CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 11/10/2019

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

DEVEL­OP­MENT PROPOSED:

Erec­tion of 18 houses, upgrade of access at Land 40M NE of Rose Cot­tage, Dul­nain Bridge

REF­ER­ENCE:

2018/0221/DET

APPLIC­ANT:

High­land Hous­ing Alliance

DATE CALLED-IN:

13 June 2018

RECOM­MEND­A­TION: Approve sub­ject to conditions

CASE OFFICER:

Stephanie Wade, Plan­ning Officer

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CNPA Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Applic­a­tion Site

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 11/10/2019

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 11/10/2019

SITE DESCRIP­TION, PRO­POS­AL AND HISTORY

Site Descrip­tion

1. The applic­a­tion site com­prises approx­im­ately 1.09 hec­tares of grass­land, loc­ated on the west­ern edge of the set­tle­ment of Dul­nain Bridge, abut­ting the north­ern side of the A938 and wrap­ping around the res­id­en­tial prop­erty Rose Cot­tage. The remainder of the site is bound by the mature wood­land of Dul­nain­bridge Plant­a­tion. The site is rel­at­ively flat in an east to west dir­ec­tion with the ground sur­face inclin­ing gradu­ally to the north­ern site bound­ary where it extends at a steep­er gradi­ent bey­ond through the plant­a­tion. A drain­age ditch runs along the north­ern bound­ary flow­ing east­wards to the site bound­ary where it ter­min­ates at a bur­ied pipe beneath the A938.

2. The site is not covered by any spe­cif­ic envir­on­ment­al des­ig­na­tions. The adja­cent Dul­nain­bridge Plant­a­tion is recor­ded with­in the Ancient Wood­land Invent­ory. The site con­tains areas of medi­um prob­ab­il­ity of sur­face flooding.

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=PA9NEHSI0CA00

Title	Draw­ing Num­ber	Date on Plan*	Date Received
Plans:
Loc­a­tion Plan	P‑006 Rev.Α	24 July 2019	26 July 2019
Over­all Site Plan	P‑001 Rev.Κ	06 Septem­ber 2019	06 Septem­ber 2019
Site Lay­out Phase I Plan	P‑010 Rev.G	06 Septem­ber 2019	06 Septem­ber 2019
Site Lay­out Phase 2 Plan	P‑011 Rev.F	16 August 2019	23 August 2019
Site Sec­tion Plan	P‑012	12 July 2019	26 July 2019
Pro­posed Roads Lay­out Plan	910 Rev.7	23 July 2019	23 August 2019
Land­scape Pro­pos­als Plan	ННА 105.19 SL-	27 June 2019	26 July 2019
	01 Rev.E
Tree Pro­tec­tion Plan	106801-TPP-C3	25 July 2019	26 July 2019
Pro­posed Foot­path Widen­ing Plan	1100 Rev.2	18 July 2019	26 July 2019
Pro­posed Foot­path Lay­out Lead­ing Into Dul­nain Bridge Plan	918	18 July 2019	26 July 2019
Plot Sec­tions Plan	SK-03 Rev.1	11 July 2019	26 July 2019
Swept Path Ana­lys­is Refuse Vehicle Plan	913 Rev.2	27 June 2019	26 July 2019
Swept Path Ana­lys­is Plot Drive­ways Plan	1101 Rev.3	18 July 2019	26 July 2019
Pro­posed 30mph Sig­nage Plan	930 Rev.1	28 June 2019	26 July 2019

