Item6Appendix4BObjectionPublicComments20210035DETT

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 6 Appendix 4b 25/06/2021

AGENDA ITEM 6

APPENDIX 4b

2021/0035/DET

LET­TERS OF PUB­LIC REPRESENTATION

• OBJEC­TION

---

From:Andy Stark Sent: Wed, 24 Feb 2021 14:05:09 +0000 To:Planning Subject:Application Ref­er­ence: 2021/0035/DET Change of Use of Agri­cul­tur­al Land to Form Cara­van Park Erec­tion of Stor­age Shed and Install­a­tion of Deck­ing and Hot Tubs and Form­a­tion of Access

Dear Sir/​Madam

For the reas­ons out­lined below I oppose the cur­rent plan­ning applic­a­tion ref­er­enced above. I com­ment as a neigh­bour, I occupy the next habited prop­erty on South Deeside Road west of the pro­posed site. I have giv­en a detailed cri­tique of the pro­pos­al which I believe is in part pre­sump­tu­ous, states spec­u­la­tion as fact, and is vague or omits inform­a­tion when it does not favour­ably sup­port the application.

I have con­cerns the pro­posed site loc­a­tion is not appro­pri­ate, it shares the whole of it’s SW bound­ary with the Din­net Oak Wood. This wood­land is under the cus­tody of Scot­tish Nat­ur­al Her­it­age, it is a SSSI, a Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion — SAC and a Nation­al Nature Reserve. With­in lie rare fungi of nation­al import­ance, it is one of only 2 nat­ive oak wood­lands remain­ing in East­ern Scot­land. Whilst there is a foot­path lead­ing through it from the Din­net Bridge con­nect­ing to the Firmounth the rest of the wood­land remains largely untouched. There is easy access to the wood­land from the pro­posed site and thus a risk this area, whilst open to the pub­lic, will see con­sid­er­able increased off path recre­ation­al use which may be det­ri­ment­al to the wood­land envir­on­ment. The increased human activ­ity on the pro­posed site, noise, out­door cook­ing, traffic etc, may also have adverse effects on the wood­land wild­life. With camping/​caravan sites in Aboyne and Bal­later, the area is well pro­vi­sioned for these facil­it­ies already. In the wider Deeside area there are 10 sites at least, with over 300 pitches between them.

Regard­ing the spe­cif­ics of the applic­a­tion, the Design and Sus­tain­ab­il­ity State­ment, I wish to com­ment on the fol­low­ing points made in the document.

Policy 3.1a If the site has to have no boil­er or heat­ing how will the hot tubs be heated? Is not heat­ing a hot tub with elec­tri­city the same? The pitches have elec­tric­al hook up, will this not be used for mobile home/​caravan heat­ing, onboard elec­tric showers (boil­ers) etc? The claim the site will ​‘clearly have a pos­it­ive effect on cli­mate change’, I find this state­ment disin­genu­ous. Where is the evid­ence or study that informs this claim of pos­it­ive con­tri­bu­tion to cli­mate change? This isn’t clear at all, purely spec­u­la­tion. Driv­ing a cara­van or motor home 100s of miles or more (many from Europe also come to the region, nearest port of entry New­castle). The major­ity of vehicles are dies­el engined due to the torque required to tow, they travel slowly hold­ing up the free flow of oth­er road users caus­ing fur­ther pollution.

Policy 3.1^d Since the pro­pos­al includes ​‘lux­ury pitches’ with hot tubs will they not attract premi­um mobile home own­ers with home from home com­forts? Mod­ern mobile accom­mod­a­tion can come with all the energy and water usage of a small lodge or hol­i­day home. Ref state­ment in ​‘Busi­ness Plan — Strategy’ the applic­a­tion con­curs with this. I have

---

nev­er heard of wooden shed mater­i­als being re-used, re-used for what pur­pose? Firewood?

Policy 3.1^e. Why is the waste dis­pos­al site so far from the entrance? There is a dry stone wall at the pro­posed point of install­a­tion, if easy remov­al of waste is envis­aged will the wall be removed to allow easy access? Will an addi­tion­al access be made via the old gate­way here? Con­cerns the soak away is as close as pos­sible on the pro­posed site to the River Dee. What safe­guards are in place the efflu­ent chem­ic­als will not leach into the River Dee SAC? No assur­ance site users will use Eco Chem­ic­als in dis­posed toi­let waste, ask­ing to refrain from use of harm­ful chem­ic­als is not enough. Ref­er­ence the doc­u­mented verge side dump­ing of san­it­ary efflu­ent along the route of the NC500 by camper vans, an indic­a­tion sadly not all camper/​caravan users are respons­ible regard­ing the envir­on­ment. Where will the hot tub water and san­it­ising chem­ic­als be dis­posed? In the interests of hygiene (Cov­id and oth­er activ­it­ies that can occur in hot tubs) will the tubs not be drained after each cus­tom­er? Where will this water go? No evid­ence of drain­age on the plan. Are the san­it­ising chem­ic­als the water con­tains eco friendly?

