CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 6 13/12/2019

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

DEVEL­OP­MENT PROPOSED: Form­a­tion of forest/​woodland access track (in ret­ro­spect) at Bal­avil House Kin­gussie High­land PH21 TLU

REF­ER­ENCE: 2019/0347/DET

APPLIC­ANT: Mr Jack Campbell

DATE CALLED-IN: 4 Novem­ber 2019

RECOM­MEND­A­TION: Approve sub­ject to conditions

CASE OFFICER: Edward Swales Mon­it­or­ing and Enforce­ment Officer

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CNPA Plan­ning Committee

Applic­a­tion Site 0 115 230 460 Meters

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 6 13/12/2019

Crown copy­right and data­base rights 2019. Ord­nance Sur­vey Licence num­ber 100040965

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 6 13/12/2019

SITE DESCRIP­TION, PRO­POS­AL AND HISTORY

Site Descrip­tion

1. The Bal­avil estate is approx­im­ately 3km north east of Kin­gussie. The estate is a long, thin estate stretch­ing from the A9, 13km north­w­est from there into the Mon­adh­liath Moun­tains and con­sists of mixed land uses includ­ing forestry, agri­cul­ture and sporting.

2. The Croft­car­noch wood­land, which is the sub­ject of this applic­a­tion, is in the south­east corner of the estate. It is dense plant­a­tion wood­land cur­rently being thinned as part of the estates wider plan for more nat­ive wood­land regen­er­a­tion and plant­ing through­out the estate.

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=Q04YG4SI0CH00

Title	Draw­ing Num­ber	Date on Plan*	Date Received
Plan — Exist­ing Water­course Culvert			01/11/19
Plan — Road Cross­ing Culvert			01/11/19
Plan — Typ­ic­al Con­struc­tion Layout			01/11/19
Site Plan — Updated Site Plan		27/11/19	27/11/19
Spe­cific­a­tions — Sup­port­ing Statement			01/11/19

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

1. The applic­a­tion is part ret­ro­spect­ive to form a forestry track along the north­ern edge of the wood­land. The track is approx­im­ately Ikm in length and has been formed by strip­ping the turfs and using crushed rock for the base. The works were car­ried out in the sum­mer of 2019.

2. Dur­ing the course of the applic­a­tion it has now been pro­posed to ter­min­ate the track at the point where the works have been under­taken. Fol­low­ing dis­cus­sion between applic­ant and CNPA, an altern­at­ive route with­in the plant­a­tion was iden­ti­fied as a more suit­able route for the new ele­ments of the applic­a­tion. A fur­ther applic­a­tion or pri­or noti­fic­a­tion for forestry private way would be required to for its development.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 6 13/12/2019

His­tory

1. Bal­avil Estate sub­mit­ted a plan­ning applic­a­tion for a new track to the north­ern part of the estate. This was approved in Janu­ary 2019, under ref­er­ence 2018/0400/DET.

2. The works to the track that is the sub­ject of this applic­a­tion were repor­ted to the CNPA in Septem­ber 2019 and work stopped when the CNPA con­tac­ted the estate. The estate had sub­mit­ted a pri­or noti­fic­a­tion for the track as a forestry-related track but com­menced the works before it was determ­ined, mean­ing that the per­mit­ted devel­op­ment right was lost and a plan­ning applic­a­tion was required to author­ise the works.

DEVEL­OP­MENT PLAN CONTEXT

Policies

Nation­al Policy	Scot­tish Plan­ning Policy 2014
Stra­tegic Policy	Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2017 — 2022
Loc­al Plan Policy	Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (2015) Those policies rel­ev­ant to the assess­ment of this applic­a­tion are marked with a cross

POLICY I	NEW HOUS­ING DEVELOPMENT
POLICY 2	SUP­PORT­ING ECO­NOM­IC GROWTH
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
POLICY 11	DEVELOPER CON­TRI­BU­TIONS

1. All new devel­op­ment pro­pos­als require to be assessed in rela­tion to policies con­tained in the adop­ted Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan. The full word­ing of policies can be found at:

http://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​u​p​l​o​a​d​s​/​d​o​c​u​m​e​n​t​s​/Park Authority/Planning/LDP15.pdf

Plan­ning Guidance

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

Policy I	New Hous­ing Devel­op­ment Non-Stat­utory Guidance
Policy 2	Sup­port­ing Eco­nom­ic Growth Non-Stat­utory Guidance
Policy 3	Sus­tain­able Design Non-Stat­utory Guidance	X
Policy 4	Nat­ur­al Her­it­age Sup­ple­ment­ary Guidance	X
Policy 5	Land­scape Non-Stat­utory Guidance	X

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 6 13/12/2019

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
Policy 11	Developer Con­tri­bu­tions Sup­ple­ment­ary Guidance

CON­SULTA­TIONS

Sum­mary of the main issues raised by consultees

1. High­land Coun­cil Devel­op­ment and infra­struc­ture offered no objec­tion to the proposal.

2. CNPA Eco­logy states that an eco­lo­gic­al sur­vey has been under­taken and no evid­ence of pro­tec­ted spe­cies was recor­ded with­in the track foot­print or buf­fer area. There are no stat­utory des­ig­nated areas in the site.

