Item6AAGuidanceAppendix2DesignPlacemakingResponses

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 Appendix 2 25/03/2022 AGENDA ITEM 6

APPENDIX 2

DESIGN AND PLACE­MAK­ING NON-STAT­UTORY GUIDANCE

TABLE OF CON­SULTA­TION POINTS RAISED AND CNPA RESPONSE 0

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 Appendix 2 25/03/2022 Appendix I – Design and Place­mak­ing non-stat­utory sup­ple­ment­ary guid­ance con­sulta­tion: points raised and CNPA response Con­sulta­tion 5^th Octo­ber 2021 – 19^th Novem­ber 2021 | ID | Respond­ent | Extract of point(s) raised | How this has been addressed | | — -| — -| — -| — -| | | NatureScot | The lay­out of the guid­ance in places doesn’t appear to flow as well as it could which makes it dif­fi­cult to fol­low | Addressed in response to spe­cif­ic points below. | | | NatureScot | Pages 3 – 4; Devel­op­ment Plan policy and alloc­a­tions — We note this sec­tion refers to both nat­ur­al her­it­age and land­scape con­sid­er­a­tions and provides a link to the LDP which is wel­comed. To help dir­ect the read­er to the exact loc­a­tion with­in the LDP, we would like to sug­gest that the rel­ev­ant policy num­bers are also included here. | The CNPA has included the fol­low­ing ref­er­ence to (page 3) “…and there are spe­cif­ic policies and guid­ance relat­ing to these factors (policies 4 Nat­ur­al Her­it­age and 5 Land­scape).” | | | NatureScot | Page 6; The Design Pro­cess — To help the read­er under­stand what the six qual­it­ies of suc­cess­ful places are, we would like to sug­gest includ­ing a foot­note on this page to dir­ect read­ers to page 25 so that they are aware there is an explan­a­tion of these six qual­it­ies of suc­cess­ful places fur­ther on in the guid­ance. | In the ​“Place­mak­ing Prin­ciples” box, a ref­er­ence to the ​“Place­mak­ing Prin­ciples” sec­tion has been added. | | | NatureScot | Pages 7 – 8; Sub­mit­ting a pro­pos­al — We found it dif­fi­cult to work out the main head­ings from the sub­head­ings with­in this sec­tion which makes the doc­u­ment hard to fol­low, and we would wel­come these being made clear­er. | The head­ings have been reviewed and altered to make the doc­u­ment easi­er to fol­low. | | | NatureScot | Pages 7 – 23 — The detail and order­ing of inform­a­tion on these pages don’t appear to match the Design Pro­cess chart on page 6, which makes it con­fus­ing and dif­fi­cult to fol­low. For example, the cur­rent inform­a­tion on page 7 includes Design State­ment, and page 8 includes Design Concept which appears to work in the oppos­ite dir­ec­tion of the flow chart, while oth­er steps are mixed through. Our advice would be to have head­ings that match and fol­low the order of the Design Pro­cess chart head­ings on page 6. We would also recom­mend using con­sist­ent ter­min­o­logy that matches with the Design Pro­cess chart. For example, it could help make the guid­ance clear­er if the step for ​‘SITE APPRAIS­AL’ was covered on page 7 with the same clear main head­ing, and with­in it the sub-head­ing ​‘Wider, Loc­al and Site Based Ana­lys­is’ and to include the rel­ev­ant nar­rat­ive with­in them, and so on. | The order of the Design sec­tion has been altered to reflect the pre­ced­ing pro­cess dia­gram with the ter­min­o­logy con­sist­ent with the dia­grams head­ings. | | | NatureScot | Page 38; Resource Effi­cient — Green fea­tures that bene­fit biod­iversity can improve shel­ter in winter, cre­ate shade in sum­mer and reduce the require­ment for insu­la­tion, for example green roofs and ameli­or­at­ing micro­cli­mate adja­cent to build­ings, and we would like to sug­gest includ­ing these example meas­ures in the guid­ance. We also note that there is no ref­er­ence to cli­mate change, or examples through­out the rest of the guid­ance to demon­strate how to help the effects of | Guid­ance is to aid imple­ment­a­tion of the policy, so can­not stray out­with the top­ics con­tained with­in the policy (i.e. cli­mate change). How­ever, the guid­ance has been reviewed with the inclu­sion of an addi­tion­al green build­ing fea­ture example |

