Item7AABaddengorm20190386NOT

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 21/02/2020

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

DEVEL­OP­MENT PROPOSED:

(Pri­or Approv­al) Erec­tion of a forestry build­ing at Land Near Bad­den­gorm Carrbridge

REF­ER­ENCE: 2019/0386/NOT

APPLIC­ANT: Mr Graeme Hill

DATE CALLED-IN: 16 Decem­ber 2019

RECOM­MEND­A­TION: Refuse

CASE OFFICER: Ed Swales Mon­it­or­ing and Enforce­ment Officer

CNPA Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Applic­a­tion Site CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 21/02/2020

SITE DESCRIP­TION, PRO­POS­AL AND HISTORY

Site Descrip­tion

1. The site is Bad­den­gorm Woods, around 500m west of Car­rbridge. The wood­land has been divided into mul­tiple sec­tions and sold off indi­vidu­ally. This sec­tion of wood­land, named as Cran­naich, is 6 acres and accessed along the pre- exist­ing track with­in the wood­land from the road­side access off the A938.

2. Bad­den­gorm Woods is classed as Cale­do­ni­an Forest and the applic­a­tion site is included with­in land lis­ted in the Ancient Wood­land Invent­ory. Regard­ing envir­on­ment­al des­ig­na­tions, Bad­den­gorm Wood is not spe­cific­ally des­ig­nated how­ever, due to its asso­ci­ation with caper­cail­lie, the wider envir­on­ment­ally des­ig­nated areas lis­ted below are of relevance:

a) Aber­nethy Forest Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Area [SPA] and Aber­nethy Forest Site of Spe­cial Sci­entif­ic Interest [SSSI]; b) Anagach Woods SPA; c) Cairngorms SPA and Glen­more Forest, Cairngorms, North­ern Cor­ries and North Rothiemurchus Pine­wood SSSIS; d) Craigmore Wood SPA; e) Kin­veachy Forest SPA and Kin­veachy Forest SSSI.

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=Q2GCZESI0CH00

Title	Draw­ing Num­ber	Date on Plan*	Date Received
Spe­cific­a­tions — Cran­naich Man­age­ment Plan (2020 to 2030)		15/07/19	12/01/20
Spe­cific­a­tions		17/11/19	12/01/20
Loc­a­tion Plan		15/10/18	16/12/19
Pro­posed Floor Plans			12/01/20
*Where no spe­cif­ic day of month has been provided on the plan, the sys­tem defaults to the Ist of the month.

1. The pro­pos­al is to build a forestry hut in the upper corner of Cran­naich with the reas­on giv­en as to facil­it­ate the sub­mit­ted wood­land man­age­ment plan.

2. This is an applic­a­tion for Pri­or Approv­al rather than a full plan­ning permission.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 21/02/2020

His­tory

1. While this sec­tion of wood­land has no pre­vi­ous applic­a­tion his­tory Bad­den­gorm Woods has received a num­ber of applic­a­tions for either pri­or noti­fic­a­tion or full plan­ning permission.

2. The track through the wood­land was approved as a Pri­or Noti­fic­a­tion under The High­land Coun­cils ref­er­ence 17/05230/PNO in Novem­ber 2017.

3. A hut, which has been built on site, was approved as a Pri­or Noti­fic­a­tion under The High­land Coun­cils ref­er­ence 17/05620/PNO in Decem­ber 2017.

4. A recre­ation­al hut was refused by the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity under applic­a­tion ref­er­ence 2019/0134/DET. The reas­on for refus­al was due to the applic­a­tion being con­trary to Policy 4 – Eco­logy in July 2019.

