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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 10/11/2023

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

DEVEL­OP­MENT PRO­POSED: Erec­tion of dis­til­lery, 3No. ware­houses, access, park­ing, offices, bore­holes at U220 250M South East Of Spey Dam Lag­gan — Gar­va­more — Mel­garve Lag­gan Highland

REF­ER­ENCE: 2023/0267/DET

APPLIC­ANT: Spey­side Dis­til­lers Com­pany Ltd

DATE CALLED-IN: 26 June 2023

RECOM­MEND­A­TION: Approve sub­ject to conditions

CASE OFFICER: Kath­er­ine Don­nach­ie Plan­ning Officer

1

CNPA Plan­ning Com­mit­tee e

Applic­a­tion Site

0 145 290 580 Meters

Adh Dubh 20

PD Spe D 275 Grath­iea Black Craig Mas オオ N

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 10/11/2023

Ball­mis­hag Coul Farm 本体 ע 270 280 木木木 260 270 Cre­agan Tigh Mul­laich 257 Pol na Bra­cha Cre­ag ↑ nan Each Eilean Dubh 260 Dal­chully House الا Ford 454 Dùn-da-lamh 400 tort 木 QQ 350元 天天 木木 个 290 Cre­agan 260-آر Mora k 260-

h Mash­ie 300元 ‑290 T ffi 280 Crown copy­right and data­base rights 2023. Ord­nance Sur­vey Licence num­ber 100040965 NO ~2700元 Achduch­il Wolftrax ‑260- 2

259 יעי T ¥300k P 소 त्र * Blar­gie Beg 260 Inver­mask Pool 257 未來 4 360

Goir Ar ‑007 Carn a Bha­dain ۴۴ 不 2

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 10/11/2023

SITE DESCRIP­TION, PRO­POS­AL AND HISTORY

Site Descrip­tion

1. The applic­a­tion site is loc­ated to the south­w­est of the small vil­lage of Lag­gan and close to Spey Dam, where the U2014 pub­lic road runs west­wards from Lag­gan towards Mel­garve and the Cor­rieyair­ack Pass. It is cur­rently accessed off this road via a field gate just to the south­east of the dam and the bridge which car­ries the road over the River Spey. There is a fur­ther con­struc­tion bridge to the imme­di­ate west of the pub­lic road bridge which serves the renew­able energy devel­op­ments in the wider area to the west. It is under­stood that Spey dam was con­struc­ted in 1943 to allow waters to be diver­ted to Loch Lag­gan and onwards to Fort Wil­li­am to be used in hydro­elec­tric power for met­al pro­duc­tion. This dam con­trols flows in the Spey.

2. The red line applic­a­tion site is around 27 hec­tares and the applic­ants con­trol adja­cent land as out­lined in blue on the sub­mit­ted applic­a­tion. The site presently com­prises mainly grass­land used for sheep graz­ing at the time of site vis­it with an ​“U” shaped area of plant­a­tion con­ifer plant­ing in the east­ern part of the site. There is some ripari­an plant­ing along the River Spey which bounds the site to the north. There is a rocky out­crop in the middle of site close to the Gen­er­al Wade Road (which crosses the middle of the site) and slop­ing moor­land in the west­ern part with some areas of wetland/​marsh here too. There are exist­ing ditches with­in the site run­ning along the south and east boundaries.

3. The site is gently undu­lat­ing with some high­er areas such as the out­crop and some level areas to the middle. The ​“Black Craig,” which is a dis­tinct­ive poin­ted wooded hill, lies to the imme­di­ate west of the site form­ing a land­mark fea­ture in the loc­al land­scape. The sched­uled monu­ment of Dun na Lamh (pre­his­tor­ic hill fort) is loc­ated on top of this hill.

4. There are a num­ber of core paths in and around the site. As noted earli­er the Gen­er­al Wade Road crosses through the site and this is a core path and right of way. To the north of the site the long dis­tance route to the Cor­rieyair­ack pass runs along the pub­lic road lead­ing west­wards and anoth­er core path (the Cor­rieyair­ack link path) runs along an exist­ing forestry track from the pub­lic road south­ward through to the A86 trunk road, where it emerges at the Strath­mash­ie cot­tages close to the Lag­gan Wolftrax centre. (This track is pro­posed to be used as the access to the applic­a­tion site.) A fur­ther core path branches off this track and leads to the top of the Black Craig to the fort.

