Item6Appendix4aObjectionsLogieColdstone20230295DET

Cairngorms Item 6 Appendix 4a 26 Janu­ary 2024 Nation­al Park Author­ity Ügh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Agenda item 6

Appendix 4a

2023/0295/DET

Rep­res­ent­a­tions – objections

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion APP/2023/1235 Applic­a­tion Sum­mary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: APP/2023/1235 Address: Land Adja­cent To Car­rue Cot­tage Logie Cold­stone Aboyne Aber­deen­shire Pro­pos­al: Erec­tion of Farmshop/​Café/​Staff Accom­mod­a­tion and Shed and Install­a­tion of Free Stand­ing Sol­ar Pan­els and Asso­ci­ated Works Case Officer: Ruth Cuth­bert Cus­tom­er Details

Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Mem­ber of Pub­lic Stance: Cus­tom­er objects to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Com­ment: The applic­ant seems to have over­looked the spe­cif­ics of the recently updated EV park­ing require­ments which are now (as of June 2023) dic­tated by Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment build­ing stand­ards, in this case — the non-domest­ic tech­nic­al hand­book, sec­tion 7.2. This cov­ers how many spaces are required to have access to act­ive char­gers, the required specs of the char­gers, as well as oth­er per­tin­ent inform­a­tion. If the applic­ant addresses this then con­sider this objec­tion rescinded.

In such a loc­a­tion I would sug­gest the applic­ant seeks to install bet­ter than the min­im­um 7kW slow AC char­gers by reach­ing out to one of the vari­ous Charge Point Oper­at­ors (CPO) who would look to install much quick­er DC char­gers, which would likely increase vis­it­ors ie passing tour­ists etc. This is inline with what Farms Shops and Garden Centres (with cafes) are begin­ning to do elsewhere.

(LCP Delta report 2023, 74% of UK respond­ents said that they would more fre­quently vis­it des­tin­a­tions with char­ging available.)

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 2023/0295/DET Applic­a­tion Sum­mary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: 2023/0295/DET Address: Land Adja­cent To Car­rue Cot­tage Logie Cold­stone Aboyne Aber­deen­shire Pro­pos­al: Erec­tion of farm shop / café / staff accom­mod­a­tion and shed and install­a­tion of free stand­ing sol­ar pan­els and asso­ci­ated works Case Officer: Emma Bryce Cus­tom­er Details

Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Mem­ber of Pub­lic Stance: Cus­tom­er objects to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Com­ment: As a res­id­ent of the loc­al area, I do agree that the area could do with some amen­it­ies for res­id­ents and tour­ists alike, how­ever do not think that the pro­posed site offers the best loc­a­tion. There are no foot­paths or pave­ments with­in the vicin­ity, which would mean that to vis­it on site on foot or by bicycle you are trav­el­ing on a dan­ger­ous stretch of road made up of bends and blind corners.

I reg­u­larly pass this site for both work and when vis­it­ing fam­ily and I have seen the pro­posed field flood numer­ous times over the last 10 years. From memory the flood­ing here was par­tic­u­larly bad in Janu­ary 2016 fol­low­ing storm frank.

Fol­low­ing on from heavy rain and snow melts the water com­ing down from the sur­round­ing hills in the area only ads to the water levels and Cli­mate change will only serve to cause more flood­ing in these areas. Build­ing com­mer­cial prop­er­ties on a flood plain will only con­tam­in­ate the land and harm the wild­life in the area.

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 2023/0295/DET Applic­a­tion Sum­mary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: 2023/0295/DET Address: Land Adja­cent To Car­rue Cot­tage Logie Cold­stone Aboyne Aber­deen­shire Pro­pos­al: Erec­tion of farm shop / café / staff accom­mod­a­tion and shed and install­a­tion of free stand­ing sol­ar pan­els and asso­ci­ated works Case Officer: Emma Bryce Cus­tom­er Details

Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Mem­ber of Pub­lic Stance: Cus­tom­er objects to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Com­ment: A loc­al shop to serve the loc­al com­munity would be great, but prices in these organ­ic farm shops are much high­er than the likes of your loc­al coop or Tesco and I doubt that loc­als will be able to afford to shop there for their reg­u­lar con­veni­ence. Surely it would be most con­veni­ent to the loc­als for the shop to be in the vil­lage where it can be accessed on foot? There was a shop in Din­net, but due to the cost of oper­at­ing and lack of loc­al use/​support it closed. Why would this be any dif­fer­ent? There is no real passing trade or bread and but­ter cus­tom­ers passing. The road users in this area are tim­ber lor­ries and farm­ers, not the most likely of cus­tom­ers. Are the pro­pri­et­ors loc­al and already asso­ci­ated with the CNP? Are they estab­lished in organ­ic farming/​retail? How can already estab­lished farms & busi­nesses with­in the CNP diver­si­fy their already long estab­lished busi­ness if this plan­ning goes ahead from someone look­ing at tak­ing all oppor­tun­it­ies with it? This stretch of road that is very dan­ger­ous, often with sur­face water and severe flood­ing along the stretch of road from Car­rue Cot­tage to Galton farm track, incor­por­at­ing that with the bends either end of the straight sev­er­al cars over the years come off of the road and into the fields/​woods. A shop will bring daily deliv­ery lor­ries, refuse and recyc­ling vehicles all added unne­ces­sary traffic. There has been at least one ser­i­ous fatal­ity and anoth­er ser­i­ous acci­dent when a car went off the road just at Car­rue cot­tage. Winter 2022 the burn flooded the road com­pletely (at the access gate to the site) and more than one vehicle’s engine was was flooded and had to be towed. Once car sat in the water on the middle of the road for sev­er­al hours. The entire field that the shop is to go was under water as well as the fields bey­ond! Not the place for this im afraid. Some­where safer that does­nt flood that loc­als can afford and id be more in favour!

