Item6Appendix2BObjections20200177DET

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 6 Appendix 2B 25/09/2020

AGENDA ITEM 6

APPENDIX 2B

2020/0119/DET

REP­RES­ENT­A­TIONS OBJECTIONS

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 2020/0119/DET Applic­a­tion Sum­mary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: 2020/0119/DET Address: Land 440M West Of Grant Cot­tage Glen­liv­et Ballindal­loch Moray Pro­pos­al: Pro­posed new Tast­ing Lodge with asso­ci­ated bound­ary fence and access track at Case Officer: Emma Wilson

Cus­tom­er Details Name: Mr Iain Patrick Address: Wood­side Glen­liv­et Ballindalloch

Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Neigh­bour Stance: Cus­tom­er objects to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Comment:The area is a very sens­it­ive one envir­on­ment­ally, the very prin­ciple of it being a remote area with­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park, adja­cent to the Spey­side Way Spur & a des­ig­nated Dark Sky Dis­cov­ery Site. The applic­a­tion states that there will be an out­side light, but this con­tra­venes the Dark Sky Light­ing Man­age­ment Plan which states ​‘No new out­side light­ing in the E0‑0 zones except red filtered way mark­ers’. The IDA who admin­is­ter the Dark Sky accred­it­a­tion have high­lighted this. How­ever, the doc­u­ment which Chiv­as had drawn up by James Pat­ter­son, the light­ing engin­eer, states there will be no out­side light. So if that is fol­lowed, and there isn’t a light, how is this is com­pat­ible with health & safety, as in the event of a fire, you would be run­ning out of a lit build­ing into the dark­ness. If a light is included, we would likely lose the Dark Sky accred­it­a­tion. It is wel­come that the overnight ele­ment has been removed, but the even­ing use will be year- round reflect­ing the exten­ded open­ing hours of the dis­til­lery. The level of traffic and the inev­it­able expan­sion is not sus­tain­able giv­en the access to the prop­erty & will res­ult in noise, dis­rup­tion & pol­lu­tion to the area for little or no bene­fit. This is fur­ther com­poun­ded by the inten­tion to still drive water to site, which is a ter­rible idea from an environmental/​carbon emis­sions point of view. Finally, the plans show use of a soak away for drainage/​sewerage. SEPA have high­lighted that the site is situ­ated up-hill from sev­er­al private water sup­plies. This plan risks the qual­ity of these sup­plies and endangers pub­lic health. Con­sid­er­a­tion needs to be made as to wheth­er a com­mer­cial prop­erty being built is appro­pri­ate or even neces­sary as it will be of no bene­fit to the loc­al area or com­munity. This devel­op­ment is neither wel­come, neces­sary or of any bene­fit to the loc­al envir­on­ment and I there­fore strongly object to it.

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 2020/0119/DET Applic­a­tion Sum­mary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: 2020/0119/DET Address: Land 440M West Of Grant Cot­tage Glen­liv­et Ballindal­loch Moray Pro­pos­al: Pro­posed new Tast­ing Lodge with asso­ci­ated bound­ary fence and access track at Case Officer: Emma Wilson

Cus­tom­er Details Name: Mr Richard Doake Address: 6 Castleton of Blairfindy Glen­liv­et Ballindalloch

Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Mem­ber of Pub­lic Stance: Cus­tom­er objects to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Comment:I object to the applic­a­tion on the basis that the pro­posed loc­a­tion would be det­ri­ment­al to the exist­ing tour­ist and recre­ation­al facil­it­ies of the imme­di­ate area, formed by the Spey­side Way / Core Path GL25 and the status of the area as an E0‑0 zone of the Dark Skies Park. These impacts would be con­trary to plan­ning policies to pro­tect exist­ing tour­ism, and the applic­a­tion does not not provide jus­ti­fic­a­tion or demon­stra­tion of loc­a­tion­al need for the pro­posed pro­ject, again con­trary to vari­ous policies and pri­or­it­ies of CNPA LDP ²⁰¹⁵⁄₂₀₂₀ and Moray Coun­cil LDP ²⁰¹⁵⁄₂₀₂₀. The loc­a­tion is moved from an earli­er pro­posed one, but the fun­da­ment­al objec­tion to using the gen­er­al loc­a­tion has not been addressed.

The pro­posed loc­a­tion is imme­di­ately adja­cent to the Tomin­toul Spur of the Spey­side Way. The foot­path bey­ond the site entrance has recently been extens­ively upgraded to improve its attrac­tion for walk­ers, which reflects the Way’s import­ance for loc­al tourism.

A new build­ing with activ­it­ies so close would detract from the feel of the area for the walk­ers, who are look­ing to enjoy wilder places. Fre­quent passing ser­vice vehicles would dam­age the track and dis­rupt the enjoy­ment of the route by walk­ers. These walk­ers con­sti­tute sig­ni­fic­ant exist­ing tour­ism, which needs to be pro­tec­ted. Night time use would also detract from oth­er experiences.

The primary pur­pose of the Tast­ing Lodge is to provide exper­i­ence of tast­ing the loc­al whisky. The dis­til­lery does not own the land of the site, and wide scen­ic views are read­ily avail­able else­where in the region. There is no need to site the lodge here.

