Item6CommitteeReport20230380DETGosCaravanPark

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 26/04/2024

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

DEVEL­OP­MENT PROPOSED:

2023/0380/DET – Exten­sion to cara­van site with 16 No. stat­ic hol­i­day cara­vans at Grant­own on Spey Cara­van and Motorhome Club, Seafield Aven­ue, Grant­own on Spey

REF­ER­ENCE: 2023/0380/DET

APPLIC­ANT: Aus­ten Durant

DATE CALLED-IN: 2 Octo­ber 2023

RECOM­MEND­A­TION: APPROVE sub­ject to conditions

CASE OFFICER: Katie Crerar Plan­ning Officer

CNPA Plan­ning Committee

Applic­a­tion Site

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 26/04/2024

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 26/04/2024

SITE DESCRIP­TION, PRO­POS­AL AND HISTORY

Site Descrip­tion

1. The devel­op­ment site lies adja­cent to the north-east­ern bound­ary of the long-estab­lished Grant­own Cara­van Park, form­ing an exten­sion to the exist­ing operation.

2. The devel­op­ment site is part of the set­ting of the exist­ing Cara­van Park along a rel­at­ively flat sec­tion adja­cent to a boggy area of grassland/​fields known as ​‘the Mossie’.

3. This applic­a­tion is part ret­ro­spect­ive and as such, the devel­op­ment site cur­rently com­prises a tar­macked road extend­ing from the south west of the devel­op­ment site through to a turn­ing head in the north-east. There are 16 grav­elled cara­van pitches on either side of the new road with park­ing bays. The remain­er of the site is fin­ished in grass between the road and pitches.

Pro­pos­al

1. The draw­ings and doc­u­ments asso­ci­ated with this applic­a­tion are lis­ted below and are avail­able on the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity web­site unless noted otherwise:

http://​www​.eplan​ningcnpa​.co​.uk/​o​n​line- applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=S2H0 6USI0CP00

Title Draw­ing Date on Date Num­ber Plan Received Plan — Loc­a­tion Plan L(Ex)002 01/08/2023 29/09/2023 Plan — Exist­ing Site Lay­out Plan L(Ex)001 01/08/2023 29/09/2024 Plan – Pro­posed Site Lay­out / L(PL)001 01/08/2023 01/03/2024 Pro­posed Exten­sion of Park Plan — Floor Elev­a­tion Plan: L(PL)002 01/08/2023 29/09/2023 Typ­ic­al Pro­posed Cara­van Oth­er — Visu­al Inform­a­tion: L(PL)002 01/08/2023 20/09/2023 Typ­ic­al Hol­i­day Cara­van unit Where no spe­cif­ic day of month has been provided on the plan, the sys­tem defaults to the 1^st of the month.

1. This pro­pos­al seeks par­tial ret­ro­spect­ive plan­ning per­mis­sion for an exten­sion to the exist­ing Grant­own Cara­van Park to accom­mod­ate an

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 26/04/2024 addi­tion­al 16 stat­ic hol­i­day cara­vans, access road and asso­ci­ated landscaping.

1. The devel­op­ment site lies adja­cent to the north-east­ern bound­ary of the exist­ing Grant­own Cara­van Park and forms part of a wider alloc­a­tion for Tour­ism (T1: Cara­van Park).

2. The pro­pos­al com­prises extend­ing the Cara­van Park’s exist­ing intern­al road from the south-west­ern bound­ary of the devel­op­ment site, cent­rally through to the north where it will ter­min­ate with a turn­ing head. The road has been com­pleted and is 3.7 metres wide and fin­ished in tar­mac con­sist­ent with the oth­er intern­al roads in the Cara­van Park.

3. The Cara­van pitches are posi­tioned either side of the new intern­al road (8 to the north of the road and 8 to the south) and are approx­im­ately 6 metres apart. The cara­van units (See Appendix 2: Visu­al Inform­a­tion) will be situ­ated a min­im­um of 2 metres from the intern­al road and 3 metres from the site bound­ary. Each Cara­van pitch will have an asso­ci­ated park­ing bay formed with per­meable con­crete pavours. The area around the pitches and road has been laid with grass.

4. There will also be a grassed recre­ation area in the north-east corner of the site (See Appendix 1: Site Lay­out Plan / Pro­posed Exten­sion of Park).