5. The River Spey itself is also a core path and it runs imme­di­ately to the north of the site. It is a des­ig­nated Site of Spe­cial Sci­entif­ic Interest (SSSI) and Spe­cial 3

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 10/11/2023

Con­ser­va­tion Area (SAC). The River Mash­ie runs to the far south-east of the site and crosses under the exist­ing forestry track.

1. There are a num­ber of scattered rur­al prop­er­ties in the sur­round­ing area includ­ing Coul Farm and Crath­ie Cot­tage to the north on the oth­er side of the Spey. Crath­ie Cot­tage is loc­ated on the hill­side high­er up, and Coul Farm closer to the val­ley floor. A row of cot­tages lies to the far south west at the end of the exist­ing forestry track onto the A86 road at Strathmashie/​Achduchil. Dal­chully House, a cat­egory C lis­ted build­ing of archi­tec­tur­al and his­tor­ic import­ance, lies to the east, screened from the site by topo­graphy and planting.

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=RWLSHHSIO CP00

Title Draw­ing Date on Date Num­ber Plan* Received Plan — Site Loc­a­tion Plan 0125.PL.001 21/09/23 29/09/23 Rev A Plan — Bore­hole Loc­a­tions CO23 01/04/23 22/06/23 Plan — Loc­a­tion of site CO21 01/04/23 22/06/23 invest­ig­a­tion tri­al pits and bore­holes Plan — Loc­a­tion of site C031 Rev C 22/09/23 29/09/23 invest­ig­a­tion tri­al pits and bore­holes (with levels) Plan — Plant­ing Plan erz 22.36 PO5 08/06/23 22/06/23 Rev B Plan — Site Detail Sec­tion 1 erz 22.36 SO3 22/05/23 22/06/23 Plan — Site Sec­tion 2 East West erz 22.36 SO2 22/05/23 22/06/23 Plan — Site Sec­tion 1 North erz 22.36 SO1 22/05/23 22/06/23 South Plan — Light­ing Strategy erz 22.36 03/05/23 22/06/23 SK230503 Plan — Topo­graph­ic­al Sur­vey C020 01/04/23 22/06/23 4

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 10/11/2023

Plan — Tree Con­straints Plan erz 22.36 PO5 08/06/23 22/06/23 Rev A Plan — Site entrance vis­ib­il­ity CO34 01/08/23 06/09/23 splays Plan — Dis­til­lery Elev­a­tions 0125​.PL. 301 22/09/23 29/09/23 Rev C Plan — Dis­til­lery First Floor Plan 0125​.PL. 102 22/09/23 29/09/23 Rev A Plan — Dis­til­lery Ground Floor 0125​.PL. 101 22/09/23 29/09/23 Plan Rev A Plan — Dis­til­lery Roof Plan 0125​.PL. 103 22/09/23 29/09/23 Rev A Plan — Dis­til­lery Sec­tions AA 0125​.PL. 201 22/09/23 29/09/23 and BB Rev A Plan — Dis­til­lery Sec­tions CC and 0125​.PL. 202 22/09/23 29/09/23 DD Rev A Plan — Gen­er­al Arrange­ment erz 22.36 PO2 19/09/23 29/09/23 Plan Rev H Plan — Mar­ket­ing Suite NW and 0125.PL.303 22/09/23 29/09/23 SW elev­a­tions Rev A Plan — Mar­ket­ing Suite SE and 0125.PL.304 22/09/23 29/09/23 NE elev­a­tions Rev A Plan — Mar­ket­ing Suite 0125.PL.105 22/09/23 29/09/23 Pro­posed floor plan Rev A Plan — Mar­ket­ing Suite Sec­tions 0125.PL.203 22/09/23 29/09/23 Rev A Plan — Office Elev­a­tions 0125.PL.307 22/09/23 29/09/23 Rev A 0125.PL.108 22/09/23 29/09/23 Plan — Office plan Rev A Plan — Power House Plans 0125.PL.104 22/09/23 29/09/23 Rev A Plan — Site Lay­out show­ing C032 Rev C 22/09/23 29/09/23 pro­posed drain­age lay­out Plan — Site Lay­out show­ing C030 Rev A 22/09/23 29/09/23 set­ting out Plan — Site Lay­out show­ing C033 Rev A 22/09/23 29/09/23 swept path ana­lys­is 5

