this wider site. These units com­prise 8 cot­tage flats, 4 semi-detached houses and one bun­ga­low across two hous­ing areas of this ​“L” shaped site with park­ing facil­it­ies, new ​“spur” roads and car park­ing con­nect­ing the devel­op­ment to the approved main access road net­work, bike stor­age and an exten­sion to the exist­ing path net­work. It is pro­posed to loc­ate one block of 4 cot­tage style flats in the north-west part of the site on the oth­er (west) side of the main access road, and anoth­er block of 4 cot­tage style flats on the east­ern side of the main access road. Two blocks of 2 semi-detached dwell­ings are pro­posed on the east­ern part of the site, along with a I detached bun­ga­low. This lay­out is shown in Appendix I — Plans.

2. Land­scap­ing is pro­posed to the north and east of the res­id­en­tial units gen­er­ally in accord­ance with the pre­vi­ously approved stra­tegic land­scap­ing lay­out, although more land­scap­ing is being provided as a res­ult in changes to the pre­vi­ous park­ing lay­out which has now reduced the extent of road­way and turn­ing areas behind plots 25 – 27 as shown on the site plan. With­in this land­scaped area a path link is pro­posed to join onto at the rear of the recently con­struc­ted afford­able houses to the south, so con­nect­ing both sites. A land­scape scheme has been provided.

3. Vehicu­lar access will is pro­posed of the main access to the wider site as approved with the ori­gin­al applic­a­tion here from Seafield Aven­ue. This will be via new non-adop­ted road­ways provid­ing access and com­mun­al park­ing for the flat­ted units and single storey house, and by indi­vidu­al drive­ways to the semi ‑detached units.

4. In terms of ser­vi­cing, con­nec­tion is pro­posed to exist­ing pub­lic water and drain­age sup­plies with sur­face water to be treated by means of con­nec­tion to the exist­ing sus­tain­able urb­an drain­age sys­tem (SUDS) loc­ated to the west of the Dulaig and as approved with the ori­gin­al consent.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 6 15/11/2019

1. 4 two storey, two bed­room pitched roof ​‘cot­tage style flats’ are pro­posed in the north west part of the site to the rear of Revoan, dis­sec­ted by the main site access road from the rest of the applic­a­tion site. The height of the roof pitch is just over 8.5 metres. These units are served by off street com­mun­al park­ing totalling sev­en spaces, vis­it­or bike park­ing totalling four spaces and two bin uplift areas. They will each have sev­en metre deep rear gar­dens loc­ated dir­ectly north-west behind the prop­er­ties with com­mun­al land­scap­ing bey­ond, sep­ar­at­ing the prop­er­ties from Revoan.

2. In the north-east part of the site a block of 2 two storey, three bed­room semi- detached pitched roof houses are pro­posed. The height of the roof pitch is just over 8.5 metres. These units are served by two off street park­ing spaces for each unit. They will have rear gar­dens with land­scaped area bey­ond this sep­ar­at­ing the prop­er­ties from the Dulaig to the east.

3. To the east of the main access road, anoth­er set of 4 two storey, two bed­room pitched roof ​‘cot­tage style flats’ are pro­posed. The height of the roof pitch is just over 8.5 metres. These units are served by off street com­mun­al park­ing totalling sev­en spaces and vis­it­or bike park­ing totalling four spaces and two bin uplift areas beside the main access road. They will each have rear gar­dens loc­ated dir­ectly south-east behind the prop­er­ties, with land­scaped area bey­ond this.

4. South of the pro­posed spur road into this east­ern part of the site I single story two bed­room pitched roof bun­ga­low is pro­posed. This unit will be served by the com­mun­al park­ing area and will have rear garden with land­scap­ing beyond.

5. At the south­ern bound­ary of the applic­a­tion site pro­pos­als include a fur­ther set of 2 two storey, three bed­room semi-detached pitched roof houses. The height of the roof pitch is just over 8.5 metres. These units are served by two off street park­ing spaces for each unit. They will have private rear gar­dens with land­scap­ing beyond.

6. Site sec­tions have been sub­mit­ted to show how the units will sit on the site and also to show the pro­posed roof heights com­pared to the pro­file of a 134 storey unit to try and demon­strate the likely dif­fer­ence. This illus­trates a slight increase of around 500mm in roof height. These sec­tions are con­tained with­in Appendix I- Plans.