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 11/10/2019

Title	Draw­ing Num­ber	Date on Plan*	Date Received
3D Vis­ib­il­ity Splay Plan	1102 Rev.3	05 Septem­ber 2019	05 Septem­ber 2019
Pro­posed Ditch Diver­sion Plan	1103 Rev.2	23 July 2019	26 July 2019
Pro­posed Rising Main Lay­out Sec­tions and Details Plan	923 Rev.2	23 July 2019	26 July 2019
Pro­posed Drain­age Lay­out Plan	920 Rev.6	15 August 2019	19 August 2019
Amended Floor Plans, Sec­tion & Elev­a­tions- 2 Bed­rooms (s)	P‑002 Rev.D	27 June 2019	26 July 2019
Amended Floor Plans, Sec­tion & Elev­a­tions- 3 Bed­room (s)	P‑003 Rev.D	27 June 2019	26 July 2019
Amended Floor Plans, Sec­tions & Elev­a­tions- 4 Bed­rooms (D)	P‑004 Rev.D	27 June 2019	26 July 2019
Amended Floor Plan, Sec­tion & Elev­a­tions- 3 Bed­room (D)	P‑005 Rev.D	27 June 2019	26 July 2019
Pro­posed Site Levels Plan	914 Rev.1	14 March 2019	22 March 2019
Cut and Fill Lay­out Plan	908 Rev.1	08 June 2018	26 June 2018
Road Con­struc­tion Details	906	30 April 2018	26 June 2018
Sew­ers Con­struc­tion Stand­ard Details	907	01 May 2018	26 June 2018
Tree Con­straint Plan	812701	07 June 2018	26 June 2018
Sup­port­ing Documents:
Design and Sup­port­ing Statement		01 June 2018	26 June 2018
Bat Roost Inspec­tion Survey		04 June 2018	26 June 2018
Tree Sched­ule	9793	07 June 2018	26 June 2018
Tree Sur­vey Report	9793	07 June 2018	26 June 2018
Visu­al Information			26 June 2018
Main­ten­ance State­ment- Bound­ary Ditch	181185-GRD		22 March 2019
Ground Main­ten­ance Schedule			22 March 2019
Eco­logy Sup­ple­ment­ary Report		01 Octo­ber 2018	22 March 2019
Dul­nain Bridge Water Vole Memo		14 June 2019	17 June 2019
Drain­age Impact Assessment	1⁄181185 Rev.B	01 July 2019	26 July 2019
Arbor­i­cul­tur­al Impact Assess­ment and Meth­od Statement	1068	25 July 2019	26 July 2019
Rep­tile Sur­vey Report by Alba Eco­logy Ltd		01 June 2019	26 July 2019
Addi­tion­al Sup­port­ing Statement	2017-085		26 July 2019
High­land Hous­ing Alli­ance Ten­ancy Man­age­ment Statement			26 July 2019
Soft Land­scape Works- 5 year	Rev. C	23 July 2019	26 July 2019

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 11/10/2019

Title	Draw­ing Num­ber	Date on Plan*	Date Received
Main­ten­ance Régime
IYr Incl. 30CC Calculations		15 August 2019	19 August 2019
200Yr Incl. 30CC Calculations		15 August 2019	19 August 2019
30Yr Incl. 30CC Calculations		15 August 2019	19 August 2019
SUDS Basin Imper­meable Areas Calculations		23 May 2019	19 August 2019
Post Devel­op­ment Run­off Calculations		22 May 2019	19 August 2019
SUDS Basin Calculations		22 May 2019	19 August 2019

*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 plan­ning per­mis­sion for the erec­tion of 18 dwell­ing­houses with asso­ci­ated access, drain­age, ser­vice and land­scap­ing works. The devel­op­ment includes a mix of detached and semi-detached houses ran­ging between one and one and half- storey units. The dwell­ing­houses are all pro­posed to be afford­able units with a com­bin­a­tion of 10 mid-mar­ket rent for High­land Hous­ing Alli­ance and 8 Coun­cil owned units. The hous­ing sched­ule is as follows:

Num­ber of Units	Num­ber of Storeys	Accom­mod­a­tion Type	Num­ber of bedrooms
8	One and a half	Semi-detached	2
8	One and a half	Semi-detached	3
1	Single Storey	Detached	3
1	Single Storey	Detached	4

1. Fol­low­ing the ori­gin­al sub­mis­sion, the applic­a­tion has been sub­ject to a num­ber of amend­ments to the details of the scheme, such as the drain­age meas­ures, road, park­ing and foot­path lay­outs and land­scap­ing. The amend­ments have been sought to try and over­come the con­cerns raised by con­sulta­tion respond­ents through­out the pro­gres­sion of this applic­a­tion. The fol­low­ing para­graphs describe the latest sub­mis­sion details for the proposal.

