Item6AACarParkBarriersCairngorm20200097DET

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 12/06/2020

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

DEVEL­OP­MENT PRO­POSED: Install­a­tion of car park bar­ri­ers at Cairngorm Moun­tain Glen­more Aviemore High­land PH22 1RB

REF­ER­ENCE: 2020/0097/DET

APPLIC­ANT: Cairngorm Moun­tain (Scot­land) Limited

DATE CALLED-IN: 14 April 2020

RECOM­MEND­A­TION: Approve sub­ject to conditions

CASE OFFICER: Rob­bie Cal­vert, Gradu­ate Planner

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CNPA Plan­ning Committee

Applic­a­tion Site

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 12/06/2020

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 12/06/2020

SITE DESCRIP­TION, PRO­POS­AL AND HISTORY

Site Descrip­tion

1. The applic­a­tion site is loc­ated in the north of the Coire Case Car Park which is adja­cent to the Cairngorm Moun­tain Ski Centre Day Lodge and Funicu­lar Rail­way Base Station.

2. The car park is accessed by the exist­ing B970 road from Glenmore.

3. The applic­a­tion site lies with­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Scen­ic Areas, but is not covered by any oth­er spe­cif­ic envir­on­ment­al des­ig­na­tions. The Glen­more Nation­al Nature Reserve lies approx­im­ately 40 metres west of the applic­a­tion site. The Cairngorms Wild Land Area No.15 as iden­ti­fied in Scot­tish Nat­ur­al Heritage’s wild land area map lies around 760 metres west of the site at its closest, circ­ling the entire ski area.

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=Q8GVV3SI0CH0 0

Title	Draw­ing Num­ber	Date on Plan*	Date Received
Loc­a­tion Plan	-	-	14/04/20
Site Plan	-	-	25/05/20
Lay­out Plan	-	-	14/04/20
Pro­posed Barriers	-	-	14/04/20

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

1. Plans of the pro­pos­al are included in Appendix I.

2. Plan­ning per­mis­sion is sought for the erec­tion of two, per­man­ent, sol­ar powered car park bar­ri­ers on the entrance and exit of the Upper Coire Cas car park on Cairngorm Moun­tain. The pro­pos­als for each bar­ri­er include a found­a­tion meas­ur­ing 2 x 2 metres with two mount­ing poles and sol­ar pan­els, a main bar­ri­er hous­ing unit with 5 metre boom and end sup­port. The entry bar­ri­er will be installed to the north entrance of the Coire Cas car park and the exit bar­ri­er on the north east.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 12/06/2020

1. The new con­trolled entry sys­tem at the Coire Cas car park will enable auto­mat­ic pay­ment for the exist­ing car park char­ging régime that has been applied between April and Octo­ber without the need for staff to man­age it.

His­tory

1. In June 2019, plan­ning per­mis­sion was gran­ted by High­land Coun­cil for the install­a­tion of tube slide, zip line and play area Coire Cas Car Park Cairngorm for a tem­por­ary peri­od only with a ces­sa­tion date on 1^st Novem­ber 2021 (ref­er­ence 19/01765/FUL). In Novem­ber 2019 an asso­ci­ated applic­a­tion was made under Sec­tion 42 of the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning (Scot­land) Act, 1997 was approved by High­land Coun­cil to amend Con­di­tion I of 19/01765/FUL requir­ing the remov­al of equip­ment dur­ing the winter period.

2. In Novem­ber 2018, plan­ning per­mis­sion was gran­ted by High­land Coun­cil for the install­a­tion of a double unit snow fact­ory in the Coire Cas car park (ref­er­ence 18/05078/FUL). In Novem­ber 2019 an applic­a­tion (ref­er­ence 19/04135/S42) for the vari­ation of con­di­tion I of plan­ning per­mis­sion 18/05078/FUL to alter the ces­sa­tion date of the per­mit­ted snow fact­ory was approved by High­land Council.

3. An applic­a­tion for the install­a­tion of two tube slides and exten­sion and realign­ment of exist­ing tube slide (2020/0105/DET) on land to the south of the site has also been called in by the CNPA.

4. There have been numer­ous plan­ning applic­a­tions with­in the wider Cairngorm Moun­tain area, the most recent of which are sum­mar­ised below:

5. In May 2020, plan­ning per­mis­sion was gran­ted by the CNPA for engin­eer­ing works related to strength­en­ing the funicu­lar via­duct (ref­er­ence 2020/0076/DET).

