Item6CommitteeReportBerryburnWindfarmExtension

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 6 11/12/2020

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

DEVEL­OP­MENT PRO­POSED: Berry Burn wind farm extension

Con­sulta­tion from Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment Energy Con­sents & Deploy­ment Unit

REF­ER­ENCE: 020/0202/PAC (ECU00000718)

APPLIC­ANT: BB2 Wind Ltd, Berry Burn exten­sion wind farm

DATE CON­SUL­TED: 14 August 2020

RECOM­MEND­A­TION: No objection

CASE OFFICER: Nina Caudrey, Plan­ning Officer

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 6 11/12/2020

PUR­POSE OF REPORT

1. The pur­pose of this report is to inform the com­mit­tee decision and sub­sequent con­sulta­tion response to the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment Energy Con­sents & Deploy­ment Unit (ECDU) on an applic­a­tion sub­mit­ted under Sec­tion 36 of the Elec­tri­city Act 1989 for a pro­posed wind farm loc­ated to the south west of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. The Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment are the determ­in­ing Author­ity for this applic­a­tion as the out­put is more than 50 MW. The applic­a­tion is accom­pan­ied by an Envir­on­ment­al Report (ER), which presents the find­ings of the applicant’s Envir­on­ment­al Impact Assess­ment (EΙΑ).

2. The plan­ning issues to be con­sidered are con­fined to the effects of the pro­posed wind farm on the land­scape char­ac­ter and Spe­cial Land­scape Qual­it­ies (SLQs) of the Nation­al Park. All oth­er mat­ters, such as eco­logy, noise, gen­er­al amen­ity, etc, are assessed by the decision maker (Scot­tish Min­is­ters) with advice from stat­utory consultees.

3. Under the cur­rent work­ing agree­ment on roles in land­scape case­work between NatureScot (formerly Scot­tish Nat­ur­al Her­it­age, SNH) and the Park Author­ity, NatureScot lead on the pro­vi­sion of advice on the effects on the SLQs caused by pro­pos­als out­with the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. Their advice has been used to inform this report.

SITE DESCRIP­TION AND PRO­POSED DEVELOPMENT

1. The pro­posed wind farm is adja­cent to the exist­ing Berry Burn wind farm in Moray, approx­im­ately 12km south of Forres, as shown in the applicant’s ER fig­ure 7.6b on page 2 of this report. As also shown in the fig­ure, in the sur­round­ing area there are numer­ous exist­ing and con­sen­ted wind farms, plus sev­er­al pro­posed wind farms in the plan­ning sys­tem. This includes the adja­cent exist­ing Berry Burn wind farm, which has 29 tur­bines at a blade tip height of 99.9m

2. The pro­posed devel­op­ment would com­prise 9 tur­bines with a max­im­um height of 149.9m to the tip of the blade in an upright pos­i­tion, approx­im­ately 2km of upgraded exist­ing track plus 5km of new track, as well as oth­er infra­struc­ture and works (such as sub­sta­tion, under­ground cabling, bor­row pits, etc). It is expec­ted that the pro­posed wind farm would have an estim­ated total installed capa­city of around 38MW, depend­ent on the tur­bine spe­cific­a­tion used.

3. The nearest tur­bine would be around 8.4 km to the north east of the closest part of the bound­ary of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park, with the oth­er tur­bines, tracks and asso­ci­ated infra­struc­ture loc­ated fur­ther from the Nation­al Park boundary.

4. The­or­et­ic­al vis­ib­il­ity of the pro­posed wind farm from with­in the Nation­al Park would typ­ic­ally be lim­ited and at dis­tance, as shown by the applicant’s ER fig­ure 7.4a (Appendix I). Some the­or­et­ic­al vis­ib­il­ity is found at around 20km from the wind farm in the Crom­dale Hills; at around 25 – 35km run­ning north east between the Lecht, around Scalan and fur­ther towards the north east­ern Park bound­ary; with some the­or­et­ic­al vis­ib­il­ity at great­er dis­tances fur­ther into the Park, as shown by the col­oured areas.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 6 11/12/2020

1. How­ever, when con­sid­er­ing the cumu­lat­ive visu­al effects, the pro­posed wind farm does not cre­ate vis­ib­il­ity of a wind farm in areas that do not or would not already see exist­ing wind farms as shown by Fig­ure 7.7b of the applicant’s ER (Appendix II).