3. The track con­struc­tion has res­ul­ted in the loss of around 15 juni­per bushes. Juni­per is abund­ant on the estate and the com­mit­ment to large areas of rewilding/​natural regen­er­a­tion work will res­ult in an over­all increase of Juni­per throughout.

4. The track is very steep in parts, to pre­vent erosion and downslope run off of sed­i­ment, no fur­ther fine dress­ing sed­i­ment should be used. The cur­rent track sur­face is suf­fi­cient for the pro­posed level of use.

5. The ter­min­a­tion of the track at its cur­rent extent and rout­ing of any fur­ther exten­sion to it through the wood­land will enable the wood­land edge to be retained and achieve a softer trans­ition between wood­land and the nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion area.

6. CNPA Land­scape states that the major­ity of the track passes through a strongly undu­lat­ing land­scape, between an exist­ing con­ifer plant­a­tion to the south (cur­rently being thinned) and patchy, mixed nat­ive trees and open ground to the north. Most of the area is spa­tially con­tained, visu­ally dis­creet and vis­ited by few people apart from estate staff and visitors.

7. The track con­trasts to the loc­al land­scape char­ac­ter by intro­du­cing a lin­ear fea­ture that dif­fers to the sur­round­ing land cov­er, although relat­ing to the edge of the exist­ing plant­a­tion to the south. Some sec­tions of the track are extremely steep and cross the land­form, not fol­low­ing the SNH hill track guid­ance. There are also some cut­ting and embank­ment faces along­side the track which are prom­in­ent, although the expos­ure of some sec­tions has been reduced with turf relocation.

8. At present, the track’s prom­in­ence and con­trast with its sur­round­ings is lim­ited by the aggreg­ate mainly com­pris­ing hard core. A sur­face dress­ing would change this, depend­ing on its col­our and grade, with light­er col­ours and a finer aggreg­ate tend­ing to res­ult in great­er con­trast with the sur­round­ings and being more prominent.

9. It is pre­dicted that the far west­ern sec­tion of the track (uncon­struc­ted) would be clearly vis­ible from open areas to the west, includ­ing from Cre­ag Bhalg, and would appear to take a straight route that would appear incon­gru­ous in rela­tion to the

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 6 13/12/2019

land­form. Although there is cur­rently some rationale for this route by fol­low­ing the edge of the exist­ing wood­land plant­a­tion, it is hoped that this edge will be less pro­nounced in the future fol­low­ing planned wood­land plant­ing and regen­er­a­tion, and thus the track route as cur­rently pro­posed would appear increas­ingly incon­gru­ous in the future.

1. The officer sug­gests the fol­low­ing mit­ig­a­tion; a. Do not apply a sur­face dress­ing to the steep sec­tions of track so it remains rough. It is under­stood this would be suf­fi­cient for the planned occa­sion­al ATV and forestry vehicle use whilst facil­it­at­ing drain­age and poten­tially redu­cing erosion.

   b. Replace turf upon cut and embank­ment slopes along­side the track where these are unlikely to nat­ur­ally regen­er­ate and/​or would be sub­ject to erosion by sur­face water.

   c. Re-route the uncon­struc­ted far west­ern sec­tion of the track through the exist­ing plant­a­tion to the south to reduce vis­ib­il­ity from the open area to the west, avoid rein­for­cing the exist­ing plant­a­tion edge which will change in the future, and take a more sens­it­ive route in rela­tion to the landform.

2. It is also recom­men­ded that there is on-going mon­it­or­ing and main­ten­ance of the track and its sur­face giv­en some of the route will be exposed to great­er sur­face water erosion than oth­er tracks.

3. Com­munity Coun­cil made no com­ments on this application.

REP­RES­ENT­A­TIONS

1. The rep­res­ent­a­tions focus on the spurs of the track and their neces­sity for feed­ing ali­en spe­cies as well as the steep­ness of the track in places.