DEVEL­OP­MENT PLAN CONTEXT

Policies

Nation­al Policy	Scot­tish Plan­ning Policy 2014
Stra­tegic Policy	Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2017 — 2022
Loc­al Plan Policy	Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan(2015)
	Those policies rel­ev­ant to the assess­ment of this applic­a­tion are marked with a cross
POLICY I	NEW HOUS­ING DEVELOPMENT
POLICY 2	SUP­PORT­ING ECO­NOM­IC GROWTH
POLICY 3	SUS­TAIN­ABLE DESIGN
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	SPORT AND RECREATION
POLICY 9	CUL­TUR­AL HERITAGE
POLICY 10	RESOURCES
POLICY 11	DEVELOPER CON­TRI­BU­TIONS

1. All new devel­op­ment pro­pos­als require to be assessed in rela­tion to policies con­tained in the adop­ted Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan. The full word­ing of policies can be found at:

http://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​u​p​l​o​a​d​s​/​d​o​c​u​m​e​n​t​s​/Park Authority/Planning/LDP15.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.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 21/02/2020

Policy I	New Hous­ing Devel­op­ment Non-Stat­utory Guidance
Policy 2	Sup­port­ing Eco­nom­ic Growth Non-Stat­utory Guidance
Policy 3	Sus­tain­able Design Non-Stat­utory Guidance
Policy 4	Nat­ur­al Her­it­age Sup­ple­ment­ary Guidance	X
Policy 5	Land­scape Non-Stat­utory Guidance	X
Policy 7	Renew­able Energy Sup­ple­ment­ary Guidance
Policy 8	Sport and Recre­ation Non-Stat­utory Guidance
Policy 9	Cul­tur­al Her­it­age Non-Stat­utory Guidance
Policy 10	Resources Non-Stat­utory Guidance
Policy 11	Developer Con­tri­bu­tions Sup­ple­ment­ary Guidance

Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Assess­ment (HRA)

1. A Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Assess­ment (HRA) has been under­taken to con­sider the effects of the pro­pos­al upon the con­ser­va­tion object­ives of the Natura Sites with­in the Strath­spey area. A copy of the HRA is included in Appendix 4. The five SPAs of rel­ev­ance are: Aber­nethy Forest SPA, Anagach Woods SPA, Cairngorms SPA, Craigmore Wood SPA and Kin­veachy Forest SPA.

2. The Assess­ment high­lighted the import­ance of Bad­den­gorm Woods to the meta-pop­u­la­tion of caper­cail­lie in Strath­spey, as well as the wood­land not being used fre­quently for recre­ation pur­poses and as such likely to be the key factor behind its suit­ab­il­ity for caper­cail­lie to live and breed here successfully.

3. The HRA con­cludes that the con­ser­va­tion object­ives of the SPAs will not be met by this pro­pos­al, so it can­not be shown that this pro­pos­al will not adversely affect the integ­rity of the five SPAs.

CON­SULTA­TIONS

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

1. Scot­tish Nat­ur­al Her­it­age (SNH) objects to the pro­pos­al stat­ing that the devel­op­ment could affect inter­na­tion­ally import­ant nat­ur­al her­it­age interests. They state that the pro­pos­al is likely to dis­turb caper­cail­lie in Bad­den­gorm wood and this is there­fore likely to have a sig­ni­fic­ant effect on the caper­cail­lie in the five nearby SPAs.

2. The officer agrees with the con­clu­sions of the HRA that the pop­u­la­tion of caper­cail­lie as a viable com­pon­ent of the Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Areas, and the dis­tri­bu­tion of caper­cail­lie with­in the SPAs, could be indir­ectly adversely affected by the pro­pos­als, and hence these con­ser­va­tion object­ives will not be met.

3. High­land Coun­cil Forestry Officer states that while the wood­land man­age­ment aims and object­ives are com­mend­able, there is no clear need for a shed for forestry man­age­ment pur­poses with­in an area of wood­land of this size and the level of work pro­posed (800 seed­lings) does not neces­sit­ate a work building.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 21/02/2020

1. CNPA Land­scape Officer has con­sidered the applic­a­tion and can con­firm that there is no sig­ni­fic­ant land­scape issue with this proposal.