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 2023/0295/DET Applic­a­tion Sum­mary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: 2023/0295/DET Address: Land Adja­cent To Car­rue Cot­tage Logie Cold­stone Aboyne Aber­deen­shire Pro­pos­al: Erec­tion of farm shop / café / staff accom­mod­a­tion and shed and install­a­tion of free stand­ing sol­ar pan­els and asso­ci­ated works Case Officer: Emma Bryce Cus­tom­er Details

Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Mem­ber of Pub­lic Stance: Cus­tom­er objects to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Com­ment: I have seen the area of the pro­posed build­ing flood sev­er­al times over the years with flood­ing in Novem­ber 2022, res­ult­ing in the nearby burn actu­ally flow­ing over the access road to Galton farm at its gate near to the A97. This was not simply rising, still water it was the extent to which the flow of the burn had reached.

I accept the wish to pro­duce some of the shops goods on site, but believe for any busi­ness of this type to sur­vive, the busi­ness will have to sell a wider range of products, all of which will have to be trans­por­ted by road to the site. The same applies to cus­tom­ers who, giv­en the infre­quent avail­ab­il­ity of buses, will most likely attend there by motorcar.

Sim­il­arly, all waste pro­duced at the site which can­not be reused will have to be trans­por­ted off site by road.

All of the increased traffic in the area of Blelack farm, where a series of blind corners exists increases the chances of road traffic accidents.

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 2023/0295/DET Applic­a­tion Sum­mary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: 2023/0295/DET Address: Land Adja­cent To Car­rue Cot­tage Logie Cold­stone Aboyne Aber­deen­shire Pro­pos­al: Erec­tion of farm shop / café / staff accom­mod­a­tion and shed and install­a­tion of free stand­ing sol­ar pan­els and asso­ci­ated works Case Officer: Emma Bryce Cus­tom­er Details

Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Mem­ber of Pub­lic Stance: Cus­tom­er objects to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Com­ment: Hav­ing trav­elled the A97 for over 50 years vis­it­ing numer­ous farms with my work as an auc­tion­eer i have seen this field com­pletely flooded on sev­er­al occa­sions. So I would think a devel­op­ment on that area should not be advis­able and with cli­mate change pro­gress­ing the situ­ation will only get worse.

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 2023/0295/DET Applic­a­tion Sum­mary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: 2023/0295/DET Address: Land Adja­cent To Car­rue Cot­tage Logie Cold­stone Aboyne Aber­deen­shire Pro­pos­al: Erec­tion of farm shop / café / staff accom­mod­a­tion and shed and install­a­tion of free stand­ing sol­ar pan­els and asso­ci­ated works Case Officer: Emma Bryce Cus­tom­er Details

Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Mem­ber of Pub­lic Stance: Cus­tom­er objects to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Com­ment: This field floods on a reg­u­lar basis and extremely badly every 5 years or so. With cli­mate change I would expect this to become more reg­u­lar and more intense. To con­sider build­ing any­where on this field makes no sense at all. Please listen to the loc­als, I am one, who know how fre­quently these flood events occur.

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 2023/0295/DET Applic­a­tion Sum­mary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: 2023/0295/DET Address: Land Adja­cent To Car­rue Cot­tage Logie Cold­stone Aboyne Aber­deen­shire Pro­pos­al: Erec­tion of farm shop / café / staff accom­mod­a­tion and shed and install­a­tion of free stand­ing sol­ar pan­els and asso­ci­ated works Case Officer: Emma Bryce Cus­tom­er Details

Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Neigh­bour Stance: Cus­tom­er objects to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Com­ment: I do think to loc­al area need some­thing like this how­ever this loc­a­tion is all wrong as it reg­u­larly floods but also only assess­able by car due to no walk paths

Pub­lic Rep­res­ent­a­tion: State­ment of Objec­tion Chartered RCP Town Plan­ning Con­sultancy APP/2023/1235 and CNPA Ref 2023/0295/DET Erec­tion of Farmshop/​Café/​Staff Accom­mod­a­tion and Shed and Install­a­tion of Free Stand­ing Sol­ar Pan­els and Asso­ci­ated Works | Land Adja­cent To Car­rue Cot­tage Logie Cold­stone Aboyne

