Item6AANSGConsultation1ComitteeReportREVISED

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 6 24/04/2020

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

FOR DECISION

Title: NAT­UR­AL HER­IT­AGE, LAND­SCAPE, CULTURAL

              HERITAGE AND RENEWABLE ENERGY NON-
              STATUTORY GUIDANCE

Pre­pared by: Dan Har­ris, Plan­ning Manager

              Nina Caudrey, Development Planning Officer

Pur­pose of Report

1. To ask the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee to approve for con­sulta­tion Draft Nat­ur­al Her­it­age, Land­scape, Cul­tur­al Her­it­age and Renew­able Energy Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance to sup­port the next LDP.

Sum­mary

1. The Cairngorms Nation­al Park Pro­posed Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan was sub­mit­ted to Scot­tish Min­is­ters on Septem­ber 20^th 2019. The report­ers’ exam­in­a­tion of unre­solved rep­res­ent­a­tions is now under­way. At the end of the pro­cess, the Report­er will pub­lish an Exam­in­a­tion Report, which will set out a list of recom­men­ded modi­fic­a­tions to the Plan. Exam­in­a­tion reports are largely bind­ing on plan­ning author­it­ies, and the CNPA will have a three month peri­od to con­sider the Reporter’s recom­mend­a­tions and sub­mit the Pro­posed Plan as mod­i­fied to Scot­tish Min­is­ters. Fol­low­ing agree­ment with Scot­tish Min­is­ters, the Cairngorms Nation­al Park will adopt the LDP.

2. Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance and non-stat­utory guid­ance will sup­port the LDP, though these do not need to under­go exam­in­a­tion. The CNPA has been pre­par­ing the guid­ance with the inten­tion that it be adop­ted along­side or shortly after the adop­tion of the LDP. It is inten­ded that the con­sulta­tion on these doc­u­ments be staggered to enable those with an interest time to fully con­sider the con­tents of the guidance.

3. It is there­fore pro­posed to pro­duce that the fol­low­ing non-stat­utory guid­ance be con­sul­ted on first: a) Nat­ur­al Her­it­age b) Land­scape c) Cul­tur­al Her­it­age d) Renew­able Energy

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 6 24/04/2020

Recom­mend­a­tion

1. That the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee approve the pub­lic­a­tion of the fol­low­ing non-stat­utory guid­ance for a six week peri­od of pub­lic con­sulta­tion: a) Nat­ur­al Her­it­age b) Land­scape c) Renew­able Energy d) Cul­tur­al Heritage

Back­ground

1. The Cairngorms Nation­al Park Pro­posed Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan was sub­mit­ted to Scot­tish Min­is­ters on Septem­ber 20^th 2019. The report­ers’ exam­in­a­tion of unre­solved rep­res­ent­a­tions is now under­way. At the end of the pro­cess, the Report­er will pub­lish an Exam­in­a­tion Report, which will set out a list of recom­men­ded modi­fic­a­tions to the Plan. Exam­in­a­tion reports are largely bind­ing on plan­ning author­it­ies, and the CNPA will have a three month peri­od to con­sider the Reporter’s recom­mend­a­tions and sub­mit the Pro­posed Plan as mod­i­fied to Scot­tish Min­is­ters. Fol­low­ing agree­ment with Scot­tish Min­is­ters, the Cairngorms Nation­al Park will adopt the LDP.

2. Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance and non-stat­utory guid­ance will sup­port the LDP, though these do not need to under­go exam­in­a­tion. The CNPA has been pre­par­ing the guid­ance with the inten­tion that it be adop­ted along­side or shortly after the adop­tion of the LDP. It should be noted that non-stat­utory guid­ance can­not intro­duce any addi­tion­al policy require­ments not cur­rently with­in the LDP. It should also be noted that policy require­ments with­in the LDP may change as a res­ult of the exam­in­a­tion, there­fore amend­ments may need to be made to the non-stat­utory guid­ance fol­low­ing the receipt of the Exam­in­a­tion Report. How­ever, it is not envis­aged that these changes will be sig­ni­fic­ant enough to require the non-sup­ple­ment­ary guid­ance to be re-con­sul­ted on.

3. It is inten­ded that the con­sulta­tion on the Sup­ple­ment­ary and non-stat­utory guid­ance be staggered to enable those with an interest time to fully con­sider their con­tents. This paper there­fore requests that the fol­low­ing four pieces of non-stat­utory guid­ance be approved for pub­lic con­sulta­tion: a) Nat­ur­al Her­it­age b) Land­scape c) Renew­able Energy d) Cul­tur­al Heritage

4. It is pro­posed that the con­sulta­tion peri­od will last six weeks.

5. It is inten­ded that draft non-stat­utory guid­ance on eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment, resources and open space, sport and recre­ation be bought to com­mit­tee in April and sup­ple­ment­ary guid­ance on hous­ing and developer oblig­a­tions and non-stat­utory guid­ance on design and place­mak­ing be brought to com­mit­tee in May.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 6 24/04/2020

1. A brief sum­mary of the guid­ance under con­sid­er­a­tion at this Plan­ning Com­mit­tee is provided below. Full cop­ies of the guid­ance is provided in the appendices.

