Item6AABraemarHousingCommitteeReport

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 24/06/2022

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

DEVEL­OP­MENT PROPOSED:

Erec­tion of 15 Dwell­ing­houses and Asso­ci­ated Infra­struc­ture at Site At Kin­drochit Court Mar Road Brae­mar Aberdeenshire

REF­ER­ENCE: 2021/0166/DET

APPLIC­ANT: Brae­mar Com­munity Council

DATE CALLED-IN: 24 May 2021

RECOM­MEND­A­TION: Approve, sub­ject to Con­di­tions, Leg­al Agree­ment and Developer Contribution

CASE OFFICER: Stephanie Wade, Plan­ning Officer

CNPA Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Applic­a­tion Site

0 25 50 Meters N 100

Crown copy­right and data­base rights 2022. Ord­nance Sur­vey Licence num­ber 100040965

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 24/06/2022

SITE DESCRIP­TION, PRO­POS­AL AND HISTORY

Site Descrip­tion

1. The applic­a­tion site is loc­ated on brown­field land with­in the set­tle­ment bound­ary of Brae­mar, on its south edge, to the south west of Kin­drochit Court. The site is cur­rently accessed by an un-adop­ted road which exits from the road, loop­ing around the Brae­mar Mews and heads west­wards to the site, between exist­ing houses. On the site are a couple of former Mar Estate farm and stor­age build­ings which are con­tained by mature trees to the south and west. The exist­ing access track extends through the site to join a track lead­ing north­ward to Mar Road. There are some foot­paths which tra­verse the site and its imme­di­ate sur­round­ings. It is under­stood that the exist­ing build­ings have been used for stor­age pur­poses in more recent times but now remain redund­ant in use.

2. The site is loc­ated with­in the Brae­mar Con­ser­va­tion Area and with­in the wider des­ig­na­tion of the Deeside and Loch­nagar Nation­al Scen­ic Area. Core path UDE54 runs along Cluniebank Road.

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=QT90W8SI0CH00

Title Draw­ing Date on Date Num­ber Plan* Received

PLANS Plan — Loc­a­tion Plan [LP]01_Rev.C 28/07/21 28/07/21 Plan — Site Plan Exist­ing Topo [EE]01_Rev.D 28/07/21 28/07/21 Plan — Block Plan [PP]05_Rev.M 11/04/22 13/04/22 Plan — Block A Elev­a­tions [PP]01_Rev.C 12/08/21 12/08/21 Plan — Block A Plans [PP] 12_Rev.C 07/05/21 24/05/21 Plan — Block B Elev­a­tions [PP]02_Rev.D 24/11/21 24/11/21 Plan — Block B Plans [PP]13_Rev.B 22/04/21 24/05/21 Plan — Block C Elev­a­tions [PE]03_Rev.C 12/08/21 12/08/21 Plan — Block C Plans [PP]14_Rev.B 22/04/21 24/05/21 Plan — Con­text Elevations/​Sec­tions [PP]04_Rev.B 12/08/21 12/08/21 Plan — Road Route [PP]01_Rev.L 11/04/22 13/04/22 Plan — Road Adop­tion Lay­out 2009−12−903 Rev.C 23/03/22 13/04/22 Plan — Road Lay­out 2009−12−902 Rev.C 23/03/22 13/04/22 Plan — Drain­age and Hard­stand­ing 2009−12−900 Rev.C 23/03/22 13/04/22 Lay­out Plan — Site Wide Drain­age 2009−12−901 Rev.C 23/03/22 13/04/22 Plan — Vehicle Track­ing Lay­out 2009−12−950 Rev.B 23/03/22 13/04/22

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 24/06/2022

Plan — Road Sec­tions 2009−12−904 Rev.B 19/11/21 24/11/21 Plan — Gen­er­al Land­scape Lay­out KC2164-RFB-XX- 12/04/22 13/04/22 GF-DR-AL-0002 Rev.H Plan — Detailed Land­scape Lay­out KC2164-RFB-XX- 12/04/22 13/04/22 GF-DR-AL-0003 Rev.H Plan — Tree Remov­al Plan [PP]09_Rev.E 23/02/22 24/02/22 Plan — Tree Con­straints Plan KC2164-RFB-XX- 08/11/21 25/11/21 GF-DR-AL-0001 REV.B Plan — Pro­posed Cycle Store [PP]20_Rev.A 24/11/21 24/11/21 Plan — Scot­tish Water Fresh Water 16/10/20 12/08/21 Plan Plan — Scot­tish Water Waste Water 16/10/20 12/08/21 Plan — Demoli­tion Site Plan [EE]-2_Rev.B 05/08/21 12/08/21 Plan — A/B Com­mun­al Garden [PD]06 24/05/21 Visu­al­isa­tion Plan — B/C Com­mun­al Garden [PD]04 24/05/21 Visu­al­isa­tion Plan — Block A Gable Visu­al­isa­tion [PD]03 24/05/21 Plan — Block C Gable Visu­al­isa­tion [PD]02 24/05/21 Plan — Block C South Elev­a­tion [PD]05 24/05/21 Plan — Exist­ing Ser­vices Draw­ing PES-607065 – 0010- 26/10/20 24/05/21 00-GF-00-AS Plan — Land­scape Sec­tions KC264-RFB-ZZ- 22/04/21 24/05/21 GF-DR-AL-004 Rev.B Plan — Street Light­ing 0002157949-E-RI 11/02/21 24/05/21

