Item6Appendix3aObjections20220270DETDulichtCourtGOS

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Item 6 Appendix 3a 09 June 2023 Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Agenda item 6

Appendix 3a

2022/0270/DET

Rep­res­ent­a­tions Objections

Alan Atkins Case Officer ePlan­ning Centre The High­land Coun­cil Glen­ur­qhart Road Inverness IV3 5NX

20^th Septem­ber, 2022

Ref­er­ence: Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 22/03073/FUL

Dear Mr Atkins,

I am writ­ing to you fol­low­ing receipt of a Neigh­bour Noti­fic­a­tion with regards to a plan­ning applic­a­tion that has been sub­mit­ted by RS McLeod Lim­ited with Ref­er­ence 22/03073/FUL, loc­ated at 29 Dulicht Court, Grantown-on-Spey.

I would like to express my objec­tion to the plan­ning applic­a­tion for the fol­low­ing reasons:

1. Four of the prop­er­ties that are planned to be dir­ectly adja­cent to my prop­erty (prop­er­ties 58- 61) will have upper win­dows look­ing on to my rear lawn area and the rear of my prop­erty (Revoan, Seafield Aven­ue), a house that was built in the 1920s. It would be more accept­able if prop­er­ties 58 to 61 be single storey to neg­ate this impact on the pri­vacy of me and my family.
2. The area where prop­er­ties 58 – 61 would be built could lead to poten­tial drain­age of excess water at the drive­way area at the rear of my prop­erty, as well as the old stone-built gar­age loc­ated dir­ectly adja­cent to the site. This is due in part to the fact that the drive­way of my prop­erty is approx­im­ately 60cm lower that the ground level where the prop­er­ties would be built, and it already suf­fers from peri­od­ic flood­ing. Assur­ances would be required that there is suf­fi­cient drain­age mod­el­ling of the area to demon­strate that this would not occur and that prop­er­ties 58 – 61 be built at a lower ground level.
3. The plan provides for a path at the rear of the old stone gar­age and fence that would run dir­ectly below large fir trees down to the suds pond area. This could impact the root struc­ture and sta­bil­ity of these trees which are used by red squir­rels and a vari­ety of birds for nest­ing. In addi­tion, there is an issue with anti-social beha­viour on Seafield Aven­ue and installing a secluded path dir­ectly beside our prop­erty may lead to anti-social beha­viour in the new devel­op­ment. It is recom­men­ded that the path to the suds pond be loc­ated from the cul de sac adja­cent to prop­erty 57 instead to neg­ate this.
4. The plan includes the install­a­tion of a suds pond on the area close to Seafield Aven­ue. This is an area of marsh­land that is used by pheas­ants for nest­ing, young deer feeding/​hiding out of

site. In addi­tion otters have on occa­sion passed through my pond in to the marsh­land area. It is recom­men­ded that this loss of hab­it­at be stud­ied by the CNPA as part of the application.

1. In the plan­ning applic­a­tion it is stated that it is not known if the site is with­in an area of known risk of flood­ing. Whilst the prop­er­ties are not loc­ated in an area of flood­ing, the area where the suds pond will be installed is most cer­tainly an area where flood­ing occurs sev­er­al times a year. Indeed the water can on occa­sion flow over the front of my garden and over my pond. It is import­ant that the suds pond out­flow does not enter in to the burn upstream of my drive­way entrance as the cul­verts can peri­od­ic­ally not handle the flow of water in the burn res­ult­ing in flood­ing on Seafield Avenue.

2. The pond loc­ated at the front of my prop­erty is solely fed by a stream that runs through the area where it is a pro­posed that a suds pond will be loc­ated. It is vital that the con­tinu­ous stream of water in to the pond be unim­pacted by the install­a­tion of a suds pond, a pond which con­tains breed­ing ducks, vis­it­ing her­on, otters, frogs and young trout