2. The con­cerns regard­ing pheas­ants stems from impacts on biod­iversity as well as impacts on Caper­cail­lie and lim­it­ing poten­tial good hab­it­at for them.

APPRAIS­AL

1. The track has been con­struc­ted for mixed use pur­poses, but its primary use is that of forestry to enable the thin­ning of the adja­cent plant­a­tion. The devel­op­ment will facil­it­ate the wider aims of the estate to intro­duce more nat­ive wood­land plant­ing across the estate allow­ing bet­ter con­ser­va­tion man­age­ment throughout.

2. While the works were com­menced without any form of per­mis­sion, the prin­ciple of its con­struc­tion is accept­able sub­ject to com­pli­ance with the sug­ges­ted plan­ning con­di­tions and as such will ensure the pro­pos­al com­plies with the rel­ev­ant policies with­in the Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 6 13/12/2019

Envir­on­ment­al Impacts

1. Policy 5: Land­scape of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015 pre­sumes against devel­op­ment which does not con­serve and enhance the land­scape char­ac­ter and spe­cial qual­it­ies of the Nation­al Park and in par­tic­u­lar the set­ting of the pro­posed devel­op­ments. The track is rel­at­ively hid­den between the plant­a­tion and the hill­side mean­ing its land­scape impact is lim­ited to some dis­tant views of it in an area where this type of devel­op­ment is not unexpected.

2. The track res­ults in some adverse land­scape and visu­al effects as it forms a lin­ear fea­ture that dif­fers to its imme­di­ate sur­round­ings, this would be increased by fur­ther con­struc­tion of the far west­ern sec­tion, cur­rently uncon­struc­ted, with vis­ib­il­ity of this sec­tion being more open and distant.

3. It has been agreed with the estate that a con­di­tion will be applied to the cur­rent applic­a­tion to pre­vent fur­ther devel­op­ment bey­ond its west­ern end. An altern­at­ive route with­in the cur­rent plant­a­tion would require to be sub­ject of a sep­ar­ate applic­a­tion or noti­fic­a­tion. This is sup­por­ted by the land­scape advisors com­ments and as such will ensure the pro­pos­al com­plies with Policy 5: Land­scape of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015

4. Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Her­it­age of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015 states that devel­op­ment that would adversely affect the Cairngorms Nation­al Park will only be per­mit­ted where it will not adversely affect the integ­rity of the area. The track has res­ul­ted in a loss of juni­per, how­ever it is abund­ant in the area and the estate has a com­mit­ment to re-wild and nat­ur­al­ise this area with­in its bound­ary there­fore the loss of juni­per is not con­sidered to have a sig­ni­fic­ant effect.

5. The steep sec­tions of track will res­ult in erosion should any fur­ther devel­op­ment be car­ried out there­fore it is pro­posed to con­di­tion that no fur­ther works are car­ried out on the steep­er parts of the track, with sur­face dress­ing only being applied where appro­pri­ate to oth­er flat­ter parts of the track. The steep sec­tions are shown in blue on Plan Ref I. The oth­er mit­ig­a­tion required involves repla­cing turfs of the embank­ment along the route where the track has been cut into this embank­ment and is unlikely to nat­ur­ally reve­get­ate. These will be con­di­tioned to ensure the pro­posed mit­ig­a­tion and pro­pos­al com­plies with Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Her­it­age of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015.

6. Policy 3: Sus­tain­able Design of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015 requires that all devel­op­ment pro­pos­als should be designed to min­im­ise the effect of the devel­op­ment on the land­scape. A con­di­tion will also be added to ensure mon­it­or­ing of the track is under­taken annu­ally, for a peri­od of 5 years with any main­ten­ance car­ried out with the agree­ment of the plan­ning author­ity to ensure the devel­op­ment com­plies with Policy 3: Sus­tain­able Design of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015.

Rep­res­ent­a­tions

1. The rep­res­ent­a­tions have focused on the steep­ness of the track in parts, a spur off the track, and its pur­pose and neces­sity as well as the sec­ond­ary reas­on for the track being that of rear­ing pheas­ants for sport­ing purposes.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 6 13/12/2019

1. The spur does not form part of this applic­a­tion. The estate have explained that it was cre­ated for the remov­al of fen­cing in the upper parts of this estate and that it will be removed when works to com­ply with any per­mis­sion on the cur­rent applic­a­tion are under­taken. The CNPA will con­tin­ue to mon­it­or this spur and if required take enforce­ment action to resolve any issues.

2. The breed of pheas­ants for sport­ing pur­poses in this part of the estate has been under­taken for many years pri­or to this track being con­struc­ted and while an incid­ent­al use for the track is not a mater­i­al con­sid­er­a­tion for this application.