7. Pro­posed fin­ishes for all house types are indic­ated as being a mix­ture of Siberi­an larch clad­ding and white render with grey roof tiles. Each unit will include photo­vol­ta­ic pan­els on the roof. Pro­vi­sion for bat and bird roost­ing boxes is also indic­ated. Drive­ways and park­ing areas will be fin­ished in per­meable paviors.

8. The applic­a­tion is sup­por­ted by a design state­ment and sup­port­ing state­ment. This explains that the cot­tage style flats on plots 15 – 18 and the single storey bun­ga­low on plot 29 will be man­aged by the High­land Coun­cil for social rent with the remain­ing prop­er­ties to be for mid-mar­ket rent­al man­aged by the High­land Hous­ing Alli­ance. It also explains that the two storey units will be some 0.5 metres high­er than ¹³⁄₄ storey units but that none of the pro­posed units will be high­er than units already con­struc­ted on the wider site. Also that the sit­ing of the single storey unit was chosen to take account of open views from the vil­lage green area to allow con­tinu­ation of these views through­out the site and cre­ate a sense of open­ness. In addi­tion this single storey level

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 6 15/11/2019

access house will have ready access to the adja­cent car park. The design state­ment out­lines that the house styles have been designed to com­ple­ment and respond to exist­ing dwell­ings and two storey prop­er­ties have been chosen to min­im­ise con­struc­tion costs.

1. Dur­ing the con­sid­er­a­tion of the applic­a­tion fur­ther inform­a­tion was sought to address points made by the High­land Coun­cil Trans­port Plan­ning Team and the CNPA Land­scape advisor in rela­tion to road lay­out and tree plant­ing. Oth­er inform­a­tion provided included com­par­at­ive site sec­tions to illus­trate ridge heights of the two storey units as com­pared to 134 units, and cla­ri­fic­a­tion of final floor levels.

His­tory

1. 2016/0060/DET — Cre­ation of res­id­en­tial plot lay­out (43 units), Roads, Drain­age and Stra­tegic Land­scap­ing at Land 150M NW of Beachen Court, Grant­own-on-Spey which was approved at Octo­ber 2016 Plan­ning Com­mit­tee. At this time an over­all plot lay­out was approved and the cur­rent applic­a­tion fits into this util­ising the approved ser­vi­cing. This devel­op­ment is under con­struc­tion in terms of the new access roads and SUDS drain­age along with houses approved with oth­er more recent con­sents. (The approved lay­out is attached as Appendix I) The details of indi­vidu­al houses on the scheme were to be the sub­ject of fur­ther full plan­ning applic­a­tions as set out in Con­di­tion 28 which stated as fol­lows: a) Applic­a­tions for full plan­ning per­mis­sion shall be required for all res­id­en­tial units and these shall include full details of sit­ing, design, lay­out, land­scap­ing, extern­al fin­ishes, bound­ary enclos­ures, access, drain­age (foul and sur­face water), waste man­age­ment and park­ing arrange­ments. These details shall reflect the prin­ciples of the approved Design Code and the prin­ciples set out in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity approved Devel­op­ment Brief for the site togeth­er with the fol­low­ing require­ments: i. Incor­por­a­tion of integ­rated flex­ib­il­ity for home-work­ing and high speed fibre broad­band con­nec­tions with­in all units; ii. Land­scap­ing with­in the plots to reflect the prin­ciples and details estab­lished in the approved land­scape plan and main­ten­ance régime; iii. Park­ing pro­vi­sion with­in plots at ratio of two private spaces per single res­id­en­tial unit (up to four bed­rooms) and 1.2 res­id­ents and 0.3 vis­it­or spaces per flat­ted unit; iv. Cycle stor­age pro­vi­sion for units; v. Park­ing pro­vi­sion for res­id­ent and vis­it­or cyc­ling; vi. Details of bin stor­age and recyc­ling facil­it­ies; vii. Details of exist­ing and pro­posed ground levels and final floor levels; viii. Details of any bird/​bat box pro­vi­sion; ix. Bound­ary enclos­ures designed to retain an open feel to the devel­op­ment avoid­ing enclos­ure of front gar­dens; and x. Max­im­um height of new devel­op­ment ¹³⁄₄ storey.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 6 15/11/2019

1. 2015/0394/DET — Imme­di­ately to the south of the above applic­a­tion site, beside Beachen Court, per­mis­sion was gran­ted at the Octo­ber 2016 Plan­ning Com­mit­tee meet­ing for the erec­tion of ten afford­able houses and these houses are under con­struc­tion. They ini­tially shared their con­struc­tion access road with the access road being formed for 2016/0060/DET, but now take vehicu­lar access through Beachen Court to the south.