5. There will be no defined bound­ar­ies to the south-west, north-west and north-east of the devel­op­ment site as they integ­rate with the exist­ing sur­round­ing Cara­van Park. The south-east­ern bound­ary of the site is also part of the bound­ary of the wider Cara­van Park and as such will have screen plant­ing (formed with nat­ive spe­cies row­an, alder and hazel) extend­ing up to 3 metres in depth along this bound­ary where space allows. This screen­ing is also pro­posed to be con­tin­ued to the north-east and south-west of the devel­op­ment site (See Appendix 1: Pro­posed Exten­sion of Park) how­ever that lies out­with the scope of this application.

His­tory

1. There is no recent plan­ning his­tory on the pro­posed devel­op­ment site.

HAB­IT­ATS REG­U­LA­TIONS APPRAISAL

1. An Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al (HRA) has been under­taken to con­sider the poten­tial effects of the devel­op­ment upon the

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 26/04/2024 con­ser­va­tion object­ives of the Natura sites lis­ted with­in the HRA doc­u­ment which is attached as Appendix 3.

1. The Natura site in this case is the River Spey Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion (SAC) which is des­ig­nated for its Atlantic sal­mon, sea lamprey, fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sel (FWPM) and otter interests.

2. The HRA con­siders that there are no likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects on Atlantic sal­mon, sea lamprey or FWPM as the con­struc­tion will not involve fur­ther sig­ni­fic­ant ground works redu­cing the poten­tial for any pol­lu­tion events which may impact on the Kylin­tra Burn (which feeds dir­ectly into the River Spey). In terms of otter, there are again no likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects due to the dis­tance from the devel­op­ment site to the Kylin­tra Burn (>100m) would lim­it the like­li­hood of disturbance.

3. Also of import­ance is the Anagach Woods Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Area (SPA) which is des­ig­nated for its Caper­cail­lie interests and in this case, there is the poten­tial for likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects as a res­ult of increased human activ­ity by the addi­tion of occu­pants from the pro­posed development.

4. An Appro­pri­ate Assess­ment was under­taken, and this con­cluded there would be no addi­tion­al dis­turb­ance to caper­cail­lie over and above what is already occur­ring through use of exist­ing routes in caper­cail­lie woods closest to the devel­op­ment site — A, B, D & H (see Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al). There­fore, this con­ser­va­tion object­ive can be met and there will be no adverse effect on the site integ­rity of Anagach SPA.

DEVEL­OP­MENT PLAN CONTEXT

Policies

Nation­al Policy Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 (NPF4) Scot­land 2045 POLICY 1 Tack­ling the Cli­mate and Nature Crises POLICY 2 Cli­mate Mit­ig­a­tion and Adapt­a­tion POLICY 3 Biod­iversity POLICY 4 Nat­ur­al Places POLICY 5 Soils POLICY 14 Design, Qual­ity and Place POLICY 22 Flood Risk and Water Man­age­ment POLICY 30 Tourism

Stra­tegic Policy CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 26/04/2024 Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2022 2027 Loc­al Plan Policy Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (2021) Those policies rel­ev­ant to the assess­ment of this applic­a­tion are marked with a cross POLICY 1 NEW HOUS­ING DEVEL­OP­MENT POLICY 2 SUP­PORT­ING ECO­NOM­IC GROWTH X POLICY 3 DESIGN AND PLACE­MAK­ING X POLICY 4 NAT­UR­AL HER­IT­AGE X POLICY 5 LAND­SCAPE X POLICY 6 THE SIT­ING AND DESIGN OF DIGIT­AL COM­MU­NIC­A­TIONS EQUIP­MENT POLICY 7 RENEW­ABLE ENERGY POLICY 8 OPEN SPACE, SPORT AND RECRE­ATION POLICY 9 CUL­TUR­AL HER­IT­AGE POLICY 10 RESOURCES X POLICY 11 DEVELOPER OBLIGATIONS

1. All new devel­op­ment pro­pos­als require to be assessed in rela­tion to policies con­tained in the adop­ted Devel­op­ment Plan which com­prises Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 (NPF4) and the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021. The full word­ing of policies can be found at:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/national-planning-framework- 4/​documents/​

and at:

https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​w​p​-​c​o​n​t​e​n​t​/​u​p​l​o​a​d​s​/​2​0​2​1​/​0​3​/​C​N​P​A​-LDP- 2021-web.pdf

Plan­ning Guidance

1. Sup­ple­ment­ary guid­ance also forms part of the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan and provides more details about how to com­ply with the policies. Guid­ance that is rel­ev­ant to this applic­a­tion is marked with a cross.