Rel­ev­ant policies of the Moray Coun­cil and CNPA LDP’s, are con­sidered to be covered in: Moray Council

LDP 2015: ED7: a) ; ED8: c) .

LDP 2020: PP3: b) (ii) ; DP8: and (Jus­ti­fic­a­tion /​Notes) ; EP3: 1) a) ii) CNPA LDP 2015: Policy 2: — 2 a) and b); Paras 4.9, 4.10 .

LDP 2020: Policy 2: 2.3 a) and b); Policy 5: 5.1 a) a

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 2020/0119/DET Applic­a­tion Sum­mary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: 2020/0119/DET Address: Land 440M West Of Grant Cot­tage Glen­liv­et Ballindal­loch Moray Pro­pos­al: Pro­posed new Tast­ing Lodge with asso­ci­ated bound­ary fence and access track at Case Officer: Emma Wilson

Cus­tom­er Details Name: Mrs Aman­da Cairns Address: West­er­town Tomnavoulin Ballindalloch

Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Mem­ber of Pub­lic Stance: Cus­tom­er objects to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Comment:I strongly object to the pro­pos­al for a new build­ing to be erec­ted in this loc­a­tion for sev­er­al reas­ons. As a rur­al area Glen­liv­et has few eco­nom­ic oppor­tun­it­ies, the land­scape and envir­on­ment is the reas­on many people vis­it this area and how many loc­als make their liv­ing so it is a very valu­able assess. The pro­posed loc­a­tion up on an unspoilt and remote hill­side. The most rugged sec­tion of The Spey­side Way fol­lows the track that will be used to access this build­ing. At present the track is only used by farm or estate work. A com­mer­cial build­ing so far off the road would not enhance the area and I fear would set a pre­ced­ent for fur­ther devel­op­ment of the land around. The oth­er build­ings in this area are both down at the bot­tom of the hill on the road­side where you would expect them to be.

The poten­tial impact on our con­ver­ted Dark Sky status is of ser­i­ous con­cern. A lot hard work has gone into get­ting this pres­ti­gi­ous award and loc­als farms and homes have altered their out­side light­ing to min­im­ise any light pol­lu­tion accord­ingly. There­fore it seems ridicu­lous to pro­pose build­ing a Tast­ing Bothy with­in view of one of our Dark skies view­ing points.Although the applic­a­tion has provided a report on how the build­ing could lim­it any pol­lu­tion it seems unclear wheth­er they can sat­is­fy the require­ments of Health and Safety and the E0‑0 Dark Sky Zone.

The road that will be used to access the Bothy is a quiet single track road with lim­ited vis­ib­il­ity in parts and is not grit­ted in winter. At present it is used purely by loc­als so any increase would not go unnoticed. To cre­ate passing places for one com­mer­cial ven­ture is a waste of loc­al resources.

It seems that this pro­posed Tast­ing Bothy has a wide reach­ing neg­at­ive impact on the over­all envir­on­ment and habitat,the lim­ited road infra­struc­ture and the neigh­bour­ing prop­er­ties and their water source whilst provide no bene­fit to the loc­al community.

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 2020/0119/DET Applic­a­tion Sum­mary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: 2020/0119/DET Address: Land 440M West Of Grant Cot­tage Glen­liv­et Ballindal­loch Moray Pro­pos­al: Pro­posed new Tast­ing Lodge with asso­ci­ated bound­ary fence and access track at Case Officer: Emma Wilson

Cus­tom­er Details Name: Mr Gor­don Wal­lace Address: Stone­hal­low Glen­liv­et Ballindalloch

Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Mem­ber of Pub­lic Stance: Cus­tom­er objects to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Comment:I feel that the loc­a­tion of this build­ing is totally unne­ces­sary. I’m not against a tasty bothy but not on a pre­vi­ously undeveloped plot of land that isn’t owned by the dis­til­lery. There are plenty of oth­er suit­able loc­a­tions that won’t impact on the land­scape. This will have a det­ri­ment­al effect on the dark skies park, it’s likely to effect the water sup­ply of neigh­bour­ing prop­er­ties. I cur­rently enjoy walk­ing my dog on the Spey­side way and don’t want lots of vehicles com­ing and going through­out the day. The field is also grazed by cattle and sheep. The dis­til­lery has giv­en no assur­ances about the impact on nest­ing birds and wild­life, they were also very vague on the main­ten­ance and upkeep of the access track, pla­cing the onus on the Glen­liv­et estate. They had the oppor­tun­ity to pur­chase Min­more house and all the out­build­ings which would have offered a far more authen­t­ic exper­i­ence but declined this offer. I’m not against build­ings in the Nation­al Park but not on the sky­line in the dark skies park when there are so many oth­er sites available.

Mrs Kim Pea­cock Burn­side Cot­tage Glen­liv­et Ballindal­loch AB37 9DJ

7^th June 2020

Dear Sir/​Madam,

Objec­tion to Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Ref­er­ence: 2020/0119/DET

Fol­low­ing the pre­vi­ous retrac­ted applic­a­tion for this pro­pos­al, the devel­op­ment was re-sited and amended to address some of the issues raised. How­ever, many of the fun­da­ment­al con­cerns have failed to be addressed and in some areas, have raised new or increased con­cerns from the pre­vi­ous proposal.