2. All 18 dwell­ings have been designed with dual pitched roofs, incor­por­at­ing porches and a com­bin­a­tion of dormer and roof light fea­tures. Pro­posed fin­ishes are white rough­cast walls with sec­tions of Etern­it Ced­ral weather­board­ing, dark grey Aluc­lad win­dows and grey roof tiles. Sol­ar PV pan­els are pro­posed to be installed on the roof­slopes of the dwell­ing­houses. The applic­a­tion Design and Sup­port­ing State­ment states that the four house types have been designed in accord­ance with the Firm Found­a­tions Design Brief, pre­pared by High­land Hous­ing Alli­ance and the design guide for Hous­ing for Vary­ing Needs.

3. Access to the site is pro­posed to util­ise the exist­ing site access, which was approved under the 2004 applic­a­tion. The exist­ing access bell­mouth is to be retained with a single intern­al road lead­ing into the site and con­tinu­ing in a west­erly dir­ec­tion to provide access to the dwell­ings, which will be con­struc­ted lin­ear to the intern­al access road form­ing a cul-de-sac lay­out. Two turn­ing heads (I tem­por­ary) are pro­posed to be con­struc­ted and a sin­gu­lar lane leads off the main intern­al site road to the east to

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 11/10/2019

1. provide vehicu­lar access to dwell­ing plots 16, 17 and 18. Ped­es­tri­an pave­ments abut the intern­al road through­out the site and con­tin­ue to the east, lin­ear, but set back from the A938 to provide ped­es­tri­an access into the vil­lage. The scheme is pro­posed to be con­struc­ted in two phases and the phase I hard­core turn­ing area is pro­posed to be removed upon com­ple­tion of the second phase con­struc­tion when the per­man­ent turn­ing head is installed.

2. A total of 42 car park­ing spaces are pro­posed to be installed with­in the site. Each dwell­ing is pro­posed to be served by two park­ing spaces each to be loc­ated with­in the cur­til­ages of the indi­vidu­al dwell­ings. The 6 vis­it­or park­ing spaces are pro­posed to be sited in two blocks adja­cent to the north­ern side of the intern­al road.

3. The devel­op­ment is pro­posed to be ser­viced by a new foul pump sta­tion, which is pro­posed to be loc­ated adja­cent to the A938 with­in the east­ern side of the site. Private con­nec­tions are pro­posed to be made from each unit to a new grav­ity sew­er with­in the intern­al access road. The pro­posed sur­face water arrange­ments include the use of per­meable site mater­i­als and a deten­tion basin. All roof water is pro­posed to be drained into a sur­face water sew­er, which will then dis­charge into the deten­tion basin loc­ated with­in the east­ern area of the site, adja­cent to the pro­posed pump station.

4. The exist­ing, open drain­age ditch, which runs adja­cent to the north­ern site bound­ary is pro­posed to be enclosed. A I metre wide cut-off drain sys­tem with water drain­ing into a 225mm dia­met­er, half per­for­ated col­lect­or pipe is pro­posed, with the drain ter­min­at­ing via a con­trolled dis­charge to the exist­ing water­course by a hydro brake man­hole. The bound­ary of the domest­ic cur­til­ages for the north­ern site prop­er­ties have been amended to allow for a I metre wide main­ten­ance access to the drain channel.

5. Each dwell­ing is pro­posed with its own private garden area to be enclosed by 1.8 metre high tim­ber fence and a 1.2 metre high tim­ber pick­et fence is pro­posed to be erec­ted along some of the oth­er cur­til­age bound­ary lines of each prop­erty. The remainder of the site is pro­posed to be grassed with tree plant­ing pro­posed in clusters around the site, which include: Sil­ver birch, Row­an, Aspen, Alder, and Pine. 13 exist­ing trees with­in the east­ern site corner are pro­posed to be removed. Pro­posed shrub plant­ing through­out the site includes: Hazel, Holly, Juni­per, Heath­er, Blae­berry, Broom and Bog Myrtle.