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 10/11/2023

Plan — Ware­house No. 1 0125.PL.305 21/09/23 29/09/23 Elev­a­tions Rev A Plan — Ware­house No. 1 Plans 0125.PL.106 21/09/23 29/09/23 Rev A Plan — Ware­houses 2 and 3 0125.PL.306 21/09/23 29/09/23 Elev­a­tions Rev A Plan — Ware­houses 2 and 3 0125.PL.107 21/09/23 29/09/23 Plans Rev A Plan — Access Road Upgrade CO37 Rev A 01/10/23 12/10/23 Works Plan — Tree Con­straints Plan erz 22.36 PO6 08/06/23 22/06/23 Rev A Oth­er — abnor­mal load 22/06/23 assess­ment Oth­er — Design and Access 0125.DAS001 22/06/23 State­ment Part 1 Rev 3 Oth­er — Design and Access 0125.DAS001 22/06/23 State­ment Part 2 Rev 3 Oth­er — Design and Access 0125.DAS001 22/06/23 State­ment Part 3 Rev 3 Oth­er — Design and Access 0125.DAS001 22/06/23 State­ment Part 4 Rev 3 Oth­er — Design and Access 0125.DAS001 22/06/23 State­ment Part 5 Rev 3 Oth­er — EIA non-tech­nic­al 676491 Rev 2 30/05/23 22/06/23 sum­mary Oth­er — EIAR volume 1 writ­ten 676491 Rev 2 30/05/23 22/06/23 state­ment Oth­er — EIAR volume 2 Fig­ures 676491 Rev 2 30/05/23 22/06/23 Part 1 Oth­er — EIAR volume 2 Fig­ures 676491 Rev 2 30/05/23 22/06/23 Part 2 676491 Rev 2 30/05/23 22/06/23 Oth­er — EIAR volume 2 Fig­ures Part 3 Oth­er — EIAR volume 2 Fig­ures 676491 Rev 2 30/05/23 22/06/23 Part 4 Oth­er — EIAR volume 3 676491 30/05/23 22/06/23 Tech­nic­al Appen­dices Part 1 6

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 10/11/2023

Oth­er — EIAR volume 3 676491 30/05/23 22/06/23 Tech­nic­al Appen­dices Part 2 Oth­er — EIAR volume 3 676491 30/05/23 22/06/23 Tech­nic­al Appen­dices Part 3 Oth­er — EIAR volume 3 676491 30/05/23 22/06/23 Tech­nic­al Appen­dices Part 4 Oth­er — Phase 1/II Geo- 2201-06 01/05/23 22/06/23 Envir­on­ment­al and Geo­tech­nic­al Inter­pret­at­ive report Part 1 Oth­er — Phase 1/II Geo- 2201-06 01/05/23 22/06/23 Envir­on­ment­al and Geo­tech­nic­al Inter­pret­at­ive report Part 2 Oth­er — Phase 1/II Geo- 2201-06 01/05/23 22/06/23 Envir­on­ment­al and Geo­tech­nic­al Inter­pret­at­ive report Part 3 Oth­er — Phase 1/II Geo- 2201-06 01/05/23 22/06/23 Envir­on­ment­al and Geo­tech­nic­al Inter­pret­at­ive report Part 3 Oth­er — Phase 1/II Geo- 2201-06 01/05/23 22/06/23 Envir­on­ment­al and Geo­tech­nic­al Inter­pret­at­ive report Part 4 Oth­er — Peat Man­age­ment Plan 22/06/23 Oth­er — Plan­ning State­ment 22/06/23 Oth­er — Socio Eco­nom­ic 01/06/23 22/06/23 State­ment Oth­er — Trans­port­a­tion 22163 Rev 1a 17/05/23 22/06/23 Assess­ment Oth­er — Pre Applic­a­tion 06/04/23 22/06/23 Con­sulta­tion Report Oth­er — Pre Applic­a­tion 06/04/23 22/06/23 Con­sulta­tion Report Appen­dices 1 – 4 Oth­er — Dust and Air Qual­ity 07/08/23 Assess­ment 7