In addi­tion, the pro­pos­al con­tra­venes numer­ous areas with­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plans 2015 and 2020 and in addi­tion, Moray Coun­cil Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2020. Some of which have been noted below for ref­er­ence, but are not a com­pre­hens­ive inclu­sion of all areas of plan contraventions.

Eco­nom­ic pro­gress nat­ur­ally must be sup­por­ted, but surely not at the det­ri­ment to oth­er tour­ism aven­ues, the land- scape, wild­life, loc­al busi­nesses and res­id­ents. Many of the issues raised would be com­pletely neg­ated, should the devel­op­ment be loc­ated at a more suit­able, less sens­it­ive and more appro­pri­ately access­ible site.

I have detailed my reas­ons for objec­tion below.

1. Private water sup­ply con­tam­in­a­tion and unsus­tain­able use of water I raised con­cerns about con­tam­in­a­tion of our private water sup­ply dur­ing the applic­ants pre­vi­ous plan­ning applic­a­tion for this pro­pos­al in 2019. Fol­low­ing the with­draw­al of the applic­a­tion due to unre­lated mat­ters, I raised the issue again at a com­munity con­sulta­tion, hav­ing seen the amended loc­a­tion which posed even more of a con­cern. The mat­ter was also raised at a private meet­ing organ­ised by Richard Loch­head MSP in March 2020. It was there­fore extremely dis­ap­point­ing to see that the pol­lu­tion of private water sup­plies had not been taken into account when the latest plans were submitted.

Fol­low­ing com­mu­nic­a­tion with the applic­ant, our house­hold was assured these issues would be con­sidered at a later date, once plan­ning per­mis­sion had been granted.

My cause for con­cern was clearly not unfoun­ded, giv­en that SEPA and Moray Coun­cil have both high­lighted ser­i­ous poten­tial issues with this matter.

The applic­a­tion is in con­tra­ven­tion to Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plans 2015 and 2020, and Moray Coun­cil Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2020.

CNPA Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015 — Water resources All devel­op­ment should: f) avoid unac­cept­able det­ri­ment­al impacts on the water envir­on­ment. Devel­op­ment should demon­strate any impacts (includ­ing cumu­lat­ive) can be adequately mitigated.

CNPA Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2020 — Water resources Have no sig­ni­fic­ant adverse impact on exist­ing or private water sup­plies or wastewa­ter treat­ment ser­vices; and; Where devel­op­ment may impact a resource, or have an adverse impact on neigh­bour­ing prop­er­ties, a sequen­tial approach should be taken to site selec­tion in line with best practice.

CNPA Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015 and 2020 — Con­nec­tion to sew­er­age All devel­op­ment should be con­nec­ted to the pub­lic sew­er­age net­work unless: a) it is in a small set­tle­ment where there is no, or a lim­ited col­lec­tion sys­tem, in which case a private sys­tem may be per­mit­ted where it does not pose or add to a risk of det­ri­ment­al effect, includ­ing cumu­lat­ive, to the nat­ur­al and built envir­on­ment, sur­round­ing uses or the amen­ity of the area;

In addi­tion, the pro­posed trans­port­ing of water via vehicle to site is not an envir­on­ment­ally con­scious and sus­taina- ble option and is incom­pat­ible with vari­ous policies with­in The Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan, in regards to sus­tain­ab­il­ity and envir­on­ment­al impacts and the low car­bon pledge of the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan.

1. Impact on Her­it­age Lot­tery fun­ded pro­jects and diverse, sus­tain­able tour­ism Her­it­age Lot­tery fun­ded pro­jects have recently been com­pleted in the area, with the cre­ation of the Inter­na­tion­al Dark Sky Park status and the upgrade of the Spey­side Way Spur long dis­tance walk­ing route. Both provide sus­tain­able and diverse forms of fam­ily-friendly tour­ism, which are lack­ing in the Glen­liv­et area. The pro­posed devel­op­ment has a dir­ect impact on both of these amen­it­ies which embrace the nat­ur­al land­scape qual­it­ies of the area, and will compro- mise the future enjoy­ment, eco­nom­ic viab­il­ity and pro­ject leg­acy of both. It has not been made clear in the applic­a­tion, how­ever it was stated at the com­munity con­sulta­tion that the gate which was recently installed as part of the Her­it­age Lot­tery fun­ded pro­ject is to be removed, in place of a cattle grid.

Pub­lic vehicu­lar access is pro­hib­ited by law as per the Core Path restric­tions and Crown Estate signs loc­ated at the live­stock gate. As such, a vehicu­lar tour util­ising the Core Path sends con­fus­ing and elit­ist mes­sages to pub­lic users of the amen­ity. It is in con­tra­ven­tion of the below Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan statements:

CNPA Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2020 4.58 In con­sid­er­ing the impact on the path net­work, pro­pos­als must be con­sist­ent with the Scot­tish Out­door Access Code, the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Out­door Access Strategy and the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Core Paths Plan And in addi­tion: Moray Coun­cil Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2020 — Primary Policies b) Devel­op­ment pro­pos­als will not be sup­por­ted where they: ii) Adversely impact on act­ive travel routes, core paths, rights of way, long dis­tance and oth­er access routes and can­not be adequately mit­ig­ated by an equi­val­ent or bet­ter altern­at­ive pro­vi­sion in a loc­a­tion con­veni­ent for users.