6. The applic­a­tion is sup­por­ted by the fol­low­ing information:

a) Design and Sup­port­ing State­ment, addi­tion­al sup­port­ing state­ment and High­land Hous­ing Alli­ance Ten­ancy Man­age­ment State­ment: these doc­u­ments provide an out­line of the frame­work that informed the design devel­op­ment of the pro­posed scheme. The doc­u­ments con­sider the site con­straints, policy frame­work, and sum­mar­ises the indi­vidu­al ele­ments of the scheme includ­ing road access, drain­age, house design and land­scape. The addi­tion­al sup­port­ing state­ment provides fur­ther cla­ri­fic­a­tion regard­ing the evol­u­tion of the design concept of the scheme. The High­land Hous­ing Alli­ance Ten­ancy Man­age­ment State­ment provides jus­ti­fic­a­tion for the design ele­ments of the dwell­ing­houses relat­ing to the sit­ing of the car park­ing, front door loc­a­tions, garden ori­ent­a­tion and bound­ary fence heights. The doc­u­ment con­firms that all

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 11/10/2019

ele­ments have been designed to provide an enhance­ment to the qual­ity of liv­ing to their residents.

b) Eco­lo­gic­al reports includ­ing: Bat Roost Inspec­tion Sur­vey, Eco­logy Sup­ple­ment­ary Report, Water Vole Memo and Rep­tile Sur­vey Report: A pre­lim­in­ary Bat roost inspec­tion sur­vey was under­taken by Coach­man Bat Con­sultancy with the find­ings included with­in the report dated 04 June 2018. The sur­vey assessed trees with­in the site and one tree out­with the site for their poten­tial for roost­ing suit­ab­il­ity. The sur­vey con­cluded that the trees sur­veyed were con­sidered to provide neg­li­gible or very lim­it­ing roost­ing poten­tial and there was no evid­ence of roost­ing bats. A sup­ple­ment­ary eco­logy report dated Octo­ber 2018 provid­ing an eco­logy assess­ment update to the pre­vi­ous field work under­taken for bat and rep­tiles. The sur­vey recom­men­ded that a dawn emer­gence sur­vey for bats would be required and noted that the bat for­aging routes were unlikely to be affected by the devel­op­ment. The sur­vey also recom­men­ded that the rep­tile sur­vey is repeated to provide fur­ther data. A Water Vole sur­vey was under­taken and sub­mit­ted in sup­port of the applic­a­tion to determ­ine wheth­er the pro­posed ditch works would impact on any water vole hab­it­at. The report con­cludes that no evid­ence of any water voles were found with­in the study area. A Rep­tile Sur­vey Report, dated June 2019, has been sub­mit­ted, which con­cludes that com­mon liz­ards were recor­ded at rel­at­ively low-mod­er­ate dens­ity in the sur­vey area between the peri­od 13/05/2019 to 18/06/2019. No oth­er rep­tile spe­cies were recor­ded. A spe­cies pro­tec­tion plan is there­fore recom­men­ded with­in the report to provide mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures for reptiles.

c) Arbor­i­cul­tur­al inform­a­tion includ­ing: Tree Sched­ule, tree sur­vey report, arbor­i­cul­tur­al impact assess­ment and meth­od state­ment: an ini­tial tree sur­vey report was provided with the ori­gin­al sub­mis­sion details togeth­er with a tree sched­ule con­firm­ing the scope of works, sur­vey meth­od­o­logy and sur­vey res­ults of the exist­ing trees on site. The trees sur­veyed con­sisted of self-sown alder, wil­low and birch in the east­ern site corner, with a low qual­ity recor­ded for the cluster, although good qual­ity birch were recor­ded. A total of 32 trees were sur­veyed. A fur­ther report was sub­mit­ted in sup­port of the applic­a­tion detail­ing the arbor­i­cul­tur­al impact assess­ment and meth­od state­ment for the site. The report recom­mends that a total of 8 cat­egory C trees and three cat­egory U trees are to be removed which is detailed as hav­ing a min­im­al to mod­er­ate effect on the land­scape. The report also details the tree pro­tec­tion meas­ures to be imple­men­ted for the retained trees on site togeth­er with com­pens­at­ory plant­ing and land­scap­ing scheme.