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 10/11/2023

Oth­er — Noise Assess­ment Rev 2 07/08/23 Oth­er — SEPA COMAH 9070 04/09/23 12/09/23 state­ment Oth­er — Out­door Access Plan 15/09/23 Oth­er — Flood Risk Assess­ment KC2194 Rev 3 27/09/23 06/10/23 Oth­er — EIAR volume 2 Fig­ures 676491 30/05/23 22/06/23 Part 5 Oth­er — EIAR volume 3 676491 28/06/23 07/08/23 Tech­nic­al Appendix 4.4 Breed­ing Bird Sur­vey Oth­er — EIAR volume 3 676491 28/06/23 07/08/23 Tech­nic­al Appendix 4.5 Rep­tile Sur­vey Oth­er — Con­struc­tion Meth­od 22/06/23 State­ment Oth­er — Con­struc­tion Noise 22/06/23 State­ment Oth­er — Con­struc­tion Traffic 22/06/23 Man­age­ment State­ment Oth­er — Visu­al Inform­a­tion — 2 D 30/10/23 renders of dis­til­lery Oth­er — Visu­al Inform­a­tion — 3D 30/10/23 renders of dis­til­lery *Where no spe­cif­ic day of month has been provided on the plan, the sys­tem defaults to the 1^st of the month.

1. This applic­a­tion seeks full plan­ning per­mis­sion for a new dis­til­lery and asso­ci­ated infra­struc­ture. The applic­a­tion is a major applic­a­tion under the terms of the Scot­tish Government’s hier­archy of devel­op­ment and is also accom­pan­ied by an Envir­on­ment­al Impact Assessment.

2. The applic­ants cur­rently oper­ate an artis­an dis­til­lery at Tromie Mills near Kin­gussie, and have out­grown these premises with their lease com­ing to an end. This has promp­ted the pro­posed relo­ca­tion of the dis­til­lery oper­a­tions to the pro­posed site which they explain will retain the con­nec­tion to the River Spey, bring all aspects of the pro­cess togeth­er, provide long term secur­ity for the busi­ness, main­tain and expand the work­force, and respond to the increased mar­ket demand for Scotch whisky which they sub­mit sup­ports growth in the Scot­tish and UK eco­nomy. At present the applic­ants trans­port their product to the cent­ral belt for mat­ur­a­tion and wish to mature the product loc­ally at the pro­posed site so sup­port­ing the whisky industry and gov­ern­ment drive for sus­tain­ab­il­ity. The applic­ants advise that the pro­posed 8

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 10/11/2023

new dis­til­lery will not gen­er­ally be open to the gen­er­al pub­lic but rather to cor­por­ate cli­ents and investors.