2. 2017/0286//DET Con­sent was gran­ted at the Decem­ber 2017 meet­ing of the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee for the Con­struc­tion of 16 Private Homes com­pris­ing of 8 Blocks of Semi- Detached Dwell­ings and Access Road­way at Land 150M NW Of, Beachen Court, Grant­own On Spey on land with­in the wider hous­ing site to the west. This con­sent was for two storey hous­ing and one pair of 134 storey semi-detached houses. Some of these houses have been con­struc­ted and oth­er are cur­rently under construction.

DEVEL­OP­MENT PLAN CONTEXT

Policies

Nation­al Policy	Scot­tish Plan­ning Policy 2014
Stra­tegic Policy	Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2017 — 2022
Loc­al Plan Policy	Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (2015) Those policies rel­ev­ant to the assess­ment of this applic­a­tion are marked with a cross

POLICY I	NEW HOUS­ING DEVEL­OP­MENT	X
POLICY 2	SUP­PORT­ING ECO­NOM­IC GROWTH
POLICY 3	SUS­TAIN­ABLE DESIGN	X
POLICY 4	NAT­UR­AL HERITAGE	X
POLICY 5	LAND­SCAPE	X
POLICY 6	THE SIT­ING AND DESIGN OF DIGIT­AL COM­MU­NIC­A­TIONS EQUIPMENT
POLICY 7	RENEW­ABLE ENERGY	X
POLICY 8	SPORT AND RECREATION
POLICY 9	CUL­TUR­AL HERITAGE
POLICY 10	RESOURCES	X
POLICY 11	DEVELOPER CON­TRI­BU­TIONS

1. All new devel­op­ment pro­pos­als require to be assessed in rela­tion to policies con­tained in the adop­ted Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (LDP). The full word­ing of policies can be found at: http://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​u​p​l​o​a​d​s​/​d​o​c​u​m​e​n​t​s​/Park Authority/Planning/LDP15.pdf

2. The applic­a­tion site is expressly des­ig­nated for hous­ing in the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan set­tle­ment state­ment for Grant­own on Spey loc­ated with­in the site des­ig­nated as HI. A Devel­op­ment Brief has also been approved which cov­ers the site set­ting out the design prin­ciples, con­straints and key issues to be con­sidered when devel­op­ing the site. This informed the ori­gin­al plan­ning applic­a­tion for 43 plots and is non-stat­utory plan­ning guidance.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 6 15/11/2019

1. The LDP set­tle­ment state­ment for Grant­own on Spey also high­lights the import­ance of main­tain­ing the visu­al per­meab­il­ity of the set­tle­ment and rep­lic­at­ing this in new development.

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 I	New Hous­ing Devel­op­ment Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance	X
Policy 2	Sup­port­ing Eco­nom­ic Growth Non-Stat­utory Guidance
Policy 3	Sus­tain­able Design Non-Stat­utory Guidance	X
Policy 4	Nat­ur­al Her­it­age Sup­ple­ment­ary Guidance	X
Policy 5	Land­scape Non-Stat­utory Guidance	X
Policy 7	Renew­able Energy Sup­ple­ment­ary Guidance	X
Policy 8	Sport and Recre­ation Non-Stat­utory Guidance
Policy 9	Cul­tur­al Her­it­age Non-Stat­utory Guidance
Policy 10	Resources Non-Stat­utory Guidance	X
Policy 11	Developer Con­tri­bu­tions Sup­ple­ment­ary Guidance

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2020

1. The emer­ging Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (“Pro­posed Plan”) which will cov­er the peri­od 2020 – 2025 is cur­rently being pro­gressed. The pro­posed plan has been through a pub­lic con­sulta­tion pro­cess and the form­al responses have been assessed and sub­mit­ted along with all oth­er rel­ev­ant mater­i­als to Scot­tish Min­is­ters for exam­in­a­tion. As the exam­in­a­tion of the Pro­posed Plan is yet to start, the Pro­posed Plan and its con­tents cur­rently carry lim­ited weight. In addi­tion, pro­pos­als and policies which received heavy objec­tion fol­low­ing the pub­lic con­sulta­tion pro­cess are afforded even less weight.