6. In 2019, plan­ning per­mis­sion was gran­ted by the CNPA for engin­eer­ing works to smooth and re-grade land (ref­er­ence 2019/0247/DET) and for the renov­a­tion and erec­tion of exten­sion to the Ptar­mig­an Res­taur­ant build­ing (ref­er­ence 2018/0177/DET).

7. In Octo­ber 2018, plan­ning per­mis­sion was refused by the CNPA for the install­a­tion of a begin­ner and inter­me­di­ate arti­fi­cial ski slopes with asso­ci­ated ser­vices (ref­er­ence 2018/0112/DET).

8. In 2017, ret­ro­spect­ive plan­ning per­mis­sion was gran­ted by the CNPA for the ​“reten­tion of a ski area access track” (ref­er­ence 2016/0295/DET) and the High­land Coun­cil gran­ted per­mis­sion for the ​“sit­ing of a snow fact­ory unit” in (ref­er­ence 17/04736/FUL).

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 12/06/2020

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
POLICY 2	SUP­PORT­ING ECO­NOM­IC GROWTH	X
POLICY 3	SUS­TAIN­ABLE DESIGN	X
POLICY 4	NAT­UR­AL HERITAGE
POLICY 5	LAND­SCAPE	X
POLICY 6	THE SIT­ING AND DESIGN OF DIGIT­AL COM­MU­NIC­A­TIONS EQUIPMENT
POLICY 7	RENEW­ABLE ENERGY
POLICY 8	SPORT AND RECREATION	X
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. 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

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
Policy 2	Sup­port­ing Eco­nom­ic Growth Non-Stat­utory Guidance	X
Policy 3	Sus­tain­able Design Non-Stat­utory Guidance	X
Policy 4	Nat­ur­al Her­it­age Sup­ple­ment­ary Guidance
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
Policy 10	Resources Non-Stat­utory Guidance	X
Policy 11	Developer Con­tri­bu­tions Sup­ple­ment­ary Guidance

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 12/06/2020

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2020

1. The emer­ging Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (“Pro­posed Plan”) which will cov­er the peri­od of 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 on-going, the Pro­posed Plan and its con­tents cur­rently carry lim­ited weight.

CON­SULTA­TIONS

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

2. High­land Coun­cil Trans­port Plan­ning were con­sul­ted and made no objec­tion to proposals.

3. Aviemore and Vicin­ity Com­munity Coun­cil were con­sul­ted and have objec­ted to pro­pos­als due to lack of suf­fi­cient inform­a­tion and lack of stra­tegic coordin­a­tion from an approved Mas­ter­plan for the wider site. Addi­tion­al inform­a­tion was sub­sequently provided by the applicant

REP­RES­ENT­A­TIONS

1. A total of three let­ters of rep­res­ent­a­tion have been received from the Badenoch and Strath­spey Con­ser­va­tion Group (BSCG), the Cairngorms Cam­paign and one mem­ber of the pub­lic object­ing to the applic­a­tion. Cop­ies of the pub­lic responses can be viewed at Appendix 2. A sum­mary of the com­ments is provided below:

a) Bar­ri­ers will not be able to keep up with volume of traffic at peak use in the car park. b) No inform­a­tion has been provided over the spe­cif­ic loc­a­tion of the bar­ri­ers and how they are to oper­ate in terms of fee char­ging and sea­son­al­ity of use. c) Inform­a­tion regard­ing power out­put from sol­ar pan­els used to oper­ate the car park­ing bar­ri­ers insuf­fi­cient, con­cerns expressed that oper­a­tion could fail in poor weath­er con­di­tions. d) Not coordin­ated with oth­er pro­pos­als being sub­mit­ted con­cur­rently at Cairngorm Moun­tain. e) Lack of Mas­ter­plan has pre­ven­ted full pub­lic engage­ment in redevel­op­ment of site.