1. The pro­pos­al involves the fol­low­ing key components:

a) Mar­ket­ing suite — loc­ated on west­ern part of site to north of Gen­er­al Wade Road. It will sit partly into the rocky out­crop, with steel pil­lars over lower ground. It is a pitched roof build­ing with black met­al stand­ing seam clad­ding roof and walls on north elev­a­tion, tim­ber clad­ding on gables and south elev­a­tion with louvres on glazed areas, steel walk­ways, and black aluc­lad win­dows and doors. It will include a wood­burn­ing stove, office/​reception area, snug, toi­lets, mar­ket­ing suite and covered view­ing plat­form. This build­ing will act as a tast­ing room and gal­lery with private cor­por­ate enter­tain­ment space and is served by raised, ramped walk­ways. b) Dis­til­lery — a double pitched roofed build­ing with small pagoda fea­ture on roof sited on fairly level grass­land to the south of the Gen­er­al Wade Road and con­nec­ted to the mar­ket­ing suite by raised tim­ber walkway/​bridge. It will accom­mod­ate the pro­duc­tion area includ­ing stills and mash tuns, small office area and gath­er­ing space on upper level. The north elev­a­tion will be fin­ished in stone with oth­er elev­a­tions fin­ished in lime harling, with some stone fea­ture work and black tim­ber louvre fea­tures. The roof will be fin­ished in black met­al stand­ing seam clad­ding. Lime harled wall of west­ern elev­a­tion will be con­tin­ued to link the build­ing to the power­house. c) Power house a pitched roof build­ing pro­posed to south of, and con­nec­ted to, the dis­til­lery. It will be fin­ished in lime harl with black sinus­oid­al met­al roof. This will accom­mod­ate plant room, sprink­ler pump room, water treat­ment and elec­tric­al room. d) Offices a ​“H” shaped single storey build­ing loc­ated on level land to the south west of dis­til­lery com­plex on oth­er (west) side of the intern­al access road with slop­ing moor­land type land to west lead­ing up to the access track through to Strath­mash­ie Cot­tages. It will include meet­ing rooms, wood burn­ing stove, break­fast area, office, and bed­room accom­mod­a­tion with shower. It is inten­ded to accom­mod­ate busi­ness meet­ings and to provide occa­sion­al overnight accom­mod­a­tion for use in emergencies/​bad weath­er etc. It will be fin­ished in tim­ber clad­ding painted black, with nat­ur­al stone on the meet­ing room gables and black met­al sinusu­di­al roof. Black aluc­lad win­dows and doors are pro­posed with photo­vol­ta­ic pan­els on the south­w­est facing plane of roof. e) Mat­ur­a­tion Ware­houses — com­pris­ing a total of three double pitched roof build­ings fin­ished in black box pro­filed insu­lated clad­ding with black roller shut­ter doors and louvred vents. These ware­houses will be loc­ated in a row to the south­east of the new dis­til­lery build­ing set in the east­ern part of the site with exist­ing con­ifer plant­a­tion plant­ing to the north and south. 9

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 10/11/2023

Addi­tion­al new land­scap­ing is pro­posed to the east of the new build­ings where some exist­ing plant­a­tion plant­ing is to be removed. The first ware­house in the row has a lean-to exten­sion with cask­ing area with open air cask stor­age area to north for pre­fill and pipe bridge con­nect­ing to the dis­til­lery com­plex. The covered exten­sion area will house spir­it tank and dis­gor­ging tank for receiv­ing dis­tilled spir­it from the dis­til­lery for dilut­ing and trans­fer to casks to store in warehouses.

1. Oth­er com­pon­ents of the dis­tilling oper­a­tion includ­ing a cool­ing tower, sprink­ler tanks, in-ground tanks and these will be loc­ated to the south of the dis­til­lery com­plex and yard.

2. The wider site access is pro­posed from an exist­ing private track which was con­struc­ted ori­gin­ally for wind­farm and forestry traffic. It is approx­im­ately 1.5 km long and runs from its junc­tion onto the A86 Trunk road to Spean Bridge at Achduch­il (beside the Strath­mash­ie cot­tages to the west of Lag­gan) north­wards through forestry to emerge onto the minor unclas­si­fied U1204 road to Spey Dam a short dis­tance west of the applic­a­tion site. Deliv­ery, con­struc­tion, and oper­a­tion­al traffic will use this road. Access into the site itself will be via an upgraded access at gen­er­ally the same loc­a­tion as the exist­ing field gate here onto the U2104 road just west of the bridge over the Spey near to Spey Dam. This new access road will then run into the site to serve the vari­ous com­pon­ents, cross­ing over the Gen­er­al Wade Road which bisects the site. It will run round the back of the dis­til­lery where the ser­vice yard will be located.

3. Vis­it­or park­ing is pro­posed close to the site entrance and the mar­ket­ing suite, with fur­ther park­ing adja­cent to the ser­vice yard togeth­er with bicycle stor­age. Bin stor­age is also pro­posed in this area. Two elec­tric vehicle char­ging points are pro­posed adja­cent to the office. Extens­ive areas of new plant­ing are pro­posed on the site includ­ing aven­ue plant­ing along the intern­al road, hedging and wild­flower meadows.