SUP­PORT­ING DOC­U­MENT­A­TION Oth­er — Squir­rel Spe­cies Pro­tec­tion 14/04/22 14/04/22 Plan Oth­er — Stage 2 Road Safety Audit 117422(2) 11/04/22 13/04/22 Report Oth­er — Land­scape, Biod­iversity & 2164/LBWMP 13/04/22 13/04/22 Com­munity Wood­land Man­age­ment Rev.D Plan Oth­er — Wood­land NVC Sur­vey Revision.A 21/02/22 24/02/22 Oth­er — Agent response to con­sul­tees Version.02 24/11/21 25/11/21 updated Oth­er — Geo-Envir­on­ment­al and 140423 Doc 01 01/01/21 24/11/21 Geo­tech­nic­al Pre­lim­in­ary Investigation

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 24/06/2022

Oth­er — Geo-Envir­on­ment­al and ¹⁴⁰⁴²³⁄₉₀₀₀ 06/01/21 24/11/21 Geo­tech­nic­al Pre­lim­in­ary Invest­ig­a­tion Appendix I Oth­er — Geo-Envir­on­ment­al and ¹⁴⁰²³⁄₉₀₀₁ 06/01/21 24/11/21 Geo­tech­nic­al Pre­lim­in­ary Invest­ig­a­tion Appendix I- Pre­lim­in­ary Con­cep­tu­al Mod­el Oth­er — Geo-Envir­on­ment­al and 24/11/21 Geo­tech­nic­al Pre­lim­in­ary Invest­ig­a­tion- Appendix 4- Scot­tish Water Oth­er — Geo-Envir­on­ment­al and 20753817 09/12/20 24/11/21 Geo­tech­nic­al Pre­lim­in­ary Invest­ig­a­tion Appendix 4 — Linesearch Oth­er — Breed­ing Bird Sur­vey Report 18/08/21 02/11/21 Oth­er — Drain­age Impact Assess­ment 210630 Rev.A 12/08/21 Oth­er — Bat Sur­vey Report for the 12/08/21 12/08/21 Build­ings Oth­er — Red Squir­rel Sur­vey Report 11/08/21 12/08/21 Oth­er — Exten­ded Phase I Hab­it­at 18/12/20 25/05/21 Sur­vey and Pro­tec­ted Spe­cies Assess­ment Oth­er — Pre­lim­in­ary Ground level Bat 18/12/20 25/05/21 Roost Assess­ment Oth­er- Tree Sched­ule 1176 26/11/20 24/05/21 Oth­er — Design and Access State­ment 26/04/21 24/05/21 Sec­tions I and 2 Oth­er — Design and Access State­ment 26/04/21 24/05/21 Sec­tions 3 and 4 Oth­er — Flood Risk Assess­ment 9433 13/04/21 24/05/21 Oth­er — Geo-envir­on­ment­al Issue I 18/02/21 24/05/21 Invest­ig­a­tion Oth­er — Ground Invest­ig­a­tion Report — 140423 Doc 02 01/02/21 24/05/21 Part I Oth­er — Ground Invest­ig­a­tion Report — 140423 Doc 02 01/02/21 24/05/21 Part 2 Oth­er — Land­scape and Visu­al 15022021 15/02/21 24/05/21 Apprais­al Part | Oth­er — Land­scape and Visu­al 15022021 15/02/21 24/05/21 Apprais­al Part 2 Oth­er — Land­scape and Visu­al 15022021 15/02/21 24/05/21 Apprais­al Part 3 Oth­er — Tree Sur­vey 1176 26/11/20 24/05/21

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 24/06/2022

Oth­er — Scot­tish Water Capa­city DSCAS-0032942- 19/03/21 24/05/21 Review YNZ Oth­er — Soil Tier Risk Assess­ment 140423 24/05/21 Oth­er — Out­door Light­ing Report 0002157949-E-RI- 11/02/21 24/05/21 RTMA (P3 3000K) Oth­er — Out­door Light­ing Report 0002157949-E-RI- 11/02/21 24/05/21 RTMA (P5 2200K)

*Where no spe­cif­ic day of month has been provided on the plan, the sys­tem defaults to the 1^st of the month.