2. With­in the Pro­posed Plan, Grant­own-on-Spey H2 site remains alloc­ated for hous­ing and the 1.3ha site has an indic­at­ive res­id­en­tial capa­city of 53 units. The Plan states ​“The site has an approved Devel­op­ment Brief and an exist­ing plan­ning per­mis­sion for 53 dwell­ings. It is cur­rently under con­struc­tion. Any future/​amended devel­op­ment pro­pos­als should be in gen­er­al accord­ance with the prin­ciples in the Devel­op­ment Brief.”

CON­SULTA­TIONS

Sum­mary of the main issues raised by Consultees

1. The High­land Coun­cil Hous­ing Ser­vice has no adverse comments.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 6 15/11/2019

1. Scot­tish Water advised that they had no objec­tion to this applic­a­tion but noted that there is pro­posed infra­struc­ture with­in the bound­ary of the site whereby the applic­ant will require to con­tact their Asset Team for advice. They fur­ther note that the applic­ant will require to make a form­al con­nec­tion applic­a­tion for water and sewage con­nec­tions and the Agency will review capa­city at that time.

2. The High­land Coun­cil (Trans­port Plan­ning Team) com­men­ted on the ori­gin­al plans to seek clar­ity on the arrange­ments for the buil­dout on the access road serving the wider devel­op­ment and recom­men­ded that any per­mis­sion gran­ted included a suit­ably worded inform­at­ive cla­ri­fy­ing that a form­al vari­ation to the exist­ing Road Con­struc­tion Con­sent (RCC) should be sought for any changes to the road network.

3. On receipt of fur­ther inform­a­tion cla­ri­fy­ing that the build outs were to be removed the Team has con­firmed that they have no objec­tions to the devel­op­ment but recom­mend that as the access serving plots 25 – 29 will not be adop­ted and is a private park­ing court they recom­mend that the junc­tion cross­ing be changed to a foot­way cross­ing sim­il­ar to that pro­posed for units 15 – 18 which would retain the lin­ear integ­rity of the foot­way here so pro­mot­ing safe act­ive travel. This would also require a vari­ation to the RCC. They finally note that they under­stand that cycle pro­vi­sion can be made with­in private gar­dens. This is sat­is­fact­ory with the vis­it­ors cycle pro­vi­sion welcomed.

4. CNPA Land­scape Officer con­siders the scheme is accept­able in land­scape terms, not­ing that the land­scape details use pre­vi­ously approved spe­cific­a­tions. How­ever more inform­a­tion was reques­ted in regards to the spe­cies of trees in the plan as not all were labelled and there­fore could not be cross ref­er­enced to the cor­res­pond­ing sched­ule. This mat­ter could have been covered by a plan­ning con­di­tion but the applic­ant has now sub­mit­ted revised mater­i­al to address these points.

5. CNPA Access Officer advises that the scheme is accept­able in that it both incor­por­ates and extends the foot­path link into the site from the com­pleted units neigh­bour­ing Dulaig/​Beachen Court with details of path main­ten­ance provided.

6. CPNA Eco­logy Officer provided advice on the loc­a­tion of arti­fi­cial bat and bird next/​roost sites to be installed in each plot to enhance oppor­tun­it­ies for biodiversity.

7. Grant­own-on-Spey and Vicin­ity Com­munity Coun­cil was con­sul­ted but have not provided any com­ments at the time of writing.

REP­RES­ENT­A­TIONS

1. Two let­ters of objec­tion have been sub­mit­ted which are attached in Appendix 3. The writer has reques­ted to be heard at Com­mit­tee. The applic­ant has also reques­ted to be heard at Committee.