Nat­ur­al Her­it­age Non-Stat­utory Guidance

1. This non-stat­utory guid­ance will sup­port Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Her­it­age of the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan, which provides the frame­work for how con­sid­er­a­tion and safe­guard­ing of nat­ur­al her­it­age interests should be incor­por­ated into devel­op­ment pro­pos­als. A range of nat­ur­al her­it­age interests are iden­ti­fied, which includes hab­it­ats as well as wildlife.

2. The policy, and there­fore the non-stat­utory guid­ance, applies to all devel­op­ments, not just those in eco­lo­gic­ally sens­it­ive loc­a­tions. This is because the effects of devel­op­ment on nat­ur­al her­it­age interests can extend out­side a devel­op­ment site (for example by increas­ing the num­ber of people using a wood­land for recre­ation, caus­ing dis­turb­ance to ground nest­ing birds), and because many spe­cies are mobile and move through the land­scape (for example some amphi­bi­ans may hibern­ate in one loc­a­tion, but spend the rest of the year feed­ing and breed­ing in anoth­er, so a pro­posed devel­op­ment site could cre­ate a bar­ri­er between the two areas).

Land­scape Non-Stat­utory Guidance

1. This non-stat­utory guid­ance will sup­port Policy 5: Land­scape of the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan applies to all devel­op­ment and provides the frame­work for how con­sid­er­a­tion of land­scape interests should be incor­por­ated into devel­op­ment pro­pos­als. The guid­ance will provide inform­a­tion on the fol­low­ing policy con­cerns: a) Spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies of the Park: b) Nation­al Scen­ic Areas c) Wild Land Areas d) Land­scape Char­ac­ter e) Private Roads and Ways

Renew­able Energy Non-Stat­utory Guidance

1. This non-stat­utory guid­ance will sup­port Policy 7 of the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan, which provides the frame­work for how con­sid­er­a­tion of renew­able energy sys­tems should be incor­por­ated into devel­op­ment proposals.

2. The policy and non-statu­ary guid­ance applies to all devel­op­ments that incor­por­ate renew­able energy sys­tems that are not covered by per­mit­ted devel­op­ment rights. For example, new hous­ing devel­op­ments incor­por­at­ing air source heat pumps as part of the devel­op­ment, as well as those that are solely con­cerned with energy pro­duc­tion such as hydro-elec­tri­city or energy from waste developments.

Cul­tur­al Her­it­age Non-Stat­utory Guidance

1. This non-stat­utory guid­ance will sup­port Policy 9: Cul­tur­al Her­it­age of the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan, which applies to all devel­op­ment and provides the frame­work for how con­sid­er­a­tion of cul­tur­al her­it­age interests should be incor­por­ated into

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 6 24/04/2020

devel­op­ment pro­pos­als. The guid­ance will provide inform­a­tion on gen­er­al prin­ciples in safe­guard­ing her­it­age as well as assets spe­cif­ic to the Nation­al Park. These include: a) Lis­ted build­ings b) Con­ser­va­tion areas c) Invent­ory Gar­dens and Designed Land­scapes d) Bat­tle­fields e) Archae­ology and Nation­al Monu­ments Record sites f) Prop­er­ties on the Build­ings at Risk Register

Next Steps

1. We pro­pose that the Draft Non-Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance will be pub­lished for a six week peri­od of pub­lic con­sulta­tion, which is expec­ted to com­mence in April 2020. The con­sulta­tion will be pub­li­cised on the CNPA’s web­site and social media platforms.

2. All con­sulta­tion com­ments will be sum­mar­ised and used to inform the final non- stat­utory guid­ance. It should also be noted that modi­fic­a­tions may also arise due to changes to the LDP that might be required the Reporter.

3. The con­sulta­tion com­ments and a pro­posed final non-stat­utory guid­ance will be repor­ted back to the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee for adop­tion. Once adop­ted, the guid­ance will sup­port the imple­ment­a­tion of the LDP and will be a mater­i­al con­sid­er­a­tion for the future plan­ning applic­a­tions. It is anti­cip­ated that the pro­posed non-stat­utory guid­ance will be repor­ted back to the Board for approv­al along­side the LDP in sum­mer 2020.

Dan Har­ris and Nina Caudrey March 2020 danharris@​cairngorms.​co.​uk ninacaudrey@​cairngorms.​co.​uk

Appen­dices:

1. Draft Nat­ur­al Her­it­age non-stat­utory guidance
2. Draft Land­scape non-stat­utory guidance
3. Draft Renew­able Energy non-stat­utory guidance
4. Draft Cul­tur­al Her­it­age non-stat­utory guidance