Policy 3.1f. I dis­agree with the mit­ig­a­tion state­ment made in the applic­a­tion. The buses are only every two hours. There is no foot­path or street light­ing from the pro­posed site to Din­net. The entire route from the pro­posed site to Din­net is used by tim­ber HGVs, being part of the approved tim­ber haulage route. Will any­one take the bus? Will they cycle? Or will they drive the 10 mile round trip neces­sary for bread and milk, simple food basics? There is no food sup­ply pro­vi­sion in Din­net. Does this really pro­mote sus­tain­able trans­port methods?

Policy 3.1g. How does this pro­pos­al open up space for pub­lic use? It is a private devel­op­ment that will allow private access only for lim­ited and exclus­ive fee pay­ing Cara­van Club members.

Policy 3.1h Is this pro­pos­al con­sist­ent with the Core Paths Plan? The policy is stated and no qual­i­fic­a­tion is made.

Policy 3.1k The pro­posed access will require the remov­al of large pine trees to make the entrance, the trees are old and most likely con­tem­por­an­eous with the main build­ing phase of the Glen Tanar Estate in the late 19^th cen­tury. Why is this not men­tioned in the applic­a­tion? When does ​‘pro­mote the growth of the nat­ur­al land­scape’ start with felling mature trees?

Policy 5. What are the eco­nom­ic and social bene­fits exactly? Should evid­ence for such a sweep­ing state­ment be provided? Espe­cially since it appears to over ride any adverse effects. Some that have been omit­ted from the pro­pos­al? See com­ment for Policy 3.1k above.

Policy 10.1 As stated in the applic­a­tion, the mar­ket is lux­ury cara­van­ers and mobile home own­ers. Is lux­ury mobile accom­mod­a­tion any less demand­ing on water than a hotel room? Typ­ic­ally, hot tubs hold 1000 litres of water. How often will this be changed? In

---

the interests of hygiene, after every cus­tom­er? Water usage could be con­sid­er­able, has a study been made to con­firm the sus­tain­ab­il­ity of the private water sup­ply? Is it shared with any oth­er properties?

Drain­age Pro­pos­al. I have con­cerns for the valid­ity of this doc­u­ment. It states site invest­ig­a­tion was made on 25^th Nov 2021. It states the loc­a­tion of the three Tri­al Pits is marked on the attached plan. No plan show­ing these is attached, unless I am mis­taken these Tri­al Pits are not marked on any plan provided in the applic­a­tion. It makes cal­cu­la­tions based on 5 cara­vans (total of 10 occu­pants) the plan­ning applic­a­tion is for 8 caravan/​camper pitches. Will occu­pants per pitch be lim­ited to 2 per­sons? What if there is a fam­ily of 4 on each pitch, 32 occu­pants v the max­im­um of 10 stated in the report and the basis for cal­cu­la­tion. The depth of over­lay depos­its 13 m stated ​‘near the air­field’ is vague, in what pos­i­tion rel­at­ive to the air­field? Regard­less, depth of bed rock over­lay depos­its sev­er­al km away has no bear­ing in this report con­text giv­en the vari­able loc­al topo­graphy. There is no cal­cu­la­tion made for dis­pos­al of water from the hot tubs. There is always a con­cern when a doc­u­ment dis­plays numer­ous errors as to the sound­ness of the findings.

It is nor­mal for a Cara­van site to have a reception/​office build­ing. In out of town loc­a­tions also a small shop with­in said build­ing to provide food basics. This pro­vi­sion is omit­ted from the pro­pos­al. I note the tim­ber stor­age shed is designed with win­dows to two elev­a­tions, a wel­com­ing and bright, but not a par­tic­u­larly secure (giv­en the num­ber of win­dows) stor­age facil­ity? Without a reception/​office pro­vi­sion will this be provided via the Old Hall prop­erty, will this prop­erty, or part of, be incor­por­ated into the business?

There are large areas unused with­in the bound­ary of the pro­pos­al site. Will more pitches be required later to ​‘meet demand/​make the busi­ness sus­tain­able’ since the site provides scope for con­sid­er­able infill and expan­sion? The pro­posers state they installed self cater­ing cot­tages in a pre­vi­ous busi­ness ven­ture. Via oth­er busi­ness con­cerns they are asso­ci­ated with Deeside Log Cab­ins of Kin­cardine O’Neil. Will log cab­ins be a pos­sib­il­ity in the future on the avail­able spare ground? The Busi­ness Plan states there is a lack of last minute accom­mod­a­tion, but this pro­pos­al does not offer accom­mod­a­tion, how can it help? Is the future plan for fixed accom­mod­a­tion? The Busi­ness Plan makes clear they have exper­i­ence in grow­ing a busi­ness, to then sell on.

There is now clear evid­ence from the NC500 ​‘suc­cess’ that in par­tic­u­lar mobile home hol­i­day makers con­trib­ute the least to the loc­al eco­nomy. So much so that a toll on mobile homes on the route is being con­sidered. With the recent inaug­ur­a­tion of the NE250 will increas­ing pro­vi­sion for mobile home tour­ists along the NE250 route make any dis­cern­ible con­tri­bu­tion to the loc­al eco­nomy? The Stayc­a­tion state­ment has some mer­it, but only in the short term. Mul­tiple cita­tions by ves­ted interests add no weight to this point of view or applic­a­tion. Once free glob­al move­ment is pos­sible, we will see hol­i­day makers revert to pre Cov­id trends. Is basing a busi­ness case on short term trends viable?

