Item6Appendix4Objections20230199DETBalliefurth

Cairngorms Item 6 Appendix 4 8 Decem­ber 2023 Nation­al Park Author­ity Ügh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Agenda item 6

Appendix 4

2023/0199/DET

Rep­res­ent­a­tions — objections

R&R Urquhart SOLI­CIT­ORS ESTAB­LISHED 1829 NAIRN FORRES INVERNESS

DATE 09 June 2023 Recor­ded Deliv­ery OUR REEJW/LT YOUR REF Dir­ect email: jamiewhittle@r‑r-urquhart.com Cairngorms Nation­al Plan­ning Author­ity 14 The Square Grant­own-on-Spey PH26 3HG

Also by email to: planning@​cairngorms.​co.​uk

Dear Sirs

117 – 121 HIGH STREET FORRES MORAY­SHIRE IV36 1AB TELE­PHONE: 01309 672216 FAX: 01309 673161

EMAIL: info.forres@r‑r-urquhart.com WEB­SITE: www.r‑r-urquhart.com DX 520690 FORRES

Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 2023/0199/DET (High­land Coun­cil ref 23/02000/FUL) Pro­posed erec­tion of owner’s accom­mod­a­tion, 7 self-cater­ing cab­ins and toilet/​shower block at Boat of Bal­lie­furth, Grantown-on-Spey

On behalf we hereby object to plan­ning applic­a­tion 2023/0199/DET (High­land Coun­cil ref­er­ence 23/02000/FUL before being called in) being the pro­posed erec­tion of owner’s accom­mod­a­tion, self-cater­ing cab­ins and a toilet/​shower block. Our cli­ents to the pro­posed devel­op­ment and are there­fore affected.

We had objec­ted to the ini­tial plan­ning applic­a­tion 2022/0354/DET (High­land Coun­cil ref­er­ence 22/04644/FUL before being called in) (“Ini­tial Applic­a­tion”) for the erec­tion of owner’s accom­mod­a­tion, self-cater­ing cab­ins and toilet/​shower block, on behalf of our cli­ents, with an objec­tion let­ter dated 30 Novem­ber 2022.

Although the Ini­tial Applic­a­tion was with­drawn by the applic­ants, in our sub­mis­sion this renewed plan­ning applic­a­tion still does not com­ply with the same policies ref­er­enced in our ini­tial objec­tion, and we there­fore raise the same objec­tions which we have again set out below, as well as a num­ber of new objections.

The site is a par­tic­u­larly quiet, rur­al loc­a­tion and next to where our cli­ents have made their home since 1986. Our cli­ents wit­ness on a daily basis an excep­tion­al array of biod­iversity includ­ing pro­tec­ted spe­cies, and the site is adja­cent to the River Spey SAC and River Spey SSSI as well as being in close prox­im­ity to the Craigmore SPA and Wild­cat Pri­or­ity Area (ref: 20220204)

Doc­u­ments relied upon by the applicants:

1. The applic­ants lodged a num­ber of doc­u­ments with the author­ity in sup­port of the Ini­tial Application.

2. The Pre­lim­in­ary Eco­lo­gic­al Apprais­al (dated 9 March 2022), which we con­sider more fully below, was not updated for this renewed plan­ning applic­a­tion. Com­bined with our client’s con­cerns with the

LICENSED TO CON­DUCT INCID­ENT­AL INVEST­MENT BUSI­NESS BY THE LAW SOCI­ETY OF SCOT­LAND R&R URQUHART IS THE TRAD­ING NAME OF R&R URQUHART LLP A LIM­ITED LIAB­IL­ITY PART­NER­SHIP REGISTERED IN SCOT­LAND NUM­BER SO300740

REGISTERED OFFICE IS AT 117 – 121 HIGH STREET, FORRES IV36 1AB ALL COR­RES­POND­ENCE SIGNED BY A NAMED INDI­VIDU­AL IS SIGNED FOR AND ON BEHALF OF R&R URQUHART LLP A LIST OF MEM­BERS IS AVAIL­ABLE AT THE REGISTERED OFFICE