In regards to the Inter­na­tion­al Dark Sky Park, the pro­posed devel­op­ment plans to drive vehicles through the Dark Sky Dis­cov­ery Site and into a light-pro­tec­ted zone. I under­stand that the plans agreed by the Light­ing Plan author spe­cifi- cally excluded extern­al light­ing, in order to com­ply with the Inter­na­tion­al Dark Sky reg­u­la­tions. I would like to bring to your atten­tion that the Design State­ment shown with­in the approved light­ing doc­u­ments is in con­tra­dic­tion to this and clearly states that an extern­al light will be util­ised for stat­utory purposes.

A shield­ing struc­ture has been pro­posed for tour­ists, to lim­it light pol­lu­tion. How­ever, no fur­ther details have been provided in regards to this oth­er than a spe­cified height, which will undoubtedly lim­it the view to the sky line and giv­en its pos­i­tion­ing and height, will in par­tic­u­lar com­pletely obstruct the view of the Aurora Boreal­is which this Dark Sky Dis­cov­ery Point is pro­moted for. It also does not detail any pro­vi­sions for dis­abled access and will lim­it the num­ber of users to the Dis­cov­ery Point at any one time.

The pro­pos­al is incon­gru­ent with the spe­cial dark sky qual­it­ies of the land­scape and as such will nat­ur­ally affect the enjoy­ment of astro tour­ists and future mar­ket­ing and eco­nom­ic poten­tial of this Dark Sky Dis­cov­ery Site and the Inter­na­tion­al Dark Sky Park as a whole, which will also have a neg­at­ive impact on related busi­nesses such as hol­i­day accom­mod­a­tion. As one of the only diverse, fam­ily-friendly forms of tour­ism in the area, its viab­il­ity and repu­ta­tion will surely be impacted by a late evening/​night time alco­hol-based attrac­tion, which seems wholly inap­pro­pri­ate and incom­pat­ible giv­en the recent invest­ment to encour­age young­er people, fam­il­ies and indi­vidu­als look­ing for na- ture-based, peace­ful, non whisky related tour­ism to that spe­cif­ic area of Glen­liv­et, in a safe envir­on­ment setting.

In addi­tion, the pro­pos­al does not seem to be a long term sus­tain­able strategy, nor com­pli­ment the low car­bon pledge of the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan. It encour­ages more vehicu­lar use, unsus­tain­able nat­ur­al resource trans­porta- tion and com­prom­ises a truly envir­on­ment­ally friendly form of exist­ing tour­ism in the same area.

1. Impact on loc­al busi­ness and lack of loc­al eco­nom­ic or com­munity bene­fit Res­id­ents of the imme­di­ate loc­al com­munity have provided a hill­side whisky tast­ing exper­i­ence offer­ing, in part­ner­ship with The Glen­liv­et, for a dec­ade. A cor­por­ate duplic­a­tion of the exist­ing busi­ness, without pri­or con­sulta­tion with the loc­al res­id­ent partnered busi­ness, is unne­ces­sary and has a dir­ect neg­at­ive impact on those cur­rently mak­ing a liv­ing in the loc­al community.

The pro­pos­al brings no addi­tion­al loc­al bene­fit and rather than con­trib­ut­ing to the com­munity, is sig­ni­fic­antly detract­ing from it for sev­er­al reasons.

It has been stated in a com­munity con­sulta­tion that no new employ­ment oppor­tun­it­ies will be cre­ated as part of this pro­pos­al, with extern­al sources being util­ised for some areas. As such, this does not cre­ate any new employ­ment with­in the area. As a Glob­ally owned com­pany, any eco­nom­ic bene­fit from this devel­op­ment will not be felt with­in the loc­al area, fail­ing to meet the needs of the com­munity and at the eco­nom­ic det­ri­ment to oth­er tour­ism aven­ues with­in Glen­liv­et, which attract a dif­fer­ent demo­graph­ic includ­ing fam­il­ies, a mar­ket which the dis­til­lery offer­ings are unsuit­able for.

The pro­pos­al offers a whisky tast­ing exper­i­ence, for which the applic­ant already has numer­ous and var­ied options for at the exist­ing vis­it­or centre.

1. Wild­life, RSPB Red Con­ser­va­tion Status spe­cies and European Pro­tec­ted Spe­cies The pro­posed devel­op­ment is loc­ated with­in sens­it­ive wader bird breed­ing area. As an RSPB red con­ser­va­tion status Cur­lew and Lap­wing annu­al nest­ing site, con­cern has been raised not only in regards to the obvi­ous hab­it­at destruc- tion, but the vehicu­lar and human dis­turb­ance pos­ing a danger to the wild­life and the dir­ect impact on the use/​enjoy­ment to wild­life enthu­si­ast users of the Core Path as a res­ult. Res­id­ents of the loc­al and wider area value the loc­a­tion for it’s thriv­ing wild­life, vis­it­ing the area for quiet walks and wild­life spot­ting oppor­tun­it­ies which will be impact- ed and some­what com­prom­ised by the pro­posed daily vehicu­lar access. A sig­ni­fic­ant amount of pub­lic money and Her­it­age Lot­tery fund­ing has recently been util­ised in the Glen­liv­et and Tomin­toul area for ​‘The Peesie Pro­ject’ and wader bird con­ser­va­tion as a whole, giv­en that the loc­a­tion is deemed to be one of the last strong­holds left for these endangered species.