August 2023 R. C. Pur­die MRTPI E: RCP@​RCPPlanning.​com T: 0755 777 0924

Con­tents 1.0 Intro­duc­tion Page 3 2.0 Galton Farm Page 3 3.0 Site His­tory of Flood­ing Page 5 4.0 Impacts of Flood­ing Page 8 (i) Suit­ab­il­ity of Pro­posed Drain­age Sys­tems Page 8 (ii) Land Con­tam­in­a­tion Page 8 (iii) Anim­al Wel­fare Page 9 (iv) Qual­ity of Private Water Sup­ply Page 9 5.0 Quant­ity of Private Water Sup­ply Page 10 6.0 Impacts on Amen­ity Page 10 7.0 Ver­min and Dis­ease Page 11 8.0 Wor­ry­ing Live­stock Page 12 9.0 Road Safety Page 12 10.0 Car Park­ing Page 12 11.0 Impacts on Wild­life and Insects Page 13 12.0 Wild­fire Page 14 13.0 Sum­mary Page 15 Appendix 1: Annot­ated Site Pho­tos, Site Plan, and Record­ings Pages i‑vii 2

1.0 Intro­duc­tion 1.1 RCP Chartered Town Plan­ning Con­sultancy (the agent) has been instruc­ted 1.2 1.3 to sub­mit a pub­lic rep­res­ent­a­tion in the form of an objec­tion to the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity in response to applic­a­tion ref­er­ences APP/2023/1235 and 2023/0295/DET. to them. These include: • Flood Risk wish to raise sev­er­al issues which are of vary­ing degrees of con­cern • The suit­ab­il­ity of the pro­posed drain­age sys­tems • Site con­tam­in­a­tion • Anim­al wel­fare • Impacts on the qual­ity of their private water sup­ply • Impacts on quant­ity of their private water sup­ply • Impacts on amen­ity • Adequacy of refuse and recyc­ling facil­it­ies • Envir­on­ment­al health risk from ver­min • Wor­ry­ing of live­stock • Road safety • Car park­ing • Impacts on wild­life and insects • Risk of wild­fire These issues will be set out in fur­ther detail from Sec­tion 3.0 onwards, fol­low­ing a brief over­view of Galton Farm and its recent His­tory to provide suf­fi­cient con­text to the Plan­ning Author­ity in order to sup­port its decision-mak­ing. 2.0 Galton Farm 2.1 Our cli­ents which lies imme­di­ately west and south of the applic­a­tion site for APP/2023/1235 and 2023/0295/DET. Their land extends 230 acres and has been 3

2.2 first pur­chased it. The cur­rent farm­ing busi­ness is mixed arable (cer­eal crop) and live­stock, com­pris­ing 250 cattle, of which there are 90 cows, 80 calves, 80 stirks, 4 bulls and 90 sheep. Galton farm is bound to the east by the Logie Burn and to the north by the applic­a­tion site, with the A97 and adja­cent ancient wood­land bey­ond. The access track to Galton meets the west­ern bound­ary of the applic­a­tion site. There are agri­cul­tur­al fields bey­ond the south­ern site bound­ary. The main farm­hub is loc­ated to the south-west of the access track behind the wood­land. This is where the cattle courts, farm­house and agri­cul­tur­al stor­age build­ings are loc­ated. 2.3 The land at Galton farm is clas­si­fied by Scotland’s Soils as Class 3.2, which accord­ing to the Land Cap­ab­il­ity for Agri­cul­ture in Scot­land Series, is suit­able for sup­port­ing a mod­er­ate range of crops includ­ing cer­eals, for­age crops and grass. It is there­fore cul­tiv­ated for cer­eal crops and qual­ity feed for the cattle. The cattle troughs and farm­house are ser­viced by an exist­ing private water sup­ply, the source for which is loc­ated imme­di­ately south-west of the applic­a­tion site. It lies adja­cent to the rubble stone dyke which defines the south­ern bound­ary of the applic­a­tion site. Please see below Fig­ure 1 show­ing the approx­im­ate route of the private water sup­ply in rela­tion to the applic­a­tion site bound­ary. 4

3.0 3.1 Galton Farm Water Sourc Fig­ure 1: Approx­im­ate Loc­a­tion of Galton Farm’s Private Water Sup­ply Site His­tory of Flood­ing Fig­ure 2 below is an excerpt from SEPA Flood Maps, which shows the like­li­hood of river flood­ing from the Logie Burn in rela­tion to the applic­a­tion site, Galton Farm, and wider sur­round­ing area. The applic­a­tion site is iden­ti­fied by SEPAs Flood Maps as hav­ing a medi­um (0.5%) and low (0.1%) chance of flood­ing each year. The land to the south of the site, which per­tains to Galton, is shown to have a high (10%) chance of flood­ing each year. 5