APPRAIS­AL

1. The main plan­ning con­sid­er­a­tions are con­sidered to be the prin­ciple of devel­op­ment and land­scape impact, design and scale and impact on the oper­a­tion of high­ways from the development.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 12/06/2020

Prin­ciple of Development

1. Policy 2: Sup­port­ing Eco­nom­ic Growth of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015 sup­ports oth­er eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment pro­pos­als which sup­port or extend the eco­nomy or which enhance the range and qual­ity of eco­nom­ic oppor­tun­it­ies or facil­it­ies will be con­sidered favour­ably if they are com­pat­ible or com­ple­ment­ary with exist­ing busi­ness activ­ity in the area and sup­ports the vital­ity and viab­il­ity of the loc­al eco­nomy and the broad­er eco­nomy of the park. Policy 8: Sport and Recre­ation also seeks to sup­port diver­si­fic­a­tion or exten­sion to exist­ing sport and recre­ation related busi­ness activities.

2. The pro­pos­al is for two small sol­ar powered auto­mat­ic bar­ri­ers at the entrance/​exit to the exist­ing upper Coire Cas car park. The use of the car park is long estab­lished and the oper­at­ors have applied car park­ing charges dur­ing the sum­mer over a num­ber of years. In this regard, the prin­ciple of devel­op­ment, which is related to the oper­a­tion of a long estab­lished ski centre car park com­plies with policy. Under nor­mal vis­it­or con­di­tions, receipt of a car park­ing charge from sum­mer vis­it­ors would sup­ple­ment oth­er rev­en­ue streams for the business.

3. It is there­fore con­sidered that the applic­a­tion com­plies with Policy 2: Sup­port­ing Eco­nom­ic Growth and Policy 8: Sport and Recre­ation of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015.

Design and Land­scape Impact

1. Policy 5: Land­scape of the Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015 seeks to ensure that all new devel­op­ment con­serves and enhances the land­scape char­ac­ter and spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies of the Nation­al Park. Sim­il­arly, Policy 3: Sus­tain­able Design seeks to ensure that devel­op­ment is suit­ably designed and min­im­ises envir­on­ment­al impacts.

2. Car park­ing bar­ri­ers are a com­mon fea­ture in many large pub­lic car park­ing facil­it­ies and this is a low impact devel­op­ment visu­ally with the bar­ri­ers being min­im­al­ist in design and scale. They will be seen in con­text of the main car, exist­ing sig­nage and wider ski infra­struc­ture both on arrival and exit and will have neg­li­gible impact on views to or from the resort either nearby or from a dis­tance. It is con­sidered that the car park­ing bar­ri­ers will not be visu­ally incon­gru­ous or detract from the wider setting.

3. The con­struc­tion will all be with­in the exist­ing car park areas and will involve the cre­ation of a small found­a­tion for the bar­ri­er hous­ing and sol­ar pan­el pole. There will be no adverse impacts on sur­round­ing hab­it­ats, spe­cies, or neigh­bour­ing sites des­ig­nated for eco­lo­gic­al or geo­lo­gic­al interest.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 12/06/2020

1. It is there­fore con­sidered that the applic­a­tion com­plies with Policy 3: Sus­tain­able Design and Policy 5: Land­scape of the Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015.

Impact on Vehicu­lar access and oper­a­tion of highways

1. Policy 3: Sus­tain­able Design and Policy 10: Resources of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015 set out the need for new devel­op­ment to be sat­is­fact­or­ily ser­viced and without harm to resources or the environment.

2. High­land Coun­cil Trans­port Plan­ning were con­sul­ted but made no objec­tion to pro­pos­als. It is con­cluded there­fore that the pro­pos­al would not res­ult in harm to the safe oper­a­tion of the high­way. There­fore the pro­posed devel­op­ment is con­sidered to com­ply with Policy 3: Sus­tain­able Design and Policy 10: Resources of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015.

Oth­er Issues Raised in Con­sulta­tions and Representations

1. A num­ber of object­ors have raised con­cern that the applic­a­tion has been sub­mit­ted in advance of any mas­ter­plan for the wider site at Cairngorm Moun­tain being pro­duced as set out in the Cairngorm and Glen­more Strategy (CGS) and the CNPA’s work­ing prin­ciples for Cairngorm Moun­tain. Both the CGS and the work­ing prin­ciples set high level object­ives for the area and reflect the CNPA’s desire for new devel­op­ment on Cairngorm to be based on a ration­al long term plan. HIE have now star­ted the pro­cess of devel­op­ing a mas­ter­plan for the whole site but this will take some months to be completed.