4. Sur­face water from the roofs, roads and hard­stand­ing areas of the devel­op­ment will be dis­charged to a SuDS sys­tem com­pris­ing lined atten­u­ation ponds at the east­ern end of ware­house build­ings with dis­charge to exist­ing ditches run­ning round site. Source con­trol for sur­face water will be under­taken by way of por­ous sur­fa­cing for car park­ing areas and swales. Nat­ur­al drain­age from the hills to the south will con­tin­ue to be dir­ec­ted to the exist­ing pond/​wet area in south­w­est part of site with run off used to feed the new wet­land and SUDS pond to the west of the dis­til­lery Cool­ing water from the dis­til­la­tion pro­cess will be let out into a cool­ing pond to the east of the dis­til­lery. This clean water will be used to cre­ate a square pond designed to reflect the new build­ings, sky and land­scape. It is under­stood that water con­ser­va­tion will be achieved by reusing sur­face water run-off, col­lect­ing it 10

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 10/11/2023

and pip­ing it to the cool­ing ponds to assist in the cool­ing require­ments of the dis­til­lery. The water when cooled will be recir­cu­lated in the dis­tilling pro­cess on a closed loop sys­tem. Foul water drain­age from the new build­ings is pro­posed to be con­nec­ted to a biodisc treat­ment plant with out­fall to ditches on site.

1. Water for the pro­posed dis­til­lery will be from bore­holes to be loc­ated in the north­ern part of the applic­a­tion site. It is anti­cip­ated that the whisky pro­duc­tion will con­sume between 23, 000 to 33, 000 litres of water per week. Drink­ing water for the ancil­lary build­ings will also be from a new private supply.

2. In terms of energy for the dis­til­lery there are exist­ing power lines cross­ing the east­ern part of the site and the applic­ants have explained that heat­ing could be provided via a heat recov­ery sys­tem from the dis­tilling pro­cess and/​or air source heat pumps with photo­vol­ta­ic pan­els pro­posed on the south elev­a­tion of the office build­ing to help meet power demands. As noted earli­er, cool­ing for the dis­tilling pro­cess will in part be done pass­ively using the pro­posed adja­cent cool­ing pond so redu­cing power require­ments. The applic­ants Design and Access Strategy explains that detailed energy demand and strategy is being eval­u­ated. Much of the organ­ic waste from the dis­tilling pro­cess will be sent off site for anim­al feed, with any remain­ing waste dis­posed of off site as a by-pro­duce. Emis­sions from the dis­til­lery will be con­trolled by best avail­able techniques.

3. Numer­ous sup­port­ing doc­u­ments have been sub­mit­ted as set out in the list of plans and doc­u­ments. Key doc­u­ments include:

a) Dust and Air Qual­ity Assess­ment; b) Envir­on­ment­al Noise Assess­ment which explains the main noise sources with­in the devel­op­ment. Mit­ig­a­tion is set out includ­ing oper­a­tion­al hours, use of elec­tric­ally powered fork­lifts, restric­tion on revers­ing alarms, smooth road­ways, design of build­ings, access doors kept closed and fit­ted with self-clos­ing devices togeth­er with pre­par­a­tion of con­struc­tion meth­od state­ment which shall include how to min­im­ise con­struc­tion noise; c) Peat Man­age­ment Plan which high­lights that there are no areas of peat­land affected by the devel­op­ment; d) Out­door Access Plan which explains how use of the Gen­er­al Wade Road right of way/​core path through the site will be main­tained with tem­por­ary diver­sion along­side the River Spey; e) Con­struc­tion traffic man­age­ment state­ment, abnor­mal load assess­ment, trans­port assess­ment and con­struc­tion noise state­ment; f) Out­line con­struc­tion meth­od state­ment. g) Drain­age Strategy: h) Envir­on­ment­al and Geo­tech­nic­al inter­pret­at­ive report; 11

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 10/11/2023

i) Plan­ning State­ment; j) Socio Eco­nom­ic Statement.

1. As this devel­op­ment is a major applic­a­tion under the Scot­tish Government’s hier­archy of devel­op­ment the fol­low­ing doc­u­ments have also been included:

a) Design and Access State­ment. b) Pre-Applic­a­tion Con­sulta­tion Report which explains that two pub­lic con­sulta­tion events were held at Lag­gan Vil­lage Hall in Septem­ber and Octo­ber 2022 with the inform­a­tion boards provided online. Sev­en feed­back forms were provided at the first event with no fur­ther com­ments fol­low­ing the second event. Key issues raised were pref­er­ence for tra­di­tion­al design for ware­hous­ing rather than large green shed: loc­al employ­ment required in area; con­cern regard­ing traffic speeds at the Strath­mash­ie forestry houses and need to upgrade track; water abstrac­tion issue and rationale for site selection.