Policy 1 Hous­ing Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance Policy 2 Sup­port­ing Eco­nom­ic Growth Non-Stat­utory X Guid­ance Policy 3 Design and Place­mak­ing Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance X Policy 4 Nat­ur­al Her­it­age Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance X Policy 5 Land­scape Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance X

Policy 7 Policy 8 Policy 9 Policy 10 Policy 11 CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 26/04/2024 Renew­able Energy Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance Open Space, Sport and Recre­ation Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance Cul­tur­al Her­it­age Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance Resources Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance X Developer Oblig­a­tions Sup­ple­ment­ary Guidance

CON­SULTA­TIONS

1. A sum­mary of the main issues raised by con­sul­tees now follows:

2. The High­land Council’s Flood­ing Risk Man­age­ment Team are sat­is­fied that whilst there are areas of pre­dicted sur­face water flood risk on the site, they are small and isol­ated and can be sat­is­fact­or­ily man­aged through the site drain­age. They have no objec­tion to the applic­a­tion on the grounds of flood risk.

3. The High­land Council’s Trans­port Plan­ning Team have no objec­tion to the applic­a­tion but require a con­di­tion for a Con­struc­tion Traffic Man­age­ment Plan (CTMP) for the erec­tion of the cara­vans to be applied to any per­mis­sion gran­ted. As a min­im­um, the CTMP should set out the access arrange­ments for con­struc­tion traffic, the type and volume of con­struc­tion traffic, work­ing hours, traffic man­age­ment pro­pos­als and require­ments for mit­ig­a­tion espe­cially for abnor­mal loads in the form of stat­ic cara­vans. A swept path ana­lys­is for any abnor­mal loads may also be reques­ted. Depend­ing on the type and volume of con­struc­tion traffic, the applic­ant may need to enter into a Sec­tion 96 Wear and Tear Agree­ment with the Coun­cil that may require a Road Bond.

4. The CTMP must be approved by the Trans­port Plan­ning Team and imple­men­ted before any work com­mences on site.

5. The High­land Council’s Envir­on­ment­al Health team reques­ted fur­ther inform­a­tion in rela­tion to the pre­vi­ous use (and poten­tial con­tam­in­a­tion) of the site. This was provided by the applic­ant and the Officer con­firmed they have no con­cerns regard­ing con­tam­in­a­tion for this application.

6. The High­land Council’s Envir­on­ment­al Advice and Con­sultancy Team were con­sul­ted in respect of archae­ology and the con­firm there are no sens­it­ive issues and no mit­ig­a­tion is necessary.

7. CNPA Eco­logy Advisor high­lights the prox­im­ity of the site to the River Spey SAC and SSSI (con­nec­ted by Kylin­tra Burn) and Anagach Woods

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 26/04/2024 SPA (and asso­ci­ated caper­cail­lie woods). How­ever, as set out in the HRA, it is con­cluded that there are no likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects on these designations.

1. As the site con­sists of mainly hard­stand­ing and amen­ity grass­land, it has lim­ited hab­it­at poten­tial to sup­port breed­ing birds and pro­tec­ted spe­cies. As such, poten­tial impacts on pro­tec­ted spe­cies, breed­ing birds and CNPA hab­it­ats or spe­cies is low.

2. The Officer high­lights the his­tor­ic­al evid­ence that the site is poten­tially situ­ated on deep peat. How­ever, as the hard­stand­ing is already down, no fur­ther excav­a­tions are likely and the impacts on the peat­land are negligible.

3. The Eco­logy Advisor also wel­comes the plant­ing of a screen com­pris­ing of nat­ive spe­cies: hazel, row­an and alder, as it will enhance the pro­posed site. They recom­mend a con­di­tion for a land­scap­ing plan which should include a main­ten­ance sched­ule for the plant­ing and main­tain­ing the planted species.

