Item6Appendix2aRepsGeneral20230087DETCampsiteTomintoul

Cairngorms Item 6 Appendix 2A 22 Septem­ber 2023 Nation­al Park Author­ity Ügh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Agenda item 6

Appendix 2A

2023/0087/DET

Rep­res­ent­a­tions – General

Emma Green­lees

From: Sent: To: Cc: Sub­ject: Categories:

12 March 2023 19:17 Plan­ning CNPA 2023/0087/DET — Alan Atkins Emma G, Comments

Dear Sirs,

I write with ref­er­ence to the above plan­ning applic­a­tion for The Old Mart, Con­glass Lane, Tomintoul.

I would like some cla­ri­fic­a­tion regard­ing essen­tial infra­struc­ture needs for the vil­lage in rela­tion to the increas­ing demands from new hous­ing and leis­ure devel­op­ments in the vil­lage. This pro­pos­al is for, I believe, 29 pitches for camper vans and the con­ver­sion of exist­ing prop­er­ties into a shower block.

The devel­op­ment Trust have just com­pleted a pro­ject of 12 new fam­ily homes in the vil­lage. Last year 14 camp­ing pods came online at the top of the vil­lage, with 12 more being planned for construction.

There are also anoth­er 5 private own­er­ship new build fam­ily homes under con­struc­tion, or at plan­ning stage, in the village.

This level of increased demand on essen­tial infra­struc­ture such as water sup­ply, water and sewage treat­ment, power sup­ply, inter­net, light­ing, foot­paths, waste dis­pos­al, etc. will place addi­tion­al pres­sure on our loc­al Coun­cil. As Tomin­toul is a dis­tant out­post of Moray Coun­cil, have they been con­sul­ted on these pro­pos­als and their likely increased costs to ser­vice the village?

Also, increased human occu­pa­tion of the vil­lage, par­tic­u­larly in the sum­mer months, will place addi­tion­al demand on ser­vices such as poli­cing, traffic con­trol and med­ic­al ser­vices, all of which have been reduced in recent years. How is this to be addressed?

To con­clude, while devel­op­ment of pro­jects to bene­fit the vil­lage com­mer­cially may seem a good thing, care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion regard­ing the qual­ity of life and the needs of those who ​“live” in the vil­lage, and who will not bene­fit fin­an­cially from it, must be taken into account.

Thank you for your atten­tion and I await your comments.

Regards

1

Tomin­toul and Glen­liv­et Out­door Bowl­ing Club. As the organ­iser behind the camp site at the bowl­ing club, I have sev­er­al points of con­cern regard­ing the new camp­site pro­posed by the TGDT. The first and most import­ant is the effect it will have on our income. The camp site at the bowl­ing has been instru­ment­al, along with grants from oth­er sources, in our con­tin­ued exist­ence by rais­ing the neces­sary funds for a new car­pet sur­face. Had we not been able to raise the neces­sary funds in this way, I doubt we would have been able to con­tin­ue as we have. It has also allowed us to fit new doors and win­dows which were much needed, although a great deal of this money came from grants. If our income is ser­i­ously affected by the new camp site, we would be in the same situ­ation in a few years time. Even with this new car­pet, this has been down for 4 years and the life expect­ancy is 15 to 20 years. In this cli­mate in Tomin­toul, that could be short­er and so we will be faced with the same prob­lem in just a few years time. Unfor­tu­nately, that is not our only upcom­ing expense with renew­ing fen­cing, repair­ing side walls etc. We are already this year see­ing a great drop in income due to lack of book­ings. This, I sus­pect, is down to the huge cost of liv­ing being exper­i­enced at this time. Our book­ings at present are down 90%. This brings me to the next point. I do not believe that the new pro­posed site needs to cater for more than 12 camper­vans. It has lost the oppor­tun­ity to take tents which we get quite a few enquir­ies about. Unfor­tu­nately, we can­not take tents under our licence, and the present site rarely seems to be open. We are very rarely full to capa­city, and this occurs, at the max­im­um, 10 times a year. What occurs most is that people will park at the Field of Hope car park or the vil­lage car park for free even though we have space. If they are reluct­ant to pay our prices, it is unlikely that they will be flock­ing to the new site to pay more. In con­ver­sa­tion with some time back, I broached the sub­ject of what hap­pens to any profits from the new camp site and was told, rightly or wrongly, these profits would go to the com­munity. I would like to know how that is going to be put in place. We at the bowl­ing club have helped out oth­er vil­lage organ­isa­tions with fund­ing such as the pen­sion­ers party, TAA and children’s groups. If our income is depleted to a great degree by the new site, we may be unable to con­tin­ue this sort of fund­ing in the future. Will these profits do what we have been doing? As regards the new site, I feel that it is try­ing to cram in as many as pos­sible into the space and the oppor­tun­ity to cre­ate a really well spaced out site with added pri­vacy between campers has been sac­ri­ficed in the search for gold. As I said earli­er, no pro­vi­sion has been made for tents. At this stage, it is just lines on a piece of paper, and a good draughts­man could do a bet­ter job in 10 minutes. I should know, I was one.