1. The applic­a­tion seeks plan­ning per­mis­sion for the erec­tion of 15 dwell­ing­houses with asso­ci­ated access, drain­age, ser­vice and land­scap­ing works. The devel­op­ment includes three blocks com­pris­ing ten flats and five ter­raced houses. All res­id­en­tial units are pro­posed to be for afford­able hous­ing for social rent in Brae­mar. The hous­ing accom­mod­a­tion sched­ule is as follows:

Num­ber of Accom­mod­a­tion Type Num­ber of Num­ber of units bed­rooms Occu­pants 2 Flat | 2 4 Flat 2 3 2 Flat 2 4 2 Flat- Dis­abled Occu­pant 2 3 5 2 storey Ter­raced house 3 5

1. Block A, situ­ated at the north­ern end of the site, com­prises 6 flats arranged over two floors. Each storey has 2 x 2‑bedroom flats and I x I bed­room flat. All flats are accessed via their own extern­al entrance and have a bal­cony area. Elev­a­tions are pro­posed as ver­tic­al larch tim­ber clad­ding col­oured blue, with ele­ments of light grey hori­zont­al clad­ding under win­dows to cre­ate visu­al interest in the design. The dual pitched roof is pro­posed to be clad with red col­oured cor­rug­ated roof sheets with trans­lu­cent sheet­ing over­hanging the first-floor bal­cony areas. Extern­al, covered, met­al stair­ways with open tim­ber clad­ding, provid­ing first floor flat access are to be installed on the east­ern, west­ern, and south­ern elev­a­tions. Each bal­cony is pro­posed with lam­in­ated glass bal­us­trades. Win­dows and doors are pro­posed as triple glazed, alu­mini­um clad tim­ber units. The ground floor flats have dir­ect access on the north­ern elev­a­tion to indi­vidu­al private gar­dens, which are to be bound by post and wire fen­cing. To the south­ern elev­a­tion are com­mun­al land­scaped areas includ­ing raingar­dens and area of orna­ment­al plant­ing with seating.

2. Block B, situ­ated cent­rally with­in the site, com­prises 4 flats arranged over two floors. The ground floor com­prises 2 x 2‑bedroom dis­abled user flats and the second floor com­prises 2 x 2‑bedroom flats, accessed via extern­al, covered stair­ways on either side of the block. Each flat has a bal­cony area on the south­ern elev­a­tion. The two dis­abled park­ing spaces are situ­ated to the east of the block with a ramp from the access­ible park­ing bays to the ground floor flat to the east and an access­ible path lead­ing around the south of the build­ing to provide access to the west­ern ground floor flat. Elev­a­tions are pro­posed as ver­tic­al larch tim­ber clad­ding col­oured ochre, with ele­ments of light

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 24/06/2022

grey hori­zont­al clad­ding under win­dows to cre­ate visu­al interest in the design. The dual pitched roof is pro­posed to be clad with red col­oured cor­rug­ated roof sheets with trans­lu­cent sheet­ing over­hanging the first-floor bal­cony areas. Win­dows and doors are pro­posed as triple glazed, alu­mini­um clad tim­ber units. The ground floor flats have dir­ect access on the north­ern elev­a­tion to indi­vidu­al private gar­dens, which are to be bound by post and wire fen­cing. To the south­ern elev­a­tion are com­mun­al land­scaped areas includ­ing raingar­dens and area of orna­ment­al plant­ing with a path net­work and seating.

1. Block C, situ­ated at the south­ern end of the site, com­prises the 5 ter­raced houses. Elev­a­tions are pro­posed as ver­tic­al larch tim­ber clad­ding col­oured dark green with ele­ments of light grey hori­zont­al clad­ding under win­dows to cre­ate visu­al interest in the design. The dual pitched roof is pro­posed to be clad with red col­oured cor­rug­ated roof sheets, with two roof­lights on the south­ern side. The south­ern elev­a­tion also has two one and half storey ele­ments set for­ward from the two-storey sec­tion, help­ing to break up build­ing mass and provid­ing a change in eaves height to reduce scale. Win­dows and doors are pro­posed as triple glazed, alu­mini­um clad tim­ber units. Entrance doors to each dwell­ing, on the north, west and east elev­a­tions are pro­posed with a flat roof can­opy. Bound­ary treat­ments to the south­ern garden areas for each dwell­ing are to be a mix of ver­tic­al tim­ber fen­cings with glazed sec­tions above a gabi­on wall.