Mem­bers of Tomin­toul and Glen­liv­et Wild­life Group iden­ti­fied a Brown Long Eared Bat pop­u­la­tion with roost sites at Upper Dru­min, Blairfindy Moor and the wood­land just behind the pro­posed devel­op­ment. This pres­ence is of par­ticu- lar import­ance as it is at the upper alti­tude lim­it of the spe­cies. A rep­res­ent­at­ive for the applic­ant at the com­munity con­sulta­tion stated they were aware the above spe­cies are in the pro­posed area. How­ever, the applic­ant has failed to include any inform­a­tion on sur­vey­ing, mit­ig­a­tion or enhance­ment meas­ures, or a species/​habitat pro­tec­tion plan as spe­cified in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan.

1. Road access and safety issues There is one route avail­able to access the pro­posed new attrac­tion and once past the main road at the Dis­til­lery, the road arrange­ment changes sig­ni­fic­antly. This road is mainly used by res­id­ents for access and some lim­ited farm traffic, con­sist­ing of a steep hill, single track roads with no passing places, impaired vis­ib­il­ity at junc­tions and vari­ous oth­er safety/​access hazards.

The road is out­with the The Moray Coun­cil Winter Main­ten­ance Grit­ting and Plough­ing Routes, leav­ing the area at Upper Dru­min often extremely haz­ard­ous and cut off from access for pro­longed peri­ods of time, at a much high­er alti­tude and exposed loc­a­tion to that of the cur­rent Dis­til­lery site. These con­di­tions can and typ­ic­ally do occur any time between Octo­ber to May. The steep hill can eas­ily become com­pletely impass­able, even to those with four wheel drive vehicles or with the aid of snow chains.

If passing places were to be installed and an agree­ment made with Moray Coun­cil to make it a primary route to plough, ploughs do not clear passing places and giv­en the large snow banks often occur­ring dur­ing the colder months, would still leave vehicles in the same situ­ation as present and unable to pass. Ice is also often heav­ily com­pacted on this road and as such, vehicle con­trol and man­oeuv­rab­il­ity is heav­ily compromised.

Due to the steep hill incline and dif­fi­culty in gain­ing trac­tion at the junc­tion regard­less of the weath­er or time of year, this par­tic­u­lar sec­tion of road at the top of the junc­tion is reg­u­larly prob­lem­at­ic with fre­quently occur­ring pot-holes and very loose and fast deteri­or­at­ing road sur­face, which requires reg­u­lar repairs but sel­dom hap­pens for very long peri- ods of time. The increased daily road usage will undoubtedly amp­li­fy and accel­er­ate this issue.

The access track is often blocked or obscured by cars in the car park, which also poses an unpre­dict­able access issue for the pro­posed development.

1. Details omit­ted from/​not made clear on the applic­a­tion and con­tra­dict­ory state­ments Fol­low­ing a com­munity con­sulta­tion and private meet­ing with Richard Loch­head MSP, the applic­ant has stated that they intend to extend their open­ing hours immin­ently to be year round and into the evening/​night. This has not been made clear on the pro­pos­al and may affect mater­i­al decisions.

The extern­al light­ing doc­u­ment states that no extern­al light­ing is to be per­mit­ted, to com­ply with the Inter­na­tion­al Dark Sky reg­u­la­tions. How­ever, the Design State­ment shown with­in the approved light­ing doc­u­ments is in con­tra­dic­tion to this and clearly states that an extern­al light will be util­ised for stat­utory pur­poses. This is again repeated with­in the full Design State­ment itself.

As a res­ult of the exten­ded open­ing times, con­cerns were raised at the com­munity con­sulta­tion in regards to an increase in vis­it­ors to the dis­til­lery. There are already issues with vis­it­ors get­ting lost when try­ing to find the dis­til­lery in the warm­er months and tak­ing the back, incor­rect route of single track road with no oppor­tun­ity for passing places, caus­ing incid­ents not only for them­selves but for loc­al res­id­ents too, who often have to assist in recov­er­ing vehicles from ditches etc. It was also raised that giv­en the pro­pos­al expands into oth­er areas of Glen­liv­et away from the vis­it­or centre, vis­it­ors may take this same very nar­row and often blind back road out of curi­os­ity to look at the attrac­tion. This road can­not sus­tain any addi­tion­al traffic and an increase in such would be extremely haz­ard­ous in the colder months in par­tic­u­lar. The pre­vi­ous applic­a­tion Trans­port Depart­ment response stated that traffic should be mit­ig­ated from ac- cess­ing this sec­tion of toad. As such, it was dis­cussed that sig­nage would be con­sidered to avoid/​limit this pos­sib­il­ity and ensure traffic is appro­pri­ately dir­ec­ted to the dis­til­lery. This has not been addressed with­in the plans.

Addi­tion­al vehicle use for daily main­ten­ance, clean­ing, pre­par­ing for each vis­it­or arrival slot etc, has not been clarified.

As stated in an earli­er com­ment, the applic­ant con­firmed dur­ing a com­munity con­sulta­tion that they intend to remove a gate which has just been installed as part of the Her­it­age Lot­tery fun­ded Spey­side Way Spur upgrade. Again, this is not clear on the plans.