3.2 SEPA Flood Maps Baic Map V Fig­ure 2: Excerpt from SEPA Flood Maps anec­dot­al Hav­ing farmed the land at Galton for sev­er­al years, evid­ence from sug­gests that the annu­al flood­ing events are not­ably more severe in real­ity than is indic­at­ively shown on the SEPA Flood Maps. Pho­to­graphs taken in Novem­ber 2022 of the applic­a­tion site, adja­cent land, and A97 pub­lic road, show the extent of loc­al­ised flood­ing from the Logie Burn (please see Fig­ure 3), which on this occa­sion was said to have been less severe than in oth­er recent years. Please refer to Appendix 1 for the annot­ated site pho­tos, site plan and link to record­ings. The flood­ing extends fur­ther west­wards than is indic­at­ively shown in Fig­ure 2 and engulfs a sig­ni­fic­ant sec­tion of the A97, hav­ing pre­ven­ted smal­ler vehicles from passing safely. The water­flow south­wards is said to be rel­at­ively strong and gen­er­ally reaches around 300mm in depth from ground level, after hav­ing burst the riverb­anks and filled the field ditch (approx­im­ately 1m in depth) along the north­ern site bound­ary. The flood­ing gen­er­ally extends into at least the first 6no. fields south of the A97. 6

3.3 Photo 1: View From A97, look­ing south Photo 2: View from A97 look­ing south-west < Aboyne-Logie Cold­stone Edit 18 Novem­ber 2022 14:18 Photo 3: View of A97, look­ing west Phot 4: View from Galton access, look­ing north-east 18/11/2022 Fig­ure 3: Pho­tos of Flood­ing, Novem­ber 2022 Pho­tos 3 and 4 in Fig­ure 3 show the extent of the water trav­el­ling from the wood­land across the A97, and pour­ing over the rubble stone dyke into the north­ern­most field at Galton Farm, respect­ively. The loc­a­tion of the water source for Galton farm is situ­ated approx­im­ately in the far left-hand corner of Photo 4, where the land is com­pletely sub­merged. 7

3.4 RCP Plan­ning has been informed anec­dot­ally that there have been at least a fur­ther 3no. flood­ing events in recent his­tory. These were in 1996, 2010 and more recently, Storm Frank in Decem­ber 2015 — Janu­ary 2016. Flood­ing in asso­ci­ation with each was sig­ni­fic­ant, res­ult­ing in water levels at the Galton access track reach­ing approx­im­ately 500mm above ground level. Dur­ing these events, there was not­able dam­age due to the rap­id flow of water, with struc­tures such as bound­ary fences swept away. The land with­in the applic­a­tion site, which is vis­ible above the water levels in Fig­ure 3, was com­pletely sub­merged dur­ing all of these sig­ni­fic­ant events. 4.0 Impacts of Flood­ing 4.1 (i) Suit­ab­il­ity of Pro­posed Drain­age Sys­tems 4.2 4.3 There are con­cerns about the func­tion­al­ity of a sur­face water soakaway (as pro­posed) on land which is prone to flood­ing, in that the soakaway may be flooded before there is time for the efflu­ent to be treated, res­ult­ing in fail­ure of the sys­tem. The pro­posed pack­age sewage treat­ment plant (PSTP) is shown to be approx­im­ately 100m north-east of the water source for Galton farm. The design includes foul water treat­ment before dis­charge to the Logie Burn — by design, there is no require­ment for a foul water soakaway. Whilst the loc­a­tion of the PSTP is fur­ther west than the flood risk zones shown on the SEPA Flood Maps, the real­ity of the annu­al flood­ing and extent of the more sig­ni­fic­ant flood­ing events (as detailed in Sec­tion 3) would strongly sug­gest that the loc­a­tion of the PSTP will likely be impacted by river water flood­ing. SEPA guid­ance on sep­tic tanks states that too much water flushes efflu­ent through the tank before the bac­teria can work. Solids get washed out of the tank and pol­lute the dis­charge. The water car­ries soil and grit into the tank, filling it up. Even­tu­ally, there is poten­tial for the sys­tem to back-up and over­flow, res­ult­ing in con­tam­in­a­tion of the sur­round­ing land and water­course from human waste. With a his­tory of flash floods in this loc­a­tion, it is reas­on­able to expect that this situ­ation could occur and would do so very quickly. We would there­fore ask the Flood Risk and Coastal Pro­tec­tion Team con­siders the need for a Flood Risk Assess­ment and/​or Drain­age Impact Assess­ment, as is deemed appro­pri­ate to address these con­cerns in accord­ance with Policy 10 of the CNP LDP 2021. (ii) Land Con­tam­in­a­tion 8