2. A new adopt­able road is pro­posed to be installed to the south of the site with an access junc­tion onto the Cluniebank Road. The access junc­tion is pro­posed to have vis­ib­il­ity splays of 2.4m x 90m in both dir­ec­tions. A passing place is to be installed on the access road approx­im­ately 75m from the junc­tion and traffic calm­ing meas­ures are pro­posed to be installed to ensure that the speed of vehicles with­in the site is restric­ted to 15mph. This is due to the site being oper­ated as a Home Zone with shared spaces for vehicles and ped­es­tri­ans and no form­al segreg­a­tion. The traffic calm­ing meas­ures include changes in sur­face col­our and tex­ture and the use of bends in the road to slow traffic speeds. The adopt­able area stops at the north-east­ern end of Block C, with a turning‑T for the refuse lorry. Exist­ing tracks to the north of the site and to the north­east to join Kin­drochit Court will be con­nec­ted to the devel­op­ment so that access to exist­ing cot­tages to the north of the site is main­tained. The north­ern sec­tion of shared space will be main­tained privately. A total of 25 park­ing spaces are to be provided on site in three blocks. This includes 23 vehicu­lar spaces and 2 access­ible park­ing spaces. Cycle stor­age is pro­posed between Blocks A and B in a pur­pose built shed. The shed is pro­posed with stone gabi­on elev­a­tions under white col­oured, ver­tic­al tim­ber clad­ding and a red cor­rug­ated, dual pitched roof. The store provides lock­able stor­age for 12 bicycles.

3. Regard­ing water sup­ply, the devel­op­ment is pro­posed to be con­nec­ted to the Scot­tish Water Mains Water sup­ply in the area. For foul sew­er­age, con­nec­tions are also pro­posed to the Mains sew­er­age net­work and sur­face water is pro­posed to use an infilt­ra­tion sys­tem into soakaways. Heat­ing for all units is pro­posed via ground source heat pumps.

4. Dur­ing the pro­gres­sion of the applic­a­tion, sev­er­al amend­ments and fur­ther inform­a­tion has been sub­mit­ted in response to con­sulta­tion quer­ies. These changes pre­dom­in­antly relate to the road and drain­age lay­outs, with fur­ther eco­lo­gic­al and land­scap­ing inform­a­tion provided. Plans of the pro­pos­al can be found at Appendix 1.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 24/06/2022

His­tory

1. The applic­a­tion site pre­vi­ously bene­fit­ted from plan­ning per­mis­sion gran­ted in 2014. Applic­a­tions 07/222/CP and 07/223/CP per­mit­ted full plan­ning per­mis­sion and con­ser­va­tion area con­sent for the demoli­tion of the agri­cul­tur­al build­ings togeth­er with the erec­tion of five dwell­ings and six flats.

2. Sub­mit­ted at the same time as the applic­a­tion being con­sidered with­in this report was an applic­a­tion for Con­ser­va­tion Area Con­sent (ref: 2021/0158/CON). This applic­a­tion sought con­ser­va­tion area con­sent for the demoli­tion of the agri­cul­tur­al build­ings. Dur­ing the pro­gres­sion of the Con­ser­va­tion Area Con­sent applic­a­tion, it became appar­ent that the pre­vi­ous per­mis­sions gran­ted for the demoli­tion of these build­ings is extant and the 2021 applic­a­tion was super­flu­ous and sub­sequently with­drawn. Sep­ar­ate to the plan­ning pro­cess, it is con­firmed that a build­ing war­rant was gran­ted for the demoli­tion of the agri­cul­tur­al build­ings on site in Septem­ber 2021 with an expir­a­tion date of three years from Septem­ber 2021.

Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Appraisal

1. A Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al [HRA] has been under­taken to con­sider the effects of the pro­pos­al upon the con­ser­va­tion object­ives of the European Sites as lis­ted with­in the doc­u­ment- attached at Appendix 2. The European site poten­tially affected col­lect­ively relate to the nearby caper­cail­lie Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Areas and the River Dee Spe­cial Area of Conservation.

2. Regard­ing Caper­cail­lie and Scot­tish cross­bill of the SPA’s, the doc­u­ment con­cludes there is no likely sig­ni­fic­ant effect for the spe­cies and the apprais­al does not con­sider it fur­ther. This is due to the hab­it­ats not being dir­ectly affected by the pro­posed devel­op­ment, with dis­turb­ances being unlikely to occur con­sid­er­ing the inter­ven­ing topo­graphy and the use of exist­ing pro­moted paths where there an exist­ing level of human activ­ity occurring.