ALSO AT ROY­AL BANK OF SCOT­LAND BUILD­INGS 1 20 HIGH STREET, NAIRN, IV12 4AX TELE­PHONE: 01667 453278 FAX: 01667 453499 EMAIL: info.nairn@r‑r-urquhart.com DX 520950 NAIRN NESS HORI­ZONS BUSI­NESS CENTRE, KIN­TAIL HOUSE BEECH­WOOD BUSI­NESS PARK, INVERNESS, IV2 3BW TELE­PHONE: 01463 250025 FAX: 01309 673161 EMAIL: info.inverness@r‑r-urquhart.com R&R Urquhart CON­TINU­ATION SHEET

1. Apprais­al noted below, the fact that the Apprais­al is now over 14 months old means that the applic­ant should instruct a new apprais­al or the Author­ity should give it little weight when con­sid­er­ing this renewed application.

2. The same cri­ti­cism can be made of the Arbor­i­cul­tur­al Impact Assess­ment which is also dated March 2022 and has had no sub­sequent update for the renewed application.

3. The agent for the applic­ants sub­mit­ted a state­ment in sup­port of the renewed applic­a­tion dated 18 April 2023 which con­tains the fol­low­ing passage:

“After dis­cus­sions with the CNPA, the applic­a­tion was with­drawn whilst the manager’s house was re- designed to be more sym­path­et­ic to the site and con­text. The house redesign, now single storey, reduced mass and remov­al of the detached gar­age has since been looked on more favour­ably for the pur­pose of the development.”

Our cli­ents are con­cerned at the sug­ges­tion that the CNPA might have already giv­en the applic­ants advice that their revised applic­a­tion is now being viewed more favour­ably. Surely this can­not be cor­rect. We trust that any views by the CNPA that may have been expressed to the applic­ant were done so in the con­text that the applic­a­tion requires to be con­sidered through the nor­mal plan­ning pro­cess once the applic­a­tion has been submitted.

1. The author­ity has pre­pared an EIA Screen­ing Opin­ion whereby it was decided that fur­ther envir­on­ment­al assess­ment was not required for the site. The reas­on­ing offered through­out the Opin­ion, for example at clause 6, is that with suf­fi­cient mit­ig­a­tion any effects on the envir­on­ment can be avoided. This may be the case, but no such mit­ig­a­tion can be found in the plan­ning applic­a­tion and there is no sug­ges­tion as to what plan­ning con­di­tions may or may not be imposed.

At 6.2, the CNPA notes that: ​“there may be pro­tec­ted spe­cies with­in the vicin­ity of the site.” To be accur­ate, there are pro­tec­ted spe­cies that fre­quent the site and its vicin­ity. Also, at 6.1 no ref­er­ence is made to the Craigmore SPA or the Wild­cat Pri­or­ity Area and these should all have been con­sidered. In our sub­mis­sion the EIA Screen­ing Opin­ion drew the incor­rect con­clu­sion, in that this is a highly sens­it­ive area which requires care­ful, thor­ough envir­on­ment­al assess­ment, and as such there are not the envir­on­ment­al safe­guards that there should be.

Our cli­ents are sur­prised that no fur­ther assess­ments have been made giv­en the prox­im­ity of the site to an SAC and giv­en the risks, also noted below, the author­ity should take a pre­cau­tion­ary approach and insist upon adequate assess­ments. Only then can the author­ity make an informed decision and put in place appro­pri­ate con­di­tions to mit­ig­ate the risk to the envir­on­ment. At this stage the risk to the envir­on­ment has not been adequately assessed.