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 Appendix 2 25/03/2022 | ID | Respond­ent | Extract of point(s) raised | How this has been addressed | | — -| — -| — -| — -| | 2 | Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil | cli­mate change. There­fore, as a way of link­ing into Policy 3, we would sug­gest that this sec­tion is a good place to note how these meas­ures could help min­im­ise the effects of cli­mate change. We note ref­er­ences are made to low car­bon energy, low embod­ied energy mater­i­als, and reusing mater­i­als, but per­haps ref­er­ence to the cir­cu­lar eco­nomy could be added? Although the cir­cu­lar is not ref­er­ence in the LDP, under 3.3 Sus­tain­able Design, para­graph c) makes ref­er­ence to sus­tain­able use of resources. | for grass covered per­meable park­ing design. While policy 3.3 sec­tion d refers to sus­tain­able use of resources, it relates to energy effi­ciency, mater­i­als and resource use rather than the cir­cu­lar eco­nomy mod­el. A ref­er­ence to the cir­cu­lar eco­nomy has been included in the first sec­tion of the guid­ance (page 4) where the text sup­ports its inclu­sion. | | 3 | Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment | 1^st para­graph on page 7 – states ​‘the spe­cial built and nat­ur­al envir­on­ment’ – we would sug­gest using ​‘the his­tor­ic and nat­ur­al envir­on­ment’ to tie in with the ​‘Valu­ing the His­tor­ic Envir­on­ment’ sec­tions in SPP. | text has been amended to cla­ri­fy this point i.e. “….built (both his­tor­ic and more con­tem­por­ary)…”. | | 3 | Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment | 4^th para­graph on page 8 – states ​“A good site ana­lys­is will identi­fy, amongst oth­er things, how the land­form, built envir­on­ment and eco­logy…”. We would sug­gest it should read ​‘built and his­tor­ic envir­on­ment and…’ | Amended as above. | | 3 | Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment | Page 14, Policy 3 — sug­gest text change (in red): ​“Access and Roads — Access and Roads Design­ers need to con­sider how the pro­posed devel­op­ment will link to the exist­ing road net­work (if neces­sary). Sep­ar­ate restric­tions gen­er­ally apply to the use of private access tracks but all con­nec­tions to a pub­lic road need to be accept­able in terms of vis­ib­il­ity splays to allow and ensur­ing safe access and egress.” New junc­tions on to the trunk road net­work require approv­al from Trans­port Scot­land and will only be con­sidered if they are designed in accord­ance with the Design Manu­al for Roads & Bridges (DMRB) and where there would be no adverse impact on road safety or oper­a­tion­al per­form­ance. | The doc­u­ment has been amended as sug­ges­ted. | | 3 | Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment | 2^nd para­graph on page 16 states “… The final design will need to respond to these ele­ments as well as the exist­ing built envir­on­ment and the nat­ur­al her­it­age in the area.” We would sug­gest it should be changed to ​‘The final design will need to respond to these ele­ments as well as the exist­ing built form, his­tor­ic envir­on­ment assets and nat­ur­al her­it­age in the area.’ | The text has been amended to cla­ri­fy this point i.e. “….built (both his­tor­ic and more con­tem­por­ary)…”. | | 3 | Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment | Page 17 under Key Con­sid­er­a­tions bul­let point says ​“Loc­a­tion and con­nectiv­ity with areas pro­tec­ted for nature con­ser­va­tion, of archae­olo­gic­al import­ance or affect­ing the built her­it­age.” In order to reflect SPP, we would sug­gest chan­ging this to | Amended as above. | 2

