Item7AA20220328PPPMacDonaldResortApartmentsCommitteeReport

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 11/08/2023

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

DEVEL­OP­MENT PRO­POSED: Erec­tion of hol­i­day apart­ments at Land West Of Cairngorm Hotel, Aviemore

REF­ER­ENCE: 2022/0328/PPP APPLIC­ANT: MAHR Ltd DATE CALLED-IN: 17 Octo­ber 2022 RECOM­MEND­A­TION: Approve, sub­ject to Con­di­tions and Developer Con­tri­bu­tion CASE OFFICER: Stephanie Wade, Plan­ning Officer

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Path (um) Loch Puladdern

CNPA Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Applic­a­tion Site 0 35 70 140 Meters N Aviemore High­land Resort Wks FB Path (um) Pond

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 711÷08÷2023 Meall Buidhe PC Thte Del of Spey Laurel Post P‑835 Bank GRAMPI­AN ROAD Hotek 7 High­land Resort Super­store Pol Sta Tank 89 Clune Kila LB Shel­ter: 00 FB Play­ground Track Hotel El Sub Sta 木 Crown copy­right and data­base rights 2023. Ord­nance Sur­vey Licence num­ber 100040965 Path Path Hotel ‑211.8m El Sub. SE 212.80 Hotel Gar­age MP 83.25 80 132. Aviemore Sta­tion DAL­FABER ROAD abway ESub Sta Spey Bank Kin­a­pol Hame Gru­inard Feithlinn Jams­duch­us Revoan Alder­syde Ard­lo­gie Ballin­loan B 2 FB

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 11/08/2023

SITE DESCRIP­TION, PRO­POS­AL AND HISTORY

Site Descrip­tion

1. The applic­a­tion site is situ­ated in Aviemore and forms part of the Mac­Don­ald High­land Resort. It is in an elev­ated pos­i­tion, to the rear of Cairngorm Hotel, and cov­ers an area of 0.43ha with access off the Resort intern­al access road, which adjoins Grampi­an Road on the south­ern side of Cairngorm Hotel. The site is bound to the south and west by the road net­work, with the Strath­spey Hotel fur­ther west and the Aviemore Hotel to the north of the site. There is a build­ing loc­ated with­in the red line area which is to be demol­ished. It is under­stood this build­ing was a former staff­ing block which has fallen into dis­repair. The site itself has been dis­used for sev­er­al years and com­prises scrub land with self-seed­ing tree growth. Mature trees which form part of the Tree Pro­tec­tion Order bound the site to the west, south and north.

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=RJOW2RSI0 CP00

Title Draw­ing Date on Date Received Num­ber Plan* PLANS Plan — Loc­a­tion Plan 10144/ 27/09/2022 17/10/2022 PL01 Plan — Site Plan 10144/ 10/02/2023 15/02/2023 PL02 Rev.B Plan — Cycle Stor­age Facil­ity 10144 10/02/2023 15/02/2023 /PL07 Plan — Indic­at­ive Access 23009 09/02/2023 15/02/2023 Arrange­ment and Vis­ib­il­ity 001A Splays Plan — Tree Pro­tec­tion Plan- 0061 16/05/2023 16/05/2023 Area 5 3

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 11/08/2023

SUP­PORT­ING INFORM­A­TION Oth­er – Sup­port­ing State­ment 10144 01/10/2022 27/10/2022 Oth­er – Drain­age Assess­ment GMC22- 29/11/2022 02/12/2022 1014 Oth­er — Pre­lim­in­ary Bat Roost 1.0 14/12/2022 15/12/2022 and Nest­ing Bird Assess­ment Oth­er — Tree Data Sched­ule- 0061 27/10/2022 24/01/2023 Area 5 Oth­er — Agent’s Response to 13/02/2023 15/02/2023 Roads Com­ments Oth­er — Trans­port State­ment 15/02/2023 Oth­er – Biod­iversity 19/07/2023 Enhance­ment State­ment *Where no spe­cif­ic day of month has been provided on the plan, the sys­tem defaults to the 1^st of the month.

1. This applic­a­tion seeks plan­ning per­mis­sion in prin­ciple for the con­struc­tion of hol­i­day let­ting apart­ments. The exist­ing build­ing on site is pro­posed to be demol­ished. The site lay­out indic­ates that a total of 18 apart­ments are to be con­struc­ted in one single build­ing, which has reduced from the ori­gin­al sub­mis­sion of 22 apart­ments. The build­ing foot­print takes an ovu­lar form set near the west­ern site area. The indic­at­ive lay­out includes a vehicu­lar access adjoin­ing the south­ern road and a ped­es­tri­an access lead­ing from the build­ing through the west­ern site bound­ary to link into the Resort. 22 vehicu­lar park­ing spaces, includ­ing two dis­abled park­ing spaces, are shown to the front of the build­ing and along the east­ern site bound­ary. An enclosed, covered cycle stor­age facil­ity is indic­ated to be in the north-east­ern site corner with a com­mun­al bin store loc­ated to the west of the vehicu­lar entrance.