Fur­ther­more, at clause 9 of the Screen­ing Opin­ion, the author­ity states that the site is accessed via the B970. This is incor­rect, as we dis­cuss below at para­graph 8 the site is accessed by a private unmade road, which con­trary to the authority’s asser­tion is not suited to an increase in volume of traffic. There will be a sig­ni­fic­ant impact on the access route, which is par­tic­u­larly per­tin­ent as our cli­ents are one of a num­ber of pro­pri­et­ors who are obliged to pay towards the main­ten­ance of the road and there is no 2 R&R Urquhart CON­TINU­ATION SHEET

main­ten­ance agree­ment for the road sup­port­ing this pro­posed devel­op­ment. Also, the extent of use of the site by campers in addi­tion to pod users is unknown and there­fore, the impact and use of the private access road is unquan­ti­fied, a point which we con­sider more fully below.

The devel­op­ment pro­pos­al is not sup­por­ted by the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority’s Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 (“the Plan”) and should there­fore be refused. Examples of this lack of sup­port include:

Impacts on neigh­bour­ing amenity:

1. Policy 1.3 (Oth­er hous­ing in the coun­tryside) requires pro­pos­als that a) rein­force the exist­ing pat­tern of devel­op­ment, b) are neces­sary for an act­ive busi­ness or c) which are on a rur­al brown­field site. This devel­op­ment will not be part of an exist­ing pat­tern of devel­op­ment, is not linked to an act­ive busi­ness and is on a green­field site.

2. Policy 2.2 (Tour­ist accom­mod­a­tion) requires that a devel­op­ment has no adverse envir­on­ment­al or amen­ity impacts on the site of neigh­bour­ing areas. As high­lighted below, the envir­on­ment­al impacts in a site where pro­tec­ted spe­cies are present and which lies adja­cent to des­ig­na­tions of inter­na­tion­al sig­ni­fic­ance have not been adequately assessed. Fur­ther­more, the impact on our cli­ents’ amen­ity as the imme­di­ately neigh­bour­ing prop­erty will be extreme; the devel­op­ment will trans­form an undis­turbed loc­a­tion at the end of a private track to a busy site fre­quen­ted by tour­ists, chan­ging the char­ac­ter of the place sig­ni­fic­antly includ­ing through noise, light, smell and traffic. Ref­er­ence is made to the pho­to­graph annexed to this let­ter taken on 12 Novem­ber 2022 show­ing the imme­di­ate prox­im­ity between the site and our cli­ents’ house and property.

3. Policy 3.3 (Sus­tain­able design) states that devel­op­ments must pro­tect the amen­ity enjoyed by neigh­bours includ­ing min­im­isa­tion of dis­turb­ance caused by access to the devel­op­ment site, include an appro­pri­ate means of access and egress, and cre­ate oppor­tun­it­ies for fur­ther biod­iversity and pro­mote eco­lo­gic­al interest. As men­tioned above, the amen­ity of our cli­ents will be dis­turbed to an unac­cept­able level. The applic­ants, in their sup­port­ing state­ment referred to above, ref­er­ence the likely heavy use of the applic­a­tion site by wild campers, vari­ous out­door groups and the occu­pants of the pods all in close prox­im­ity to our cli­ents’ prop­erty. Des­pite this, the applic­a­tion fails to adequately demon­strate how the applic­ants will mit­ig­ate the impact of this increased use and the inev­it­able inter­fer­ence on our cli­ents’ enjoy­ment of their prop­erty, as is required by Policy 3.3(i).

Also, the private track lead­ing to the site is inad­equate for the pro­posed access and egress. The pro­posed access route is a private track that serves three exist­ing houses and is nar­row and untarred. It was not designed with com­mer­cial pur­poses in mind and cur­rently has no exist­ing passing places. There will be a sig­ni­fic­ant increase of the bur­den on the untarred track. The plan­ning applic­a­tion fails to dis­close any plans to mit­ig­ate the effect of an increase in traffic on the track sur­face that will inev­it­ably occur if a house and 7 self-cater­ing cab­ins are erec­ted. Also, the pro­posed vis­ib­il­ity splay is not compliant.