---

I note the Old Hall Cara­van Site has been publicised/​marketed, as an actu­al site, on mul­tiple social media plat­forms since at least August 2020, along with con­tact details. Regards Andy Stark

---

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion APP/2021/0157

Applic­a­tion Summary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: APP/2021/0157 Address: Land Adja­cent To Old Hall Din­net Bridge Din­net Aboyne Aber­deen­shire AB34 5PJ Pro­pos­al: Change of Use of Agri­cul­tur­al Land to Form Cara­van Park Erec­tion of Stor­age Shed and Install­a­tion of Deck­ing and Hot Tubs and Form­a­tion of Access Case Officer: Gra­ham Hannaford

Cus­tom­er Details Name: Dav­id Leslie Address: Broomage Aven­ue Larbert Stirl­ing FK5 4NQ

Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Neigh­bour Stance: Cus­tom­er objects to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Comment:As you may be aware, James Jones and Sons oper­ate a Saw­mill at Burn­root, approx­im­ately 2 miles from the applic­a­tion site. This mill pro­cesses tim­ber which involves a sub­stan­tial num­ber of HGV truck move­ments to and from the saw­mill. As the access to the mill is restric­ted to the approved Tim­ber Trans­port Route which runs past the applic­a­tion site, we are mak­ing you aware of this issue which could con­flict with the pro­posed use of this site which lies adja­cent to the road concerned.

---

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 2021/0035/DET

Applic­a­tion Summary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: 2021/0035/DET Address: Land Adja­cent To Old Hall Din­net Bridge Din­net Aboyne Aber­deen­shire AB34 5PJ Pro­pos­al: Change of Use of Agri­cul­tur­al Land to Form Cara­van Park Erec­tion of Stor­age Shed and Install­a­tion of Deck­ing and Hot Tubs and Form­a­tion of Access Case Officer: Stephanie Wade

Cus­tom­er Details Name: Mr Edward Humphrey Address: Din­net House Din­net Aboyne

Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Neigh­bour Stance: Cus­tom­er objects to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Comment:I wish to object to this plan­ning applic­a­tion as follows;

The first stat­utory aim of the Nation­al Park is to Con­serve and Enhance the nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age of the area which I believe this plan fails to do.

There has been no con­sulta­tion with the loc­al community.

The site is not alloc­ated for tour­ism under the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan and is a green field site as opposed to a brown­field one.

The Din­net and Deecastle fish­ing beats are dir­ectly oppos­ite. Our anglers enjoy­ment of the peace and tran­quil­lity will be affected as more vis­it­ors are drawn to the riverbank.

There is no infra­struc­ture link­ing the site to Din­net vil­lage and the lim­ited ser­vices avail­able there. Neither the B976 or B9158 have any kind of pave­ment, except on Din­net Bridge, rais­ing fears for ped­es­tri­an safety.

The route over Din­net Bridge to James Jones saw­mill is a recog­nised Tim­ber Trans­port Route, 2 HGVs can­not pass each oth­er on the bridge so poten­tial for safety issues.

Poten­tial for dis­rup­tion to well estab­lished sig­ni­fic­ant busi­ness in area with extra slower mov­ing traffic enter­ing and exit­ing the site with poor vis­ib­il­ity splays onto B976.

The site is close to the River Dee SAC which pro­tects otters, fresh­wa­ter Pearl mus­sels and sal­mon. Con­cerns over waste water enter­ing the river from chem­ic­al toi­lets and in high rain­fall events.

Din­net Oak­wood SAC is also a Nature Reserve, there is a lack of sur­vey to show that the devel­op­ment will not have an adverse effect on wild­life or fauna.

No land­scap­ing has been noted in the plan. No men­tion of light­ing which would detract from the char­ac­ter of the area.

The plan allows for 8 pitches but the site is large enough to take more in the future, are pitches

---

stat­ic or mobile? While tour­ism in the Park is to be pro­moted this plan is in the wrong place for reas­ons stated above. Din­net is east­ern gate­way to the Park and has oth­er sites bet­ter loc­ated to meet the Park’s aims and aspirations.

---

aurora plan­ning

Stephanie Wade Cairngorms Nation­al Park 14 The Square Grant­own-on-Spey Moray PH26 3HG

Aurora Plan­ning Lim­ited 22 Rubis­law Ter­race Aber­deen AB10 1XE

By email planning@​cairngorms.​co.​uk 23 Feb­ru­ary 2021

Dear Stephanie,

APP/2021/0157 — Change of Use of Agri­cul­tur­al Land to Form Cara­van Park Erec­tion of Stor­age Shed and Install­a­tion of Deck­ing and Hot Tubs and Form­a­tion of Access

We are writ­ing on behalf of James Mad­den, whose prop­erty (Fasnadarach) neigh­bours the site of the above applic­a­tion, and who wishes to object to the applic­a­tion for the reas­ons set out in this let­ter. Our client’s prop­erty is imme­di­ately oppos­ite the devel­op­ment site and is sig­ni­fic­antly affected by the pro­posed devel­op­ment. It is how­ever entirely ignored in the applicant’s Design and Sus­tain­ab­il­ity State­ment. The clos­ing date for rep­res­ent­a­tions is 8 March 2021 and so this sub­mis­sion is made timeously.