1. An Envir­on­ment­al Impact Assess­ment Report (EIAR) was also sub­mit­ted. The EIA sub­mis­sion cov­ers the fol­low­ing key areas.

a) Biod­iversity — which con­sidered impacts upon the Rivers Spey and Mash­ie, otter, fish, fresh water pearl mus­sels, rep­tiles, birds, amphi­bi­ans, water vole and hab­it­ats. Breed­ing birds were also con­sidered; b) Water envir­on­ment; c) Land­scape and visu­al includ­ing Spe­cial Land­scape Qual­it­ies Assess­ment; d) Cul­tur­al her­it­age; e) Oth­er mat­ters such as air qual­ity, noise, archae­ology, cli­mate change, pop­u­la­tion and human health, mater­i­al assets, nat­ur­al dis­asters and major acci­dents were covered by sup­port­ing state­ments with­in the EIAR.

1. Pro­posed oper­at­ing hours are set out as gen­er­ally 5 days per week Sunday even­ing to Fri­day after­noon with traffic relat­ing to staff move­ments plus HGV move­ments includ­ing grain deliv­ery, draff dis­pos­al, cask deliv­ery and export plus gen­er­al deliv­er­ies. The facil­ity will not be open to the gen­er­al pub­lic. 5 staff are employed, one will be on site overnight, and gen­er­ally three on site at any one time.

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

His­tory

1. Pre applic­a­tion advice on the pro­posed devel­op­ment was provided by CNPA who fed into the High­land Council’s response. This set out key areas to be addressed in any future sub­mis­sion (ref­er­ence PRE/2022/0004). 12

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 10/11/2023

1. CNPA also provided a con­sulta­tion response to the Pro­pos­al of Applic­a­tion Notice (ref­er­ence PRE/2022/0021) and the EIA Scop­ing Opin­ion (ref­er­ence PRE/2022/0023).

HAB­IT­ATS REG­U­LA­TIONS APPRAISAL

1. A Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al [HRA] has been under­taken to con­sider the poten­tial effects of the devel­op­ment upon the con­ser­va­tion object­ives of the Natura sites lis­ted with­in the HRA doc­u­ment which is attached as Appendix

2. The Natura site in this case is the River Spey Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion (SAC) which runs along the north­ern bound­ary of the site and is des­ig­nated for its Atlantic sal­mon, fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sels (FWPM) sea lamprey and otter interests.

3. The HRA con­siders that the cur­rent and poten­tial dis­tri­bu­tion of Atlantic sal­mon or FWPM with­in the site would not be dir­ectly affected as there will be no devel­op­ment in the water­course. How­ever, pol­lu­tion from con­struc­tion activ­it­ies (e.g., sed­i­ment, fuels, or oils) could occur intro­du­cing changes to water qual­ity, albeit tem­por­ary. The HRA, how­ever, con­cludes that any adverse impacts can be avoided/​mitigated by the pro­vi­sion and imple­ment­a­tion of a pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion plan.

4. In terms of otter the HRA con­siders that the impact will be lim­ited and there­fore loss of hab­it­ats will be neg­li­gible and there will be no loss of any iden­ti­fied rest­ing sites. Con­struc­tion activ­it­ies which may lead to dis­turb­ance of otter activ­ity will be tem­por­ary and giv­en the dis­tance from the edge of the river, dis­turb­ance would be lim­ited. Fur­ther­more, giv­en the dis­tance of the pro­posed devel­op­ment from the river, dis­turb­ance dur­ing oper­a­tion­al activ­it­ies (e.g., noise, light­ing) is con­sidered unlikely with otters using the River Spey likely to be accus­tomed to some levels of dis­turb­ance in this area giv­en the prox­im­ity to the road, Spey Dam and the access for nearby wind­farms. Provid­ing that a pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion plan is imple­men­ted it is con­sidered that there should be no sig­ni­fic­ant effects on the prey spe­cies of otter.

5. The HRA con­cludes that a Con­struc­tion Meth­od State­ment includ­ing site spe­cif­ic pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion meth­ods should be secured by con­di­tion and fully imple­men­ted dur­ing con­struc­tion. On this basis the con­ser­va­tion object­ives will be met and there will not be an adverse effect on site integ­rity for the River Spey SAC.