4. CNPA Land­scape Advisor high­lights the loc­a­tion of the site adja­cent to the fields known as the Mossie and states that this pro­pos­al will have a loc­ally sig­ni­fic­ant adverse visu­al effect upon the amen­ity of the area, for vis­it­ors, res­id­ents and recre­ation­al users. The mit­ig­a­tion provided by the screen plant­ing (although ideally not includ­ing cop­per beech) is wel­comed how­ever the 3m width ​‘where pos­sible’ is very open and not accept­able. If there are sec­tions where the applic­ant does not con­sider 3m wide is pos­sible then they should identi­fy these on the plan.

5. It is advised that a scale plant­ing plan should be sub­mit­ted and approved before any devel­op­ment takes place and must include full plant­ing details of plant mater­i­al, size and loc­a­tion as well as soils pre­par­a­tion, plant­ing oper­a­tions and main­ten­ance spe­cific­a­tions. These plants must be pro­tec­ted from deer, rab­bits and domest­ic stock on the Mossie.

6. CNPA’s Access Team were con­sul­ted how­ever have no com­ments to make.

7. Scot­tish Water has no objec­tion to the pro­pos­als, but sug­gest the applic­ant com­pletes a Pre-Devel­op­ment Enquiry (PDE) form ensur­ing the devel­op­ment can be ser­viced. There is cur­rently capa­city in the Aviemore Water Treat­ment Works to ser­vice the pro­posed devel­op­ment. The pro­posed devel­op­ment is with­in the Grant­own Waste Water Treat­ment Works catch­ment area but sug­gest the

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 26/04/2024 applic­ant com­pletes a Pre-Devel­op­ment Enquiry (PDE) form ensur­ing the devel­op­ment can be serviced.

REP­RES­ENT­A­TIONS

1. The applic­a­tion was advert­ised and there was one rep­res­ent­a­tion from the Badenoch and Strath­spey Con­ser­va­tion Group. A copy of these com­ments is attached in Appendix 4.

2. Key issues raised in the rep­res­ent­a­tion are sum­mar­ised as follows:

a) Land­scape – the pro­pos­al is vis­ible from vari­ous loc­a­tions includ­ing from the south-east, north-east, north-west and north which will have cumu­lat­ive impacts with oth­er nearby devel­op­ments such as Beachen Court and the Care Home. b) The wet and dry grass­land on the Mossie is excep­tion­al and strip­ping this area and pre-pro­fil­ing the adja­cent field is a loss of the hab­it­ats and biod­iversity. There is spe­cies rich grass­land and fen dir­ectly adja­cent to the site. c) The pro­pos­al could increase dis­turb­ance of the Mossie which is also import­ant hab­it­at for waders. d) The wet grass­land hab­it­at adja­cent to the site provides suit­able hab­it­at for frog and toad spawn which has been found in the area. e) A num­ber of inver­teb­rate spe­cies have been found in the Mossie and cumu­lat­ive impacts on biod­iversity should be taken into account. f) The pro­pos­al will reduce the qual­ity of exper­i­ence and enjoy­ment of the coun­tryside through fur­ther devel­op­ment encroach­ing on the Mossie. g) There is poten­tial for pol­lu­tion eman­at­ing from the site which could cause long-term pol­lu­tion of the Mossie. h) The pro­pos­al will not pro­tect biod­iversity and does not com­ply with Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4.

APPRAIS­AL

1. Sec­tion 25 of the 1997 Act as amended requires applic­a­tions to be determ­ined in accord­ance with the Devel­op­ment Plan i.e. Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 and the adop­ted Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 unless mater­i­al con­sid­er­a­tions indic­ate oth­er­wise. Where there is con­flict between policies, Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 policies will be used.

2. The main plan­ning issues are con­sidered below:

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 26/04/2024

Prin­ciple

1. This pro­pos­al relates to the exten­sion of an already estab­lished Cara­van Park. Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 Policy 30: Tour­ism sup­ports devel­op­ment pro­pos­als for new or exten­ded tour­ist facil­it­ies or accom­mod­a­tion, includ­ing cara­van and camp­ing sites, in loc­a­tions iden­ti­fied in the LDP (part a). It adds that pro­pos­als for tour­ism related devel­op­ment will take into account (amongst oth­ers) ​“com­pat­ib­il­ity with the sur­round­ing area in terms of natura and scale of the activ­ity and impacts of increased vis­it­ors” (part b i)).