d) Revised drain­age impact assess­ment: the revised doc­u­ment con­firms that foul water from the devel­op­ment will drain via a pro­posed foul pump sta­tion (to be adop­ted by Scot­tish Water) and private con­nec­tions will be made to this from each unit to a new grav­ity sew­er with­in the access roads. Regard­ing sur­face water, roof water is pro­posed to be drained to the pro­posed sur­face water sew­er which will then dis­charge to a deten­tion basin. Private shared car park­ing areas is pro­posed to drain via por­ous block pav­ing to under­ly­ing sub-base which will be sur­roun­ded in a lay­er of geo­tex­tile, with a con­trolled dis­charge to the bound­ary ditch. The adopt­able road area is pro­posed to drain via road gul­lies con­vey­ing to a deten­tion basin. It is pro­posed that High­land Coun­cil Roads Depart­ment will adopt the gully con­nec­tions whilst Scot­tish Water will adopt the remainder of the drain­age sys­tem includ­ing the deten­tion basin. The detention

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 11/10/2019

basin has been designed to man­age sur­face water flow gen­er­ated by the devel­op­ment up to and includ­ing a I in 200 year storm event and addi­tion­al 30% cli­mate change and 10% urb­an creep allow­ances. The exist­ing open ditch is pro­posed as a bound­ary fil­ter trench which has been designed to have at least the same hydraul­ic capa­city as exist­ing. The report con­cludes that a sus­tain­able drain­age solu­tion for the pro­pos­al can be imple­men­ted. The appen­dices include the ground invest­ig­a­tion reports, drain­age cal­cu­la­tions, lay­outs and assess­ment for the relo­cated ditch.

e) Drain­age and flood assess­ments includ­ing: storm and flood cal­cu­la­tions, SUDS basin imper­meable areas cal­cu­la­tions, post devel­op­ment run off cal­cu­la­tions and Suds Basin cal­cu­la­tions: fur­ther flood and run off cal­cu­la­tions have been provided by the agent to demon­strate the dis­charge levels from the site drain­age in regards to lim­it­ing it to the pre- devel­op­ment green­field rate for the cor­res­pond­ing return peri­od storm events.

f) Bound­ary ditch main­ten­ance sched­ule: out­lines the main­ten­ance of the exist­ing bound­ary ditch with­in the site dur­ing the con­struc­tion peri­od and post con­struc­tion. It con­firms that main­ten­ance access has been retained to the ditch with a min­im­um Imetre main­ten­ance strip to provide retained between the ditch and pro­posed garden fences. The ditch is pro­posed to be inspec­ted on an annu­al basis.

g) Ground main­ten­ance sched­ule: a five year main­ten­ance sched­ule for the soft land­scap­ing works of the scheme has been sub­mit­ted, which includes details such as the replace­ment of any plant deaths after the first year of plant­ing dur­ing the five year peri­od and notes that the main­ten­ance will firstly be under­taken by the land­scape con­tract­or and then it will revert to the Factor (High­land Hous­ing Alli­ance and High­land Council).

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

2. At the time of sub­mis­sion of the applic­a­tion the applic­ants were Bespoke High­land Homes. The applic­a­tion site is now under the con­trol of High­land Hous­ing Alli­ance who are now the applic­ants with revised applic­a­tion forms sub­mit­ted and they wish the applic­a­tion to pro­ceed to a conclusion.

His­tory

1. The site has an extant plan­ning per­mis­sion under High­land Coun­cil applic­a­tion ref­er­ence: 04/00118/FULBS for the ​‘form­a­tion of access road and sewage pump­ing sta­tion and sub­di­vi­sion of land to form 10 house plots’ which was sub­mit­ted in April
2. Per­mis­sion was gran­ted on 29 June 2010 and works ori­gin­ally began on the install­a­tion of the road access bellmouth.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 11/10/2019

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
POLICY 8	SPORT AND RECREATION
POLICY 9	CUL­TUR­AL HERITAGE
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: 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 site is iden­ti­fied with­in the Dul­nain set­tle­ment state­ment of the Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015 for hous­ing devel­op­ment under the des­ig­na­tion EP1 – Adja­cent to A938 where it is stated as fol­lows: iden­ti­fied as exist­ing con­sent for 10 units.