In com­ment­ing on the applic­a­tion, it is under­stood that this will be determ­ined in accord­ance with the new Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan, which is due to be adop­ted on 26 March 2021, which is also when a decision on the applic­a­tion is expec­ted. That being the case, our client’s reas­ons for object­ing to the applic­a­tion have been framed against the pro­vi­sions of that Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan, rather than the 2015 Plan. Fur­ther, as set out in the LDP to be adop­ted on 26 March 2021, the plan­ning applic­a­tion requires to be assessed against all rel­ev­ant parts of the Plan. The applic­a­tion must there­fore be assessed against the vis­ion, spa­tial strategy, Aurora Plan­ning Lim­ited is a com­pany registered in Scot­land. Registered Num­ber SC568569. Registered Office: 22 Rubis­law Ter­race, Aber­deen. AB10 1XE

---

policies and com­munity inform­a­tion of that LDP, as well as rel­ev­ant Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance, which has the same weight in decision mak­ing as the LDP itself.

Our client’s par­tic­u­lar con­cerns in respect of the applic­a­tion relate to access and road safety and the impact that the pro­posed devel­op­ment will have on the res­id­en­tial amen­ity of their own prop­erty as set out in detail below.

Impact on neigh­bour­ing res­id­en­tial amenity

Policy 2: Sup­port­ing eco­nom­ic growth sup­ports pro­pos­als for cus­tom-built tour­ist accom­mod­a­tion (such as that pro­posed in terms of this applic­a­tion) sub­ject to a num­ber of cri­ter­ia, includ­ing that they have no adverse impact on their surroundings.

In terms of the applic­a­tion site’s sur­round­ings, it is con­sidered that the pro­posed devel­op­ment would be det­ri­ment­al to exist­ing res­id­en­tial amen­ity and the safety of road users, thus also hav­ing an adverse impact on its sur­round­ings in these regards.

Spe­cific­ally, the pro­posed cara­van park will exacer­bate exist­ing noise and light dis­turb­ance exper­i­enced by our cli­ent at night eman­at­ing from the applicant’s own res­id­en­tial prop­erty, Old Hall (and in par­tic­u­lar from the recently (last 12 months) extern­al enter­tain­ing area that has been con­struc­ted at Old Hall). Whilst it is under­stood that the occu­pi­ers of res­id­en­tial prop­er­ties may enjoy those as they wish, a cara­van park oper­at­ing all year round with 8 pitches is an entirely dif­fer­ent pro­spect, equat­ing to there poten­tially being up to 32 people adja­cent to a res­id­en­tial prop­erty which has no con­nec­tion with that park, to the det­ri­ment of the pri­vacy and amen­ity enjoyed at our client’s prop­erty at present. This is of par­tic­u­lar con­cern as it is expec­ted that the extern­al enter­tain­ing areas and pro­posed hot tubs — which are cited by the applic­ant as being a key attrac­tion — will inev­it­ably be used well into the even­ing, with addi­tion­al noise and light pol­lu­tion in a cur­rently oth­er­wise quiet rur­al area as a result.

On the basis that the pro­posed devel­op­ment would have an adverse impact on its sur­round­ings as set out above, it would clearly be con­trary to the prin­ciples of the LDP Policy 2.

Like­wise, the pro­posed devel­op­ment fails to com­ply with Policy 2.2 Tour­ist accom­mod­a­tion, which sets out more detailed cri­ter­ia with which pro­pos­als for tour­ist accom­mod­a­tion must com­ply. Again, for such pro­pos­als to be sup­por­ted, they must, amongst oth­er things, have no adverse envir­on­ment­al or social impacts on the site or neigh­bour­ing areas. The poten­tial impacts of the pro­posed devel­op­ment on the amen­ity and pri­vacy of exist­ing res­id­ents of the area and, in par­tic­u­lar, res­id­ents of the imme­di­ate neigh­bour­ing prop­erty of Fasnadarach have been addressed above. In addi­tion to which the pro­posed devel­op­ment has the 2

---

poten­tial to impact on a num­ber of import­ant envir­on­ment­al fea­tures, includ­ing pro­tec­ted spe­cies, as set out in more detail in the appendix to this letter.

Access and road safety

Policy 3: Design and place­mak­ing is applic­able to all applic­a­tions and aims to ensure that devel­op­ment deliv­ers high stand­ards of design and place­mak­ing and con­trib­utes to the Nation­al Park’s spe­cial sense of place.

Policy 3.1 Place­mak­ing then requires all devel­op­ments to meet the six qual­it­ies of suc­cess­ful places, which are detailed in the sup­port­ing text. The Design and Sus­tain­ab­il­ity State­ment sub­mit­ted with the applic­a­tion fails to demon­strate how the pro­posed devel­op­ment com­plies with this aspect of the Policy, with no account taken of the prox­im­ity of the devel­op­ment to Fasnadarach, par­tic­u­larly in terms of the impact on the set­ting of this as a lis­ted build­ing (see below). Indeed, it is sub­mit­ted that the pro­posed devel­op­ment does not demon­strate a num­ber of the place­mak­ing cri­ter­ia as set out in detail in the appendix to this let­ter, with our cli­ent par­tic­u­larly wish­ing to stress con­cerns with regards to the pro­posed access to the applic­a­tion site, which raises sig­ni­fic­ant road safety issues due to the facts that:

• the site is loc­ated on land adja­cent to the B976, which is a 60mph road and an approved Tim­ber Trans­port Route, used for trans­port­ing tim­ber from the nearby James Jones and Sons sawmill;
• the B976 is a nar­row road provid­ing little space for vehicles, cyc­lists and ped­es­tri­ans who wish to use/​cross it. It is an extremely pop­u­lar cyc­ling route for cyc­ling clubs as well as cas­u­al cyc­lists. There are no laybys or passing points;
• the com­bin­a­tion of exist­ing HGVs and cara­vans and oth­er vehicles gen­er­ated by the pro­posed devel­op­ment will cre­ate con­ges­tion on the B976 and the bridge across the B1958. Again the absence of laybys or passing points is means that this is inevitable;
• enter­ing the site from the north (B1958), the bridge over the River Dee from Din­net has only a single nar­row pave­ment on one side for ped­es­tri­ans, with no pave­ments once they have crossed the bridge, and adding caravans/​motorhomes to those passing over the bridge would be haz­ard­ous for ped­es­tri­ans and cyc­lists cross­ing the bridge;
• the bridge itself is very nar­row with it not being pos­sible for a HGV and caravan/​motorhome to pass, mean­ing stack­ing on the road whilst vehicles wait to cross and con­ges­tion res­ult­ing from that; 3

---

• There is scarcely enough room for two way traffic already between Old Hall and Din­net Bridge (the route from Aboyne Bridge being impass­able by a car tow­ing a cara­van) and it is already a dan­ger­ous stretch of road for cyc­lists and ped­es­tri­ans as well as for people driv­ing, with our cli­ent hav­ing on a num­ber of occa­sions effect­ively been ​“pushed” off the road into the verge by oncom­ing traffic;
• the pro­posed T‑junction to access and exit the site at the north-west­ern corner is unsafe, as cars trav­el­ling from the dir­ec­tion of Aboyne will be approach­ing at high speed on a bend, with vis­ib­il­ity being hindered by the trees lin­ing each side of the road. It will not be par­tic­u­larly vis­ible to traffic approach­ing from Din­net Bridge either. Fur­ther­more, the draw­ings indic­ate that the cara­vans will be using the entire width of the road rather than a single lane. The com­bin­a­tion of the wide turn­ing radi­us and slow accel­er­a­tion of the trail­er­ing cara­vans, and the speed of vehicles which may already be on the road means that the access point may be at risk of col­li­sions with oncom­ing traffic and an inev­it­able cause of con­ges­tion. It is noted that the Council’s Roads Devel­op­ment Team has also objec­ted to the applic­a­tion on this basis, con­firm­ing the ser­i­ous nature of these concerns;
• there is sig­ni­fic­ant poten­tial for con­flict between ped­es­tri­ans, cyc­lists, exist­ing road users and vis­it­ors to the pro­posed devel­op­ment; and
• the B976 has no ped­es­tri­an path and would be dan­ger­ous for ped­es­tri­ans to use as the only option to nav­ig­ate along this road is a small grassy verge (which could become slippy and muddy dur­ing times of heavy rain­fall and sur­face flood­ing) and, in the event of large vehicles meet­ing each oth­er on this road, some may be forced onto the edges of the road which would com­prom­ise the safety of ped­es­tri­ans and cyclists.

Giv­en the above, the applic­a­tion does not meet the require­ments of Policy 3.1.

Also in terms of the impact on both neigh­bour­ing res­id­en­tial amen­ity and access, Policy 3.3 Sus­tain­able design requires that all pro­pos­als must be designed to pro­tect the amen­ity enjoyed by neigh­bours, includ­ing min­im­isa­tion of dis­turb­ance caused by access to the devel­op­ment site. For the reas­ons set out above, it is clear that the pro­posed devel­op­ment could cause sig­ni­fic­ant dis­turb­ance to neigh­bours and oth­er exist­ing users of the loc­al roads, in par­tic­u­lar in terms of giv­ing rise to road safety and con­ges­tion issues and the pro­posed devel­op­ment caus­ing noise and light pol­lu­tion for the imme­di­ate neigh­bour. As such the applic­a­tion also fails to com­ply with this Policy.

Impact on lis­ted building

As high­lighted above, Fasnadarach is a Cat­egory B lis­ted build­ing, with this under­stood to be one of the finest remain­ing examples of the archi­tec­ture of George True­fitt. The list­ing 4

---

spe­cific­ally includes the ancil­lary struc­tures, gatep­i­ers and bound­ary walls. The ancil­lary struc­tures are then iden­ti­fied as two sum­mer­houses, with that to the south west of the house, adja­cent to the applic­a­tion site, being described in some detail in the list­ing, illus­trat­ing its his­tor­ic­al significance.

In this regard, Policy 9.1 Lis­ted build­ings aims to pro­tect lis­ted build­ing and their set­tings, with the use of any devel­op­ment requir­ing to be appro­pri­ate to the char­ac­ter and appear­ance of the build­ing and its set­ting. Con­trary to this require­ment, the pro­posed cara­van park would have a sig­ni­fic­ant adverse impact on the set­ting of Fasnadarach and asso­ci­ated ancil­lary struc­tures by vir­tue of being highly vis­ible and out of with both the estab­lished pat­tern and nature of devel­op­ment in the imme­di­ate area and the land­scape with­in which the house is located.