Although the applic­a­tion is for 7 self-cater­ing cab­ins, ref­er­ence is also made to use of the site by oth­er campers, how­ever, there is no con­sid­er­a­tion of the cumu­lat­ive impact that the exist­ing camp­ing site and the pro­posed cab­ins will undoubtedly have on our cli­ents’ prop­erty. The applic­a­tion fails to dis­close the 3 R&R Urquhart CON­TINU­ATION SHEET

1. max­im­um num­ber of pitches that will be avail­able at the camp­site. The pro­posed park­ing spots are unlikely to be suf­fi­cient for the volume of traffic gen­er­ated by the devel­op­ment and our cli­ents are con­cerned at the poten­tial of users of the site park­ing near or on the bound­ary of their property.

Fur­ther­more, wild­life (includ­ing pro­tec­ted spe­cies present on the site) will be dis­turbed as a res­ult of the volume of people poten­tially stay­ing at this site, and so it can­not be said that this devel­op­ment will pro­mote biod­iversity and eco­lo­gic­al interest.

1. Policy 10.1 (Water resources) states that a devel­op­ment should not have a sig­ni­fic­ant adverse impact on exist­ing or private water sup­plies, how­ever this devel­op­ment, if per­mit­ted, will strain the water sup­ply used by our cli­ents to an unac­cept­able level. Also, the site lies in close prox­im­ity to the River Spey, and the impact on water qual­ity has not been adequately addressed by the applicant.

Impacts on the environment:

1. The Pre­lim­in­ary Eco­lo­gic­al Apprais­al dated 9 March 2022 sub­mit­ted on behalf of the applic­ant is not only pre­lim­in­ary but very lim­ited in scope and sub­stance. Its assess­ment in the field con­sisted of one day’s apprais­al in March, and there­fore took place when a num­ber of fauna and flora would not have been present. It also con­sists mainly of desktop ana­lys­is. It does not com­ply with the require­ments of Policy 4.6 (All devel­op­ment). There is no basis for the author­ity to reach a con­clu­sion that the devel­op­ment will have lim­ited impact on the envir­on­ment giv­en the lack of assess­ment form­ing that Apprais­al. In our sub­mis­sion this Apprais­al can­not be giv­en any weight.

2. This loc­a­tion and its imme­di­ate area is one fre­quen­ted by an array of pro­tec­ted spe­cies which our cli­ents have wit­nessed includ­ing badgers, pine martens, wild­cat, water voles, pip­istrelle bats and red squir­rels, and then barn owls, tawny owls, golden eye duck, her­on, red-throated divers, white-tailed sea eagle, per­eg­rine fal­con, osprey and red kites. Accord­ingly Policy 4.4 (Pro­tec­ted spe­cies) must prevail.

3. Sim­il­arly, Policy 4.5 (Oth­er biod­iversity) requires spe­cial con­sid­er­a­tion to be giv­en to pro­tect­ing biod­iversity, and the Park Author­ity is required to meet the oblig­a­tions of a pub­lic body in terms of sec­tion 1 of the Nature Con­ser­va­tion (Scot­land) Act 2004. The site is home to an array of biod­iversity, and is loc­ated at the inter­face between river, field and wood­land ecosystems.

4. Policy 4.1 (Inter­na­tion­al des­ig­na­tions) requires the Park Author­ity to have par­tic­u­lar regard to the qual­i­fy­ing interests of Natura sites that may be affected, with the site being adja­cent to the River Spey SAC and the Craigmore SPA. Also, Appro­pri­ate Assess­ments would require to be car­ried out in terms of the Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions. But more fun­da­ment­ally, the close prox­im­ity of the devel­op­ment to these pro­tec­ted areas has not been adequately assessed.

5. The same applies with Policy 4.2 (Nation­al des­ig­na­tions) where impacts on the River Spey SSSI and Wild­cat Pri­or­ity Area (with­in 250m of the pro­posed site) require to be prop­erly considered.

Not­with­stand­ing the above, and even if the access issues could be sat­is­fact­or­ily over­come, there are oth­er loc­a­tions of land owned by the applic­ants which would form a bet­ter site for what they pro­pose to do, and they should explore altern­at­ive sites on their land instead of seek­ing to loc­ate this in close prox­im­ity to our cli­ents’ 4 R&R Urquhart CON­TINU­ATION SHEET

prop­erty.