4.4 4.5 4.6 Galton farm bene­fits from good qual­ity Agri­cul­tur­al Land (Class 3.2, Scotland’s Soils), which pro­duces a good yield for cer­eal crops, graz­ing and cattle feed. Land pro­ductiv­ity equates to a sig­ni­fic­ant por­tion of the busi­ness turnover and it is there­fore of ser­i­ous con­cern from a busi­ness viab­il­ity per­spect­ive that there may be poten­tial for land con­tam­in­a­tion res­ult­ing from flood­ing. Giv­en the force of the flood waters dur­ing past events, there is reas­on­able con­cern that an over­flow of the PSTP would see waste quickly trav­el­ling south­wards, extend­ing far bey­ond the field imme­di­ately adja­cent to the drain­age sys­tem. This would render the fields at Galton obsol­ete in the medi­um to long-term for cul­tiv­a­tion and graz­ing pur­poses, with extens­ive fin­an­cial implic­a­tions for the busi­ness. We would ask that the Plan­ning Author­ity con­siders re-con­sult­ing SEPA in light of the above inform­a­tion (and through­out Sec­tion 4) to assess com­pli­ance with Policy 10 of the CNP LDP 2021. (iii) Anim­al Wel­fare Anoth­er con­cern regard­ing flood­ing, mal­func­tion­ing of the PSTP, and con­sequent con­tam­in­a­tion, is the res­ult­ant health implic­a­tions for the cattle. The water source for Galton farm, which is loc­ated imme­di­ately south-west of the applic­a­tion site, provides the only source of drink­ing water to the cattle courts and troughs. There is con­cern that this could be con­tam­in­ated by human waste if flood­ing were to res­ult in the fail­ure of the PSTP. Anec­dot­al evid­ence from a neigh­bour­ing Farm­er on the east side of Aboyne, informs that fol­low­ing a sim­il­ar con­tam­in­a­tion event (over­flow of pack­age sewage treat­ment plant dur­ing the Storm Frank floods), they have seen an increase in failed preg­nan­cies in cows with calves, increased still­borns, and increased birth defects. This is both an anim­al wel­fare con­cern and one which would have extens­ive fin­an­cial implic­a­tions for our client’s busi­ness. 4.7 (iv) Qual­ity of Private Water Sup­ply 4.8 Sim­il­arly, the same water source is used to sup­ply the farm­house and our cli­ents worry that there is poten­tial for its con­tam­in­a­tion res­ult­ing in human health implic­a­tions. The water feeds into a well where treat­ment is in place, how­ever this is not designed to mit­ig­ate the extent of pol­lu­tion that would res­ult from fail­ure of the pro­posed PSTP and over­flow of human waste. It is felt that the pro­posed devel­op­ment con­flicts with Policy 10 of the CNP LDP 2021 in this regard. 9

5.0 5.1 Quant­ity of Private Water Sup­ply It is noted from the plan­ning applic­a­tion form that a con­nec­tion to the pub­lic water sup­ply is pro­posed, and Scot­tish Water has also respon­ded to advise that there is cur­rently suf­fi­cient capa­city in the Bal­later Water Treat­ment Works to ser­vice the devel­op­ment. Not­with­stand­ing, Envir­on­ment­al Health has reques­ted fur­ther inform­a­tion regard­ing the pro­posed water con­nec­tion, and giv­en Galton farm’s reli­ance on a private water sup­ply, it is ques­tion­able wheth­er a con­nec­tion to the Scot­tish Water main sup­ply would be tech­nic­ally achiev­able. Should a private water sup­ply be pro­posed, then our cli­ents wish to express con­cern about where this would be sourced from, and how util­isa­tion of that water source could impact on their exist­ing water quant­ity, which if impeded, would con­flict with Policy 10 of the CNP LDP 2021. 6.0 6.1 6.2 Impacts on Amen­ity The pro­posed devel­op­ment offers a dog-friendly envir­on­ment and points to nearby walk­ing routes, such as Burn O’ Vat, Deeside, Strath­don and Lecht for the con­veni­ence of its guests. How­ever, there are con­cerns that vis­it­ors may wish to walk their dogs nearby and ven­ture onto the private land at Galton farm. Our cli­ent also has con­cerns about the impacts of increased car traffic and foot­fall on the pri­vacy and amen­ity of their land due to increased noise, activ­ity and gen­er­al dis­turb­ance asso­ci­ated with com­mer­cial premises serving the pub­lic. This is not in the spir­it of Policy 2.4 of the CNP LDP 2021. It is noted that there is a pro­posed func­tion suite with a max­im­um capa­city of 60 people. This raises con­cerns for the types of activ­it­ies which will occur on site, sur­plus to the day-to-day oper­a­tions of the café and farm shop. Ref­er­ence is made in the Design and Jus­ti­fic­a­tion State­ment to ​“classes, wed­dings, etc.” which could res­ult in sig­ni­fic­ant noise impacts from loud music, guests social­ising out­side the ven­ue late at night, and light pol­lu­tion in an area oth­er­wise bene­fit­ting from dark skies. 6.3 Policy 2.4 of the LDP states that pro­pos­als which sup­port or extend the eco­nomy, or which enhance the range and qual­ity of eco­nom­ic oppor­tun­it­ies or facil­it­ies, will be con­sidered favour­ably where they: 10