2. The object­or high­lights that they have no objec­tion in prin­ciple to the 13 units but have objec­tions to the detail of the plans and sup­port­ing inform­a­tion. The main points of con­cern are sum­mar­ised below:

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 6 15/11/2019

a) Pro­posed design of houses – pro­pos­als for two story build­ing heights for 12 of the 13 pro­posed homes are not in accord­ance with design prin­ciples set out with the Devel­op­ment Brief for the CNPA Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015, which spe­cifies an accept­able build­ing height of 1.5 stor­ies and the design does not com­ple­ment and respond to exist­ing dwell­ings around the site. Con­cern is raised that the cur­rent sub­mis­sion indic­ates the pro­posed two storey units will be lower than 13 storey units which is con­trary to sub­mis­sions on pre­vi­ous applic­a­tions which indic­ated they would be high­er. This needs to be cla­ri­fied as do the final floor levels and state­ments that the 2 storey units will be cheap­er to build — the writer sub­mits this costs should not be a design driver, instead qual­ity should be. The writer con­cludes that designs sim­il­ar to those used for the 134 storey afford­able hous­ing to the south would be more appro­pri­ate here.

b) Tree pro­tec­tion – the plan­ning applic­a­tion form incor­rectly states that there are no trees adja­cent to the applic­a­tion site. The tree pro­tec­tion plan referred to in the Land­scape Plant­ing Pro­pos­al Plan is not the tree pro­tec­tion plan approved by CNPA and adequate root pro­tec­tion, not­ably for tree 15 (Tsuga Het­ero­phylla) has not been provided with the Land­scape Pro­pos­als Plant­ing Plan high­light­ing the exist­ing defi­ciency of exist­ing root pro­tec­tion. The writer con­siders that the tree sur­vey on which tree root pro­tec­tion plan is based is out- of-date and requires renew­al pri­or to the pro­duc­tion of a new tree root pro­tec­tion plan. Cla­ri­fic­a­tion is also sought on the site bound­ary on the East­ern edge with a per­ceived vari­ation between the Land­scape Pro­pos­al Plant­ing Plan and the Site Lay­out Plan.

c) Cut-off drain – a con­di­tion is required to pro­tect and main­tain the cut off drain approved with­in this part of the site under plan­ning per­mis­sion 2016/0060/DET.

d) Work­ing Hours – con­cern are expressed that con­struc­tion works on the wider site are tak­ing place out­side of the con­struc­tions hours set out in the inform­at­ives on the rel­ev­ant plan­ning con­sents and the writer requests that an enforce­able plan­ning con­di­tion be attached to address this now.

1. As noted earli­er, fol­low­ing ongo­ing con­sid­er­a­tion of the applic­a­tion, the applic­ants sub­mit­ted addi­tion­al inform­a­tion and sec­tions to cla­ri­fy the height of the pro­posed units com­pared to 134 units and also to address points made by the Roads Service.

2. The object­or was advised of these plans and has provided addi­tion­al com­ments that rein­forced con­cerns over the pro­posed 2 storey build­ing heights and the poten­tial increase in roof height of 500mm from the neigh­bour­ing 13 storey houses built for The High­land Coun­cil under plan­ning per­mis­sion 2015/0394/DET.

APPRAIS­AL

Prin­cip­al

1. The prin­ciple of hous­ing on this site is well estab­lished by both the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan des­ig­na­tion which alloc­ates the site for res­id­en­tial devel­op­ment and by the exist­ing con­sent for plot lay­out, land­scap­ing roads and infra­struc­ture here. The ser­vi­cing in terms of the main road lay­out and sur­face water drain­age was covered by this pre­vi­ous applic­a­tion, as was developer contributions.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 6 15/11/2019

1. In addi­tion Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan Hous­ing Policy 1.1: Hous­ing in Set­tle­ments offers clear sup­port for devel­op­ment on sites iden­ti­fied in the Plan, sub­ject of course to com­pli­ance with all oth­er rel­ev­ant plan­ning policies.

2. In these cir­cum­stances the prin­ciple of devel­op­ing this land is wel­comed and it is the detail of the house types, their lay­outs on the site and the accom­pa­ny­ing land­scap­ing which falls to be con­sidered with this application.

Land­scape Issues

1. A fun­da­ment­al con­sid­er­a­tion with this devel­op­ment is the impacts on the land­scape char­ac­ter of the area in order to con­sider wheth­er the require­ment of Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan policy 5: Land­scape to con­serve and enhance the land­scape char­ac­ter and spe­cial qual­it­ies of the Nation­al Park is met.

2. In this regard land­scaped areas in line with the approved land­scape lay­out have been provided, with the details of land­scap­ing in terms of spe­cies and lay­out con­sidered to be sat­is­fact­ory sub­ject to the land­scape scheme being updated to clearly show pro­tec­tion for exist­ing trees bor­der­ing the site as high­lighted by the object­or. This can be read­ily addressed by plan­ning con­di­tion in the event of the applic­a­tion being supported.