The below is a photo show­ing a her­on feed­ing on Sept 22^nd, 2022

1. It appears that dur­ing Phase 1 of the devel­op­ment, the appear­ance of the suds pond area planned was not ful­filled in its entirety (See pre­vi­ous plan­ning applic­a­tion ref 2016/0060/DET). This has lead to the area look­ing unsightly and over­grown (although mod­est attempts have been made to cut down some of the 2 – 3 year growth dur­ing the past week). The over­growth of this area is a haz­ard for chil­dren who may not be able to see the road as clearly as they should. Indeed, the sign for the first phase of the devel­op­ment remains there des­pite RS McLeod not work­ing on the site for some peri­od. This does not align with the visu­al look of the rest of Seafield Aven­ue and should be addressed to ensure assur­ances put in place that it is enforced after the con­struc­tion work is com­pleted, as it is not clear who is respons­ible for the upkeep of both suds pond areas.

RS McLeod

1. With my wife and I both work­ing full time at home, and our daugh­ter being homeschooled with the High­land Vir­tu­al Academy, it is import­ant that noise pol­lu­tion is kept to a min­im­um and that the devel­op­ment be com­pleted with­in a reas­on­able time­frame. Phase 1 encountered lengthy peri­ods of inactiv­ity, punc­tu­ated by high levels of noise over a pro­longed peri­od. A site office was loc­ated adja­cent to my prop­erty with dogs left to bark for much of the day dur­ing Phase 1 of the devel­op­ment. It is hoped that the site office can be relo­cated away from its cur­rent loc­a­tion and away from res­id­en­tial prop­er­ties to min­im­ize impact dur­ing the con­struc­tion phase. It is also hoped that the devel­op­ment, once plan­ning is provided, is com­pleted in a reas­on­able timescale.

Over­all, whilst we under­stand the area being developed is included in the CNPA devel­op­ment plan for the area, and that there is a need for addi­tion­al hous­ing in the area, we would like to see the above points act­ively addressed as part of a re-sub­mis­sion of the plan­ning application.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Plan­ning Team 14 The Square Grant­own on Spey PH26 3HG 3 Octo­ber 2022

Objec­tion to Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 2022/0270/DET — Erec­tion of 19 houses — 29 Dulicht Court Grant­own on Spey

I have no spe­cif­ic objec­tion in prin­ciple to the con­struc­tion of the 19 homes, how­ever I have numer­ous sub­stan­tial objec­tions to the plans sub­mit­ted in the sup­port­ing doc­u­ments to this plan­ning applic­a­tion. This yet anoth­er min­im­al­ist­ic and shoddy plan­ning applic­a­tion from a developer who is cur­rently under notice of plan­ning enforce­ment for sev­er­al fail­ures to imple­ment plan­ning con­di­tions con­tained in pre­vi­ous plan­ning per­mis­sions on this devel­op­ment site covered by out­line plan­ning per­mis­sion 2016/0060/DET. Giv­en the appalling track record of the numer­ous oth­er plan­ning con­di­tion breaches of R S McLeod Ltd and the land-own­ing com­pany R S McLeod Devel­op­ments Ltd on which either no, or min­im­al enforce­ment action has been taken by CNPA, the CNPA Plan­ning Author­ity needs to be metic­u­lous in ensur­ing that any fur­ther plan­ning per­mis­sions gran­ted fully cov­er all neces­sary aspects of the design and devel­op­ment of this applic­a­tion site. Addi­tion­ally, CNPA should be aware that the bal­ance sheets lodged with Com­pan­ies House of these two com­pan­ies shows that these two com­pan­ies have sig­ni­fic­antly neg­at­ive bal­ance sheets. My objec­tions are:

1. Mis­takes and omis­sions in the plan­ning applications

The applic­ant has cer­ti­fied that R S McLeod is the sole own­er of the land. This is untrue. The land own­er, accord­ing to Land Registry doc­u­ments is R S McLeod Devel­op­ments Ltd a dif­fer­ent leg­al entity. I have poin­ted out this error in sev­er­al oth­er applic­a­tions made by RS McLeod Ltd, but yet again this error appears to have been over­looked by High­land Coun­cil and CNPA.