2. CNPA Eco­logy Officer con­cludes that after under­tak­ing a Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al (HRA) in con­junc­tion with SNH, regard­ing the development’s poten­tial impact upon NATURA sites, sup­port can­not be giv­en to the applic­a­tion pro­pos­al as it would have a likely sig­ni­fic­ant effect on caper­cail­lie pop­u­la­tions with­in Bad­den­gorm Wood­land, which in turn could poten­tially affect the pop­u­la­tions of the five sur­round­ing con­nec­ted Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Areas (SPAs). The pro­pos­al there­fore does not meet the require­ments of the Habitat’s Dir­ect­ive for the con­ser­va­tion of nat­ur­al hab­it­ats and of wild fauna and flora (European Uni­on Coun­cil Dir­ect­ive 92/43/EEC). Because of this the CNPA can­not pos­it­ively determ­ine this applic­a­tion without approv­al from Scot­tish Government.

3. Also stated is that any new build­ings in the wood­land would cause increased noise and activ­ity levels cre­at­ing dis­turb­ance in an area that is cur­rently rel­at­ively undis­turbed. This would be a per­man­ent effect with no mit­ig­a­tion possible.

4. Car­rbridge & Vicin­ity Com­munity Coun­cil has grave reser­va­tions about this applic­a­tion. Whilst they acknow­ledge the degree of plan­ning, research and detail con­tained in the sub­mis­sion, which would improve the well-being of that spe­cif­ic wood­land area, they feel that approv­al could lead to a pleth­ora of sim­il­ar build­ing applic­a­tions, which they feel would be det­ri­ment­al to the wood­land envir­on­ment and to caper­cail­lie viability.

REP­RES­ENT­A­TIONS

1. Two objec­tions have been received for this applic­a­tion. The RSPB object to the applic­a­tion stat­ing that this pro­pos­al is with­in 300m of an import­ant caper­cail­lie lek and there is con­nectiv­ity between the pro­posed devel­op­ment and the Kin­veachy Forest Wood Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Area SPA and Aber­nethy Forest SPA and poten­tial dis­turb­ance would have a likely sig­ni­fic­ant effect on the SPA.

2. Whilst they acknow­ledge that the applic­ants hope to under­take forestry works to improve the wood­land hab­it­at, caper­cail­lie are par­tic­u­larly sus­cept­ible to dis­turb­ance and the erec­tion of a build­ing with­in this wood­land is likely to res­ult in unac­cept­able dis­turb­ance of this Annex I pri­or­ity species.

3. Anoth­er objec­tion to the applic­a­tion high­lights that the hut will bring addi­tion­al dis­turb­ance to an area not cur­rently overly dis­turbed and sea­son­ally where this dis­turb­ance would likely be low as well.

4. The hut could also lead to overnight stays which would be prob­lem­at­ic to enforce as well as being unne­ces­sary for the require­ments of the wood­land man­age­ment plan.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 21/02/2020

APPRAIS­AL

Prin­ciple

1. The main con­sid­er­a­tion of this Pri­or Approv­al is prin­ciple of devel­op­ment in rela­tion to the Per­mit­ted Devel­op­ment rights under class 22 of The Town and Coun­try Plan­ning (Gen­er­al Per­mit­ted Devel­op­ment) (Scot­land) Order 1992, as well as the impact of the devel­op­ment on the nat­ur­al envir­on­ment includ­ing spe­cies and land­scape impacts.

Prin­ciple

1. The rel­ev­ant sec­tion with­in the Gen­er­al Per­mit­ted Devel­op­ment (Scot­land) Order 1992 is class 22 a) the car­ry­ing out on land used for the pur­poses of forestry, includ­ing affor­est­a­tion, or land held or occu­pied with that land, of devel­op­ment reas­on­ably neces­sary for those pur­poses con­sist­ing of works for the erec­tion, exten­sion or alter­a­tion of a building.