1. Sense of wild­ness and impact on the char­ac­ter of the land­scape, erod­ing spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies, noise pol­lu­tion and dis­turb­ance As one of the only areas of access­ible true wil­der­ness with­in the Glen­liv­et set­tle­ment, this par­tic­u­lar loc­a­tion is val­ued by loc­al res­id­ents and vis­it­ors alike, for it’s remote, wild, unspoilt and peace­ful nature. The pro­posed com­mer­cial­isa- tion of this tran­quil area of agri­cul­tur­al moor­land and hill­side will undoubtedly cre­ate an immeas­ur­able dis­turb­ance to the few res­id­ents who reside here, those liv­ing along the access road, and for those who come to enjoy the tran­quil Spey­side Way Spur and Dark Sky Dis­cov­ery Site, loc­als and tour­ists alike. Giv­en the tran­quil­lity and nature of the set­ting, this is an inap­pro­pri­ate area for com­mer­cial devel­op­ment, which already has a gen­er­ous space alloc­ated else­where nearby.

2. Health and Safety con­cerns To be com­pli­ant with the Dark Sky Status, extern­al lights have not been per­mit­ted. Giv­en that this pro­pos­al is in the very heart of the darkest part of the set­tle­ments with­in the Nation­al Park, nat­ur­ally with no street light­ing or arti­fi­cial light­ing what­so­ever, in the event that guests need to vacate the build­ing in an emer­gency dur­ing dark­er hours and get to a place of safety, there is a sig­ni­fic­ant poten­tial for injury. How does this pro­pos­al fit with stat­utory Health and Safety regulations?

Access to the track can often be blocked/​obscured by vehicles park­ing in the car park and this is the only access route to the pro­posed devel­op­ment. To the north, the land can­not be accessed by any oth­er means down the entire length of the road to Neth­er­town Farm as the land is sep­ar­ated by a burn and steep banks. From the access track facing south are the Carn Liath hills, from the access track facing west there is a vast expanse of wood­land, moor­land and remote hill­side with no emer­gency ser­vices access pos­sible from the oth­er side of the val­ley. The loc­a­tion and excep­tion­ally lim­ited access could cause an issue in the event of an emer­gency situation.

Yours sin­cerely, Kim Peacock

Mr Dav­id Pea­cock Burn­side Cot­tage Glen­liv­et AB37 9DJ 7/6/2020

Applic­a­tion Ref­er­ence: 2020/0119/DET

I am writ­ing to object to the above plan­ning applic­a­tion as the pro­posed devel­op­ment con­flicts with an extens­ive range of plan­ning policies, as detailed in the Cairngorm Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015 and 2020.

Whilst I recog­nise it is import­ant to sup­port new devel­op­ments with­in the Nation­al Park bound­ary, to help sup­port growth and eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment, the loc­a­tion for this devel­op­ment is not appropriate.

Private Water Sup­ply This applic­a­tion is situ­ated close to, and up hill from our private water sup­ply. As raised by Moray Coun­cil and SEPA already as part of this plan­ning applic­a­tion, this poses a great risk of con­tam­in­a­tion as the well water level sits close to the sur­face, so any soak away will likely infilt­rate our sup­ply. I raised this with Chiv­as at their con­sulta­tion in Decem­ber 2019 and also via email. The response via email pro­posed a few options, how­ever there is no spe­cific­a­tion of the sewage treat­ment in the plan to con­firm how they will mit­ig­ate this risk. As stated in the CNPA loc­al devel­op­ment plan ​‘All devel­op­ments should have no sig­ni­fic­ant adverse impact on exist­ing or private water sup­plies or wastewa­ter treat­ment ser­vices’ and there­fore this applic­a­tion should not be allowed to pro­ceed on this point alone, until spe­cif­ic details of the sep­tic treat­ment sys­tem are provided, and we, as res­id­ents affected, are giv­en a leg­ally bind­ing guar­an­tee that there will be no impact on our private water supply.

The CNPA Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan also states in rela­tion to sew­er­age treat­ment ​‘a private sys­tem may be per­mit­ted where it does not pose or add to a risk of det­ri­ment­al effect, includ­ing cumu­lat­ive, to the nat­ur­al and built envir­on­ment, sur­round­ing uses’

There is also already con­cern about the cur­rent avail­ab­il­ity of water in the area, and sev­er­al pro­fes­sion­al bod­ies such as Moray Coun­cil and SEPA have advised people to be care­ful with their water usage this year as they are anti­cip­at­ing short­ages. There should not be an addi­tion­al drain on this resource purely for a new mar­ket­ing exer­cise by Chivas.

Dark Sky Accred­it­a­tion There is con­flict­ing inform­a­tion in the plan­ning applic­a­tion relat­ing to the pro­posed light­ing. The Design & Access State­ment provided (2020_0119_DET-DESIGN_STATEMENT-100164152.pdf) states that there will be an extern­al escape light for stat­utory reas­ons. How­ever, in the Light­ing Plan­ning Sup­port Inform­a­tion (2020_0119_­DET-LIGHT­ING_­PLAN­NING_SUP­PORT_IN­FORM­A­TION- 100164619.pdf) writ­ten by Blyth and Blyth, with con­sulta­tion from James Pat­ter­son, it states there is to be no extern­al light, only indoor lights.