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
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	X

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 11/10/2019

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, Dul­nain H2 site remains alloc­ated for hous­ing and the 1.3ha site has an indic­at­ive res­id­en­tial capa­city of 20 units. The Plan states ​“the site cur­rently bene­fits from an exist­ing per­mis­sion for 10 dwell­ings, how­ever there are oppor­tun­it­ies to increase the num­ber of units to 20.” Fol­low­ing the pub­lic con­sulta­tion on the pro­posed plan, no objec­tions were received to the pro­posed H2 Hous­ing alloc­a­tion at Dul­nain Bridge.

CON­SULTA­TIONS

Sum­mary of the main issues raised by Consultees

1. Scot­tish Envir­on­ment Pro­tec­tion Agency (SEPA) has no objec­tion to the applic­a­tion on flood risk grounds and refer to the loc­al author­ity Flood Team for their com­ments regard­ing sur­face water drain­age issues and mit­ig­a­tion measures.

2. Scot­tish Water were con­sul­ted on the applic­a­tion but have not provided any form­al response regard­ing the scheme.

3. High­land Coun­cil Trans­port Plan­ning Team has provided four con­sulta­tion responses through­out the pro­gres­sion of this applic­a­tion. The Trans­port Plan­ning Team raised objec­tion dur­ing their first and second responses and required the sub­mis­sion of fur­ther inform­a­tion to inform the ana­lys­is of the devel­op­ment. Their com­ments on the latest scheme have been sum­mar­ised under the fol­low­ing head­ings below:

a) Access from A938: The Trans­port Plan­ning Team con­firm that they have no objec­tion to a vis­ib­il­ity splay x dis­tance of 2.4 metres being applied as the pro­posed devel­op­ment is rel­at­ively small and will not gen­er­ate sig­ni­fic­ant levels of new traffic.

b) Site lay­out: The Trans­port Plan­ning Team still require the sub­mis­sion of a plan demon­strat­ing the for­ward vis­ib­il­ity splay of plot 15 as required on road safety grounds.

c) Con­di­tions sum­mary: The Team request plan­ning con­di­tions are attached to any con­sent giv­en for the foot­way to be installed pri­or to any occu­pa­tion of any dwell­ing; the exten­sion of the 30mph zone to be imple­men­ted pri­or to the com­mence­ment of any con­struc­tion works and the require­ment for a SUDS scheme along the A938 adja­cent to the devel­op­ment site to be agreed and implemented.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 11/10/2019

1. Fol­low­ing the applicant’s revi­sion of the plans to show the for­ward vis­ib­il­ity splay of plot 15, the High­land Coun­cil Trans­port Plan­ning Team accept the pro­posed reduced for­ward vis­ib­il­ity splay at the bend, giv­en the pro­vi­sion of traffic calm­ing meas­ures with­in the scheme. They note that the land­scap­ing draw­ing would need to be amended to move the Row­an tree fur­ther away from the splay.

2. High­land Coun­cil Hous­ing Ser­vice con­firms that, in their opin­ion, the devel­op­ment provides for much needed fam­ily hous­ing in Badenoch and Strath­spey and the Hous­ing Ser­vice there­fore has no com­ments or objec­tions to the plans as they stand.

3. High­land Coun­cil Flood Risk Man­age­ment Team has con­sidered the sub­mis­sion details (July 2019) of the applic­a­tion and main­tained their ori­gin­al objec­tion to the pro­pos­al. Regard­ing drain­age mat­ters, the Team object as the cut-off ditch is pro­posed to be loc­ated with­in private prop­erty bound­ar­ies with no main­ten­ance access or defined main­ten­ance respons­ib­il­it­ies. They also require the demon­stra­tion that the dis­charge from the site drain­age is lim­ited to the pre-devel­op­ment green­field rate for the cor­res­pond­ing return peri­od storm events.