Against the above, we sub­mit that the pro­posed devel­op­ment is not sup­por­ted by the Plan, and that there are no mater­i­al con­sid­er­a­tions cap­able of over­rid­ing the Plan. We there­fore urge the Author­ity to refuse the applic­a­tion in line with sec­tion 25 of the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning (Scot­land) Act 1997. This loc­a­tion is a par­tic­u­larly sens­it­ive site, both in terms of its envir­on­ment­al qual­it­ies and also giv­en the imme­di­ate prox­im­ity to our cli­ents’ secluded home where the amen­ity will be adversely affected to an unac­cept­able extent.

On behalf of our cli­ents, we request that the Author­ity makes a site vis­it. In the event of a hear­ing, our cli­ents request that they be per­mit­ted to address the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee via us as their agents.

Yours faith­fully

Jam­ie Whittle Partner

Pho­to­graph of Boat of Bal­lie­furth — 12 Novem­ber 2022 5

Plan­ning Depart­ment, Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity, 14 The Square, Grant­own-on-Spey, PH26 3HG 12^th June, 2023

Dear Sir/​Madam,

Pro­posed house and pods at Boat of Bal­lie­furth — 2023/0199/DET

We are con­cerned about this devel­op­ment for the fol­low­ing reasons:-

1. The River Spey catch­ment is a SSSI and we believe the land adja­cent to the river should have min­im­al development.

2. The sec­tion of river in ques­tion is out­stand­ingly beau­ti­ful. We believe the cur­rent lay­out will detract sig­ni­fic­antly to the amen­ity of the area, par­tic­u­larly for those who live closest to the pro­posed site.

3. The CNPA’s Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 in Policy 2 para­graph 4.35 refers to the devel­op­ment of ​“cus­tom-built tour­ist accom­mod­a­tion” but with the pro­viso there is ​“no adverse impact on their sur­round­ings.” We believe there will be adverse impacts on wild­life (par­tic­u­larly pro­tec­ted spe­cies such as pine marten and badgers) and people who live nearby.

4. The Loc­a­tion Plan included in the applic­a­tion has marked on it the access road from the B970. This access road is owned by Bal­lie­furth Farm from the B970 to bey­ond Bal­lie­furth Wood Cot­tage. Accord­ing to the ​“Land Own­er­ship Cer­ti­fic­ate” sec­tion in the Applic­a­tion we should have been served notice as own­ers of part of the access road. We have had one meet­ing with Ron­ald Macph­er­son where

some ideas were dis­cussed and we have received one email with pro­posed works at the road end. We have not received any notice.

1. We are con­cerned by the sig­ni­fic­antly increased level of traffic that will come due to the addi­tion­al build­ings (8). Ini­tially this will be in the form of con­struc­tion vehicles. There­after users and ser­vice vehicles (refuse lor­ries, sup­pli­ers etc). At a min­im­um the increase could be in the region of 30 vehicle move­ments a day (15 car park­ing spaces x 1 in and out a day) and is very likely to be more. The cur­rent sur­face of the road is con­sidered to be adequate for the cur­rent level of traffic but we don’t believe it is adequate for the anti­cip­ated increased level of traffic. We cur­rently use the road for access to the cattle feed­ing area in the wood­land with tract­ors and trail­ers, there are lim­ited passing places on the road. The cur­rent use is light but that could change depend­ing on our farm­ing prac­tices. There is a poten­tial for increased risk of a safety haz­ard whereby a tract­or and trail­er may have to wait on the B970 for vehicles exit­ing the access road onto the B970. This lat­ter point has been dis­cussed with the applicants.

2. There is no inform­a­tion as to where the water sup­ply is com­ing from but we are pre­sum­ing this will be off the cur­rent sup­ply which also sup­plies the farm and asso­ci­ated build­ings. We sug­gest Scot­tish Water assess if the cur­rent sup­ply is adequate for the increased num­ber of build­ings on the supply.