If the Design & Access State­ment is cor­rect, then this con­tra­venes the Dark Sky Accred­it­a­tion Light­ing Man­age­ment Plan which states there are to be no new out­side lights in the EO‑O zone oth­er than red filtered nav­ig­a­tion mark­ers. Con­tra­ven­ing the LMP puts the accred­it­a­tion at risk of remov­al as stated by the IDA and is there­fore against the aim stated for Glen­liv­et in the CNPA Local

Devel­op­ment Plan 2020 – ​‘Ensure new devel­op­ment pre­serves Glenlivet’s Inter­na­tion­al Dark Sky Park status’.

If the Blyth and Blyth doc­u­ment is cor­rect and the out­side light has been removed from the plans, I can­not see how this would com­ply with any Health and Safety law, as in the event of a fire (note, there is a wood burn­ing stove on the pro­posed plans), people will be going from a lit build­ing poten­tially into com­plete dark­ness, which could lead to trips and fall on the uneven out­door sur­face whilst mak­ing their escape. Whilst Chiv­as has said they will only oper­ate dur­ing the day (i.e. the night time accom­mod­a­tion has now been removed) they stated at the con­sulta­tion that they would be using the build­ing occa­sion­ally dur­ing the even­ings. They have also offered its use for the Cairngorm Astro­nomy Group for the 4 darkest nights of the year – there­fore the build­ing will be used when dark out­side and the risk from no suit­able out­side light­ing will be great.

Mov­ing the pro­posed applic­a­tion to the cur­rent site of the Glen­liv­et Dis­til­lery, moves the applic­a­tion out of the sens­it­ive EO‑O zone and there­fore stat­utory out­side light­ing would be permitted.

Spey­side Way Access At the con­sulta­tion with Chiv­as in March, they stated they would be respons­ible for the main­ten­ance of the Spey­side Way Spur, from the Blairfindy Moor car­park, up to the newly sur­faced sec­tion of track at the top of the hill. This how­ever has been omit­ted from the plan­ning applic­a­tion. This raises huge con­cern as the Spey­side Way Spur has received sub­stan­tial fund­ing from the Nation­al Her­it­age Lot­tery Fund, CNPA and oth­er fund­ing part­ners, along with a huge amount of volun­teer time to improve access between Glen­liv­et and Tomin­toul. The applic­a­tion pro­poses using a sec­tion of the Spey­side Way Spur for vehicu­lar access, and so to ensure the pub­lic funds and volun­teer time was not wasted, any util­isa­tion of the spur should be main­tained at their cost and a plan­ning con­di­tion applied stat­ing times­cales for any repair and main­ten­ance work. The sec­tion of track pro­posed only has very lim­ited vehicu­lar access (the farm­er a couple of times a week, and Estate/​Distillery work­ers a couple of times a month), and it will likely deteri­or­ate quickly with con­struc­tion traffic, and sev­er­al trips a day by Chiv­as once oper­a­tion­al. The sur­face is not designed for reg­u­lar vehicu­lar traffic.

Their pro­pos­als include the remov­al of a new gate installed as part of the £300,000+ improve­ment works, and it is to be replaced with a cattle grid. How can some­thing less than a year old, and paid for via these funds be removed by a private company?

Wild­life I raised at the con­sulta­tion and meet­ing with Chiv­as in March that a huge amount of volun­teer time and pub­lic funds have been spent on the Peesie pro­ject loc­ally to improve hab­it­at for waders. It is there­fore sur­pris­ing that the pro­posed devel­op­ment is on a known wader site, and their vehicu­lar access will be right through the middle of this. Con­sid­er­a­tion of wader scrapes and oth­er hab­it­at improve­ment works should be included to encour­age waders away from the access track and the devel­op­ment, so that waders are unaf­fected by the pro­posed works and future oper­a­tion. Indeed, the CNPA Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan states that devel­op­ments should be designed to ​‘cre­ate oppor­tun­it­ies to fur­ther biod­iversity and pro­mote eco­lo­gic­al interest’ — this applic­a­tion does not include any sug­ges­tion of improv­ing biod­iversity, yet it has great poten­tial for it.

Envir­on­ment­al Impact In recent years, both glob­ally and loc­ally, there has been a push for redu­cing car­bon emis­sions across all day to day activ­it­ies. Indeed the CNPA Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plans repeatedly refers to

redu­cing car­bon emis­sion with­in the Nation­al Park. How­ever this applic­a­tion poses two issues firstly, people will be taken up to the site via Hybrid vehicles we do not need addi­tion­al car­bon emis­sions adding, and so this should be made to be fully elec­tric vehicles only. Secondly, they are pro­pos­ing to take water up via tract­or and bow­ser. This does not fit with a car­bon neut­ral plan where they will be burn­ing fossil fuels to lit­er­ally provide some­thing as simple as water to their guests. There must be bet­ter, car­bon neut­ral ways of provid­ing water. Under sec­tion 5.8 of the CNPA 2015 Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan, it stated that ​“In the next five years we will see a step change in the stand­ards of design and sus­tain­ab­il­ity, har­ness­ing the latest tech­no­logy and think­ing to drive for­ward built devel­op­ment which places reduced demands on dimin­ish­ing resources and makes a pos­it­ive con­tri­bu­tion to the spe­cial qual­it­ies and qual­ity of life in the Park.” I can­not see how driv­ing water around in this man­or is com­pat­ible with this aim, let alone an aim set 5 years ago.