This applic­a­tion has been veri­fied by High­land Coun­cil and it would appear that CNPA Plan­ning intends to take this applic­a­tion to CNPA Plan­ning Com­mit­tee for determ­in­a­tion with sig­ni­fic­ant sup­port­ing doc­u­ments miss­ing. These include: Envir­on­ment­al State­ment – this is ticked as N/A. I appre­ci­ate that some of the issues were covered by pre­vi­ous plan­ning applic­a­tions, how­ever these state­ments are now 1

sev­er­al years old. An example of an envir­on­ment­al change is the res­id­ence of nest­ing sand mar­tins dur­ing the Spring and Sum­mer with­in the excav­ated bank­ing on the site. The applic­a­tion is silent on how the developer intends to deal with this issue. CNPA is well aware of the issue. Flood risk and drain­age impact assess­ment – these are ticked as N/A. Although the applic­a­tion site is not sub­ject to flood­ing, the adja­cent land onto which the site drains is. A flood risk assess­ment was con­duc­ted in sup­port of plan­ning per­mis­sion 2016/0060/DET, how­ever the cir­cum­stances of the pro­posed site lay­out have changed. The flood risk assess­ment at the very least should be updated with the pro­posed changes to ensure safe man­age­ment of flood risk. Like­wise, there are no cal­cu­la­tions or inform­a­tion to demon­strate that the pro­posed design of the SUDS pond appro­pri­ately man­ages the site drain­age and flood water from the applic­a­tion site. (Please see point 3 in this objec­tion for more detail on spe­cif­ic issues later in this objection).

CNPA should reject this applic­a­tion at this stage and require that the applic­ant provides this neces­sary inform­a­tion to enable informed determ­in­a­tion of this applic­a­tion. It is not appro­pri­ate to cov­er off these issues with plan­ning conditions.

2. Land­scap­ing

The only land­scap­ing inform­a­tion included in the applic­a­tion is R S McLeod draw­ing RSMD/GOS/SDA/001 Rev A. This attempts to depict the soil dis­pers­al area. In order to assess wheth­er this land­filling of sur­plus soil, sub­soil, rocks etc. should be giv­en plan­ning con­sent fur­ther inform­a­tion is neces­sary on fin­ished ground levels com­pared to the sur­round­ing area and the ori­gin­al nat­ur­al levels. There is no indic­a­tion that the tree roots of exist­ing trees close to the pro­posed soil dis­pers­al area will be pro­tec­ted. Addi­tion­ally, a meth­od state­ment is required to demon­strate how and when the area will be returned to ​‘acid grass­land’. This area has been per­mit­ted to be an eye­sore for far too long and con­sid­er­able envir­on­ment­al dam­age to this area had already been allowed.

It would be inform­at­ive if the applic­ant had made clear its inten­tion to com­plete the over­due land­scap­ing around and with­in the applic­a­tion site which was approved under pre­vi­ous plan­ning con­sents cov­er­ing the wider site, and that this pro­posed devel­op­ment will not impact these exist­ing land­scap­ing require­ments. For example, the long over­due recon­nec­tion of the core path from the Dulicht Court devel­op­ment to Beachen Wood passing in between plots 49 and 50 has been per­mit­ted to remain closed. Giv­en the many years delay in reopen­ing this core path, if this applic­a­tion receives con­sent, ser­i­ous con­sid­er­a­tion should be giv­en to split­ting the devel­op­ment site into two, enabling the prompt re-estab­lish­ment of this core path. Oth­er­wise it is likely that this core path will remain closed for sev­er­al years to come.

3. SUDS Pond Design and Flood Risk

Without the sup­port of a flood risk assess­ment and a drain­age impact assess­ment, the SUDS Pond Plan & Sec­tions is simply a schem­at­ic. Put­ting aside the lack of quant­it­at­ive assess­ment of flood and drain­age, inform­a­tion miss­ing from this applic­a­tion includes: 2

no inform­a­tion on what sec­tions of the applic­a­tion site, or areas out­with the applic­a­tion site will drain into the SUDS pond. no detail on how the swale which enters the SUDS pond will cross the exist­ing stream which flows NW to SE across the area to enter the prop­erty of Revoan.