2. The pro­pos­al site forms an exten­sion to the exist­ing Cara­van Park in Grant­own and lies with­in the T1: Cara­van Park alloc­a­tion for Tour­ism with­in the Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021. The Set­tle­ment State­ment sets out that with­in the alloc­a­tion ​“there is some capa­city for fur­ther devel­op­ment, par­tic­u­larly in the north-east­ern part of the site. Any future devel­op­ment on the site must be for tour­ism uses and com­pat­ible with the exist­ing oper­a­tion­al business”.

3. The devel­op­ment site lies with­in the north-east­ern part of the T1 alloc­a­tion which is iden­ti­fied as hav­ing capa­city for fur­ther devel­op­ment. The pro­pos­al is for 16 stat­ic pitches which is con­sist­ent and com­pat­ible with the exist­ing oper­a­tion­al busi­ness and the lay­out of the cara­van pitches and the cara­vans them­selves will be in keep­ing with those already on the Cara­van Park. There­fore, the prin­ciple of this pro­pos­al com­plies with Policy 30 of Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 and also meets the pro­vi­sions of the T1 alloc­a­tion con­tained with­in the Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021.

Envir­on­ment­al Impacts

1. Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 Policy 3: Biod­iversity requires devel­op­ment pro­pos­als to con­trib­ute to the enhance­ment of biod­iversity and Policy 4: Nat­ur­al places seeks to ensure that devel­op­ment will not have an unac­cept­able impact on the nat­ur­al envir­on­ment, or any sig­ni­fic­ant effect on European Site des­ig­na­tions includ­ing Spe­cial Areas of Conservation.

2. In addi­tion, Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Her­it­age of the Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 requires new devel­op­ment to have no adverse effects on the integ­rity of des­ig­nated sites, the Nation­al Park or on pro­tec­ted spe­cies or habitats.

3. The area which lies adja­cent to the pro­posed devel­op­ment site (known as the Mossie to the east­/­south-east) is marshy with drainage

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 26/04/2024 con­nect­ing to the Kylin­tra Burn. The Kylin­tra Burn, feeds dir­ectly into the River Spey which is a Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion (SCA) and Site of Spe­cial Sci­entif­ic Interest (SSSI). In addi­tion, the site is also rel­at­ively close to Anagach Woods Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Area (SPA), spe­cific­ally some of the asso­ci­ated caper­cail­lie woods, and as such con­sid­er­a­tion has been giv­en to the poten­tial impacts. How­ever, as set out in the HRA it is con­cluded that there are no likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects on these designations.

1. Whilst the applic­a­tion is pro­pos­ing screen plant­ing to sup­port land­scape integ­ra­tion, there is no men­tion of biod­iversity or hab­it­at enhance­ments. Policy 3 of Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 requires pro­pos­als to enhance biod­iversity as well as build­ing and strength­en­ing nature net­works and con­nec­tions between them. Pro­pos­als should integ­rate nature-based solu­tions where possible.

2. The devel­op­ment site forms a small part of a wider Cara­van Park oper­a­tion which over­all due to its oper­a­tions has lim­ited biod­iversity value. There are oppor­tun­it­ies to enhance biod­iversity by cre­at­ing and improv­ing hab­it­ats and nature net­works with­in the land under the applicant’s con­trol. As such, it should be con­di­tioned that details of biod­iversity enhance­ments for the wider Cara­van Park – which includes the applic­a­tion site — must be provided and agreed by CNPΡΑ pri­or to any fur­ther devel­op­ment tak­ing place.

3. Finally, as raised through the rep­res­ent­a­tion, there are con­cerns about the impact of the pro­pos­al on the biod­iversity interests of the Mossie adja­cent to the site. Whilst it is under­stood that there is biod­iversity value in this area, the pro­pos­al would not cre­ate a sig­ni­fic­ant increase in the num­ber of people who would use the Mossie. The Cara­van Park and devel­op­ment site itself is fenced from the Mossie and is well con­nec­ted to the exist­ing road and path routes around the area which the major­ity of vis­it­ors would util­ise. How­ever, as high­lighted above, there is an oppor­tun­ity and a require­ment under Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 to improve biod­iversity hab­it­ats and nature con­nec­tions with­in the site.

4. Over­all, this pro­pos­al would not res­ult in any sig­ni­fic­ant envir­on­ment­al impacts and there­fore, with the inclu­sion of con­di­tions, com­plies with Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 Policies 3 and 4 as well as Policies 4 and 10 of the Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 26/04/2024 Landscape

1. Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Places sets out that devel­op­ment pro­pos­als which affect a Nation­al Park will only be sup­por­ted where the object­ives of des­ig­na­tion and the over­all integ­rity of the area will not be com­prom­ised and any sig­ni­fic­ant adverse effects on the qual­it­ies for which the area has been des­ig­nated are clearly out­weighed by social, envir­on­ment­al or eco­nom­ic bene­fits of nation­al importance.