2. While the build­ing is pro­posed for forestry its neces­sity to ful­fil the sub­mit­ted Wood­land Man­age­ment Plan (WMP) is in ques­tion. Both the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Her­it­age team and The High­land Council’s Forestry Officer have ques­tioned the need to have a per­man­ent struc­ture for what is some­thing that could be under­taken with­in a few weeks. There is a like­li­hood that the build­ing would also be used for recre­ation­al use that is not per­mit­ted with­in the class of devel­op­ment that has been applied for or an intens­i­fic­a­tion of use of vis­its to the wood­land, increas­ing poten­tial dis­turb­ance to capercaillie.

Envir­on­ment­al Issues

1. Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Her­it­age of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015 seeks to ensure that there are no adverse effects on nat­ur­al her­it­age interests, des­ig­nated sites or pro­tec­ted spe­cies and that any impacts upon biod­iversity are avoided, min­im­ised or compensated.

2. Although the site is not loc­ated with­in any NATURA des­ig­na­tions, it has links with the sur­round­ing des­ig­nated areas due to its use by caper­cail­lie, as noted earli­er. Con­sequently, a key envir­on­ment­al issue in this case is there­fore the poten­tial impact upon the qual­i­fy­ing interests of the NATURA sites iden­ti­fied in para­graph 2 of this report. The con­ser­va­tion object­ives for the qual­i­fy­ing interests of caper­cail­lie for each of the noted Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Areas are:

a) To avoid deteri­or­a­tion of the hab­it­ats of the qual­i­fy­ing spe­cies; or b) Sig­ni­fic­ant dis­turb­ance to the qual­i­fy­ing spe­cies; thus ensur­ing the integ­rity of the site is main­tained; and c) To ensure for the qual­i­fy­ing spe­cies that the fol­low­ing are main­tained in the long term: i. Dis­tri­bu­tion of spe­cies with­in the site; ii. Dis­tri­bu­tion and extent of hab­it­ats sup­port­ing the spe­cies; iii. Struc­ture, func­tion and sup­port­ing pro­cesses of hab­it­ats sup­port­ing the species;

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 21/02/2020

iv. No sig­ni­fic­ant dis­turb­ance of the spe­cies; v. Pop­u­la­tion of the spe­cies as viable com­pon­ent of the site.

1. For the pur­poses of the Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Assess­ment (HRA) (Appendix 4), the applic­a­tion details con­firm that the pro­pos­al is dir­ectly con­nec­ted with or neces­sary for site man­age­ment for wood­land man­age­ment pur­poses. As con­firmed by the CNPA Eco­lo­gist, at present, Bad­den­gorm Wood is thought to be only lightly used by people and is rel­at­ively undis­turbed com­pared to oth­er loc­al woods around Car­rbridge. This is one of the key factors that mean caper­cail­lie can live and breed here suc­cess­fully. New build­ings in wood­land would cause increased noise and activ­ity levels which would res­ult in a per­man­ent effect and dis­turb­ance to any caper­cail­lie. This dis­turb­ance can also res­ult in the reduc­tion of the avail­ab­il­ity of suit­able habitat.

2. With­in the Badenoch & Strath­spey area, there are five SPAs with caper­cail­lie as qual­i­fy­ing interest: Aber­nethy Forest, Anagach Woods, Craigmore Wood, Cairngorms and Kin­veachy Forest. The dis­tances between these SPAs are well with­in max­im­um caper­cail­lie dis­pers­al dis­tances known from the rel­ev­ant lit­er­at­ure. An impact on any wood­land sup­port­ing caper­cail­lie has the poten­tial to impact on the qual­i­fy­ing interests of all five SPAs.

3. The HRA con­cludes that three of the SPA con­ser­va­tion object­ives will not be met by this pro­pos­al would have an adverse effect on the integ­rity of the five SPAs clas­si­fied for capercaillie.