2. As the applic­a­tion is for plan­ning per­mis­sion in prin­ciple no detailed plans have been included, and pre­vi­ous indic­at­ive elev­a­tion and floor­plans have been removed from the applic­a­tion, so that these details can be reviewed and agreed dur­ing any sub­sequent Mat­ters Spe­cified in Con­di­tion application.

3. Indic­at­ive plans of the pro­pos­al are included with­in Appendix 1.

His­tory

1. With­in the wider Mac­Don­ald High­land Resort, there are sev­er­al applic­a­tions run­ning con­cur­rently to this applic­a­tion which are out­lined below: 4

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 11/08/2023

α) 2023/0030/PPP – Plan­ning per­mis­sion in prin­ciple for the res­id­en­tial devel­op­ment, staff accom­mod­a­tion and infra­struc­ture. Applic­a­tion sub­mit­ted 19/12/2022, and cur­rently under con­sid­er­a­tion by the CNPA. b) 2023/0004/DET – Change of use of land for sit­ing of 27 lodges, access road, land­scap­ing at site of dry ski slope, Mac­Don­ald Resort. Applic­a­tion sub­mit­ted on 9^th Janu­ary 2023 and cur­rently under con­sid­er­a­tion by the CNPA. c) 2022/0241/DET – Alter­a­tion and exten­sion to Mac­Don­ald Aviemore Hotel. Applic­a­tion sub­mit­ted 13/07/2022 and cur­rently under con­sid­er­a­tion by the CNPA.

1. His­tor­ic­ally for the site, under applic­a­tion ref­er­ence 08/241/CP, plan­ning per­mis­sion was gran­ted for the applic­a­tion site cur­rently being con­sidered as well as the wider Resort site for the ​“demoli­tion of exist­ing admin build­ing, con­struc­tion of mixed-use devel­op­ment com­pris­ing res­id­en­tial, retail, office, com­munity, leis­ure, envir­on­ment­al improve­ments, roads, addi­tion­al lodges and hotel exten­sion.” For the applic­a­tion site spe­cific­ally, a five-storey build­ing of hol­i­day apart­ments was per­mit­ted. This applic­a­tion was sub­mit­ted in June 2008 and gained per­mis­sion in April 2011 and was sub­ject to leg­al agree­ments but per­mis­sion has since lapsed.

Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Appraisal

1. A Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al [HRA] has been under­taken to con­sider the effects of the pro­pos­al upon the con­ser­va­tion object­ives of the European Sites, as lis­ted with­in the doc­u­ment attached as Appendix 2. The sites poten­tially affected are the:

a) Kin­veachy Forest Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Area [SPA] b) River Spey Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion [SAC].

1. The River Spey SAC is with­in 200m of the pro­posed devel­op­ment site how­ever there is a lack of dir­ect eco­lo­gic­al con­nectiv­ity between the site and the SAC and is scoped out of the remain­ing assess­ment. Kin­veachy Forest SPA is approx­im­ately 1.65km from the applic­a­tion site. The HRA con­cludes that the pro­pos­al will not have an adverse impact on site integ­rity of the Kin­veachy Forest SPA as the con­ser­va­tion object­ives can be met.

DEVEL­OP­MENT PLAN CON­TEXT Policies Nation­al Policy Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 (NPF4) Scot­land 2045 5

POLICY 1 Tack­ling the Cli­mate and Nature Crises POLICY 3 Biod­iversity POLICY 4 Nat­ur­al Places POLICY 6 Forestry, Wood­land, and Trees POLICY 7 His­tor­ic Assets and Places POLICY 9 Brown­field, Vacant and Derel­ict Land, and Empty Build­ings CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 11/08/2023

POLICY 12 Zero Waste POLICY 13 Sus­tain­able Trans­port POLICY 14 Design, Qual­ity and Place POLICY 15 Loc­al Liv­ing and 20 minute neigh­bour­hoods POLICY 22 Flood Risk and Water Man­age­ment POLICY 30 Tour­ism Stra­tegic Policy Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2017 — 2022 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 CON­TRI­BU­TIONS X

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​-​L​D​P​-​2021- web.pdf 6

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 11/08/2023

1. With­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021, the site forms part of a wider alloc­ated area for ​‘mixed use’, under alloc­a­tion Aviemore- M1. The Aviemore High­land Resort is a large site in the centre of Aviemore. It cur­rently has a range of dif­fer­ent uses includ­ing hotels and hol­i­day accom­mod­a­tion, retail, recre­ation, and hous­ing and has under­gone sig­ni­fic­ant devel­op­ment to cre­ate the resort it is today. The alloc­a­tion offers an oppor­tun­ity for the enhance­ment and diver­si­fic­a­tion of the cur­rent uses, includ­ing the pro­vi­sion of addi­tion­al hous­ing, retail, recre­ation, and employ­ment spaces. There is also a Devel­op­ment Brief for the site, which is non stat­utory plan­ning guid­ance provided details on site con­straints and oppor­tun­it­ies and devel­op­ment requirements.