6. Nature Scot have con­firmed agree­ment with these con­clu­sions. 13

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 10/11/2023

DEVEL­OP­MENT PLAN CONTEXT

Policies Nation­al Policy Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 (NPF4) Scot­land 2045 POLICY 1 Tack­ling the Cli­mate and Nature Crises POLICY 2 Cli­mate Mit­ig­a­tion and Adapt­a­tion POLICY 3 Biod­iversity POLICY 4 Nat­ur­al Places POLICY 5 Soils POLICY 6 Forestry, Wood­land and Trees POLICY 7 His­tor­ic Assets and Places POLICY 12 Zero Waste POLICY 13 Sus­tain­able Trans­port POLICY 14 Design, Qual­ity and Place POLICY 18 Infra­struc­ture First POLICY 19 Heat­ing and Cool­ing POLICY 20 Blue and Green Infra­struc­ture POLICY 22 Flood Risk and Water Man­age­ment POLICY 23 Health and Safety POLICY 25 Com­munity Wealth Build­ing POLICY 26 Busi­ness and Industry POLICY 29 Rur­al Devel­op­ment Stra­tegic Policy Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2022 – 2027 Loc­al Plan Policy Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (2021) Those policies rel­ev­ant to the assess­ment of this applic­a­tion are marked with a cross POLICY 1 NEW HOUS­ING DEVEL­OP­MENT POLICY 2 SUP­PORT­ING ECO­NOM­IC GROWTH X POLICY 3 DESIGN AND PLACE­MAK­ING X POLICY 4 NAT­UR­AL HER­IT­AGE X POLICY 5 LAND­SCAPE X 14

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 10/11/2023

POLICY 6 THE SIT­ING AND DEISGN OF DIGIT­AL COM­MU­NIC­A­TIONS EQUIP­MENT POLICY 7 RENEW­ABLE ENERGY POLICY 8 OPEN SPACE, SPORT AND RECRE­ATION POLICY 9 CUL­TUR­AL HER­IT­AGE X POLICY 10 RESOURCES X POLICY 11 DEVELOPER OBLIGATIONS

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

https://www.gov.scot/publications/national-planning-framework- 4/​documents/​and at: https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​w​p​-​c​o​n​t​e​n​t​/​u​p​l​o​a​d​s​/​2​0​2​1​/​0​3​/​C​N​P​A​-​L​D​P​-​2021- web.pdf

Plan­ning Guidance

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

Policy 1 Hous­ing Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance Policy 2 Sup­port­ing Eco­nom­ic Growth Non-Stat­utory X Guid­ance Policy 3 Design and Place­mak­ing Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance X Policy 4 Nat­ur­al Her­it­age Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance X Policy 5 Land­scape Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance X Policy 7 Renew­able Energy Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance Policy 8 Open Space, Sport and Recre­ation Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance Policy 9 Cul­tur­al Her­it­age Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance X Policy 10 Resources Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance X Policy 11 Developer Oblig­a­tions Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance 15

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 10/11/2023

CON­SULTA­TIONS

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

2. Trans­port Scot­land has no objections.

3. His­tor­ic Envir­on­ment Scot­land note that the devel­op­ment is close to a sched­uled monu­ment of nation­al sig­ni­fic­ance at Dun-da-Lamh, a large hill fort of late pre­his­tor­ic date occupy­ing the north­east end of the impress­ive steep sided Black Craig hill. They note that the devel­op­ment will be partly screened from the des­ig­nated site by mature trees and that the dis­til­lery has been designed to fit into the land­scape without imped­ing key views from the sched­uled monu­ment to the north­east into the upper Spey Val­ley. They con­clude that the devel­op­ment is con­sidered unlikely to have an adverse impact on the monu­ment or its setting.

4. Scot­tish Water has no objec­tions to the pro­pos­als. They note that there is no pub­lic water or drain­age infra­struc­ture in the vicin­ity whereby the developer will require to invest­ig­ate private options. They have also con­firmed that there are no Scot­tish Water drink­ing catch­ments or water abstrac­tion sources des­ig­nated as