3. Also with regard to land­scap­ing it is noted that the east­ern part of the site is being retained as open space, apart from park­ing facil­it­ies, path link and a new ​“spur” road with this area of land­scap­ing lar­ger now than that shown at the ori­gin­al plot lay­out stage. This is due to the remov­al of lar­ger turn­ing and park­ing areas arising out of a move to a private access road for plots 25 – 29.

4. It is there­fore con­sidered that in terms of land­scap­ing the applic­a­tion read­ily com­plies with Policy 5: Landscape.

Lay­out and Design

1. Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan Policies 3: Sus­tain­able Design and 5: Land­scape seek to ensure that new devel­op­ment con­serves and enhances the land­scape char­ac­ter and spe­cial qual­it­ies of the Nation­al Park and is sym­path­et­ic to the char­ac­ter of the area.

2. In this regard the area sur­round­ing the applic­a­tion site at Dulaig Court and Beachen Court is char­ac­ter­ised by a mix­ture of hous­ing types, ter­races and semi-detached with a wind­ing road lay­out with cul-de-sacs and com­mun­al park­ing evid­ent whilst on the wider hous­ing site here a mix­ture of 2 storey and 13 storey hous­ing has been approved and largely built. The pro­posed lay­out reflects this, provid­ing a simple lay­out of four blocks of housing/​flats and one single storey house look­ing onto a vil­lage green com­mon area and towards the ongo­ing hous­ing devel­op­ment here. The new devel­op­ment is sep­ar­ated by land­scaped swathes from the lar­ger detached prop­er­ties at the Dulaig and Revoan which are set in their own landscaped/​wooded grounds.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 6 15/11/2019

1. At the time of the ori­gin­al plot lay­out con­sent here effort was made to secure a lay­out which cre­ated a good land­scaped set­ting for new res­id­en­tial units to sit with­in. This has been reflec­ted with the cur­rent sub­mis­sion which now offers a lar­ger land­scaped area to the east of the site as a res­ult of changes to the intern­al road/​parking lay­out. This is greatly wel­comed and over time will cre­ate a good land­scape set­ting as well as cre­at­ing biod­iversity cor­ridors. The pro­posed lay­out is ​“per­meable” with good links for non- vehicu­lar traffic to the south east to sur­round­ing hous­ing areas.

2. There is a reas­on­able mix of hous­ing types pro­posed and site sec­tions demon­strate that the units will sit sat­is­fact­or­ily on the site which slopes slightly. Whilst the single storey unit var­ies in scale from the two storey prop­er­ties pro­posed on either side this is not con­sidered to be unduly incon­gru­ous and its loc­a­tion relates well to the vil­lage green aspect and the open aspect of this part of the site.

3. In terms of the over­all design the houses types are con­sidered to be func­tion­al and sat­is­fact­ory, of simple design incor­por­at­ing an accept­able range of mater­i­als. Full details by way of samples can be con­trolled by plan­ning con­di­tions in the event of the applic­a­tion being sup­por­ted. The house types are also con­sidered to be appro­pri­ate in an area of mixed house types and com­ple­ment­ary to the style of houses approved else­where on the wider devel­op­ment site.

4. In terms of scale the build­ing heights, although slightly high­er than 13 ones would be, are con­sidered to be in keep­ing with the scale and sit­ing of exist­ing devel­op­ment on the wider site. It is appre­ci­ated, as noted by the object­or, that the guid­ance con­tained in the non-stat­utory devel­op­ment brief for this site set out that devel­op­ment should be up to ¹⁄₂ storeys. This was amended in the sub­sequent applic­a­tion for the wider site where 134 storey devel­op­ment was put for­ward in the accom­pa­ny­ing design and access statement.

5. The applic­ant is now put­ting for­ward the case for 2 storey hous­ing on the applic­a­tion site. The fin­an­cial reas­ons behind this are not con­sidered to be an over­rid­ing plan­ning con­sid­er­a­tion, but simply an explan­a­tion from the developer as to why they have gone down this route. The land use plan­ning con­sid­er­a­tion here is simply wheth­er or not on this par­tic­u­lar site two storey prop­er­ties as pro­posed are acceptable.