4. The CNPA Eco­lo­gist objects to the applic­a­tion as it would have a likely sig­ni­fic­ant effect on caper­cail­lie pop­u­la­tions with­in Bad­den­gorm Wood­land and the five SPAs and con­sequently does not meet the require­ments of the Hab­it­ats Dir­ect­ive for the con­ser­va­tion of nat­ur­al hab­it­ats and of wild fauna and flora (European Uni­on Coun­cil Dir­ect­ive 92/43/EEC). The officer also states that there are no suit­able mit­ig­a­tion options for this pro­pos­al. SNH con­cur with the points raised with­in the HRA and object to the applic­a­tion. Regard­ing pub­lic rep­res­ent­a­tions, Badenoch & Strath­spey Con­ser­va­tion Group and the RSPB also raise objec­tion to the applic­a­tion for the same eco­lo­gic­al reasons.

5. On this basis, the applic­a­tion is con­sidered to be con­trary to Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Her­it­age and con­trary to the aims of the Nation­al Park as set out by the Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000, as the pro­pos­al would fail to con­serve and enhance the nat­ur­al her­it­age of the area.

Land­scape Considerations

1. Policy 5: Land­scape of the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015 pre­sumes against devel­op­ment which does not con­serve or enhance the land­scape char­ac­ter and spe­cial qual­it­ies of the Nation­al Park and in par­tic­u­lar, the set­ting of the pro­posed devel­op­ment. The pro­pos­al would intro­duce new fea­tures with­in this sec­tion of the wood­land which in con­sequence would intro­duce a change in nature of the use of this area. The CNPA Land­scape Officer has assessed the details of the applic­a­tion and con­siders that the effect of the pro­pos­al is not

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 21/02/2020

con­sidered to sig­ni­fic­antly affect the over­all char­ac­ter of the land­scape resource of the woodland.

1. Although it is acknow­ledged that there would be some impact of the pro­pos­al on the land­scape con­sid­er­a­tions of the area and the user exper­i­ence, this impact is not at such a level that would war­rant refusal.

CON­CLU­SION

1. In con­clu­sion, whilst the pro­pos­al sat­is­fies the require­ments of use for forestry pur­poses its per­man­ency and neces­sity for ful­fil­ment of the WMP do not effect­ively demon­strate the require­ment to build the hut in this location.

2. A Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Assess­ment has been under­taken to assess the effect of the pro­pos­al on the qual­i­fy­ing interests of the nearby Natura sites and it con­cludes that the pro­pos­al would have a likely sig­ni­fic­ant effect on caper­cail­lie pop­u­la­tions with­in Bad­den­gorm Wood­land and the five Strath­spey des­ig­nated Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Areas. The pro­pos­al, there­fore does not meet the require­ments of the Hab­it­ats Dir­ect­ive for the con­ser­va­tion of nat­ur­al hab­it­ats and of wild fauna and flora and there are no suit­able mit­ig­a­tion options for this pro­pos­al that would lessen its impact. On this basis, the pro­pos­al is con­trary to Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Her­it­age and con­trary to the aims of the Nation­al Park as set out by the Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000.

3. The applic­a­tion is there­fore recom­men­ded for refusal.

RECOM­MEND­A­TION

That Mem­bers of the Com­mit­tee sup­port a recom­mend­a­tion to REFUSE the Pri­or Approv­al of the Erec­tion of a forestry build­ing at Land Near Bad­den­gorm Car­rbridge for the fol­low­ing reasons

1. The pro­posed devel­op­ment is con­trary to Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Her­it­age of the Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan and the aims of the Nation­al park as set out by the Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000 as the devel­op­ment is likely to have a sig­ni­fic­ant effect on the five Strath­spey Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Area Natura 2000 sites and the pro­pos­al has not demon­strated that it would not have an adverse effect on the integ­rity of those sites.