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 Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance X Policy 5 Land­scape Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance X Policy 7 Renew­able Energy Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance Policy 8 Open Space, Sport and Recre­ation Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance Policy 9 Cul­tur­al Her­it­age Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance Policy 10 Resources Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance X Policy 11 Developer Con­tri­bu­tions Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance X

CON­SULTA­TIONS Sum­mary of the main issues raised by consultees

1. NatureScot agree with the con­clu­sions of the HRA.

2. High­land Coun­cil Trans­port Plan­ning Team have provided the fol­low­ing com­ments on the revised scheme:

a) Access: The Team note that the site is served by a private track that is with­in the resort, which leads to Grampi­an Road. The Officers request a plan­ning con­di­tion to secure the deliv­ery of the foot­path to the east­ern side of the access. 7

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 11/08/2023

b) Intern­al Lay­out: The Officers wel­come the improved foot­path link between the park­ing spaces to improve ped­es­tri­an con­nectiv­ity with­in the site. As this is an indic­at­ive lay­out, the Team request a plan­ning con­di­tion to secure the final agree­ment of the intern­al lay­out. c) Vehicle Park­ing: The Team note that where the Council’s park­ing stand­ards can­not be achieved, reduced levels of park­ing may be accept­able for devel­op­ments loc­ated cent­rally with­in the Set­tle­ment Devel­op­ment Areas. As the site is loc­ated with­in the Aviemore SDA, the Team sug­gest an upfront com­muted sum is required for the short­fall of park­ing spaces on site. They note that the short­fall is 14 spaces. d) Cycle Park­ing: The Team note that the pro­posed cycle store for 20 cycles, does not accord with Cyc­ling by Design Guid­ance and is there­fore not accept­able. e) Ser­vi­cing: The Team require the applic­ant to demon­strate that refuse vehicles can be accom­mod­ated, and that adequate waste pro­vi­sion is provided on site. f) Con­struc­tion Traffic Man­age­ment Plan: The Team request the inclu­sion of a plan­ning con­di­tion for the agree­ment of a con­struc­tion traffic man­age­ment plan.

1. High­land Coun­cil Flood Risk Man­age­ment Team with­draw their ori­gin­al hold­ing objec­tion to the scheme fol­low­ing the sub­mis­sion of the Drain­age Impact Assess­ment [DIA]. The Team notes that the DIA states that sur­face water dis­charge will be by infilt­ra­tion and the tests indic­ate that the ground con­di­tions are suit­able for their use.

2. High­land Coun­cil Build­ing Con­ser­va­tion Plan­ner objec­ted to the ori­gin­al sub­mis­sion details on the grounds of very poor qual­ity of archi­tec­tur­al design, urb­an design with a sig­ni­fic­ant adverse impact upon the set­ting of the adja­cent lis­ted Cairngorms Hotel. Whilst the Officer accepts that this is a PPP applic­a­tion, which could be fur­ther detailed and refined in time, the sub­mis­sion is lack­ing in the basic required design quality.

3. The con­text of the pro­pos­al is a Nation­al Park, and adja­cent to a lis­ted build­ing, and these factors require a sig­ni­fic­ant level of design qual­ity and envir­on­ment­al con­sid­er­a­tion. The Officer adds that Aviemore has a very low num­ber of lis­ted build­ings, relate to the size of the set­tle­ment, but this is a res­ult of much of it being developed in the last 50 years. Two of Aviemore’s most import­ant her­it­age build­ings are the A‑listed train sta­tion and the C- lis­ted Cairngorms Hotel, the lat­ter being dir­ectly adja­cent to this pro­pos­al, and the former across the road.

4. The Officer con­siders that the sug­ges­ted design and scale will impact on the set­ting of the lis­ted build­ing and are not in keep­ing to the scale of oth­er build­ings along Grampi­an Road. The pro­pos­al would not pos­it­ively enhance 8

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 11/08/2023

the set­ting of the nearby lis­ted build­ing, and its Nation­al Park con­text. The Officer also notes that the loss of at least 18 trees is unfortunate.