3. Regard­ing the River Dee SAC, a plan­ning con­di­tion is required for the agree­ment and imple­ment­a­tion of a Con­struc­tion Meth­od State­ment and pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion meas­ures to pre­vent sed­i­ment enter­ing the Clunie Water. Sub­ject to this con­di­tion, the con­ser­va­tion object­ives will be met and there will not be an adverse effect on site integrity.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 24/06/2022

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 (2021) 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 X POLICY 3 DESIGN & PLACE­MAK­ING X POLICY 4 NAT­UR­AL HER­IT­AGE X POLICY 5 LAND­SCAPE X POLICY 6 THE SIT­ING AND DESIGN OF DIGIT­AL COM­MU­NIC­A­TIONS EQUIP­MENT POLICY 7 RENEW­ABLE ENERGY POLICY 8 OPEN SPACE, SPORT AND RECRE­ATION POLICY 9 CUL­TUR­AL HER­IT­AGE X POLICY 10 RESOURCES X POLICY 11 DEVELOPER CON­TRI­BU­TIONS X

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​-​L​D​P​-​2​0​2​1​-​w​e​b.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 I New Hous­ing Devel­op­ment Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance X Policy 2 Sup­port­ing Eco­nom­ic Growth Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance X Policy 3 Sus­tain­able Design Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance (2015) X Policy 4 Nat­ur­al Her­it­age Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance X Policy 5 Land­scape Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance X Policy 7 Renew­able Energy Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance Policy 8 Sport and Recre­ation Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance Policy 9 Cul­tur­al Her­it­age Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance X Policy 10 Resources Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance X Policy 11 Developer Con­tri­bu­tions Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance X (2015)

1. Also of rel­ev­ance is alloc­a­tion of the site alloc­a­tion with the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021. Alloc­a­tion ​‘H3: Kin­drochit Court’ cov­ers the site area of the exist­ing plan­ning per­mis­sion for 11 dwell­ings. The site has pre­vi­ously been

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 24/06/2022

developed and provides an import­ant oppor­tun­ity to con­trib­ute to meet­ing Braemar’s afford­able hous­ing needs. The site is with­in the Brae­mar Con­ser­va­tion Area.

CON­SULTA­TIONS

Sum­mary of the main issues raised by consultees

1. NatureScot agrees with the con­clu­sions of the apprais­al, that there is a likely sig­ni­fic­ant effect on the qual­i­fy­ing fea­tures of the River Dee SAC. How­ever, provided a con­di­tion is attached to a plan­ning con­sent requir­ing the pro­duc­tion and agree­ment of a Con­struc­tion Meth­od State­ment pri­or to work com­men­cing on site, they agree that there will not be an adverse effect on the integ­rity of the SAC.

2. Aber­deen­shire Roads Team raises no objec­tion to the applic­a­tion. They con­firm that the applic­ant has developed the pro­pos­al in liais­on with CNP and Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil RD Ser­vices. The unique lay­out has been agreed as an accept­able solu­tion for this devel­op­ment. A detailed RCC applic­a­tion should be made at which time the pro­posed details can be con­sidered fully and con­sen­ted for con­struc­tion through the RCC pro­cess. Regard­ing park­ing arrange­ments, it is con­firmed that the 25 spaces shown are adequate for this devel­op­ment con­sid­er­ing that the spaces will not be alloc­ated to prop­er­ties. Plan­ning Con­di­tions are recom­men­ded cov­er­ing: the pro­vi­sion of all sur­faced areas includ­ing park­ing spaces pri­or to the occu­pa­tion of dwell­ings; and pro­vi­sion of the vis­ib­il­ity splays.

3. Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil Flood Risk Man­age­ment Team ori­gin­ally sought the sub­mis­sion of fur­ther inform­a­tion to inform their assess­ment of the drain­age pro­pos­als. Hav­ing reviewed the latest drain­age scheme which util­ises soakaways togeth­er with the revised drain­age cal­cu­la­tions, the Team has no com­ment on the applic­a­tion and does not raise any objec­tion to the scheme. Regard­ing flood risk, the Team request the inclu­sion of a plan­ning con­di­tion to ensure no land rais­ing is per­mit­ted and per­mit­ted devel­op­ment rights are removed from the area of land below the 339.4m contour.

4. Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil Con­tam­in­ated Land Team con­firms that the sub­mit­ted Pre­lim­in­ary Invest­ig­a­tion Report’s con­tents, con­clu­sions and recom­mend­a­tions are sat­is­fact­ory. Addi­tion­al intrus­ive site invest­ig­a­tion and a remedi­al scheme are still required. Since the build­ings requir­ing demoli­tion are present on site then, to allow an adequate intrus­ive invest­ig­a­tion to take place, the addi­tion­al invest­ig­a­tion, sub­mis­sion for approv­al of a remedi­al scheme and the exe­cu­tion of the remedi­al works should be the sub­ject of a plan­ning condition.

5. Aber­deen­shire Built Her­it­age Team wel­comes the pro­posed amend­ments to the scheme which include the reduc­tion in height of Block C, the dark­er green stain­ing and the break­ing up of the glazed ele­ments. The Officer quer­ied the col­our­ing of Block B and would still like to see the use of a more nat­ur­al tone. The Officer also quer­ied the use of the same roof col­our­ing across all three blocks and what the wider land­scape view will be across the roof pro­files, con­sid­er­ing there are no oth­er large blocks of mul­tiple cor­rug­ated roof build­ings in prox­im­ity. The Officer recom­mends plan­ning con­di­tion for the final agree­ment of extern­al mater­i­al col­ours and fin­ishes. The Officer

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 24/06/2022

also sug­ges­ted that the use of stone walls would be more appro­pri­ate to the set­tle­ment that the pro­posed bound­ary treatments.

1. Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil Hous­ing Officer con­firms there a demand for afford­able hous­ing in Brae­mar. They note that this devel­op­ment is an off-site con­tri­bu­tion for pre­vi­ous plan­ning applic­a­tions 07/219/CP and 07/222/CP and as such there is an oblig­a­tion for all units to be afford­able hous­ing. The Hous­ing Team there­fore wel­come the inclu­sion of 100% afford­able hous­ing by the com­munity group. Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil also require a leg­al agree­ment that pro­tects the afford­able hous­ing and main­tains the hous­ing authority’s agreed rights of nom­in­a­tion with­in the project’s alloc­a­tion policies.

2. Aber­deen­shire Waste Man­age­ment Team has a hold­ing objec­tion to pre­vi­ous ver­sions of the pro­posed road lay­out due to the access road appear­ing to be very tight and request­ing a width of 3metres with no growth/​obstruc­tions. The Officer also con­sidered that the num­ber of passing places was not appro­pri­ate for the length of the road. Fol­low­ing revi­sions to the scheme, the Officer has not provided amended comments.

3. Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil Developer Oblig­a­tions Officer has reviewed the sub­mit­ted pro­pos­al in respect of devel­op­ment con­tri­bu­tions and notes that con­tri­bu­tions have already been received under the pre­vi­ous per­mis­sion for a total of 11 units. This pro­pos­al equates to 12.6 hous­ing units equi­val­ents (in developer con­tri­bu­tion terms) and the assess­ment is based on the house unit equi­val­ent uplift only. The Officer’s assess­ment con­firms that no mit­ig­a­tion is required for Edu­ca­tion, how­ever a developer con­tri­bu­tion is required towards health­care pro­vi­sion and the exten­sion to Brae­mar Health Centre to cater for the addi­tion­al capa­city requirements.

4. Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil Archae­olo­gist con­firms that no archae­olo­gic­al mit­ig­a­tion is required.

5. Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil Envir­on­ment­al Health Officer has no objec­tions and no spe­cif­ic comments.

6. Scot­tish Forestry con­firms that the applic­ant must clearly demon­strate how the pro­posed devel­op­ment and the com­pens­a­tion meas­ures will deliv­er sig­ni­fic­ant addi­tion­al pub­lic bene­fits in accord­ance with the remov­al of ancient wood­land policy.

7. CNPA Eco­logy Officer has no objec­tions to the pro­pos­al fol­low­ing the refine­ments made to the scheme through­out the pro­gres­sion of the applic­a­tion. The Officer has the fol­low­ing com­ments: a) Tree Remov­al- The Officer wel­comes the doc­u­ment. 37 trees in total are pro­posed to be removed and it is con­firmed that only cat­egory U trees shown to have a health and safety con­cern will be removed with­in the wood­land man­age­ment area. It is also con­firmed that the felled aspen tree is pro­posed to remain on site as dead­wood which is of high value for biodiversity.

b) Impact on Red Squir­rel- The Officer wel­comes the design to retain low vehicle speeds through­out the site and pro­posed sig­nage to reduce col­li­sion risk to red ||

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 24/06/2022

squir­rel. This is also reflec­ted with­in the mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures out­lined in the red squir­rel spe­cies pro­tec­tion plan. The oth­er mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures include tim­ings, pre- start sur­veys, nest boxes, sup­ple­ment­ary feed­ing, rope bridges, licen­cing and work­ing dis­tances which are suf­fi­cient to ensure a nat­ur­al out­come for red squir­rels on the site.

c) Land­scape Plan and the Land­scape, Biod­iversity and Com­munity Wood­land Man­age­ment Plan – includes all the wood­land area and this is wel­comed and includes the cre­ation and man­age­ment of vari­ous hab­it­ats with­in the site. Nor­way Spruce out­side of the felling required for the devel­op­ment is pro­posed to be retained for the bene­fit of the squirrels.