2. Visu­al­isa­tions from two view­points, VP9 Cre­agan a’ Chaise in the Crom­dale Hills and VP14 Carn na Guaille at the east­ern edge of the Mon­adh­liaths, have been provided in the applicant’s ER to demon­strate the level of vis­ib­il­ity that would be had from with­in the Nation­al Park, at a dis­tance of approx­im­ately 20 and 34 km respect­ively to the nearest pro­posed tur­bine. There are three visu­al­isa­tions asso­ci­ated with each view point, numbered b, c and d. These are avail­able to the pub­lic via the ECDU web­site https://www.energyconsents.scot/ApplicationDetails.aspx?cr=ECU00000718&T=5, by search­ing the applic­a­tion doc­u­ments for ​“Fig­ure 7.16X View­point 9 Cre­agan a’ Chaise” and ​“Fig­ure 7.21X View­point 14 Carn na Guaille” where X is either b, c or d.

REL­EV­ANT PLAN­NING HISTORY

1. PRE/2018/0033 CNPA respon­ded to a pre-applic­a­tion request for advice in early 2020.

PLAN­NING POLICY CONTEXT

1. The devel­op­ment pro­pos­al is loc­ated wholly out­with the Nation­al Park, there­fore the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan policies do not apply. How­ever, an assess­ment of the pro­pos­al must have regard to Scot­tish Plan­ning Policy (SPP) and the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP).

Nation­al Policy

1. Scot­tish Plan­ning Policy (revised 2014) sets out nation­al plan­ning policies that reflect Scot­tish Min­is­ters pri­or­it­ies for the devel­op­ment and use of land, as well as for oper­a­tion of the plan­ning sys­tem. The con­tent of SPP is a mater­i­al con­sid­er­a­tion in plan­ning decisions that car­ries sig­ni­fic­ant weight.

2. Policy relat­ing spe­cific­ally to Nation­al Parks and devel­op­ment man­age­ment can be found in para­graphs 84 and 85 of SPP. These re-state the four aims of the Nation­al Parks as set out in the Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000, as well as the need to pur­sue these col­lect­ively. SPP high­lights that if there is a con­flict between the first aim (con­serving and enhan­cing the nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age of the area) and any of the oth­ers, then great­er weight must be giv­en to the first aim. Plan­ning decisions are expec­ted to reflect this weight­ing and be con­sist­ent with the four aims.

3. Para­graph 85 of SPP also cla­ri­fies that the aims and require­ments of para­graphs 84 and 85 apply to devel­op­ment out­with a Nation­al Park that affects the Park.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 6 11/12/2020

1. Para­graph 212 of SPP states that ​“where devel­op­ment affects a Nation­al Park… it should only be per­mit­ted where:

• the object­ives of the des­ig­na­tion and the over­all integ­rity of the area will not be com­prom­ised; or

• any sig­ni­fic­ant adverse impacts on the qual­it­ies for which the area has been des­ig­nated are clearly out­weighed by social, envir­on­ment­al or eco­nom­ic bene­fits of nation­al importance”.

Stra­tegic Policy

1. The Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP) 2017 – 2022 is required under sec­tion II of the Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000. It is the man­age­ment plan for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park approved by Scot­tish Min­is­ters. The NPPP sets out how all those with a respons­ib­il­ity for the Nation­al Park will coordin­ate their work to tackle the most import­ant issues. There is a duty for decision makers to have regard to the NPPP, a require­ment set out in Sec­tion 14 of the Act. As such, the NPPP is a mater­i­al con­sid­er­a­tion in plan­ning decisions.

2. The NPPP iden­ti­fies that the land­scapes of the Nation­al Park are val­ued by many and under­pin the area’s eco­nomy. It con­tains policies to safe­guard land­scape interests. Of rel­ev­ance to wind farm devel­op­ment pro­pos­als are policies 1.3 and 3.3.

3. Policy 1.3 seeks to con­serve and enhance the SLQs.

4. Policy 3.3 seeks to sup­port devel­op­ment of a low car­bon eco­nomy and increase renew­able energy gen­er­a­tion where this is com­pat­ible with con­serving the SLQs. In rela­tion to wind farm devel­op­ment, the policy states that ​“large scale wind tur­bines are not com­pat­ible with the land­scape char­ac­ter or spe­cial qual­it­ies of the Nation­al Park. They are inap­pro­pri­ate with­in the Nation­al Park, or where out­side the Park they sig­ni­fic­antly adversely affect its land­scape char­ac­ter or spe­cial land­scape qualities”.

CON­SULTA­TIONS

NatureScot advice

1. In accord­ance with the NatureScot/​CNPA case­work agree­ment, NatureScot have provided CNPA with advice in rela­tion to the effects on the Nation­al Park, of the pro­posed wind farm both alone and cumu­lat­ively with oth­er exist­ing and con­sen­ted wind farms in the sur­round­ing area.

2. NatureScot advise that there would be no sig­ni­fic­ant effects from the intro­duc­tion of the pro­posed devel­op­ment (indi­vidu­ally or cumu­lat­ively) on long dis­tance routes, which includes the Dava and Spey­side Ways. Where the pro­posed devel­op­ment is vis­ible, the mag­nitude of change on long dis­tance routes is not con­sidered to be significant.