1. CNPA Land­scape Officer has provided com­ments on the latest ver­sion of the scheme. The Officer con­siders that a devel­op­ment on this site could be accom­mod­ated provid­ing it has the highest design stand­ards. It must com­ple­ment and enhance the land­scape char­ac­ter of the site and its set­ting as well as the set­ting of the cairngorm hotel with­in this most sens­it­ive area of Aviemore. There are still con­cerns regard­ing the pos­sible remov­al and dam­age to pro­tec­ted trees which are very import­ant to the loc­al land­scape char­ac­ter and visu­al amen­ity. This is from the lay­out implic­a­tions; con­struc­tion affects and into the future. The Officer recom­mends a plan­ning con­di­tion to ensure that trees T759-T814 are retained (except for T761 and T784 which are in poor condition).

2. CNPA Eco­logy Officer con­firmed that a Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al was required due to the poten­tial for the devel­op­ment to affect the Badenoch and Strath­spey Caper­cail­lie Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Areas due to the poten­tial increase in human activ­ity with­in the area.

3. Regard­ing bats, the Officer notes from the sur­vey­work that the build­ing is not cur­rently used for roost­ing bats. The Officer recom­mends a spe­cies pro­tec­tion plan by condition.

4. Regard­ing trees, the Officer notes that the sec­tion of nat­ur­al regen­er­ated trees are pro­posed to be removed to make way for the devel­op­ment as well as a few trees with­in the Tree Pre­ser­va­tion Order. The Officer recom­mends plan­ning con­di­tions for tree pro­tec­tion and a full abor­i­cul­tur­al impact assess­ment for the final­ised devel­op­ment design.

5. The site was assessed as hav­ing the poten­tial to sup­port sev­er­al bird spe­cies and the Officer there­fore recom­mends that a plan­ning con­di­tion be included to sched­ule works out­with the bird breed­ing sea­son, or that works com­mence post nest­ing bird checks have been under­taken. The Officer also requires con­di­tions for the sub­mis­sion of a land­scap­ing plan and recom­mends biod­iversity enhance­ment by the inclu­sion of swift and bat boxes on site.

6. Aviemore Com­munity Coun­cil provided com­ments on the scheme as ori­gin­ally sub­mit­ted and the latest iter­a­tion which includes no elev­a­tion­al details. The Com­munity Coun­cil notes that the recent doc­u­ments indic­ate a reduc­tion to 18 hol­i­day let­ting units and that the site is des­ig­nated for mixed use under the loc­al plan, so some devel­op­ment of hol­i­day accom­mod­a­tion may be seen as inev­it­able. The Com­munity Coun­cil would note their pref­er­ence to see such sites used for afford­able hous­ing. As per their ori­gin­al com­ments, they main­tain their objec­tion the scheme due to the poten­tial scale and nature of the devel­op­ment and find it hard to envis­age how the 9

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 11/08/2023

devel­op­ment would be built without hav­ing an unac­cept­able height. They recom­mend that should per­mis­sion be gran­ted; any devel­op­ment should be no more than two storeys high with a max­im­um of 12 units. A copy of their full com­ments can be found at Appendix 3.

REP­RES­ENT­A­TIONS

1. The applic­a­tion was advert­ised when first sub­mit­ted. One let­ter of pub­lic rep­res­ent­a­tion has been received regard­ing the ori­gin­al sub­mis­sion (which included the indic­at­ive elev­a­tions). The con­trib­ut­or con­siders that the build­ing at 5 storeys would be well above the tree height and too vis­ible from the main street. They note that there are oth­er unused areas with­in the resort which would be more appro­pri­ate and would not tower over exist­ing hotels and cause tree loss. They recom­mend the use of anoth­er site with­in the resort and devel­op­ing the site as a wood­land walk (a copy of the com­ments can be found at Appendix 4).

2. Officer response: The scale of the build­ing is to be con­sidered under any sub­sequent Mat­ters Spe­cified in Con­di­tion applic­a­tion and not as part of this applic­a­tion which looks to determ­ine the accept­ab­il­ity of the prin­ciple of hol­i­day let­ting units on the site.

APPRAIS­AL

1. Sec­tion 25 of the 1997 Act as amended requires applic­a­tions to be determ­ined in accord­ance with the Devel­op­ment Plan. This now com­prises the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021, and the Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4. Where there is con­flict between policies, NPF4 policies will be used.

Applic­a­tion for Plan­ning Per­mis­sion in Prin­ciple [PPP]

1. This PPP applic­a­tion seeks to estab­lish wheth­er the prin­ciple of this pro­posed hol­i­day accom­mod­a­tion devel­op­ment, is accept­able on the Mac­Don­ald Aviemore Resort site without hav­ing to devel­op detailed proposals.