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 Appendix 2 25/03/2022 | ID | Respond­ent | Extract of point(s) raised | How this has been addressed | | — -| — -| — -| — -| | 3 | Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment | ‘…areas pro­tec­ted for nature con­ser­va­tion, of archae­olo­gic­al import­ance or affect­ing his­tor­ic envir­on­ment assets.’ Page 38 – 40 — ​‘Resource Effi­cient’ – sug­gest spe­cif­ic ref­er­ence to low/​zero car­bon heat­ing as well as devel­op­ments tak­ing con­sid­er­a­tion of Loc­al Heat and Energy Effi­ciency Strategies and Heat Net­work Zones as set out in the Heat Net­works (Scot­land) Act 2021 if avail­able. | Already includes ref­er­ence to low car­bon energy in the third column, second point. How­ever the fol­low­ing bul­let point has been added to include ref­er­ence to heat net­works i.e. “…renew­able energy/​low car­bon energy and con­sid­er­a­tion of poten­tial for a heat net­work “. | | 4 | RSPB | The intro­duc­tion says this guid­ance forms part of the LDP. If it is not stat­utory ​‘Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance’ we under­stand it will not be part of the LDP but a mater­i­al con­sid­er­a­tion. | Cla­ri­fied in intro­duc­tion. | | 4 | RSPB | The approach does not reflect policy 3.3(k) of the CNPLDP which states that ​‘All devel­op­ment pro­pos­als must also be designed to: k) cre­ate oppor­tun­it­ies for fur­ther biod­iversity and pro­mote eco­lo­gic­al interest. The Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance seems to water down policy 3.3 (k) by stat­ing with­in the Wider Land­scape Apprais­al on p11 that, ​‘in line with the stat­utory aims of the Nation­al Park, nat­ur­al her­it­age fea­tures are a key part of any devel­op­ment apprais­al and pro­pos­als should, where pos­sible, make a pos­it­ive con­tri­bu­tion to the nat­ur­al envir­on­ment by pro­mot­ing and cre­at­ing oppor­tun­it­ies for biod­iversity’. This word­ing should be changed to accur­ately reflect the policy of the LDP. The cur­rent word­ing down­plays the import­ant role that developers have in con­trib­ut­ing to the first stat­utory aim of the Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000: ​‘to con­serve and enhance the nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age of the area’. Enhance­ment, as well as pro­tec­tion of exist­ing biod­iversity should be integ­ral to any devel­op­ment design, and not seen as an added extra. | The word­ing has been amended to read:” Nation­al park, nat­ur­al her­it­age fea­tures are a key part of any devel­op­ment apprais­al and pro­pos­als should, cre­ate oppor­tun­it­ies for fur­ther biod­iversity and pro­mote eco­lo­gic­al interest.” In line with the stat­utory aims of the | | 4 | RSPB | We would also sug­gest that the word­ing in the site apprais­al sec­tion on p10 should be adap­ted to reflect policy 3.3(k): ​“How will the devel­op­ment relate in terms of details, mater­i­als, spaces, land­scap­ing (soft and hard), drain­age, green infra­struc­ture and access points? Have adverse effects on nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age con­straints been avoided through care­ful design and oppor­tun­it­ies taken to deliv­er pos­it­ive effects for biod­iversity?” The approach does not reflect policy 3.3(k) of the LDP as explained above. | The word­ing has been amended to read: ​“How will the devel­op­ment relate in terms of details, mater­i­als, spaces, land­scap­ing (soft and hard), drain­age, biod­iversity, green infra­struc­ture, access points and oppor­tun­it­ies taken to fur­ther biod­iversity and pro­mote eco­lo­gic­al interest?” | 3