1. CNPA Land­scape Officer con­siders that over­all, the pro­pos­als will bene­fit the site and its land­scape char­ac­ter without det­ri­ment to the wider vil­lage or its set­ting. The pro­posed hous­ing will change the char­ac­ter of the site how­ever this is cur­rently dom­in­ated by the agri­cul­tur­al sheds which has a strongly adverse effect on the site. On bal­ance it is likely the new hous­ing will be a more pos­it­ive addi­tion to the site. The pro­posed plant­ing will help mit­ig­ate any visu­al impacts of the pro­pos­al, includ­ing its new road, as this will fil­ter views out­side the site to a reas­on­able extent. This is import­ant con­sid­er­ing the loc­a­tion at the entrance to the village.

2. There will be more than 30 trees removed, and the num­ber of lar­ger trees is a loss to the over­all land­scape. How­ever, this is a rel­at­ively small loss com­pared with the extent of the whole wood. The pro­posed addi­tion­al wood­land and improve­ments to the exist­ing one will mit­ig­ate the loss in the medi­um to long term. The Officer is con­tent with tree pro­tec­tion meas­ures and recom­mends hand excav­a­tion is under­taken around trees T6,7 and 7854 – 7861 to ascer­tain the pres­ence of roots.

3. There are many good fea­tures to the over­all land­scape design includ­ing the reten­tion of mature trees on the bound­ary and peri­pher­al plant­ing to par­tially screen the devel­op­ment from the sur­round­ing vil­lage. The rain garden and swales are also an oppor­tun­ity to reflect the nat­ur­al plant­ing of the area and estab­lish a strong nat­ur­al char­ac­ter for the site. The com­mun­al garden is a good way to enhance the hous­ing area without hav­ing a bland ​‘muni­cip­al’ effect and it will encour­age out­door use and foster good neigh­bour rela­tion­ships. Lastly the man­age­ment of the exist­ing wood­land should help retain its land­scape as well as eco­lo­gic­al value by ensur­ing its health into the long term.

4. With ref­er­ence to the Aber­deen­shire Her­it­age Team com­ments, the Officer con­siders the devel­op­ment is suf­fi­ciently sep­ar­ated from the main vil­lage by the wood­land and oth­er trees on site for there to be little or no sig­ni­fic­ant visu­al intru­sion. The examples sub­mit­ted by them show sim­il­ar mater­i­als and col­ours how­ever on smal­ler build­ings and this is the only key dif­fer­ence. The devel­op­ment is largely self-con­tained, and the col­our palette pro­posed is attract­ive and will give it a dis­tinct­ive iden­tity which is a good fea­ture. The Officer pre­vi­ously sug­ges­ted the use of stone walling in place of the gabi­on bas­kets which is more com­monly seen in the vil­lage. The Officer notes the agent’s insist­ence on the sug­ges­ted walling being unaf­ford­able and whilst the Officer still main­tains walling would be a bet­ter bound­ary fea­ture than the pro­posed gabi­ons, like

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 24/06/2022

the build­ing col­ours, some­thing that will con­trib­ute to the over­all char­ac­ter of the devel­op­ment but not detract from the rest of the vil­lage by itself.

1. The latest amend­ments which sought minor changes to the road lay­out for road safety pur­poses pro­pose no sig­ni­fic­ant change to the land­scap­ing and are acceptable.

2. CNPA Out­door Access Team has no objec­tions with regards to the impacts on core paths, rights of way and the exer­cise of access rights. They are con­tent the pro­pos­al has con­sidered access into the wood­land, and this has been catered for. Fol­low­ing the Officer’s request for the cycle store to be revised to accord with Trans­port Scotland’s Cyc­ling by Design 2010 (revi­sion 2, July 2020), the agent provided a revised cycle store pro­pos­al, and the Officer con­firms the revi­sion is acceptable.

3. Brae­mar Com­munity Coun­cil were con­sul­ted on the applic­a­tion but have provided no form­al comments.

REP­RES­ENT­A­TIONS

1. The applic­a­tion was advert­ised when first sub­mit­ted and again dur­ing the applic­a­tion pro­gres­sion. A total of 11 respond­ents have provided writ­ten rep­res­ent­a­tions, 10 rais­ing objec­tion and one respond­ent provid­ing gen­er­al com­ments. The full cop­ies can be found at Appendix 4.