6. Giv­en that the house designs are sat­is­fact­ory, there are no adverse impacts on amen­ity of neigh­bours and sec­tions demon­strate that the houses will sit accept­ably on the sites there is no plan­ning policy reas­on to refuse the applic­a­tion simply because it does not com­ply fully with the guid­ance con­tained in the design brief and devel­op­ment brief. It is also noted that the height of the pro­posed two storey houses to ridge at highest point will be around 8.5 metres as com­pared to the height to ridge of around 8 metres for the ¹³⁄₄ storey units a dif­fer­ence as noted by the applic­ants of around 0.5 metres. In these cir­cum­stances the scale of dif­fer­ence in ridge height arising from the use of two storey units on the applic­a­tion site is not con­sidered to be significant.

7. In these over­all cir­cum­stances the applic­a­tion is con­sidered to com­ply with Policy 3: Sus­tain­able Design and Policy 5: Land­scape of the Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 6 15/11/2019

Res­id­en­tial Amenity

1. Policy 3: Sus­tain­able Design of the Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015 seeks to pro­tect the amen­ity of neigh­bours. In this regard the houses are loc­ated suf­fi­ciently far from exist­ing houses so as to ensure that exist­ing res­id­en­tial amen­ity and pri­vacy is retained with a wide land­scape strip sep­ar­at­ing the pro­posed devel­op­ment from the res­id­en­tial prop­erty on the east bound­ary (the Dulaig) and sim­il­arly a land­scaped buf­fer is pro­posed on the north bound­ary pro­tect­ing the amen­ity of the prop­erty to the north (Revoan). The pro­posed res­id­en­tial units have appro­pri­ate garden and open space pro­vi­sion and are loc­ated and ori­ent­ated suf­fi­ciently far from neigh­bour­ing prop­er­ties to the south to safe­guard the pri­vacy and amen­ity of these prop­er­ties. The devel­op­ment is there­fore con­sidered to com­ply with Policy 3: Sus­tain­able Design of the Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015.

2. Finally with regard to res­id­en­tial amen­ity whilst there will inev­it­ably be a degree of dis­turb­ance from the con­struc­tion of new devel­op­ment, par­tic­u­larly for those prop­er­ties closest, any undue dis­turb­ance can be con­trolled through Envir­on­ment­al Health legis­la­tion. This Ser­vice has not sought to duplic­ate such con­trols or to impose con­di­tions relat­ing to con­struc­tion oper­a­tion­al hours on plan­ning con­sents in the Nation­al Park, or indeed on this over­all devel­op­ment site, but instead has used stand­ard inform­at­ives on con­struc­tion hours. Con­sequently it is not con­sidered appro­pri­ate to impose addi­tion­al con­di­tions on this development.

3. Accord­ingly, the applic­a­tion is con­sidered to com­ply with Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan Policy 3: Sus­tain­able Design.

Envir­on­ment­al Impacts

1. Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Her­it­age seeks to ensure that there are no adverse effects on European Pro­tec­ted Spe­cies and oth­er biod­iversity interests.

2. Sat­is­fact­ory sur­veys were sub­mit­ted with the ori­gin­al applic­a­tion here to demon­strate that there will be no adverse impacts on hab­it­ats and gen­er­al spe­cies with suit­able enhance­ment and mit­ig­a­tion oppor­tun­it­ies provided which will ulti­mately enhance biod­iversity along with the pro­posed land­scape pro­vi­sion with­in the site which can provide biod­iversity as well as land­scape benefits.

3. In terms of European Pro­tec­ted Spe­cies, a sat­is­fact­ory Spe­cies Pro­tec­tion Plan was pre­vi­ously provided to secure that will be no harm or dis­turb­ance to otter which use the Kylin­tra Burn here, togeth­er with re-design of the cul­vert pro­posed under the new road which has been designed to ensure the safe pas­sage of otter.

4. The pro­posed land­scap­ing will deliv­er biod­iversity bene­fits over time as will the pro­vi­sion of bat and bird boxes on site all of which is wel­comed. Recom­mend­a­tions made by the CNPA Eco­logy Advisor for bat or bird box pro­vi­sion for each unit can be read­ily addressed by plan­ning con­di­tions, whilst the impacts of the wider site on des­ig­nated sites in the area was fully con­sidered with the pre­vi­ous applic­a­tion with a Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tion Apprais­al under­taken then and mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures required (site

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 6 15/11/2019

spe­cif­ic con­struc­tion meth­od state­ment) fol­lowed dur­ing con­struc­tion of the asso­ci­ated infrastructure.