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 Appendix 2 25/03/2022 | ID | Respond­ent | Extract of point(s) raised | How this has been addressed | | — -| — -| — -| — -| | 4 | RSPB | Cairngorms Nature Action Plan could be referred to. Developers could refer to this to bet­ter under­stand the pri­or­it­ies of the Park and ensure any their devel­op­ment sup­ports this. | This has been included on page 4 after the LDP link, with word­ing that ​“Developers may also find the Cairngorms Nature Action Plan use­ful to identi­fy where par­tic­u­lar hab­it­ats and spe­cies are of par­tic­u­lar import­ance. It is avail­able via https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​c​a​ring- future/­cairngorms-nature/ ” | | 5 | High­land Coun­cil | How­ever, as this is non- stat­utory guid­ance the Coun­cil does won­der if ref­er­ence to oth­er CNPA doc­u­ments would be appro­pri­ate, namely the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan, along­side great­er sign­post­ing with­in the non-stat­utory guid­ance to oth­er rel­ev­ant CNPA LDP policies. | The guid­ance sup­port­ing oth­er LDP policies is referred to on pages 3 and 4, with a link provided. The NPPP is a park- wide high level stra­tegic doc­u­ment. Ref­er­ence to it is unlikely to be help­ful to read­ers of the guid­ance who will be look­ing to apply design and place­mak­ing prin­ciples to spe­cif­ic sites. No change has there­fore been made. | | 5 | High­land Coun­cil | Pg. 7 Sub­mit­ting a Pro­pos­al To avoid read­er con­fu­sion the High­land Coun­cil would ask for this sec­tion to be expan­ded to inform applic­ants the pro­cess of apply­ing and the con­sid­er­a­tion of plan­ning per­mis­sion with­in the CNPA. It is also sug­ges­ted that some form of map­ping is provided to allow applic­ants to estab­lish the cor­rect LA to apply to. The sug­ges­tion of seek­ing pre-applic­a­tion advice is wel­comed and to avoid user con­fu­sion, High­land Coun­cil sug­gests that the weblink to our pre-applic­a­tion advice page is inser­ted (along with sim­il­ar links to the oth­er LAs (link as fol­lows: https://​www​.high​land​.gov​.uk/​i​n​f​o​/​2​0​5​/​p​l​a​n​n​ing_- _​policies_​advice_​and_​servicelevels/​785/​preapplication advice/​2) | The fol­low­ing text has been included in the rel­ev­ant sec­tion: “”All plan­ning applic­a­tions in the Nation­al Park are made to the rel­ev­ant loc­al author­ity. Most are also decided by the loc­al author­ity. If the applic­a­tion is big or import­ant to the Nation­al Park then it will be ​‘called-in’ and decided by the Nation­al Park Author­ity. An Advice Note on this can be found via https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​p​l​a​n​ning- devel­op­ment/­mak­ing-an-applic­a­tion/ “. The advice note includes links to all the plan­ning author­it­ies, so it is not neces­sary to include that in the Design and Place­mak­ing guid­ance. | | 5 | High­land Coun­cil | Pg. 7 Design State­ments: The use of Design State­ments is gen­er­ally sup­por­ted, but it should be made clear if these are required for all forms of devel­op­ment includ­ing | There is no set cri­ter­ia for when a design state­ment may be required — it is up to the | 4