3. NatureScot advice that there will be no sig­ni­fic­ant adverse effects on the land­scape char­ac­ter of the Nation­al Park.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 6 11/12/2020

1. In respect of effects on the SLQs, NatureScot advise that while there will be no sig­ni­fic­ant adverse effects on the SLQs, the mag­nitude of change intro­duced by the pro­posed devel­op­ment is high­er than assessed in the applicant’s ER with respect to the SLQs and their expres­sion on the Hills of Crom­dale. The prom­in­ent lar­ger scale tur­bines of the pro­posed Berry Burn exten­sion, exper­i­enced in the con­text of the smal­ler and closer tur­bines at Paul’s Hill, will intensi­fy exist­ing effects on the SLQs in this area caused by exist­ing (and con­sen­ted) wind farms.

2. NatureScot are of the view that this mag­nitude of change (and oth­er land­scape and visu­al effects not affect­ing the Nation­al Park) could be reduced by way of: an amended design that reflects the ori­gin­al design logic of Berry Burn wind farm; reduced tur­bine heights; re-sit­ing of tur­bines west­wards adja­cent to the exist­ing Berry Burn wind farm.

APPRAIS­AL

1. The policies of the NPPP and SPP set out how pro­pos­als out­with the bound­ar­ies of the Nation­al Park should be con­sidered in terms of effects on the Park.

2. Policy 3.3 of the NPPP sets out a test for con­sid­er­ing effects on the Park, in that large scale wind tur­bines are inap­pro­pri­ate out­side the Park where they ​‘sig­ni­fic­antly adversely affect its land­scape char­ac­ter or spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies’. If a pro­pos­al fails policy 3.3, it would also be in con­flict with policy 1.3, which seeks to con­serve and enhance the SLQs.

3. Para­graph 212 of SPP sets out that ​“devel­op­ment that affects a Nation­al Park… should only be per­mit­ted where:

• the object­ives of des­ig­na­tion and the over­all integ­rity of the area will not be com­prom­ised; or

• 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.”

1. In the policy con­text of the NPPP and SPP, con­sid­er­a­tion is required of the effects of the pro­posed devel­op­ment, on land­scape char­ac­ter and the SLQs, both alone and cumu­lat­ively with oth­er wind farms in the sur­round­ing area.

2. There are a num­ber of exist­ing and con­sen­ted wind farms in the area sur­round­ing the pro­posed wind farm, as shown on page 2 of this report. Adding the pro­posed Berry Burn exten­sion wind farm to the baseline would not sig­ni­fic­antly add to the level of effects on the SLQs that are already occurring.

3. As iden­ti­fied in para­graph 7 of this report, there would be a lim­ited amount of vis­ib­il­ity from with­in the Park and, where there is vis­ib­il­ity, it is in areas that already have vis­ib­il­ity of exist­ing and con­sen­ted wind farms as well as being at some dis­tance (approx­im­ately 20 — 40km) from the pro­posed wind farm.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 6 11/12/2020

1. While there are a num­ber of exist­ing and con­sen­ted wind farms in the area to the north-east of the Nation­al Park (as shown on page 2), which the pro­posed wind farm adds to, it is not con­sidered that the pro­posed wind farm alone or in com­bin­a­tion with oth­er exist­ing or con­sen­ted wind farms will sig­ni­fic­antly adversely affect the land­scape char­ac­ter or SLQs of the Nation­al Park.

2. As a res­ult, the pro­posed wind farm is con­sidered to com­ply with nation­al plan­ning policies that seek to safe­guard Nation­al Parks, as well as NPPP policy 3.3 (and so 1.3). There­fore, it con­sidered that CNPA should not object to the pro­posed wind farm development.

3. Non­ethe­less, there is mer­it in seek­ing to reduce the mag­nitude of change where this is pos­sible, as sug­ges­ted by NatureScot. It is there­fore recom­men­ded that CNPA sup­ports the mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures pro­posed by NatureScot, as their imple­ment­a­tion would bene­fit the Nation­al Park.

RECOM­MEND­A­TION

That Mem­bers of the Com­mit­tee confirm:

• That CNPA has NO OBJEC­TION to the applic­a­tion for the pro­posed Berry Burn exten­sion wind farm.

• How­ever, CNPA con­sider that the effects on the Spe­cial Land­scape Qual­it­ies of the Nation­al Park caused by the pro­posed Berry Burn exten­sion wind farm could be reduced by fol­low­ing the mit­ig­a­tion advice provided by NatureScot to the CNPA, being an amended design that reflects the ori­gin­al design logic of Berry Burn wind farm, reduced tur­bine heights and re-sit­ing of tur­bines west­wards adja­cent to the exist­ing Berry Burn wind farm.