a) have no adverse envir­on­ment­al or amen­ity impacts on the site or neigh­bour­ing areas; and b) are compatible/​complementary with exist­ing busi­ness activ­ity in the area; and c) sup­port the vital­ity and viab­il­ity of the loc­al eco­nomy. 6.4 As out­lined above, the pro­pos­al raises con­cerns regard­ing the erosion of per­ceived pri­vacy and amen­ity of the adja­cent site at Galton. There are no details of pro­posed staff­ing num­bers or hours of oper­a­tion. As such, the degree of activ­ity in rela­tion to site oper­a­tions is not known and it is there­fore ques­tion­able wheth­er this can be fully assessed in accord­ance with Policy 2 of the LDP. The pro­pos­al is unlikely to be com­pat­ible or com­pli­ment­ary with exist­ing farm­ing busi­nesses, giv­en the nature of the pro­pos­al and imme­di­ate prox­im­ity to live­stock. This type of busi­ness would be more appro­pri­ate next to or with­in an exist­ing set­tle­ment, in the interests of amen­ity, the char­ac­ter of the area, and sus­tain­ab­il­ity. The pro­pos­al does not util­ise a brown­field site and is there­fore devel­op­ing an area of cul­tivat­able land. Reas­ons for incom­pat­ib­il­ity with the adja­cent farm­ing busi­ness will be detailed in the fol­low­ing sec­tions. How­ever, details of how the pro­pos­al will sup­port the eco­nomy are unclear, as the pro­pos­al is not sup­por­ted by a busi­ness plan and there is no indic­a­tion, such as a sequen­tial site assess­ment, to jus­ti­fy why this par­tic­u­lar site has been chosen. The above does not appear to sat­is­fy the require­ments of Policy 2 of the LDP. 7.0 Ver­min and Dis­ease 7.1 There does not appear to be any details regard­ing the meth­od of stor­age and dis­pos­al of trade waste. Should this be addressed incor­rectly and/​or spill over dur­ing strong winds, lit­ter would plight the sur­round­ing coun­tryside and lead to increased ver­min, such as flies, lice, rats, foxes, gulls and cock­roaches, and bring with them asso­ci­ated envir­on­ment­al health issues through the spread of dis­ease. 7.2 Whilst the pro­pos­al offers a dog-friendly ser­vice, there does not appear to be any secure on- site dog exer­cising (and foul­ing) areas provided. Dog fae­ces which are not dis­posed of cor­rectly can lead to increased levels of phos­phor­us and nitro­gen in the soil, hav­ing impacts on the bal­ance of plant spe­cies and should be con­sidered when in close prox­im­ity to sens­it­ive areas such as the Logie Burn, which forms part of the River Dee SAC. Increased levels of bac­teria could also con­tam­in­ate the areas of land where the pro­posed fruits and veget­ables are to be grown to sup­ply the Farm Shop, which raises ques­tions regard­ing food hygiene. Giv­en the 11

8.0 8.1 prox­im­ity of the site to the graz­ing land at Galton, there is con­cern that dis­eases from dog fae­ces could be trans­mit­ted to the sheep, which can be fatal. Where the effects are not fatal, it can res­ult in ser­i­ous health com­plic­a­tions and the con­dem­na­tion of the meat, all of which would have anim­al wel­fare and fin­an­cial implic­a­tions for the farm­ing busi­ness at Galton. Wor­ry­ing Live­stock The pro­pos­al also fails to address how the busi­ness will man­age the con­trol of dogs, giv­en the rur­al set­ting. It is acknow­ledged that hedgerow is pro­posed to par­tially define the south and west­ern site bound­ar­ies with reten­tion of the exist­ing trees to the east and sur­round­ing exist­ing post and wire fences. How­ever, the lat­ter are unlikely to be dog-proof, where many lar­ger breeds can eas­ily jump over a 1.2m high fence and smal­ler breeds can fit through or under­neath small gaps. It is not uncom­mon for even well-trained dogs to suc­cumb to instinct and prey-drive, and the real­ity of the out­come is often the unne­ces­sary death of live­stock through injury and/​or shock. If the pub­lic decide to walk their dogs on leads in close prox­im­ity to the live­stock, our cli­ent has expressed worry about the effect this could have on preg­nant cows and sheep, young lambs and calves, which graze and are housed at Galton. 9.0 Road Safety 9.1 10.0 Over the years, loc­als have been aware of mul­tiple road traffic col­li­sions and acci­dents along the A97. These have pre­dom­in­antly been asso­ci­ated with the tight bend in the road adja­cent to the bridge over the Logie Burn. How­ever, there has been at least 1 fatal­ity, which occurred on the A97 corner, west of the access to Galton. Whilst the pro­posed access is along the straight, increased traffic enter­ing and egress­ing the site will likely lead to fur­ther acci­dents. This risk is also heightened by the sus­cept­ib­il­ity of the road to flood­ing, com­bined with the lack of pave­ments to serve increased foot­fall includ­ing those who may wish to walk their dogs nearby. Car Park­ing 10.1 The pro­posed devel­op­ment shows 28no. car park­ing spaces, of which 8no. are shown as over­flow park­ing. These are to serve: the café, which pro­poses to seat 50 vis­it­ors indoors and addi­tion­al seat­ing and pic­nic benches out­side; vis­it­ors to the retail unit/​farm shop, which may 12