1. It is there­fore con­sidered that the applic­a­tion com­plies with Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Her­it­age of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015.

Envir­on­ment­al Impacts – Flood­ing and Sur­face Water Drainage

1. Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan Policy 10: Resources requires that all devel­op­ment should be free from sig­ni­fic­ant risk of flood­ing, not increase the risk of flood­ing else­where, not add to the area of land requir­ing flood pre­ven­tion meas­ures and not affect the abil­ity of the func­tion­al flood plain to store or move flood waters. This policy also requires that all devel­op­ment should avoid det­ri­ment­al impacts on the water envir­on­ment, with exist­ing and poten­tial impacts up and down­stream of the devel­op­ment, par­tic­u­larly in respect of poten­tial flood­ing, to be addressed. It pre­sumes against unne­ces­sary cul­vert­ing of water­courses and any unne­ces­sary engin­eer­ing works in the water envir­on­ment. This policy also requires that sur­face water be treated in accord­ance with the SUDS manual.

2. The issue was con­sidered fully at the time of the ori­gin­al plan­ning con­sent here. As part of this con­sid­er­a­tion a cut off drain was provided with­in part of the cur­rent applic­a­tion site and as noted by the object­or it is import­ant that this is pro­tec­ted dur­ing the con­struc­tion of the new houses on the cur­rent site. This mat­ter can be read­ily addressed by plan­ning con­di­tion in the event of the applic­a­tion being supported.

3. Oth­er­wise in terms of sur­face water drain­age the cur­rent site will con­nect to the approved SUDS arrange­ments and pond con­struc­ted on the site.

4. In these cir­cum­stances and sub­ject to an appro­pri­ate con­di­tion regard­ing the cut off drain the pro­posed devel­op­ment is con­sidered to com­ply with Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan Policy 10: Resources.

Ser­vi­cing

1. Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan Policy 3: Sus­tain­able Design requires that all devel­op­ment should include appro­pri­ate access and off street park­ing arrange­ments, as well as pro­mot­ing sus­tain­able travel meth­ods includ­ing pro­vi­sion for bicycle stor­age and redu­cing the over­all need to travel whilst Policy 10: Resources requires that there are no adverse impacts on the water environment.

2. The site is well loc­ated in terms of its prox­im­ity to the ser­vices and facil­it­ies of Grant­own, with­in ready walking/​cycling dis­tance of the town centre thus redu­cing the need to depend on cars for travel. Fur­ther­more, the pro­posed devel­op­ment makes suit­able pro­vi­sion for path links to the sur­round­ing res­id­en­tial areas which will help sup­port the desired move to sus­tain­able travel which does not depend on cars.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 6 15/11/2019

1. The roads lay­out is con­sidered to be sat­is­fact­ory by the High­land Coun­cil Trans­port Plan­ning Team, sub­ject to pro­vi­sion of a foot­way cross­ing as opposed to form­al junc­tion at the access point to plots 25 – 29 in order to give pri­or­ity to non-motor­ised users of the net­work here. This can be read­ily addressed by an appro­pri­ate plan­ning con­di­tion in the event of the applic­a­tion being sup­por­ted. Sim­il­arly an inform­at­ive can be attached advising the applic­ants to con­tact the Trans­port Plan­ning Team regard­ing any changes required to their Road Con­struc­tion Consent.

2. Over­all, the site can be sat­is­fact­or­ily ser­viced, con­nect­ing to the pre­vi­ously approved roads and sur­face water drain­age arrange­ments, and to pub­lic water and sewage ser­vices, with con­di­tions cov­er­ing this attached to the wider consent.

3. Finally in rela­tion to ser­vi­cing it is pro­posed to use photo­vol­ta­ic pan­els on the devel­op­ment This type of energy pro­vi­sion is in line with the Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan policy 3 Sus­tain­able Design which seeks to min­im­ise the effect of devel­op­ment on cli­mate change and with Policy 8: Renew­able Energy of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015.

4. In these cir­cum­stances the devel­op­ment is con­sidered to com­ply with Policy 3: Sus­tain­able Design and Policy 10: Resources of the Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015.

Afford­able Housing

1. Loc­al Development