2. Policy 5: Land­scape of the Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 sets out that there will be a pre­sump­tion against any devel­op­ment that does not con­serve or enhance the land­scape char­ac­ter or spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. Pro­pos­als that do not com­plete­ment or enhance the land­scape char­ac­ter of the Nation­al Park will only be per­mit­ted where they are out­weighed by social, envir­on­ment­al or eco­nom­ic bene­fits of nation­al import­ance and all adverse effects on the set­ting have been min­im­ised and mitigated.

3. This pro­pos­al forms a small addi­tion to a sub­stan­tial exist­ing Cara­van Park how­ever it is acknow­ledged that the new cara­vans will increase the visu­al impact of the whole park by length­en­ing its loc­a­tion along this most vis­ible bound­ary. This part of the exist­ing site is highly vis­ible to the recre­ation users of the Mossie as well as users of Seafield Aven­ue. Of par­tic­u­lar import­ance is the high vis­ib­il­ity of the whole site for res­id­ents of Seafield Court and the users of the foot­path that runs from the church and around to Seafield Aven­ue which is pop­u­lar with walk­ers and run­ners. The remainder of the exist­ing Cara­van Park is mit­ig­ated through plant­ing along the bound­ary as well as the intern­al land­scap­ing present­ing a more attract­ive landscape.

4. How­ever, this pro­pos­al includes screen plant­ing along the vis­ible south­ern/­south-east­ern bound­ary, and which will mit­ig­ate the visu­al effect of the pro­pos­al. Whilst the screen­ing is already pro­posed as part of the applic­a­tion, a con­di­tion will be included for a plant­ing plan to be sub­mit­ted and approved before any fur­ther devel­op­ment takes place or carvans are installed and occu­pied and must include full plant­ing details of plant mater­i­al, size and loc­a­tion as well as soils pre­par­a­tion, plant­ing oper­a­tions and main­ten­ance spe­cific­a­tions. These plants must be pro­tec­ted from deer, rab­bits and domest­ic stock on the Mossie.

5. Sub­ject to the inclu­sion of the con­di­tion and with the screen plant­ing which will min­im­ise the visu­al impact of the cara­vans, this pro­pos­al com­plies with Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 Policy 4 and Policy 5 of the Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 26/04/2024 Roads

1. Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing, part 3.3 j) requires pro­pos­als to be designed to ​“include appro­pri­ate means of access, egress, levels of private amen­ity ground and space for off street park­ing”. Whilst this primar­ily relates to hous­ing, the prin­ciples for ensur­ing appro­pri­ate site access and park­ing are rel­ev­ant for all pro­pos­als. Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 Policy 13: Sus­tain­able Trans­port also seeks to encour­age, pro­mote and facil­it­ate pro­pos­als that pri­or­it­ise act­ive travel.

2. There is an exist­ing estab­lished access to the Cara­van Park which will remain unaltered and the intern­al access road has been exten­ded to the site to provide access. Each cara­van pitch has park­ing for one car.

3. It is unlikely that the addi­tion­al cars from 16 cara­vans will have a det­ri­ment­al effect on the exist­ing road infra­struc­ture. The High­land Coun­cils Trans­port Plan­ning Team have how­ever reques­ted a con­di­tion requir­ing a Con­struc­tion Traffic Man­age­ment Plan for the cara­vans which should be approved by the Trans­port Plan­ning Team pri­or to any work on site.

4. The devel­op­ment site is well con­nec­ted to the sur­round­ing area with good con­nec­tions for act­ive travel.

5. Over­all, this pro­pos­al does not present any sig­ni­fic­ant access or road issues and as such com­plies with Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 Policy 13 and the rel­ev­ant pro­vi­sions of the Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan Policy 3.

Oth­er Issues Raised in Con­sulta­tions and Representations

1. The rep­res­ent­a­tion received high­lighted con­cerns about access in the gen­er­al area includ­ing routes from the Mossie to the former rail­way path. They are of the view that cumu­lat­ive impacts on access need to be taken into account whilst redu­cing access on the Mossie. Whilst these com­ments are noted and appear some­what con­flic­ted, this is not a mater­i­al con­sid­er­a­tion in so far as this pro­pos­al will not impact – either by provid­ing or restrict­ing access around or through the site.