be sur­plus to those vis­it­ing the café; a func­tion suite with a capa­city of up to 60; res­id­ent staff (3no. bed­rooms); and park­ing for the com­mut­ing staff. There does not appear to be any pro­vi­sion for dis­abled park­ing and the site loc­a­tion requires depend­ency on private cars, giv­en the lack of pub­lic trans­port. 10.2 Our cli­ents are con­cerned that dur­ing the sum­mer, or oth­er busy peri­ods such as East­er, Hal­loween, and Christ­mas, that there will be insuf­fi­cient park­ing to serve increased num­bers of staff and vis­it­ors to the facil­ity. This could res­ult in park­ing on the road verge, restric­ted access, and oth­er road safety issues at an already dan­ger­ous stretch of the A97, which would con­flict with Policy 3 of the LDP. It is a neces­sity to main­tain unin­cumbered access and clear vis­ib­il­ity splays at Galton, to ensure the safe move­ment and oper­a­tion of large farm­ing machinery, often car­ry­ing live­stock. As such, our cli­ents are con­cerned that increased traffic or inap­pro­pri­ate park­ing will com­prom­ise this, with the poten­tial to restrict vehicle move­ments on the A97 and cause acci­dents. 11.0 Impacts on Wild­life and Insects 11.1 Vari­ous spe­cies of wild­life have been seen to util­ise the pro­posed site. These include but are not lim­ited to the fol­low­ing: • Red Kites • Ground nest­ing birds — Peasies and Oyster Catch­ers • Roe Deer • Hares • Pheas­ants • Cur­lews • Larks • Starlings • Swifts • Swal­lows • Buz­zards • Squir­rels • Pine mar­tins • Bats • Red Squir­rels 13

• Hedge­hogs 11.2 The pro­posed devel­op­ment may have neg­at­ive impacts on sev­er­al spe­cies recor­ded on site through increased human activ­ity and light pol­lu­tion. Whilst the Logie Burn is iden­ti­fied as hav­ing low/​negligible bat roost poten­tial, bats were recor­ded in the sur­vey. It is noted that the Eco­logy Sur­vey advises that light should not be dir­ec­ted towards the Logie Burn in the interest of pro­tect­ing the pri­or­ity hab­it­at and bats. How­ever, the pro­posed func­tion suite and café includes extens­ive glaz­ing along the south-east elev­a­tion of the build­ing which does not appear to be in keep­ing with this advice and is not in the spir­it of Policy 4 of the LDP. 11.3 The pro­pos­al includes bee­hives to enable the pro­duc­tion of home-made honey. It is under­stood that there are 20 man­aged bee­hives on adja­cent land at Rae­bush, man­aged by a Loc­al Bee­keep­er with over 50 years exper­i­ence. The colony is approx­im­ately 900m south-west of the applic­a­tion site and is sur­roun­ded by Heath­er, which the man­aged hon­ey­bees for­age on. It is expec­ted that the new bees will be drawn to the same source of pol­len and this is likely to have numer­ous implic­a­tions. Firstly, the close prox­im­ity of a new colony could over­whelm the exist­ing colony and lead to the spread of Varoos­is, a dis­ease caused by Var­roa Mites which can erad­ic­ate a colony with­in 2 – 3 years. NatureScot high­lights that intro­du­cing addi­tion­al man­aged hon­ey­bees with­in the vicin­ity of exist­ing colon­ies can have a neg­at­ive impact on the exist­ing man­aged bees, due to com­pet­i­tion for lim­ited sources of for­aging. This can ulti­mately lead to the star­va­tion of the estab­lished colony. NatureScot also states that import­ing bees (from else­where with­in the UK) can impact on wild bees, lower the dens­ity of wild bumble bees, sol­it­ary bees, hov­er­flies and oth­er flies. It warns that the ​“reduc­tion in the occur­rence of loc­al wild bees, and nec­tar and pol­len har­vest­ing may reach dis­tances of 600 – 1100m around api­ar­ies”, how­ever hon­ey­bees are known to cov­er a 3 mile radi­us of their api­ar­ies. Giv­en the prox­im­ity of the pro­posed site to the exist­ing bee­hives at Rae­bush, there is a not­able con­cern that there will be com­pet­i­tion for for­aging in the loc­al area, to the det­ri­ment of oth­er insect spe­cies, the loc­al flora and fauna, and the likely star­va­tion of the exist­ing bee colony at Rae­bush. 12.0 Risk of wild­fire 12.1 Tem­per­at­ures in the sum­mer months are con­tinu­ing to increase to new highs and wild­fires are unwel­come but increas­ingly com­mon events for the farm­ing com­munity in recent years. These 14