Emma Green­lees From: Sent: To: Sub­ject: Cat­egor­ies: BSCG info info@​bscg.​org.​uk 12 June 2023 23:49 Emma Bryce; Plan­ning 2023/0199/DET Com­ment Request to Speak, Comments

Badenoch & Strath­spey Con­ser­va­tion Group Fiod­hag, Nethy­bridge, Inverness-shire PH25 3DJ

Scot­tish Char­ity No. SC003846 Email info@​bscg.​org.​uk Web­site bscg​.org​.uk/

Emma Bryce CNPA Planning

12 June 2023

Dear Emma Bryce 2023/0199/DET Erec­tion of 7No. self-cater­ing cab­ins, toi­let and shower block, erec­tion of man­agers’ house at Land 110M SE of Boat of Bal­lie­furth, Grant­own on Spey

We wish to object to the above applic­a­tion and request the oppor­tun­ity to address the plan­ning com­mit­tee when they con­sider this application.

This applic­a­tion is in a par­tic­u­larly import­ant loc­a­tion for nat­ur­al her­it­age. Ripari­an hab­it­ats are recog­nised as highly import­ant for much biod­iversity, and import­ant in provid­ing con­nectiv­ity. There is increas­ing recog­ni­tion of the import­ance of net­works and cor­ridors, and the role of these in con­trib­ut­ing to resilience.

Scen­ic Qual­ity of Pro­pos­al Site

The pro­pos­al site and the sur­round­ing area are of excep­tion­ally high scen­ic value and provide a highly attract­ive land­scape set­ting. Espe­cially giv­en the stand­ard of fin­ish pro­posed for the camp­ing pods, we do not con­sider the pro­pos­al to be in line with the CNPA LDP Policy 5 Land­scape, con­serving and enhan­cing the spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies of the Nation­al Park (5.1).

Birds

The Spey ripari­an zone in the gen­er­al vicin­ity of the pro­pos­al is used by Whoop­er swans (Amber list of birds of con­ser­va­tion con­cern), geese such as Pink-footed (Amber list) and Greylag (Amber), ducks includ­ing Goldeneye (Red list of birds of con­ser­va­tion con­cern) and Wigeon (Amber list), Red throated diver, King­fish­er, Lap­wing (Red list), Oyster­catch­er (Amber), Snipe (Amber), Cur­lew (Red list), Red­shank (Amber), Com­mon sand­piper (Amber list), Goosander. Breed­ing waders are well known as a spe­cial fea­ture of the Nation­al Park. Nation­ally, waders are facing chal­lenges and the CNP can be viewed as a key area for help­ing declin­ing pop­u­la­tions recov­er. Lap­wing are on the UK Red list of birds of con­ser­va­tion con­cern. They can use land in the vicin­ity of the pro­pos­al site which can be viewed as part of an import­ant area for the wider breed­ing pop­u­la­tion and may offer par­tic­u­lar bene­fits in cold snaps early in the breed­ing sea­son, espe­cially when feed­ing con­di­tions are more favour­able close to the river than on colder sites. Oyster­catch­ers (on the Amber list of birds of con­ser­va­tion con­cern) sim­il­arly make use of the ripari­an zone, espe­cially at a crit­ic­al time at the start of the breed­ing sea­son. 1

The Spey in the vicin­ity of the pro­pos­al is used by Goldeneye through­out much of the year. There are Goldeneye nest boxes near the river a short way upstream from the pro­pos­al site, indic­at­ing the poten­tial for goldeneye to breed in the imme­di­ate vicin­ity. Goldeneye are among the ducks that feed in the river dur­ing the winter.

Due to highly patho­gen­ic avi­an flu, some of the birds using the area, includ­ing rel­at­ively long-lived water­fowl, are facing heightened challenges.