2. With PPP applic­a­tions, there is no require­ments for detailed plans and draw­ings to be sub­mit­ted, how­ever, a descrip­tion of the devel­op­ment along with a loc­a­tion plan to identi­fy the site and details about the loc­a­tion of the access point(s) to the devel­op­ment are included. The site lay­out plan as provided (draw­ing 10144 / PL02 Rev.B) is described in sup­port­ing inform­a­tion as ​“indic­at­ive” in terms of its form and status.

3. When grant­ing PPP, it may be sub­ject to a con­di­tion (in addi­tion to any oth­er con­di­tions which may be applied) that the devel­op­ment in ques­tion will not 10

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 11/08/2023

begin until cer­tain mat­ters have been approved by the CNPA, as Plan­ning Author­ity. The spe­cific­a­tion of those mat­ters with­in con­di­tions refer to mat­ters about design, sit­ing, access, and land­scap­ing etc. and require fur­ther details includ­ing plans, draw­ings, and oth­er sup­port­ing inform­a­tion to fully describe the char­ac­ter and detail of the devel­op­ment pro­posed with­in the PPP application.

1. Fol­low­ing any grant of PPP, all such con­di­tions require to be the sub­ject of one or more form­al applic­a­tions for approv­al, con­sent or agree­ment of mat­ters attached to (or spe­cified in) con­di­tions on the grant­ing of the plan­ning per­mis­sion in prin­ciple [MSC]. This is no stat­utory lim­it on the num­ber of con­di­tions in any one MSC applic­a­tions that can be sub­mit­ted to address iden­ti­fied matters.

Prin­ciple

1. The applic­a­tion site cov­ers an area of approx­im­ately 0.43 hec­tares and is loc­ated with­in the set­tle­ment of Aviemore. Aviemore plays a key role as an employ­ment and ser­vice centre for the wider Badenoch and Strath­spey area. Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan policy sup­ports oppor­tun­it­ies for busi­ness growth and those which will increase Aviemore’s attract­ive­ness as a tour­ist and recre­ation destination.

2. Policy 2:1 Town Centres First of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021, sup­ports com­mer­cial and leis­ure devel­op­ment where they are loc­ated with­in an iden­ti­fied town centre. The applic­a­tion site in in the iden­ti­fied set­tle­ment bound­ary of Aviemore and forms part of a wider site alloc­a­tion under ref­er­ence M1- Aviemore. This LDP alloc­a­tion states that the alloc­a­tion offers the oppor­tun­ity for the enhance­ment and diver­si­fic­a­tion of the cur­rent uses, includ­ing the pro­vi­sion of addi­tion­al hous­ing, retail, recre­ation, and employ­ment spaces. The site which has become dis­used with a build­ing which has fallen into dis­repair, offers a suit­able oppor­tun­ity to make use of a brown­field site, with­in the vil­lage which could help to con­trib­ute to the vital­ity and viab­il­ity of this exist­ing town centre in accord­ance with Policy 9 of NPF4.

3. Policy 30: Tour­ism of NPF4 offers sup­port to devel­op­ment pro­pos­als for new or exten­ded tour­ist facil­it­ies in loc­a­tions iden­ti­fied with­in the LDP. Pro­pos­als should consider:

a) The con­tri­bu­tion made to the loc­al eco­nomy. b) Com­pat­ib­il­ity with the sur­round­ing area in terms of the nature and scale of the activ­ity and impacts of increased vis­it­ors. c) Impacts on com­munit­ies, for example by hinder­ing the pro­vi­sion of homes and ser­vices for loc­al people. 11

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 11/08/2023

d) Oppor­tun­it­ies for sus­tain­able travel and appro­pri­ate man­age­ment of park­ing and traffic gen­er­a­tion and scope for sus­tain­ing pub­lic trans­port ser­vices par­tic­u­larly in rur­al areas. e) Access­ib­il­ity for dis­abled people. f) Meas­ures taken to min­im­ise car­bon emis­sions. g) Oppor­tun­it­ies to provide access to the nat­ur­al environment.

1. Policy 2:2 Tour­ist Accom­mod­a­tion of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 sup­ports tour­ist related accom­mod­a­tion where:

a) it has no adverse envir­on­ment­al or amen­ity impacts on the site or neigh­bour­ing areas, b) it con­trib­utes to/​sup­ports the pro­vi­sion of a wide range of vis­it­or accom­mod­a­tion; and c) it sup­ports or con­trib­utes to a year-round economy.