are often ignited by sparks from mal­func­tion­ing equip­ment. There are con­cerns that with the pro­posed increase in vis­it­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic and the poten­tial for events such as wed­dings, that in the dry sum­mer months, wild­fires may res­ult from unex­tin­guished cigar­ettes, fire­works, vehicles, or oth­er sources asso­ci­ated with com­mer­cial activ­it­ies. This would prove dev­ast­at­ing for the crop and live­stock at Galton, which would likely suf­fer the con­sequences, either dir­ectly or indir­ectly. 13.0 Sum­mary 13.1 RCP Chartered Town Plan­ning Con­sultancy requests that all mater­i­al con­sid­er­a­tions hereby detailed are giv­en due con­sid­er­a­tion by the Loc­al Plan­ning Author­ity in its assess­ment of the plan­ning applic­a­tion ref­er­ence 2023/0295/DET, in accord­ance with Sec­tion 37 of The Town and Coun­try Plan­ning (Scot­land) Act 1997 (as amended). 13.2 Mater­i­al con­sid­er­a­tions raised in objec­tion to the pro­posed devel­op­ment stem primar­ily from con­cerns regard­ing the impacts of flood­ing. We ask that in light of the evid­ence of the extent of flood­ing on site, versus that pre­dicted by SEPA Flood Maps, that the suit­ab­il­ity of the pro­posed drain­age sys­tem and/​or lay­out is recon­sidered and that the Flood Risk and Coastal Pro­tec­tion Team con­sider the need for addi­tion­al tech­nic­al assess­ments in sup­port of the applic­a­tion. We ask that the Plan­ning Author­ity con­siders re-con­sult­ing Envir­on­ment­al Health and SEPA so they can re-con­sider the points raised regard­ing the poten­tial for land con­tam­in­a­tion from flood­ing of the PSTP and the impacts on the qual­ity and quant­ity of the exist­ing private water sup­ply at Galton. 13.3 It is a con­cern that the amen­ity at Galton will be eroded by the res­ult­ing increased foot­fall, vis­it­or traffic and activ­it­ies asso­ci­ated with the com­mer­cial char­ac­ter of the pro­pos­al. Loud music from the func­tion suite and late night dis­turb­ance caused by those attend­ing events at the premises, are expec­ted to erode amen­ity through noise. Dog walk­ers may ven­ture onto the private land and erode pri­vacy, whilst sim­ul­tan­eously present­ing a threat to the wel­fare of the live­stock. 13.4 The lack of des­ig­nated dog exercise/​fouling area, segreg­ated from the areas where food for the shop is to be grown, raises issues of food hygiene and the spread of dis­ease. Sim­il­arly, 15

pro­posed site bound­ar­ies are insuf­fi­cient for pre­vent­ing dogs from escap­ing and wor­ry­ing the live­stock. Details of pro­posed refuse and recyc­ling are not avail­able, which raises con­cerns about waste man­age­ment and increased ver­min. 13.5 13.6 Road safety is of sig­ni­fic­ant import­ance, giv­en the his­tory of acci­dents on the A97 which include 1no. fatal­ity. It is not felt that the loc­a­tion of the site is sus­tain­able, it does not reduce the need for private car use, and the park­ing capa­city could have implic­a­tions for the free-flow of traffic on the A97. Com­bined with the annu­al flood­ing events at this site and tight bend in the road at the bridge over the Logie Burn, increased vis­it­or traffic (both vehicu­lar and ped­es­tri­an) is of con­cern regard­ing the safety of all road users. Impacts on wild­life, includ­ing pro­tec­ted spe­cies, have been high­lighted and there is not­able con­cern for the wel­fare of the exist­ing and long-estab­lished hon­ey­bee colony at Rae­bush. Wild­fires are an increas­ing prob­lem for the rur­al com­munity due to cli­mate change, and the nature of the pro­posed use may give rise to incid­ents caused by unex­tin­guished cigar­ettes, fire­works, or sim­il­ar. 13.7 It is felt that the sit­ing of the pro­posed devel­op­ment has not been adequately jus­ti­fied or giv­en full con­sid­er­a­tion, in that this does not offer a brown­field devel­op­ment oppor­tun­ity, the applic­a­tion is not sup­por­ted by a sequen­tial site assess­ment, nor has a busi­ness plan or details of pro­posed staff­ing and hours of oper­a­tion been detailed to allow for the net eco­nom­ic and social bene­fits to be assessed. Over­all, the pro­pos­al appears to con­flict with the char­ac­ter and amen­ity of the site and wider area, and it does not appear to fully address the tech­nic­al require­ments regard­ing flood­ing, site ser­vices and road safety. 13.8 RCP Chartered Town Plan­ning Con­sultancy extends its grat­it­ude to the Plan­ning Author­ity for its time in con­sid­er­ing and, where neces­sary, address­ing the above objec­tions. Should the Plan­ning Author­ity require any fur­ther inform­a­tion or wish to dis­cuss any of the mat­ters raised, please do not hes­it­ate to con­tact Roslyn Pur­die. END 16

Appendix 1 Annot­ated Site Pho­tos, Site Plan, and Record­ings Taken Novem­ber 2022 Chartered RCP Town Plan­ning Consultancy

Photo 1: A97 look­ing west towards exist­ing field access. Photo