4. Fol­low­ing the sub­mis­sion of revised inform­a­tion on 19 August 2019, the Flood Risk Man­age­ment Team con­firm that they with­draw their pre­vi­ous objec­tion to the applic­a­tion not­ing that the site lay­out has been mod­i­fied and the ditch at the rear of the site is not with­in any of the plot bound­ar­ies. Main­ten­ance access would be retained to the ditch and the drain­age cal­cu­la­tions provided demon­strate that sur­face water dis­charge from the site will be atten­u­ated to the pre-devel­op­ment green­field rates for storms up to and includ­ing the I in 200 year plus cli­mate change event.

5. High­land Coun­cil Forestry Officer has provided com­ments on the March 2019 revi­sions. The Officer has no objec­tion to the prin­ciple of the devel­op­ment but objec­ted to the applic­a­tion at that stage due to the fol­low­ing concerns:

a) The Officer noted that the tree sched­ule had not been updated and tree con­straints plan have not been revised as part of the sub­mis­sion. The Officer quer­ies the tree qual­ity assess­ment and notes that the tree sched­ule records almost all of the trees as hav­ing an estim­ated remain­ing con­tri­bu­tion of great­er than 20 years.

b) The Officer con­siders the reduc­tion of trees to be removed is an improve­ment as it now allows for the reten­tion of 21 trees on site. Regard­ing the tree pro­tec­tion plan, the Officer requires a con­di­tion to be attached to any sub­sequent decision for the pro­vi­sion of pro­tec­tion meas­ures to some of the adja­cent trees out­with the site boundary.

c) The Officer requires the sub­mis­sion of a more robust land­scape plan incor­por­at­ing plant­ing at the west end of the site and between the houses and road to provide fur­ther com­pens­a­tion for tree losses and to add pos­it­ively to the char­ac­ter and set­ting of the development.

1. Fol­low­ing the revi­sions to the latest scheme (doc­u­ments sub­mit­ted in July 2019), the Officer con­firms that the tree pro­tec­tion meas­ures and the land­scape plan are gen­er­ally accept­able but requests the addi­tion of post determ­in­a­tion conditions

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 11/10/2019

seek­ing refine­ments to the land­scape plan and the Abor­i­cul­tur­al Meth­od State­ment and relat­ing to the tree pro­tec­tion meas­ures to be main­tained on site.

1. High­land Coun­cil Con­tam­in­ated Land Officer hav­ing checked their his­tor­ic­al records con­firms that there are no known issues in terms of poten­tial con­tam­in­ated land at the site and the Con­tam­in­ated Land Ser­vice there­fore has no com­ment on the scheme.

2. High­land Coun­cil Envir­on­ment­al Health Officer were con­sul­ted on the applic­a­tion but have not provided any form­al response regard­ing the scheme.

3. CNPA Land­scape Officer ori­gin­ally advised that the devel­op­ment would have min­im­al impact upon the land­scape char­ac­ter of the site, as the cur­rent land is of nat­ur­al value. For the wider land­scape char­ac­ter it was advised that the pro­pos­al, sub­ject to design, should seek to avoid intro­du­cing hard edges to the devel­op­ment fol­low­ing a prin­ciple of seam­less link­ages of the hous­ing and garden grounds into the sur­round­ing landscape.

4. In terms of land­scape and visu­al char­ac­ter, the Land­scape Officer advised that a high qual­ity design in terms of lay­out, ori­ent­a­tion, form, scale and mater­i­als should be sought which enhanced the exper­i­ence of enter­ing the vil­lage form the west along the A938. Con­cerns were pre­vi­ously raised by the Officer at pre-applic­a­tion stage over the design and in par­tic­u­lar con­cern of the rear view front­ing on the prin­ciple route in Dul­nain Bridge. The Officer raised a num­ber of con­cerns with the ori­gin­al scheme as sub­mit­ted which include: an inward look­ing devel­op­ment which would not be integ­rated as part of the vil­lage town­scape and is con­trary to the pre­dom­in­ant built char­ac­ter of this part of the set­tle­ment; a lack of detail to be able to make a judge­ment on the degree of screen­ing the plant­ing pro­posed would provide; a lack of detail on the pro­posed tree plant­ing and veget­a­tion plant­ing; insuf­fi­cient inform­a­tion regard­ing the tree sur­vey and tree plan; and insuf­fi­cient inform­a­tion of how the pro­posed SUDs will be integ­rated into the landscape.