CON­CLU­SION

1. This pro­pos­al com­prises the exten­sion of an exist­ing estab­lished Cara­van Park on a site that is alloc­ated for tour­ism with­in the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan. The pro­pos­al is com­pat­ible with its neighbouring

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 26/04/2024 use and whilst will res­ult in some visu­al impacts as a res­ult of the cara­vans, suit­able screen plant­ing has been pro­posed and con­di­tions imple­men­ted to ensure the pro­posed plant­ing will be suf­fi­cient. There are no likely envir­on­ment­al impacts – whilst some con­cerns have been raised, the scale of the pro­pos­al will not res­ult in any adverse impacts on the sur­round­ing area and con­di­tions are pro­posed relat­ing to land­scape mit­ig­a­tion and biod­iversity enhance­ment. Over­all, this pro­pos­al com­plies with the rel­ev­ant Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 and Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan policies and there are no mater­i­al con­sid­er­a­tions which would war­rant the refus­al of plan­ning per­mis­sion. Approv­al is there­fore recom­men­ded sub­ject to appro­pri­ate plan­ning conditions.

RECOM­MEND­A­TION

That Mem­bers of the Com­mit­tee sup­port a recom­mend­a­tion to APPROVE the exten­sion to cara­van site with 16 No. stat­ic hol­i­day cara­vans at Grant­own on Spey Cara­van and Motorhome Club, Seafield Aven­ue, Grant­own on Spey, sub­ject to the fol­low­ing conditions:

Those con­di­tions lis­ted below in bold text are sus­pens­ive con­di­tions, which require to be dis­charged pri­or to imple­ment­a­tion of the development.

Con­di­tions

1. The devel­op­ment to which this per­mis­sion relates must begin not later than the expir­a­tion of 3 years begin­ning with the date on which this per­mis­sion is gran­ted. If devel­op­ment has not begun at the expir­a­tion of this peri­od, the plan­ning per­mis­sion lapses.

Reas­on: To accord with Sec­tion 58 of the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning (Scot­land) Act 1997.

1. No fur­ther oper­a­tions relat­ing to the devel­op­ment hereby approved — includ­ing the sit­ing of cara­vans — shall be under­taken until a Con­struc­tion Traffic Man­age­ment Plan (CTMP) for the erec­tion of the cara­vans has been sub­mit­ted to and approved in writ­ing by the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity act­ing as Plan­ning Author­ity in con­sulta­tion with the High­land Council’s Trans­port Plan­ning Team. The CTMP must be imple­men­ted before any fur­ther works com­mence on site.

The CTMP shall include but not be lim­ited to, the following:

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 26/04/2024 a) the access arrange­ments for con­struc­tion traffic; b) the type and volume of con­struc­tion traffic; c) work­ing hours; d) traffic man­age­ment pro­pos­als; e) require­ments for mit­ig­a­tion espe­cially for abnor­mal loads in the form of stat­ic cara­vans; f) A swept path ana­lys­is for any abnor­mal loads may also be required; g) Depend­ing on the type and volume of con­struc­tion traffic, the applic­ant may need to enter into a Sec­tion 96 Wear and Tear Agree­ment with the Coun­cil that may require a Road Bond.

Reas­on: To ensure that the amen­ity of the sur­round­ing area is pre­served and there is appro­pri­ate access dur­ing the trans­port­ing and sit­ing of the cara­vans in line with Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing of the Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021.

1. No fur­ther devel­op­ment shall com­mence on site – includ­ing the sit­ing of cara­vans until a land­scape plant­ing and main­ten­ance plan has been sub­mit­ted to and approved in writ­ing by the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity act­ing as Plan­ning Author­ity. This plan shall include but not be lim­ited to the fol­low­ing information: a) Full plant­ing details of plant spe­ciesof loc­al proven­ance, size and loc­a­tion as well as soils pre­par­a­tion, plant­ing oper­a­tions and main­ten­ance spe­cific­a­tions. These plants must be pro­tec­ted from deer, rab­bits and domest­ic stock on the Mossie; and b) Details of any asso­ci­ated light­ing pro­posed on site to min­im­ise upward lighting.