Where devel­op­ment would res­ult in a sig­ni­fic­ant adverse impact on a lis­ted build­ing (as the pro­posed devel­op­ment would for the reas­ons giv­en above), Policy 9.1 states that the applic­ant must demon­strate that:

• less intrus­ive options have been con­sidered there is noth­ing in the applicant’s sub­mis­sion to sug­gest that this has been the case. The applic­ant did not approach our cli­ent before sub­mit­ting the application;
• the impacts are clearly out­weighed by social and eco­nom­ic bene­fits – the applicant’s busi­ness case does not demon­strate any sig­ni­fic­ant bene­fits to the loc­al com­munity that would do this; and
• min­im­ise and mit­ig­ate any adverse effects on the asset or its set­ting through appro­pri­ate sit­ing, lay­out, scale, design and con­struc­tion – the applicant’s Design and Sus­tain­ab­il­ity State­ment makes no ref­er­ence to Fasnadarach such that it can only be assumed that no con­sid­er­a­tion has been giv­en to min­im­ising or mit­ig­at­ing any effects on it. Spe­cific­ally, our cli­ent is par­tic­u­larly con­cerned that there is no land­scap­ing pro­posed to min­im­ise visu­al impact or for noise attenuation.

Water sup­ply

Finally, our cli­ent shares a private water sup­ply with the applicant’s res­id­en­tial prop­erty, Old Hall and has sig­ni­fic­ant con­cerns about the impact that the pro­posed devel­op­ment would have on this. Our client’s exist­ing water sup­ply is not lim­it­less, com­ing from a spring in the hills and, whilst the sup­ply is suf­fi­cient for domest­ic use by these two prop­er­ties, it is not clear if it would be suf­fi­cient to serve a com­mer­cial enter­prise of the scale pro­posed, includ­ing the 8 caravans/​motorhomes and the pro­posed hot tubs. The being the case the applic­a­tion is con­trary to Policy 10.1 Water resources, which requires that devel­op­ment should not have an adverse impact on exist­ing or private water sup­plies. 5

---

In addi­tion to the above mat­ters, our cli­ent wishes to sup­port the sub­mis­sions made by oth­er loc­al res­id­ents as detailed in the appendix to this letter.

We trust that the above points will be taken into account when determ­in­ing the applic­a­tion and that the applic­a­tion will be refused accordingly.

We also reserve the right to make fur­ther rep­res­ent­a­tions should the applic­ant sub­mit addi­tion­al inform­a­tion in respect of the application.

I would be grate­ful if you could please acknow­ledge receipt of this let­ter. Yours sincerely

Dr Mar­garet Bochel Aurora Plan­ning Limited

6

---

Appendix: State­ment of objection

APP/2021/0157 — Change of Use of Agri­cul­tur­al Land to Form Cara­van Park Erec­tion of Stor­age Shed and Install­a­tion of Deck­ing and Hot Tubs and Form­a­tion of Access

Intro­duc­tion

The applic­a­tion was sub­mit­ted to Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil on 27 Janu­ary 2021. How­ever, the applic­a­tion site is loc­ated with­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park and, on 8 Feb­ru­ary 2021, the Park Author­ity called in the applic­a­tion for determ­in­a­tion. That being the case, the applic­a­tion requires to be assessed against the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (LDP).

The cur­rent LDP was adop­ted in 2015, but it is anti­cip­ated that the new LDP will be adop­ted on 26 March 2021, which is also when a decision on the applic­a­tion is expec­ted. As such, it is anti­cip­ated that the new LDP will be in force at the time the applic­a­tion is determ­ined and, as a res­ult, the applic­a­tion requires to be determ­ined in accord­ance with this rather than the 2015 Plan. Fur­ther, as set out in the LDP to be adop­ted on 26 March 2021, the plan­ning applic­a­tion requires to be assessed against all rel­ev­ant parts of the Plan. The applic­a­tion must there­fore be assessed against the vis­ion, spa­tial strategy, policies and com­munity inform­a­tion of that LDP, as well as rel­ev­ant Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance, which has the same weight in decision mak­ing as the LDP itself.

The fol­low­ing para­graphs set out the key pro­vi­sions with­in the LDP rel­ev­ant to the determ­in­a­tion of the applic­a­tion and the reas­ons why it is con­sidered that the pro­posed devel­op­ment does not com­ply with these.

Grounds of objection

Stat­utory aims of Scot­tish Nation­al Parks

The intro­duc­tion to the LDP high­lights that this sup­ports the deliv­ery of the stat­utory aims of Scot­tish Nation­al Parks, which are:

a) to con­serve and enhance the nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age of the area; b) to pro­mote sus­tain­able use of the nat­ur­al resources of the area; c) to pro­mote under­stand­ing and enjoy­ment (includ­ing enjoy­ment in the form of recre­ation) of the spe­cial qual­it­ies of the area by the pub­lic; and d) to pro­mote sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic and social devel­op­ment of the area’s com­munit­ies. 1

---

Where there is a poten­tial con­flict between the first aim and any of the oth­ers, the Park Author­ity must give great­er weight to the first aim. That prin­ciple should be reflec­ted in the determ­in­a­tion of this application.