1. The devel­op­ment involves the erec­tion of 18 self-cater­ing 2‑bedroom, hol­i­day apart­ments. The pro­pos­al would make use of an alloc­ated, brown­field site, and would expand on the exist­ing capa­city of an estab­lished tour­ist accom­mod­a­tion busi­ness, the High­land Resort as well as provid­ing a wider range of tour­ist accom­mod­a­tion through the pro­vi­sion of smal­ler units. Loc­a­tion wise, the site bene­fits from good recre­ation­al access links with Core Path HB54 being in prox­im­ity togeth­er with good sus­tain­able trans­port links along Grampi­an Road.

2. Giv­en the above, it is con­sidered that the prin­ciple of the devel­op­ment accords with Policy 2: Sup­port­ing Eco­nom­ic Growth of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan, sub­ject to com­pli­ance with oth­er rel­ev­ant Devel­op­ment Plan policies.

Nat­ur­al Environment

1. Policy 1: Tack­ling the Cli­mate and Nature Crises of NPF4 requires that sig­ni­fic­ant weight is giv­en to the glob­al cli­mate and nature crisis when con­sid­er­a­tion is giv­en to new devel­op­ment. Policy 3: Biod­iversity seeks to ensure that devel­op­ment will con­serve, restore, and enhance biod­iversity. Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Places seeks to pro­tect, restore, and enhance nat­ur­al assets includ­ing pro­tec­ted areas.

2. Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Her­it­age of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021, seeks to ensure there are no adverse impacts upon des­ig­nated areas, pro­tec­ted spe­cies, or biodiversity.

3. The applic­a­tion relates to pre­vi­ously developed land, and although it has no spe­cif­ic envir­on­ment­al des­ig­na­tions itself, regard­ing hab­it­ats and spe­cies, it is loc­ated with­in prox­im­ity to the River Spey SAC and the Kin­veachy Forest SPA. 12

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 11/08/2023

The HRA (attached at Appendix 2) con­cludes that due to dis­tance, and no dir­ect con­nectiv­ity, the pro­pos­al is not con­sidered to affect the integ­rity of the designations.

1. Regard­ing pro­tec­ted spe­cies, the pro­posed area has the poten­tial to sup­port bats. The sub­mit­ted sur­vey work con­firmed that the pro­pos­al would have no adverse impact on pro­tec­ted spe­cies sub­ject to the inclu­sion of plan­ning con­di­tions for a Bat Spe­cies Pro­tec­tion Plan to be agreed and that works are under­taken out­with the bird breed­ing season.

2. In accord­ance with Policy 3 of NPF4, a plan­ning con­di­tion is recom­men­ded to secure biod­iversity enhance­ment with­in the site.

3. Sub­ject to the recom­men­ded plan­ning con­di­tions, the pro­pos­al is con­sidered to com­ply with Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Her­it­age of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 and Policies 3 and 4 of NPF4.

Impact on Woodland

1. Policy 6: Forestry, Wood­land, and Trees of NPF4, places sig­ni­fic­ant emphas­is on the pro­tec­tion of trees and wood­land, not­ing that devel­op­ment pro­pos­als involving wood­land remov­al will only be sup­por­ted where they will achieve sig­ni­fic­ant and clearly defined addi­tion­al pub­lic bene­fits in accord­ance with the rel­ev­ant Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment Con­trol of Wood­land Remov­al policy. Where wood­land is removed, com­pens­at­ory plant­ing should be delivered.

2. The site is bound on the north­ern, west­ern, and south­ern sides by trees included with­in a Tree Pre­ser­va­tion Order (ref. HRC42). An indic­at­ive Tree Pro­tec­tion Plan has been sub­mit­ted with the applic­a­tion which indic­ates tree pro­tec­tion and pro­posed trees to be felled. With­in the site itself, there are sporad­ic nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion of birch and oth­er pion­eer spe­cies pro­posed to be removed. In addi­tion to these, 5 trees are pro­posed to be removed to make way for the foot­path link on the west­ern bound­ary and the vehicu­lar access on the south­ern bound­ary. Tree pro­tec­tion fen­cing is shown to bound the site internally.

3. As this is a PPP applic­a­tion, and the lay­out has not been final­ised, a full arbor­i­cul­tur­al assess­ment togeth­er with com­pens­at­ory plant­ing mit­ig­a­tion will there­fore be secured by con­di­tion at the MSC stage.

Design, Lay­out, and Land­scape Impacts

1. Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 seek to rein­force and enhance the char­ac­ter of the 13

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 11/08/2023

exist­ing set­tle­ment and encour­age new devel­op­ment to be sym­path­et­ic to the tra­di­tion­al pat­tern and char­ac­ter of the area. Policy 5: Land­scape looks to ensure that pro­pos­als do not adversely impact the land­scape char­ac­ter and set­ting of the area, includ­ing visu­al impacts. Policy 14: Design, Qual­ity and Place of NPF4 requires devel­op­ment pro­pos­als to improve the qual­ity of an area and meet the six qual­it­ies of suc­cess­ful places.