• I am very con­cerned with the pro­pos­al for the out­let of the SUDS pond to enter the Kylin­tra Burn just upstream of the bridge which is used for vehicu­lar access to the prop­erty of Revoan. This is a known area where the road reg­u­larly floods. The applic­ant needs to demon­strate through drain­age and flood risk assess­ments that this flood risk will not increase if this SUDS pond design is imple­men­ted. no inform­a­tion on what is pro­posed to hap­pen to the exist­ing soakaways installed under plan­ning per­mis­sion 2018/0402/DET. SUDS Pond Plan & Sec­tions draw­ing ^1447132⁄₂₀ Rev C states that on the SE of the SUDS pond wall in an annota­tion, ​“2000 wide, 50 deep depres­sion in the 3500 peri­met­er track to allow flood water to over­top to water­course”. It is unclear to which water­course any over­top­ping water would flow – is it the stream which flows into Revoan or is it the Kylin­tra Burn, or will the water just flow across the land and enter the prop­erty of Revoan?

All of these import­ant safety mat­ters need to be cla­ri­fied before any decision to determ­ine this application.

4. Envir­on­ment­al Statement

This is a sens­it­ive envir­on­ment on the edge of Grant­own on Spey. I have already men­tioned the sand mar­tins nest­ing on the applic­a­tion site. Addi­tion­ally, the area around Plots 54 to 61 and the pro­posed soil dis­pers­al area is a long-used breed­ing area for lap­wings. The grass­land areas host many wild orch­ids and a wide range of fungi and insect life. If CNPA does wish to pro­tect the nat­ur­al envir­on­ment as its policies state, appro­pri­ate envir­on­ment­al sur­veys need to be com­mis­sioned and details presen­ted on how this sens­it­ive eco­logy will be appro­pri­ately man­aged dur­ing the extens­ive ground­works asso­ci­ated with the house build­ing, SUDS pond con­struc­tion and spread­ing of sur­plus soil from site.

Yet again, this inform­a­tion needs to be con­sidered before any decision to determ­ine this applic­a­tion, and not left to be covered by a plan­ning condition.

5. Site works asso­ci­ates with house plot formation

In par­tic­u­lar the Design State­ment implies that the cre­ation of plots 43 to 53 will require con­sid­er­ably more excav­a­tion into the hill­side which bor­ders Beachen Wood. I appre­ci­ate that lower­ing plot levels will make access from the exist­ing road much easi­er. The plan­ning applic­a­tion, how­ever, is totally silent on how the steep slopes to the back of the plots will be con­struc­ted and sta­bil­ised. There has already been con­cern over the sta­bil­ity of the exist­ing slopes cut without plan­ning per­mis­sion into this hill­side. The sta­bil­ity design of these very steep slopes is a major safety issue.

The pro­posed slope design, sup­por­ted by civil engin­eer­ing cal­cu­la­tions must be provided before any decision is made on plan­ning con­sent. 3

6. Hous­ing design

This has been a con­tinu­ing con­ten­tious issue through­out the devel­op­ment of the lar­ger site. In this applic­a­tion, the pro­posed hous­ing is in a very prom­in­ent pos­i­tion and is vis­ible from many parts of the town and sur­round­ing area. There is already a pre­ced­ent set with all the hous­ing to the south of the applic­a­tion site lin­ing the edge to Beachen Wood. This exist­ing hous­ing is all low visu­al impact housing.

I appre­ci­ate that some attempt has been made in the design of the 3‑bedroom units to break up the rooflines and give the appear­ance of a par­tial dormer win­dow design. The pro­posed houses are, how­ever, still full two storey house designs, where­as the ver­nacu­lar house design through­out the sur­round­ing area and in most of the High­lands is 1.5 or 1.75 storey designs with dormer win­dows. It is highly dis­ap­point­ing to see that the applic­ant still will not include 1.5 or 1.75 storey designs in this prom­in­ent area of the over­all devel­op­ment site. I will leave it up to CNPA Plan­ning to decide wheth­er it wants to retain the char­ac­ter of hous­ing in the Nation­al Park, or just let the developer do what it wants — as has happened on pre­vi­ous occa­sions in the wider devel­op­ment of this site – des­pite strong objec­tions from loc­al res­id­ents and the Grant­own and Vicin­ity Com­munity Council.

Yours faith­fully. 4