A poten­tial impact of the devel­op­ment is the inten­tion­al feed­ing of ducks. This is likely to lead to such prob­lems as pro­mot­ing spread of dis­ease between birds, such as avi­an flu; reduc­tion in water qual­ity. Oth­er poten­tial unin­ten­ded con­sequences include that it may attract oppor­tun­ist­ic pred­at­ors, for example of ground nest­ing and hole nest­ing birds; and lead to issues with rats and poten­tially pred­at­ors of rats like barn owls that are sus­cept­ible to rat poisons.

Otter, Brown hare Otter is a European Pro­tec­ted Spe­cies and would be poten­tially sub­ject to sig­ni­fic­antly great­er levels of human dis­turb­ance from the pods which sleep a max­im­um of 28 people, in addi­tion to the tent camp­ing area, and the manager’s house that sleeps 8. There is not good inform­a­tion on the pop­u­la­tion size of the otters of the Spey, which has not been estim­ated. Brown hares are a Pri­or­ity Spe­cies and well known to use the ripari­an zone of the Spey. They may be det­ri­ment­ally impacted through increased dis­turb­ance as a res­ult of the proposal.

Dogs The devel­op­ment is likely to lead to an increase in the use of the area by dogs. There may be a sig­ni­fic­ant increase in dis­turb­ance to wild­life from dogs with­in the ripari­an zone and nearby fields and wood­lands, res­ult­ing from the proposal.

Dogs enter­ing the Spey would be likely to intro­duce tox­ic pol­lut­ants, espe­cially from tick and flea col­lar and treat­ment, dam­aging to water inver­teb­rates, fish, birds and mam­mals (New research reveals wide­spread con­tam­in­a­tion of Eng­lish rivers with pesti­cides com­monly used as flea treat­ments: Broad­cast: News items : Uni­ver­sity of Sussex).

There is an issue of cumu­lat­ive impacts of dogs on the Spey SAC, in terms of both dis­turb­ance and pollutants.

Fires Policy and Wood­land Pro­tec­tion The many bene­fits of ripari­an trees and wood­land are well estab­lished. We note that the landown­er at present per­mits fires in broadly defined loc­a­tions near the river. The harm­ful impacts of fires include col­lect­ing of wood (dead wood and liv­ing) and so deplet­ing this resource, dam­age to ground veget­a­tion, and unat­tract­ive scar­ring of the ground. With respect to dead­wood, One of the rare inver­teb­rates poten­tially present on the site that has not been sur­veyed for is the Giant Sabre Comb-horn (Tanyptera atrata). This crane­fly has been observed in June 2023 ovi­pos­it­ing in ripari­an, dead alder at a loc­a­tion on the banks of the Spey fur­ther upstream. Poten­tial hab­it­at exists for this rar­ity where there is alder or birch near the R. Spey, such as in the vicin­ity of the pro­pos­al site. We are con­cerned that this devel­op­ment would be likely to con­trib­ute to destruc­tion of such hab­it­at. Anoth­er rare inver­teb­rate that poten­tially could be impacted neg­at­ively by the pro­pos­al is the Yel­low-legged Water-snipefly (Atherix ibis) also known from the Spey fur­ther upstream from an obser­va­tion in June 2023.

Design Stand­ard We do not con­sider that the stand­ard of design of the pro­posed accom­mod­a­tion pods and toi­let block, all of which are com­posed largely of dark grey cor­rug­ated (walls and roof) meets an appro­pri­ate stand­ard for the CNP. This is an excep­tion­ally scen­ic set­ting and any built devel­op­ment should be to a par­tic­u­larly high standard.