1. The site lies with­in the built area of Aviemore and looks to util­ise pre­vi­ously developed land. By vir­tue of inclu­sion with­in the LDP as a mixed-use alloc­a­tion, it has already been accep­ted that this is a suit­able devel­op­ment site in land­scape terms and sub­ject to an accept­able lay­out and good land­scap­ing secured at MSC stage, the pro­pos­al would accord with Policy 5.

2. Con­cern has been raised by Aviemore Com­munity Coun­cil and a pub­lic rep­res­ent­at­ive regard­ing the proposal’s impact by way of scale and mass­ing. As this is an applic­a­tion for plan­ning per­mis­sion in prin­ciple, full design details are not required by the devel­op­ment man­age­ment pro­ced­ures. The ori­gin­al scheme as sub­mit­ted did provide fur­ther details on build­ing mass­ing and scale, how­ever the applic­ant with­drew these ele­ments so that they could be reviewed and final­ised at MSC stage, fol­low­ing con­cerns raised by con­sul­tees and pub­lic rep­res­ent­a­tions. The design, scale, and mass­ing of any sub­sequent build­ing for this scheme are there­fore to be reviewed at MSC stage with details secured by condition.

3. It is noted that any future design must:

a) Con­form to the best design in accord­ance with the CNPA Design Guid­ance and LDP policy due to the high sens­it­iv­ity of the loc­a­tion. b) Com­pli­ment and not com­pete with the Cairngorm Hotel in form, size and over­all design and mater­i­als. c) Con­serve and enhance the land­scape char­ac­ter of the site and its set­ting in form, size, over­all design and materials.

Road Net­work, Park­ing and Asso­ci­ated Trans­port Matters

1. Policy 13: Sus­tain­able Trans­port of NPF4 sup­ports devel­op­ments that provide dir­ect, easy, segreg­ated, and safe links to loc­al facil­it­ies via walk­ing, wheel­ing, and cyc­ling net­works before occu­pa­tion. Policy 15: Loc­al Liv­ing and 20-minute neigh­bour­hoods sup­ports devel­op­ment which con­trib­utes to loc­al liv­ing and the Place Prin­ciple and where, among oth­er things, there is the oppor­tun­ity for sus­tain­able modes of trans­port includ­ing high qual­ity walk­ing, wheel­ing and cyc­ling net­works. Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 seeks to pro­mote sus­tain­able trans­port meth­ods and act­ive travel and max­im­ise oppor­tun­it­ies for respons­ible out­door access. 14

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 11/08/2023

1. Policy 30: Tour­ism of NPF4 requires devel­op­ment pro­pos­als to pro­mote oppor­tun­it­ies for sus­tain­able travel and appro­pri­ate man­age­ment of park­ing and traffic gen­er­a­tion and scope for sus­tain­ing pub­lic trans­port ser­vices. Reg­u­lar bus ser­vices are access­ible from Grampi­an Road which is with­in a 5- minute walk­ing dis­tance from the applic­a­tion site. In addi­tion, Aviemore Train Sta­tion is with­in a 5‑minute walk from the site. This policy also requires that the intern­al pro­vi­sion is made for ped­es­tri­ans and cyc­lists. Indic­at­ive plans have been provide show­ing cycle stor­age on site for 20 bicycles. The High­land Coun­cil Trans­port Plan­ning Team note that the design does not accord with Best Prac­tice Guid­ance. This issue will there­fore be con­sidered fully at MSC stage to secure accordance.

2. Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing also requires that new devel­op­ment should include an appro­pri­ate means of access, egress and space for off- street park­ing. The pro­pos­al will be served by a private track that is with­in the resort, lead­ing to Grampi­an Road. The final­ised details of the intern­al lay­out and access arrange­ments are to be dealt with by con­di­tion of any MSC applic­a­tion. As required by the High­land Coun­cil Trans­port Plan­ning Team, this should include the deliv­ery of the foot­path to the east­ern side of the access, swept path ana­lys­is for refuse vehicles and a lay­out that con­siders dis­abled access­ib­il­ity. The Team also requests the inclu­sion of a plan­ning con­di­tion for a Con­struc­tion Traffic Man­age­ment Plan.

3. Regard­ing vehicu­lar park­ing, it is noted that the indic­at­ive scheme would not be able to achieve the park­ing levels required to sup­port the devel­op­ment on site. As the pro­pos­al is loc­ated with­in the set­tle­ment of Aviemore, with good pub­lic trans­port links, the High­land Coun­cil Trans­port Plan­ning Team request a developer con­tri­bu­tion towards Act­ive Travel is sought for the short­fall of park­ing spaces.