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 Appendix 2 25/03/2022 | ID | Respond­ent | Extract of point(s) raised | How this has been addressed | | — -| — -| — -| — -| | 5 | High­land Coun­cil | house­hold­er applic­a­tions, in order to ensure this are sought as part of the applic­a­tion val­id­a­tion pro­cess. Pg. 15 E‑Charging Points The High­land Coun­cil is aware and recently provided feed­back to the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment on the pro­pos­al to set a stat­utory require­ment around the pro­vi­sion of e‑charging sta­tions both on new build­ing stock and exist­ing com­mer­cial build­ings (https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish- build­in­greg­u­la­tions- pro­posed-changes-energy-stand­ards-asso­ci­atedtop­ic­s/ pages/​7/​) and there­fore this sec­tion might be super­seded by the enact­ment of this legis­la­tion. | plan­ning officer con­sid­er­ing the case to decide if one would be use­ful to enable con­sid­er­a­tion of the applic­a­tion against policy. It is not pos­sible to decide this at the val­id­a­tion stage. No change has there­fore been made. The guid­ance already includes ref­er­ence to elec­tric vehicle char­ging points on page 15. No change has there­fore been made. | | 5 | High­land Coun­cil | Pg 23 Infill Devel­op­ment As noted above, the High­land Coun­cil con­siders the dia­grams are clear and inform­at­ive; how­ever the only excep­tion to this is the ​‘accept­able’ infill devel­op­ment dia­gram. The Coun­cil is con­cerned that this dia­gram encour­ages back­land devel­op­ment which seems to be at odds to a lin­ear streets­cape. Whilst we sup­port appro­pri­ate infill devel­op­ment, we feel this dia­gram should be revis­ited. | The guid­ance is clear from the out­set that applic­a­tions will be assessed against LDP con­tent in rela­tion to par­tic­u­lar set­tle­ments as well as the policies (page 3), as well as encour­aging con­sid­er­a­tion by developers of the con­text of the pro­posed devel­op­ment site. The dia­gram is con­sidered to be an example of an appro­pri­ate scale of devel­op­ment for the lim­ited con­text shown. No change has there­fore been made. | | 5 | High­land Coun­cil | Pg 32. The High­land Coun­cil sup­ports the prin­ciples and ambi­tion of Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment Design­ing Streets, but would recom­mend that ref­er­ence is also made to the rel­ev­ant LA own road design guid­ance. | The fol­low­ing sen­tence has been added to the end of the list stat­ing: ​“Developers should refer to the rel­ev­ant Loc­al Authority’s guid­ance on roads design for addi­tion­al loc­al require­ments.” | | 6 | Anonym­ous | With­in sec­tion 3.3 Sus­tain­able Design, it states that all devel­op­ment pro­pos­als must also be designed to: a) min­im­ise the effects of the devel­op­ment on cli­mate change in terms of sit­ing and con­struc­tion and, once com­plete, achieve at least the min­im­um stand­ard in com­pli­ance with the Build­ing Stand­ards Tech­nic­al Hand­book — but how do you ensure that this is fol­lowed? | Com­ment does not seek change. | 5