5. Fol­low­ing the March 2019 revi­sions, the Land­scape Officer reit­er­ated that the fun­da­ment­al design of the pro­pos­al remained unchanged from the ori­gin­al sub­mis­sion and there­fore the devel­op­ment remained con­trary to the pre­vail­ing town­scape char­ac­ter of Dul­nain Bridge and dis­con­nec­ted. The sense of dis­con­nec­tion was con­sidered by the Officer to be emphas­ised fur­ther by the bound­ary treat­ment along the pub­licly vis­ible flanks of the scheme where the land­scap­ing pro­posed was con­sidered to be at a poor qual­ity. The Officer con­cluded that the devel­op­ment does not take account of the oppor­tun­it­ies the site provides and the con­clu­sions reached in the ori­gin­al con­sulta­tion response still stand. The Officer provided the fol­low­ing addi­tion­al com­ments at this stage of the applic­a­tion progression:

a) Tree Plant­ing: The Officer notes that the details of the revised land­scap­ing scheme sug­gest stand­ard plant­ing with 8 new trees loc­ated where land is not develop­able and not in response to the con­text of the landscape.

b) Fen­cing: The Officer notes that clar­ity has been provided on the bound­ary treat­ments, how­ever the pro­posed fen­cing adds to the intro­ver­ted nature of the development.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 11/10/2019

c) Tree Pro­tec­tion Plan: The addi­tion­al plan provides great­er clar­ity on the loc­a­tion of the trees affected and enable cross ref­er­en­cing with the already sub­mit­ted Tree Survey.

d) SUDS design: The Officer notes that the details main­tained an engin­eered SUDs design with an access road encirc­ling the basin and fur­ther encircled by stock fencing.

1. On con­sid­er­ing the latest details, the Land­scape Officer has provided com­ment on how the pro­pos­al looks to address five key land­scape con­sid­er­a­tions pre­vi­ously raised through the con­sulta­tion pro­cess. These are as follows:

a) Poor plant­ing plan and lack of cov­er on south­ern and west­ern sides of the site: The plant­ing plan has been improved although could be improved fur­ther by using a nat­ur­al flower and grass­land seed mix through­out the site to provide a more coher­ent plant­ing scheme by tying togeth­er the visu­ally isol­ated groups of shrub and a revised man­age­ment plan would there­fore be required which could be dealt with by way of plan­ning con­di­tion. The Officer also sug­gests minor amend­ments to the pro­posed shrub mix includ­ing double plant­ing to ensure a good plant­ing scheme is established.

b) Inad­equate tree plant­ing and pro­tec­tion plan: the addi­tion­al tree plant­ing pro­posed is con­sidered accept­able by the Officer how­ever, ref­er­ence is made to com­ments from the High­land Coun­cil Forestry Officer.

c) Fen­cing dom­in­ates and cre­ates intro­ver­ted char­ac­ter of the site: The Officer con­siders that a more simplist­ic fence line would be appro­pri­ate in this area and sug­gests use of a 1.4 metre fence with high points added by trees planted and a change in height before the front­age fence should occur I metre or so before to ensure a more attract­ive junction.

d) SUDS: the Officer advises that the interi­or of the SUDs basin should be sown with a wild flower and grass land mix to provide visu­al interest and biod­iversity benefit.

e) Con­trary to vil­lage char­ac­ter and does little to address the key site at entrance to the vil­lage: the over­all plan has not changed sig­ni­fic­antly and there­fore the Officers pre­vi­ous com­ments are still of relevance.

1. The Officer notes that should approv­al be recom­men­ded then the land­scape meas­ures men­tioned above can all be conditioned.

2. CNPA Eco­logy Officer has reviewed the sup­port­ing doc­u­ment­a­tion and provided com­ments on each of the scheme’s revi­sions. The Officer references