4. Sub­ject to the inclu­sion of the recom­men­ded plan­ning con­di­tions and the pay­ment of the developer con­tri­bu­tion, the scheme is con­sidered to accord with road safety, sus­tain­able trans­port and access mat­ters as defined by Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021, and Policies 13, 15 and 30 of NPF4.

Impact on the His­tor­ic Environment

1. Policy 7: His­tor­ic Assets and Places of NPF4 pro­tects the his­tor­ic built envir­on­ment. Of rel­ev­ance to the applic­a­tion is that devel­op­ment pro­pos­als affect­ing the set­ting of a lis­ted build­ing should pre­serve its char­ac­ter, and its spe­cial archi­tec­tur­al or his­tor­ic interest. Devel­op­ment pro­pos­als affect­ing nation­ally import­ant Gar­dens and Designed Land­scapes will be sup­por­ted where they pro­tect, pre­serve, or enhance their cul­tur­al sig­ni­fic­ance, char­ac­ter, and integ­rity and where pro­pos­als will not sig­ni­fic­antly impact on import­ant 15

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 11/08/2023

views to, from and with­in the site, or its set­ting. Policy 9: Cul­tur­al Her­it­age of the adop­ted Loc­al Plan stip­u­lates the same require­ments for developments.

1. Two of Aviemore’s most import­ant her­it­age build­ings are the A‑listed train sta­tion and the C‑listed Cairngorms Hotel, the lat­ter being dir­ectly adja­cent to this pro­pos­al, and the former across the road. The High­land Coun­cil Build­ing Con­ser­va­tion Plan­ner whilst object­ing to the ori­gin­al, scheme (which included the elev­a­tion designs) acknow­ledges that this is a PPP applic­a­tion, which could be detailed and refined in time. The poten­tial impact arising from the pro­pos­al will there­fore be assessed through the MSC stage, and it is recom­men­ded that a con­di­tion is attached to any sub­sequent decision requir­ing the sub­mis­sion of a His­tor­ic Envir­on­ment Impact Assessment.

2. Tak­ing the above into account, the pro­pos­al is there­fore con­sidered to accord with Policy 9: Cul­tur­al Her­it­age of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 and Policy 7 of NPF4.

Flood­ing and Drain­age Issues

1. Policy 2: Cli­mate mit­ig­a­tion and adapt­a­tion of NPF4 requires that devel­op­ment is sited and designed to adapt to cur­rent and future risks from cli­mate change while Policy 22 Flood risk and water man­age­ment seeks to reduce the vul­ner­ab­il­ity of exist­ing and future devel­op­ment to flood­ing. Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing and Policy 10: Resources of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 set out the need for new devel­op­ment to be sat­is­fact­or­ily ser­viced and without harm to resources or the environment.

2. The site lies out­with any flu­vi­al and plu­vi­al flood­ing dur­ing a 1:200-year event. The pro­pos­al would con­nect to the pub­lic drain­age net­work for foul sew­er­age. The Council’s Flood Risk Officer has not objec­ted to the pro­pos­al not­ing that the drain­age impact assess­ment states that sur­face water dis­charge will be dealt with by infilt­ra­tion and that the ground con­di­tions are suit­able for this. It is con­sidered that there are tech­nic­al solu­tions to the drain­age issues on the site and appro­pri­ate con­di­tions are pro­posed to agree the final­ised scheme in accord­ance with Policy 22 of NPF4 and Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing and Policy 10: Resources of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021.

Waste and Con­tam­in­ated Land Matters

1. Policy 12: Zero Waste of NPF4 requires applic­a­tions for pro­pos­als that are likely to gen­er­ate waste when oper­a­tion­al to set out how much waste will be gen­er­ated and how it will be man­aged includ­ing, its stor­age, sep­ar­a­tion, and 16

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 11/08/2023

col­lec­tion. A con­di­tion is recom­men­ded to ensure that this issue is fully addressed at MSC stage.

1. Policy 9: Brown­field, Vacant and Derel­ict Land and Empty Build­ings of NPF4 states that devel­op­ment pro­pos­als must demon­strate that the land is or can be made, safe and suit­able for the pro­posed new use if the land is known or sus­pec­ted to be con­tam­in­ated. Policy 10: Resources of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 states that devel­op­ment affect­ing con­tam­in­ated land will be con­sidered favour­ably where assess­ments are under­taken to identi­fy actu­al and poten­tial impacts, on site and off site, of all stages of devel­op­ment pro­pos­als on the risks to human health and to the Park’s biod­iversity, geo­di­versity, hydro­logy, and oth­er spe­cial qualities.

2. The pro­pos­al looks to make use of a brown­field site which includes a build­ing to be removed. A plan­ning con­di­tion is there­fore recommended