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 Appendix 2 25/03/2022 | ID | Respond­ent | Extract of point(s) raised | How this has been addressed | | — -| — -| — -| — -| | 6 | Anonym­ous | Again there is a sec­tion around nat­ur­al her­it­age fea­tures being a key part of devel­op­ment apprais­al and pro­pos­als should, where pos­sible make a pos­it­ive con­tri­bu­tion to the nat­ur­al envir­on­ment by pro­mot­ing and cre­at­ing oppor­tun­it­ies for biod­iversity, retain exist­ing trees and veget­a­tion and respond­ing to exist­ing hab­it­ats and spe­cies found on sites. We com­pletely agree with all these state­ments- how­ever again, how can we be assured that this is being under­taken cor­rectly? | Com­ment does not seek change. | | 6 | Anonym­ous | As all of the above goes totally against a build that is being attemp­ted behind where we reside. The meadow/​orchard behind our prop­erty has all of the above- mature trees, wood­land, amen­ity space already used by walk­ers, dog walk­ers, cyc­lists, with lots of peace and quiet and biod­iversity for wild­life to co-exist. Our garden is full of squir­rels mul­tiple times every single day they even bury nuts in the mead­ow behind our garden (and also in our garden), as their dreys are in the trees with­in the mead­ow. Plus lots of oth­er wild­life is avail­able with­in the mead­ow, includ­ing deer, birds and pine martens and snakes from Crai­gendar­roch Hill occa­sion­ally appear. So surely based on this inform­a­tion, this mead­ow would be bet­ter left as it is? It is a biod­i­verse area util­ised by all the com­munity, by all types of wild­life, is in an area where is on the edge of a wooded area with high grass and wild flowers and can­not be entered via a road unless util­ising a single track private road, or desec­rat­ing a his­tor­ic path­way which has been in place over 120 years to access the Pass of Bal­later. There needs to be very dear reas­on­ing as to why these types of areas, that meet your doc­u­ment­a­tion, are still used for hous­ing. So the over­all approach is cor­rect, but the guid­ance is not being used/​being ignored, when look­ing into new house builds. | Com­ment does not seek change and spec­u­lates about pos­sible future devel­op­ment pro­pos­als. | | 6 | Anonym­ous | Couple of areas require fur­ther inform­a­tion. Firstly the guid­ance advises that there are ​“oth­er doc­u­ments sup­port­ing a plan­ning applic­a­tion, such as an eco­lo­gic­al sur­vey report or land­scape and visu­al impact assess­ment”. What does visu­al impact mean in this per­spect­ive? I think this needs to be expan­ded with­in the doc­u­ment. As from our per­spect­ive with regards to the houses being planned behind us, put­ting houses on a mead­ow field that is full of trees (includ­ing mature), nature, biod­iversity, flowers would have an extreme neg­at­ive visu­al impact for prop­er­ties who cur­rently view this mead­ow to have to view bricks and mor­tar. | Fur­ther inform­a­tion about land­scape and visu­al impact assess­ment is provided in the Land­scape guid­ance, avail­able via https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​p​l​a​n​ning- devel­op­ment/ldp-2021/. No change has there­fore been made. | | 6 | Anonym­ous | Also it advises that it will ​“cre­ate oppor­tun­it­ies for fur­ther biod­iversity and pro­mote eco­lo­gic­al interest”. But again, surely build­ing on an exist­ing mead­ow used by the whole com­munity (and not just the res­id­ents beside the mead­ow}, does the | Com­ment does not seek change and spec­u­lates about pos­sible future devel­op­ment pro­pos­als. | 6

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 Appendix 2 25/03/2022 | ID | Respond­ent | Extract of point(s) raised | How this has been addressed | | — -| — -| — -| — -| | 6 | Anonym­ous | oppos­ite of this? So need to have very clear reas­on­ing with­in the guidelines as to why you would go against this to com­plete a build. Cairngorms Nation­al Park Core Paths Plan is men­tioned with­in the doc­u­ment­a­tion but what is this? Shouldn’t this be detailed with­in this doc­u­ment, or min­im­um a link to this inform­a­tion? | The fol­low­ing text has been added to the sec­tion: ​“Inform­a­tion on core paths can be found via https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​w​o​r​king- togeth­er­/au­thor­ity/n­a­tion­al-park- strategies/­core-paths-plan/ ” | | 6 | Anonym­ous | Also shouldn’t there be some­thing detailed with­in the doc­u­ment­a­tion around tree pre­ser­va­tion orders being required for mature trees? There is noth­ing that leg­ally shows that mature trees should not be cut down, but you men­tion it through­out the doc­u­ment­a­tion. | Tree pre­ser­va­tion orders are assigned to spe­cif­ic trees, they do not apply to all mature trees. The effects on trees and wood­land is assessed for each applic­a­tion under policy 4 (Nat­ur­al Her­it­age) of the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan. No change has there­fore been made. | | 6 | Anonym­ous | Lastly, there needs to be some­thing in the doc­u­ment­a­tion around wide spread con­sulta­tion with­in some build areas. For example, the pro­posed build in the mead­ow behind our prop­erty seen neigh­bour­ing res­id­ents being con­sul­ted how­ever this is an area used by many people out­with the neigh­bour­ing prop­er­ties. Those who use the mead­ow to exer­cise, cyc­ling, dog walk­ing etc are not even con­sul­ted around plans to build hous­ing even though it will affect them greatly. | Com­ment does not seek change and spec­u­lates about pos­sible future devel­op­ment pro­pos­als. No change has there­fore been made. | 7