The approved land­scape scheme shall be imple­men­ted in accord­ance with the approved details in the first plant­ing sea­son fol­low­ing the devel­op­ment being brought into use and main­tained there­after in accord­ance with the approved plans and details through­out the life­time of the devel­op­ment hereby approved.

Reas­on: To ensure the long-term reten­tion of screen plant­ing and to ensure the devel­op­ment com­ple­ments and enhances the land­scape accord­ance with Policy 3: Biod­iversity, Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Places of the Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 and Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Her­it­age and Policy 5: Land­scape of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021.

1. **No fur­ther devel­op­ment shall com­mence on site – includ­ing the sit­ing of cara­vans until a Biod­iversity Enhance­ment Plan cov­er­ing the

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 26/04/2024 land with­in the applicant’s con­trol has been sub­mit­ted to and approved in writ­ing by the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity act­ing as Plan­ning Author­ity. This plan shall include but not be lim­ited to the fol­low­ing inform­a­tion:** c) Details of tree and wood­land man­age­ment to pro­tect exist­ing trees and wood­land areas on the site; d) Details of man­age­ment of spe­cies rich grass­land areas on the land. e) Details of bird and bat boxes to be installed on the land. f) A timetable for imple­ment­a­tion of all measures.

The approved Biod­iversity Enhance­ment Plan land­scape scheme shall be imple­men­ted and man­aged there­after in accord­ance with the approved details through­out the life­time of the devel­op­ment hereby approved.

Reas­on: To ensure that biod­iversity is enhanced in accord­ance with Policy 3: Biod­iversity and Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Places of the Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 and Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Her­it­age of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021.

Inform­at­ives

1. The devel­op­ment hereby approved must com­mence with­in 3 years of the date of this decision notice. If devel­op­ment has not com­menced with­in this peri­od then this plan­ning per­mis­sion will lapse.

2. The per­son under­tak­ing the devel­op­ment is required to give the Plan­ning Author­ity pri­or writ­ten noti­fic­a­tion of the date which it is inten­ded to com­mence the devel­op­ment. Attached to this decision notice is a Notice of Ini­ti­ation of Devel­op­ment for com­ple­tion and sub­mis­sion. Sub­mis­sion of this inform­a­tion assists the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Mon­it­or­ing and Enforce­ment Officer in mon­it­or­ing act­ive work with­in the area to ensure com­pli­ance with the approved details and to identi­fy and cor­rect any poten­tial prob­lems, as they arise, rather than later when it may be more dif­fi­cult and more costly to rec­ti­fy. Fail­ure to give notice would con­sti­tute a breach of plan­ning con­trol which may res­ult in enforce­ment action being taken.

3. Fol­low­ing com­ple­tion of the devel­op­ment, a noti­fic­a­tion of com­ple­tion shall, as soon as prac­tic­able, be giv­en to the Plan­ning Author­ity. Attached to this decision notice is a Notice of Com­ple­tion of Devel­op­ment for com­ple­tion and sub­mis­sion. Sub­mis­sion of this form will assist the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Mon­it­or­ing and

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 26/04/2024 Enforce­ment Officer in mak­ing a final inspec­tion and check­ing com­pli­ance with the approved draw­ings and con­di­tions. If the devel­op­ment hereby approved is to be car­ried out in phases, then a notice of com­ple­tion should be sub­mit­ted at the com­ple­tion of each phase.

1. In order for Scot­tish Water to con­duct a full apprais­al of the pro­pos­als, the applic­ant should com­plete a Pre- Devel­op­ment Enquiry (P.D.E.) Form, and sub­mit to Scot­tish Water via the cus­tom­er portal, or con­tact Devel­op­ment Services.

The map on the first page of this report has been pro­duced to aid in the stat­utory pro­cess of deal­ing with plan­ning applic­a­tions. The map is to help identi­fy the site and its sur­round­ings and to aid Plan­ning Officers, Com­mit­tee Mem­bers and the Pub­lic in the determ­in­a­tion of the pro­pos­al. Maps shown in the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Report can only be used for the pur­poses of the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee. Any oth­er use risks infringing Crown Copy­right and may lead to pro­sec­u­tion or civil pro­ceed­ings. Maps pro­duced with­in this Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Report can only be repro­duced with the express per­mis­sion of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity and oth­er Copy­right hold­ers. This per­mis­sion must be gran­ted in advance.