2. The gen­er­al com­ments received cov­er the over­all suit­ab­il­ity of the site for devel­op­ment, whilst under­stand­ing the need for afford­able hous­ing with­in Braemar.

3. The let­ters of objec­tion raise the fol­low­ing concerns:

a) Loss of mature and ancient wood­land b) Impact on wild­life c) Con­cerned about the increased risk of flood­ing to neigh­bour­ing prop­er­ties d) Pro­posed Flu­vi­al flood risk on new road route e) Traffic gen­er­a­tion and asso­ci­ated noise impacts f) Pro­posed impact on visu­al amen­ity due to street and car lights g) Loss of pri­vacy by over­look­ing arising from the hous­ing h) Pro­posed blocks lie out­with the iden­ti­fied bound­ary of site H3. i) Pro­pos­al would have a det­ri­ment­al impact for those liv­ing adja­cent j) Design of homes not in keep­ing with the vil­lage k) Wrong loc­a­tion for devel­op­ment l) Issues sur­round­ing access and use of track to access prop­er­ties to the north of the site m) Impact of asbes­tos from build­ings being demolished

1. Fol­low­ing the con­sulta­tion pro­cess, the scheme has sub­sequently been revised to seek to address con­cerns raised. This is described fur­ther in para­graph 10.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 24/06/2022

APPRAIS­AL

1. The main plan­ning con­sid­er­a­tions are: the prin­ciple of devel­op­ment; the impact upon land­scape, lay­out and design; the envir­on­ment­al impacts; the his­tor­ic envir­on­ment impacts; neigh­bour­ing amen­ity impacts; access and ser­vi­cing and developer contributions.

Prin­ciple of Development

1. Policy 2.5: Pro­tect­ing Exist­ing Eco­nom­ic Activ­ity of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 allows for the altern­at­ive use of tour­ism sites cur­rently in, or last used for eco­nom­ic, employ­ment or tour­ism pur­poses where:

a) It is sat­is­fact­or­ily demon­strated that it is not prac­tic­al for fin­an­cial or oth­er reas­ons to sus­tain the exist­ing or last eco­nom­ic, employ­ment or tour­ism use; or b) The site or build­ings are unsuit­able for the busi­ness needs and impact adversely on the built and nat­ur­al envir­on­ment, loc­al char­ac­ter, or neigh­bour­ing properties.

1. The prin­ciple of redevel­op­ing the site to provide hous­ing was ori­gin­ally estab­lished under the pre­vi­ous applic­a­tion in accord­ance with policy pro­vi­sion at that time. The devel­op­ment land sites with­in the set­tle­ment bound­ar­ies of Brae­mar. The exist­ing build­ings on the site are former agri­cul­tur­al build­ings which have in more recent years been used for loc­al stor­age pur­poses. The site rep­res­ents a brown­field oppor­tun­ity with­in a set­tle­ment where the infill policy would be applic­able. On this basis, the pro­posed loss of the busi­ness use of the site is accept­able and in accord­ance with Policy 2: Sup­port­ing Eco­nom­ic Growth of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021.

2. Policy 1: New Hous­ing Devel­op­ment of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 provides sup­port for new hous­ing devel­op­ment where it is on an iden­ti­fied alloc­ated site; or loc­ated with­in an iden­ti­fied set­tle­ment bound­ary, sub­ject to that devel­op­ment meet­ing the require­ments for the set­tle­ment and rein­for­cing and enhan­cing the char­ac­ter of the settlement.

3. The set­tle­ment object­ives for Brae­mar as out­lined with­in the 2021 Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan, includes the object­ive to ​‘deliv­er hous­ing to meet loc­al needs par­tic­u­larly afford­able housing.’

4. The devel­op­ment is put for­ward for con­sid­er­a­tion by the Com­munity Group on behalf of the com­munity to provide 15 afford­able dwell­ings in a cent­ral loc­a­tion with­in Brae­mar, mak­ing use of a brown­field site. The site util­ises the area alloc­ated with­in the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan under alloc­a­tion ​“H3”. This alloc­a­tion was based upon the devel­op­ment area of the extant plan­ning per­mis­sion for the erec­tion of 11 dwell­ings on the site and was not neces­sar­ily based upon the wider alloc­a­tion poten­tial of the imme­di­ate area. The pro­pos­al being assessed with­in this report, looks to go bey­ond that alloc­ated with­in the LDP. The proposal