Whilst it is accep­ted that a new cara­van park may allow people to enjoy the spe­cial qual­it­ies of the Park and may bring some eco­nom­ic bene­fit, it would also be det­ri­ment­al to exist­ing oppor­tun­it­ies to enjoy the Park and adversely impact on more valu­able eco­nom­ic activ­it­ies (spe­cific­ally fish­ing tour­ism and the spend asso­ci­ated with that), both as set out in more detail below. As such, the pro­posed devel­op­ment would under­mine the first aim of the Park and should not be sup­por­ted accordingly.

Com­munity information

The applic­a­tion site is loc­ated around 1km to the south of the set­tle­ment of Din­net, which is described in the LDP as form­ing the east­ern gate­way to the Nation­al Park. The only facil­it­ies in the vil­lage are a hotel and gar­age. Aboyne, at around 8km away, is the closest set­tle­ment offer­ing a more extens­ive range of ser­vices and facil­it­ies, includ­ing con­veni­ence shopping.

The LDP’s object­ives for Din­net include sup­port­ing its role as a key gate­way to the Park and sup­port­ing pro­pos­als for small scale busi­ness devel­op­ment, with a site at the Former Stead­ing at Clarack, to the west of the vil­lage, iden­ti­fied as the most appro­pri­ate loc­a­tion for that. Eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment pro­pos­als should there­fore be dir­ec­ted towards the alloc­ated site in the first instance, in par­tic­u­lar as this would make sus­tain­able use of a brown­field site. Con­versely, devel­op­ment on the applic­a­tion site would intro­duce new built devel­op­ment to a cur­rently green­field loc­a­tion remote from the set­tle­ment, thus doing noth­ing to sup­port the set­tle­ment object­ives. Indeed, the intro­duc­tion of new devel­op­ment some dis­tance from the set­tle­ment bound­ary is likely to reduce the settlement’s sense of iden­tity as an import­ant gate­way to the Nation­al Park, con­trary to the set­tle­ment object­ives in this regard.

LDP policies

Policy 2: Sup­port­ing eco­nom­ic growth

This Policy aims to sup­port appro­pri­ate eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment whilst pro­tect­ing com­munit­ies from inap­pro­pri­ate devel­op­ment, with the sup­port­ing text to this identi­fy­ing tour­ism as being the most sig­ni­fic­ant eco­nom­ic sec­tor for the Park. As such, oppor­tun­it­ies to sup­port, enhance and diversity tour­ism (as well as oth­er key sec­tors, includ­ing land man­age­ment and recre­ation) are encour­aged. The sup­port­ing text does though also stress that all pro­pos­als must be appro­pri­ate and com­pat­ible with their sur­round­ings, con­trib­ute to sup­port­ing a year round eco­nomy and not have any adverse impact on the fea­tures of nat­ur­al or cul­tur­al her­it­age import­ance to the Park. 2

---

In terms of tour­ist accom­mod­a­tion spe­cific­ally, para­graph 4.35 of the LDP makes it clear that, for pro­pos­als for cus­tom-built tour­ist accom­mod­a­tion (such as that pro­posed in terms of this applic­a­tion) to be sup­por­ted, these should either be:

• on an alloc­ated tour­ism site; or
• in oth­er loc­a­tions where they con­trib­ute to the pro­vi­sion of a wider range of accom­mod­a­tion options.

The devel­op­ment pro­posed in terms of this applic­a­tion is not how­ever on an alloc­ated tour­ism site and, while it would deliv­er addi­tion­al tour­ist accom­mod­a­tion, there are already a num­ber of cara­van parks close to Din­net, (includ­ing at Aboyne Loch, Tar­land and Bal­latar), and there is no evid­ence that the pro­posed devel­op­ment would con­trib­ute to the pro­vi­sion of a wider range of accom­mod­a­tion options than is already provided by these.

In addi­tion, pro­pos­als should have no adverse impact on their sur­round­ings, and there is a pre­sump­tion against those that would res­ult in the loss of an exist­ing eco­nom­ic, employ­ment or tour­ism site or business.

In terms of the applic­a­tion site’s sur­round­ings and exist­ing land uses here, it should be noted that there are import­ant fish­ing interests along the stretch of the Dee adja­cent to the applic­a­tion site, and that these make a sig­ni­fic­ant con­tri­bu­tion to the eco­nomy as a res­ult of spend on fish­ing per­mits, accom­mod­a­tion, eat­ing and drink­ing, shop­ping and oth­er leis­ure activ­it­ies under­taken by anglers and their fam­il­ies when vis­it­ing the area. The River Dee 2020- 2025 Fish­er­ies Man­age­ment Plan estim­ated that fish­ing on the Dee gen­er­ates approx­im­ately £15m to the eco­nomy, with pre­vi­ous plans estim­at­ing that it sup­ports around 500 jobs across the com­munity which are entirely depend­ent on the tour­ism industry the fish­ery gen­er­ates. The Plan also high­lights the import­ance of fish­ing to exper­i­ences and well­being tour­ism (a new key driver of tour­ism) with a day’s fish­ing offer­ing a tran­quil way to enjoy nature. It is there­fore cru­cial that the pro­posed devel­op­ment does not impact on the qual­ity of fish­ing in this area.