Bene­fit to the Com­munity The CNPA Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2020 states that for Glen­liv­et, ​‘devel­op­ment here should be of a small scale, organ­ic nature designed to meet loc­al need’. This applic­a­tion does not seem to help meet any loc­al needs. There are no new jobs pro­posed, and all rev­en­ue raised it not likely to be spent back in our loc­al shops and com­munit­ies due to the size and scale of Chivas.

Glen­liv­et Tast­ing Lodge applic­a­tion 2020 – 0119/DET I write to object to the above applic­a­tion for the reas­ons out­lined below. Because there are dif­fer­ent plan­ning boards poten­tially involved and like­wise Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plans (LDP) for 2015 and 2020 it has not been an easy task!

Cairngorm Nation­al Park Author­ity (CNPA) LDP 2015 Sup­port­ing Eco­nom­ic growth policy 2 Tour­ism is a main­stay of the Glen­liv­et eco­nomy as part of the Cairngorm Nation­al Park Author­ity (CNPA) and Moray. Many vis­it­ors come to dis­til­ler­ies and oth­ers enjoy the scenery and wild­life be they walk­ers or cyc­lists. Res­id­ents also enjoy the attract­ive land­scapes and wild­life and whisky.

Whisky tast­ing tour­ists are well provided for both at the Glen­liv­et and numer­ous oth­er Spey­side dis­til­ler­ies. Walk­ers and cyc­lists enjoy a vari­ety of paths across the region, includ­ing the Spey­side Spur run­ning from Tomin­toul to Ballindal­loch (and part of the much longer Spey­side Way), over Blairfindy Moor (Moor). This route is also recor­ded as an ​“oth­er” route in the Nation­al Cata­logue of Rights of Way kept by ScotWays/​SNH and is part of core path, GT24. The Lodge would be adja­cent to a sec­tion of this core path.

We under­stand that the access to the Lodge, which plans to be open most of the year, from morn­ing until 10.00 pm will be by vehicles from Glen­liv­et dis­til­lery, includ­ing ser­vice vehicles. They will drive up a quiet minor road (also part of the Spey­side Spur thus used by walk­ers etc) and access a sec­tion of the described Spey­side Spur, at present an unsur­faced earth track, from the car park GR NJ190 284, across the Moor, to reach the Lodge. How will vehicles nego­ti­ate this undu­lat­ing track in wet, muddy or snowy con­di­tions? The plans do not make it obvi­ous how this will be man­aged safely.

The above track is part of the much longer path to/​from Tomin­toul, the Spey­side Way Spur. This path was recently greatly improved last year using HLF (Pub­lic) money. Thus, to reach it people must fol­low the Lodge access track on their jour­ney. Hav­ing to share this cur­rently quiet track with reg­u­lar vehicles will ser­i­ously detract from the present pleas­ure of using it. Will the dis­til­lery provide a foot­path to the side? Will they seek to remove the gate at the car park, also part of the HLF pro­ject, to make vehicu­lar access easi­er? At present it has a notice on it stat­ing that non- vehicu­lar access is for­bid­den to deter illeg­al use!

The policy 4.9 sup­port­ing eco­nom­ic growth is inten­ded to pro­tect com­munit­ies from inap­pro­pri­ate devel­op­ment and loss of exist­ing facil­it­ies. We believe these changes to the track equal a loss to the pub­lic of present amen­ity. And as such they would have a neg­at­ive impact on exist­ing loc­al busi­nesses cater­ing for tourists.

CNPA LDP 2015 Nat­ur­al Her­it­age and Biod­iversity, Policy 4.6 Much of Britain’s nat­ur­al her­it­age and biod­iversity is in ser­i­ous decline. Birds such as cur­lew and lap­wings were once com­mon on the Moor, I have seen a red kite close to the pro­posed site and there are at least 2 bat spe­cies known to use the woods near it. There is a reas­on­able pop­u­la­tion of brown hares and roe deer, not to men­tion ever present cattle and sheep often close to or on the track. There is a size­able pond, (also water sup­ply for the dis­til­lery) close to the track which comes

alive in Spring with frogs and toads, that have trav­elled from who knows how far away. There may be newts too. How will reg­u­lar road traffic affect all these spe­cies? We are unaware of any spe­cies plan or sur­veys that might address the threats this devel­op­ment will bring.

In Moray’s LDP 2020 the Place­mak­ing State­ment men­tions the need for hab­it­at cre­ation, but again there seems no men­tion of such for the Lodge build­ing and any track changes that will dis­turb wild life from the start of build­ing and thereafter.

From CNPA LDP 2020 5.1 There will be a pre­sump­tion against any devel­op­ment that does not main­tain or enhance the land­scape. Blairfindy Moor is not a wild area in the same sense as the Cairngorm moun­tains but it is very attract­ive with open views all round, lead­ing on towards more remote areas and the splen­did view­point of Carn Daimh, with its views over to the Crom­dales and the high Cairngorms in the distance.