2. The applic­a­tion under con­sid­er­a­tion relates to an exist­ing intens­ively used car­park but is very small in scale, with min­im­al impact. Officer’s view is that the applic­a­tion does not pre­ju­dice any future devel­op­ment or man­age­ment of the ski centre that a mas­ter­plan may set out, and may enhance future devel­op­ment through improv­ing the fin­an­cial sus­tain­ab­il­ity of the exist­ing busi­ness. Officers con­sider that to delay determ­in­a­tion or to refuse plan­ning per­mis­sion of this applic­a­tion simply on the basis of the lack the mas­ter­plan would be unreasonable.

3. Con­cerns were raised by object­ors around the oper­a­tion­al capa­city of the sol­ar powered bar­ri­ers. The bar­ri­er houses a low voltage DC motor which will still work dur­ing a power out­age, includ­ing low power out­put from the photo­vol­ta­ic pan­els. This tech­no­logy is widely used in car parks and private roads across the UK and is unlikely to have sig­ni­fic­ant impact on traffic con­di­tions at peak use.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 12/06/2020

CON­CLU­SION

1. On the basis of the above, and in light of any oth­er mater­i­al con­sid­er­a­tions, the pro­pos­al is con­sidered to be in accord­ance with the devel­op­ment plan. Accord­ingly, the recom­mend­a­tion is to grant permission.

RECOM­MEND­A­TION

That Mem­bers of the Com­mit­tee sup­port a recom­mend­a­tion to the Install­a­tion of car park bar­ri­ers at Cairngorm Moun­tain Glen­more Aviemore High­land PH22 1RB sub­ject to the fol­low­ing condition:

Con­di­tion

1. The devel­op­ment shall be con­struc­ted in accord­ance with the approved plans.

Reas­on: To ensure that the new devel­op­ment con­serves and enhances the land­scape char­ac­ter of the Cairngorms Nation­al Scen­ic Area in accord­ance with Policy 3: Sus­tain­able Design and Policy 5: Land­scape of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015.

Inform­at­ives

1. The devel­op­ment hereby approved must com­mence with­in 3 years of the date of this decision notice. If devel­op­ment has not com­menced with­in this peri­od then this plan­ning per­mis­sion will lapse;

2. The per­son under­tak­ing the devel­op­ment is required to give the Plan­ning Author­ity pri­or writ­ten noti­fic­a­tion of the date on which it is inten­ded to com­mence the devel­op­ment. Attached to this decision notices is a Notice of Ini­ti­ation of Devel­op­ment for com­ple­tion and sub­mis­sion. Sub­mis­sion of this inform­a­tion assists the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Mon­it­or­ing and Enforce­ment Officer in mon­it­or­ing act­ive work with­in the area to ensure com­pli­ance with the approved details and to identi­fy and cor­rect any poten­tial prob­lems, as they arise, rather than later when it may be more dif­fi­cult and more costly to rec­ti­fy. Fail­ure to give notice would con­sti­tute a breach of plan­ning con­trol which may res­ult in enforce­ment action being taken.

3. Fol­low­ing com­ple­tion of the devel­op­ment, a noti­fic­a­tion of the com­ple­tion shall, as soon as prac­tic­able, be giv­en to the Plan­ning Author­ity. Attached to this decision notice is a Notice of Com­ple­tion of Devel­op­ment for com­ple­tion and sub­mis­sion. Sub­mis­sion of this form will assist the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Mon­it­or­ing and Enforce­ment Officer in mak­ing a final inspec­tion and check­ing com­pli­ance with the approved draw­ings and con­di­tions. If the

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 12/06/2020

devel­op­ment hereby approved is to be car­ried out in phases, then a notice of com­ple­tion should be sub­mit­ted at the com­ple­tion of each phase.

The map on the first page of this report has been pro­duced to aid in the stat­utory pro­cess of deal­ing with plan­ning applic­a­tions. The map is to help identi­fy the site and its sur­round­ings and to aid Plan­ning Officers, Com­mit­tee Mem­bers and the Pub­lic in the determ­in­a­tion of the pro­pos­al. Maps shown in the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Report can only be used for the pur­poses of the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee. Any oth­er use risks infringing Crown Copy­right and may lead to pro­sec­u­tion or civil pro­ceed­ings. Maps pro­duced with­in this Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Report can only be repro­duced with the express per­mis­sion of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity and oth­er Copy­right hold­ers. This per­mis­sion must be gran­ted in advance.