In addi­tion, as set out in more detail below, it is con­sidered that the pro­posed devel­op­ment would be det­ri­ment­al to exist­ing res­id­en­tial amen­ity and the safety of road users, thus also hav­ing an adverse impact on its sur­round­ings in these regards.

On the basis that the pro­posed devel­op­ment would have an adverse impact on its sur­round­ings and on exist­ing eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment here, it would clearly be con­trary to the prin­ciples of the LDP set out above.

Policy 2.2 Tour­ist accom­mod­a­tion then sets out more detailed cri­ter­ia with which pro­pos­als for tour­ist accom­mod­a­tion must com­ply. For such pro­pos­als to be sup­por­ted, they must:

a) have no adverse envir­on­ment­al or social impacts on the site or neigh­bour­ing areas – in terms of which it is sub­mit­ted that: 3

---

• the pro­posed devel­op­ment has the poten­tial to impact on a num­ber of import­ant envir­on­ment­al fea­tures, includ­ing pro­tec­ted spe­cies, as set out in more detail below; and
• an increased num­ber of tour­ists in this area has the poten­tial to impact on the amen­ity and pri­vacy of exist­ing res­id­ents, par­tic­u­larly in terms of noise and light pol­lu­tion affect­ing the res­id­ents of the imme­di­ate neigh­bour­ing prop­erty of Fasnadarach, but also in terms of tour­ists unfa­mil­i­ar with the area driv­ing their motorhomes/​caravans up private access tracks, or walk­ers doing the same.

b) con­trib­ute to/​support the pro­vi­sion of a wide range of vis­it­or accom­mod­a­tion options includ­ing low cost accom­mod­a­tion – in terms of which it is sub­mit­ted that, while the pro­posed devel­op­ment would deliv­er addi­tion­al tour­ist accommodation:

• as set out above, there are already a num­ber of cara­van parks close to Din­net, and there is no evid­ence that the pro­posed devel­op­ment would con­trib­ute to the pro­vi­sion of a wider range of accom­mod­a­tion options than is already provided by these;
• exist­ing cara­van sites are well ser­viced and well loc­ated in terms of prox­im­ity to ser­vices and oth­er facilities;
• this is not in an appro­pri­ate loc­a­tion for such devel­op­ment, for the reas­ons set out below.

c) sup­port or con­trib­ute to a year round eco­nomy – although the applic­ant claims in their busi­ness state­ment that this will be the case, it is ques­tion­able wheth­er the pro­posed hot tubs alone will be suf­fi­cient to bring cara­van and motorhome tour­ists into the area dur­ing the winter months. Rather, giv­en the nature of the pro­posed devel­op­ment, it seems likely that its pop­ular­ity with vis­it­ors would largely be sea­son­al, and the applic­a­tion doc­u­ments do not provide any clear evid­ence to demon­strate oth­er­wise. It is also not clear what, if any, bene­fits the pro­posed devel­op­ment would bring to the loc­al com­munity of Din­net. As such, the applic­a­tion fails to com­ply with Policy 2.2 in this regard.

Policy 3: Design and placemaking

This Policy is applic­able to all applic­a­tions and aims to ensure that devel­op­ment deliv­ers high stand­ards of design and place­mak­ing and con­trib­utes to the Nation­al Park’s spe­cial sense of 4

---

place. That applies to the visu­al appear­ance of new devel­op­ment, the impact on qual­ity of life, access­ib­il­ity and envir­on­ment­al sustainability.

Policy 3.1 Place­mak­ing then requires all devel­op­ments to meet the six qual­it­ies of suc­cess­ful places, which are detailed in the sup­port­ing text. The Design and Sus­tain­ab­il­ity State­ment sub­mit­ted with the applic­a­tion fails to demon­strate how the pro­posed devel­op­ment com­plies with this aspect of the Policy, and indeed it is sub­mit­ted that the pro­posed devel­op­ment does not demon­strate a num­ber of these cri­ter­ia as follows:

• Dis­tinct­ive – with, as set out in more detail else­where in this let­ter, the development:
  • not com­ple­ment­ing the exist­ing char­ac­ter of the area;
  • intro­du­cing new forms of devel­op­ment into the sur­round­ing land­scape, with that being par­tic­u­larly so since no land­scap­ing is pro­posed to screen the pro­posed devel­op­ment; and
  • under­min­ing Dinnet’s sense of iden­tity as an import­ant gate­way to the Nation­al Park.
• Safe and pleas­ant – in terms of which the pro­posed devel­op­ment gives rise to sig­ni­fic­ant road safety con­cerns due to the facts that:
  • the site is loc­ated on land adja­cent to the B976, which is a 60mph road and an approved Tim­ber Trans­port Route, used for trans­port­ing tim­ber from the nearby James Jones and Sons sawmill;
  • the B976 is a nar­row road provid­ing little space for vehicles, cyc­lists and ped­es­tri­ans who wish to use/​cross it;
  • the com­bin­a­tion of exist­ing HGVs and cara­vans and oth­er vehicles gen­er­ated by the pro­posed devel­op­ment will cre­ate con­ges­tion on the B976 and the bridge across the B1958;
  • enter­ing the site from the north (B1