CON­CLU­SION

1. The main devel­op­ment of the track has been under­taken there­fore this applic­a­tion is ret­ro­spect­ive. The impacts of the track are not con­sidered sig­ni­fic­ant and lim­it­ing the track’s extent at its west­ern end through con­di­tion will reduce more sig­ni­fic­ant poten­tial land­scape and visu­al impacts.

2. The sug­ges­ted mit­ig­a­tion will ensure the pro­pos­al accords with the rel­ev­ant policies with­in the Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015.

RECOM­MEND­A­TION

That Mem­bers of the Com­mit­tee sup­port a recom­mend­a­tion to approve the Form­a­tion of forest/​woodland access track (in ret­ro­spect) at Bal­avil Estate Kin­gussie High­land PH21 ILU sub­ject to the fol­low­ing conditions:

Those con­di­tions lis­ted below in bold text are sus­pens­ive con­di­tions, which require to be dis­charged pri­or to imple­ment­a­tion of the development.

Con­di­tions

1. Not­with­stand­ing the approved plans for the devel­op­ment hereby per­mit­ted, there shall be no fur­ther works between point A and point B, col­oured in yel­low, on Plan Ref I, dated 27^th Novem­ber 2019. Any works between point A and point B, high­lighted green on this plan, will be the sub­ject of a sep­ar­ate plan­ning application.

   Reas­on: To min­im­ise any fur­ther land­scape, visu­al and eco­lo­gic­al impacts of the devel­op­ment in accord­ance with Policy 5: Land­scape of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015.

2. No fur­ther works will be car­ried out on the sec­tions marked in blue on Plan Ref I, dated 27^th Novem­ber 2019 unless oth­er­wise agreed in writ­ing by the Cairngorms Nat­in­al Park Author­ity act­ing as Plan­ning Authority.

   Reas­on: To min­im­ise dam­age to hab­it­ats adja­cent to the devel­op­ment in accord­ance with Policies 3, 4 and 5 of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015;

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 6 13/12/2019

1. With­in 6 months of the date of this decision a detailed mit­ig­a­tion meth­od state­ment shall be sub­mit­ted to and approved in writ­ing by the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity act­ing as plan­ning author­ity. This state­ment shall include details of how the track will be lim­ited to 3 metres in width, details of appro­pri­ate seed­ing of track sur­faces and how the turf rob­bing along the embank­ments will be under­taken. These details will include a plan show­ing where this mit­ig­a­tion will take place. There­after and with­in 12 months of the date of this decision, the works will be under­taken and com­pleted in their entirety in accord­ance with the approved plans.

   Reas­on: To min­im­ise the land­scape and visu­al impacts of the devel­op­ment and min­im­ise dam­age to hab­it­ats adja­cent to the devel­op­ment in accord­ance with Policies 3, 4 and 5 of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015.

2. A mon­it­or­ing report for the full length of the approved track will be sub­mit­ted to the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity act­ing as plan­ning author­ity on an annu­al basis com­men­cing 31^st Janu­ary 2021 for the next 5 years, to be sub­mit­ted on or before the 31^st Janu­ary each year there­after. This report will include the con­di­tion of the track, with pho­to­graphs demon­strat­ing any areas where erosion has occurred as well as any sug­ges­ted mit­ig­a­tion. Any mit­ig­a­tion sug­ges­ted with­in these reports will only be car­ried out once approved in writ­ing by the Cairngorms Nat­in­al Park Author­ity act­ing as Plan­ning Authority.

   Reas­on: To ensure the mit­ig­a­tion works are car­ried out to a com­pet­ent stand­ard and in accord­ance with Policy 5: Land­scape of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015.

Inform­at­ives

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

2. Fol­low­ing com­ple­tion of the devel­op­ment, a noti­fic­a­tion of the com­ple­tion shall, as soon as prac­tic­able, be giv­en to the Plan­ning Author­ity. Attached to this decision notice is a Notice of Com­ple­tion of Devel­op­ment for com­ple­tion and sub­mis­sion. Sub­mis­sion of this form will assist the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Mon­it­or­ing and Enforce­ment Officer in mak­ing a final inspec­tion and check­ing com­pli­ance with the approved draw­ings and con­di­tions. If the devel­op­ment hereby approved is to be car­ried out in phases, then a notice of com­ple­tion should be sub­mit­ted at the com­ple­tion of each phase;

3. The per­son under­tak­ing the devel­op­ment is reminded that pre-con­struc­tion sur­vey work to check for nest­ing birds should take place between April and August inclusive.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 6 13/12/2019

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

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