Light­ing Issues. 2

We have not found any men­tion of light­ing. How­ever, it is likely that, over time, some out­side light­ing will be con­sidered neces­sary. For example, at the toi­let block, at every cab­in, along the paths with­in the cab­in and camp­ing areas, Xmas-type sea­son­al light­ing, as well as at the new house. There is a grow­ing body of sci­entif­ic under­stand­ing that light pol­lu­tion can sig­ni­fic­antly impact fresh­wa­ter insects includ­ing the adult fly­ing stages of river­flies which when dis­pers­ing are known to move some dis­tance away from rivers. A num­ber of cold-adap­ted north­ern spe­cies, that are a fea­ture of the Spey, emerge from the river to breed early in the year when nights, and the require­ment for light­ing, are long. These include the North­ern Feb­ru­ary red stone­fly, an endem­ic for which Scot­land has inter­na­tion­al respons­ib­il­ity, that has a strong­hold in the river Spey and is one of the rare inver­teb­rates of the Cairngorms, which can be on the wing as early as Feb­ru­ary. The Dark Bordered Beauty moth is anoth­er rar­ity that is attrac­ted to light. This moth is depend­ent on Aspen, which is present on and near the site. This moth is only known from 3 Scot­tish sites, one of which is only slightly over 1km from the devel­op­ment site. Light­ing may also impact oth­er spe­cies of con­ser­va­tion con­cern, includ­ing bats and their inver­teb­rate food sup­ply. We are con­cerned that a pre­cau­tion­ary approach should be taken to lighting.

EIA Screen­ing Opin­ion We are con­cerned at the approach taken to the screen­ing opin­ion. At 6.2 (under Biod­iversity) this states ​“There may be pro­tec­ted spe­cies with­in the vicin­ity of the site” and con­tin­ues ​“Sub­ject to appro­pri­ate sur­vey work being under­taken and the recom­men­ded mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures imple­men­ted, if neces­sary through the impos­i­tion of a con­di­tion on any con­sent, there will be no sig­ni­fic­ant effects”. It is well estab­lished that there are pro­tec­ted spe­cies with­in the vicin­ity of the site and the des­ig­na­tion of the River Spey is clear evid­ence of this. We can find no recom­men­ded mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures provided in the EIA. The Eco­logy Response recom­mends that a pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion plan is sub­mit­ted as mit­ig­a­tion, but provides no indic­a­tion of what sources of pol­lu­tion the plan should aim to address, or wheth­er the plan is inten­ded to refer to pol­lu­tion dur­ing the con­struc­tion phase only or also the oper­a­tion­al phase. At 9.1 it is stated that the site is accessed via the B970, which is not the case.

Pre­lim­in­ary Eco­lo­gic­al Assess­ment. The walkover sur­vey under­taken on a single March day’s site vis­it is too lim­ited to provide suf­fi­ciently reli­able inform­a­tion for a site of this qual­ity, import­ance and com­plex­ity. It is dis­ap­point­ing that there has not been addi­tion­al sur­vey effort since the last application.

We are con­cerned at the state­ments in the PEA regard­ing the pre­ferred nest­ing hab­it­at of lap­wing being ​“long, often damp, grass” (page 27). Where­as, the spe­cies shows a ​“pref­er­ence for breed­ing on grass­lands with short swards (Hay­man et al. 1986, Devereux et al. 2004) and patches of bare soil (Johns­gard 1981)” and the nest is a ​“shal­low scrape in short grass veget­a­tion (del Hoyo et al. 1996)”.

The PEA also sug­gests that the ​“marshy grass­land (8)” could be ​“giv­en over to nest­ing birds such as snipe and lap­wing”. This hab­it­at is unsuit­able for nest­ing lap­wing due to the tall tus­socky veget­a­tion, but it is also unsuit­able for nest­ing snipe and lap­wing due to it being beside tall wood­land, a hab­it­at that is avoided by these spe­cies, as referred to in research under­taken for the CNPA in the East­ern Cairngorms Moor­land Part­ner­ship Area. This states ​“Tar­gets for forest expan­sion across Scot­land can deliv­er con­ser­va­tion gains for wood­land biod­iversity and oth­er envir­on­ment­al bene­fits but, in some areas, could also poten­tially fur­ther con­strain breed­ing waders” (Jar­rett et al 2019, Invest­ig­at­ing wader breed­ing pro­ductiv­ity in the ECMP, BTO Research Report 723). Yours sin­cerely 3