I am also con­cerned about the foot­path changes. If this a pub­lic right of way, is it pos­sible to re-route it just when you feel like it without the prop­er con­sulta­tion. It appears that even after rein­stat­ing of this path, ped­es­tri­ans are dir­ec­ted on to the entry road for the camp site which puts them into con­flict with the site traffic. At the moment, they are able to avoid this road sur­face. That is not sens­ible. Also bear in mind that entry from the main road or past the coun­cil yard, there are no foot­paths in that area for ped­es­tri­ans. At the moment, traffic around this area is light and used by res­id­ents who take care. Vis­it­ors will not neces­sar­ily be aware of this. My final word is that if you talk to the vil­lage res­id­ents, there is great con­cern and most do not want it. It is no use put­ting this out on Face­book and say­ing that you have con­sul­ted them when the demo­graph­ics of this vil­lage is of quite eld­erly folk. Without prop­er con­sulta­tion, it gives people the impres­sion that this is a faite accom­pli, and they the TGDT know bet­ter what the vil­lage wants than the vil­la­gers themselves.

Emma Green­lees

From: Sent: To: Sub­ject: Cat­egor­ies: 08 March 2023 17:01 Plan­ning 22/01873/APP Emma G, Comments

I have con­cerns re applic­a­tion for this devel­op­ment as I live on The Square. Road access /​volume of traffic going from Main Street via the Foun­tain hav­ing to cross Con­glass Lane onto an unsuit­able road into the pro­posed cara­van park. Num­ber of pitches Secur­ity for res­id­ents Water Sewage Light­ing Noise The Green Lane has always been a very pop­u­lar area. Any remov­al of that would def­in­itely not be good. There would appear to be very few people who real­ise that this applic­a­tion is in situ and dead­line for con­cerns is loom­ing. The TGDT cer­tainly have not made res­id­ents aware. I have just found out about this earli­er this after­noon, and have been in con­tact with Moray Coun­cil who dir­ec­ted me to you. Sin­cerely trust you will take on board my comments.

Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone 1

Emma Green­lees From: Sent: To: Sub­ject: Cat­egor­ies: 10 March 2023 11:51 Plan­ning 22/01873/APP Emma G, Com­ments This has just come in. Surely place­ment of site would cause light­ing to null Dark Skies! 1

2 Tominto CAIR DARK

Also are the plans for stat­ic cara­vans — Open all year — A ver­sion of afford­able hous­ing? Or vis­it­ors with their own cara­van/camper-van stay­ing short term? Or cara­vans that are for rent instead of stay­ing in hotels or bed&breakfast. There is already a small area bene­fit­ting the bowls green as well as pods near Crown Estate office. Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone On Wed­nes­day, March 8, 2023, 5:01 pm, Plan­ning Planning@​cairngorms.​co.​uk wrote: Thank you for your email. One of our plan­ning team will be in touch with you in due course, if neces­sary, with­in 5 work­ing days. Kind regards, Plan­ning Sup­port 3