Item7AABatteryStorageBoatOfGartenReport20230381DET

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 08/12/2023

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

DEVEL­OP­MENT PRO­POSED: Applic­a­tion under Sec­tion 42 to amended con­di­tion 6 (noise bar­ri­er) of (2022/0069/DET) at Land 380M West Of East Croft­more Boat Of Garten

REF­ER­ENCE: 2023/0381/DET

APPLIC­ANT: James Perkins

DATE CALLED-IN: 2 Octo­ber 2023

RECOM­MEND­A­TION: Approve sub­ject to conditions

CASE OFFICER: Kath­er­ine Crerar, Plan­ning Officer

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CNPA Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Applic­a­tion Site 0 115 230 460 Meters Doch­lag­gie har Milton & Boat of Garten 2664 1233 1000 The Strathep N Garten rumuil­lie East nock Alains of umuil­lie. Garteng Raebreck 000 2013 Bridge/​Spey­side Way 207 Gart­en­more CH203 7 03- 200 031 000 P 03- Pit (dis) 木 Crown copy­right and data­base rights 2022. Ord­nance Sur­vey Licence num­ber 100040965 210- CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 08/12/2023 East Croft­more W 木 Raebreck 00 21510 Croft­nacarn 230- 220- 242 Motte W Mains o Garten Croftron­an 0 211 2

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 08/12/2023

SITE DESCRIP­TION, PRO­POS­AL AND HISTORY

Site Descrip­tion

1. The pro­posed devel­op­ment site cov­ers an area of 2.45 hec­tares and lies with­in an area of improved graz­ing land con­sist­ing of sev­er­al large open fields. The site is char­ac­ter­ised by an undu­lat­ing topo­graphy, with the ground rising in the south, and des­cend­ing to the north towards the River Spey.

2. The site is loc­ated 300m to the east of East Croft­more Farm and imme­di­ately north of the exist­ing Boat of Garten Elec­tri­city Sub Sta­tion. The B970 road is loc­ated to the south of the site, with the vil­lage of Boat of Garten approx­im­ately 1km away.

3. The site is set on the edge of adja­cent con­ifer wood­land, with some semi- nat­ur­al wood­land on the south­ern bank of the River Spey. There is an exist­ing field drain, which bounds the site to the west, and joins oth­er agri­cul­tur­al drains to flow north for 225m, before meet­ing the River Spey.

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=RWLSHHSIO CP00

Title Draw­ing Num­ber Date on Date Plan* Received Plans Plan — Loc­a­tion Plan. EW/08/01C 01/09/21 22/07/22 Plan — Amended Gen­er­al EW/08/03А 01/09/21 22/07/22 Arrange­ment Plan. Plan – Amended Site Bound­ary | EW/08/02B 22/07/22 Fence and Con­tours Plan — Floor Plan. EW/08/04 01/09/21 28/02/22 Plan — Sec­tion Plan. EW/08/05 01/09/21 28/02/22 Plan — Sec­tion Plan. EW/08/06 01/09/21 28/02/22 Plan — Sec­tion Plan. EW/08/07 01/09/21 28/02/22 Plan — Sec­tion Plan. EW/08/08 01/09/21 28/02/22

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 08/12/2023

Plan — Fence, CCTV Mast and EW/08/09 01/09/21 28/02/22 Con­trol Room Details. Plan — Bat­tery Stor­age Unit EW/08/10 01/09/21 28/02/22 Details. Plan — Elev­a­tions. EW/08/11 01/09/21 28/02/22 Plan — Cable Ser­vitude Plan. LT000184_WAY_0 01/09/21 28/02/22 04_JM_132KV Plan — View­point 1 — 21/07/21 28/02/22 Visu­al­isa­tions. Plan — View­point 2 — 21/07/21 28/02/22 Visu­al­isa­tions. Plan — View­point 3 21/07/21 28/02/22 Visu­al­isa­tions. Plan — View­point 4 21/07/21 28/02/22 Visu­al­isa­tions. Plan — View­point 5 — 21/07/21 28/02/22 Visu­al­isa­tions. Plan — View­point 6 — 21/07/21 28/02/22 Visu­al­isa­tions. Plan — View­point 7 — 21/07/21 28/02/22 Visu­al­isa­tions. Plan – Vis­ib­il­ity Splays C4690 (2) 100 04/02/22 28/02/22 Plan — Hydro­lo­gic­al Con­text C4690- 04/02/22 28/02/22 Map, 1244/FIGURE 1 Plan — LVIA Appendix 2 — C4690- 04/02/22 28/02/22 Fig­ure 1. 1244/FIGURE 1 Plan — Land­scap­ing Plan. C4690- 04/02/22 28/02/22 1244/FIGURE 2 Plan — LVIA Appendix 3 — C4690- 04/02/22 28/02/22 Fig­ure 3. 1244/FIGURE 3 Plan- Soak Away C4690 (3) 100 22/07/22 Sup­port­ing Doc­u­ment­a­tion Oth­er — Appendix 3 — 01/02/22 28/02/22 Land­scape and Visu­al Impact Assess­ment. Oth­er — Appendix 4 — Noise 01/02/22 28/02/22 Impact Assess­ment. Oth­er — Appendix 5 — Cul­tur­al 01/02/22 28/02/22 Heritage.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 08/12/2023

Oth­er — Appendix 5 Fig­ure 1.1 — 01/02/22 28/02/22 Impact to Cul­tur­al Her­it­age. Oth­er — Appendix 5 — Fig­ure 1.2 — 01/02/22 28/02/22 Indir­ect Impact on Cul­tur­al Her­it­age. Oth­er — Appendix 6 — 01/02/22 28/02/22 Hydro­logy Assess­ment. Oth­er — Appendix 6 — Fig­ure 2 — 01/02/22 28/02/22 Risk of River Flood­ing. Oth­er — Appendix 6 — Fig­ure 3 — 01/02/22 28/02/22 Soil Map. Oth­er — Trans­port and Access 01/02/22 28/02/22 Assess­ment. Sup­port­ing State­ment 01/09/23 24/08/23 *Where no spe­cif­ic day of month has been provided on the plan, the sys­tem defaults to the 1^st of the month.

1. This is an applic­a­tion under Sec­tion 42 of the Plan­ning Act, which seeks to vary the terms of an exist­ing plan­ning con­sent for the con­struc­tion of a bat­tery energy stor­age facil­ity (49.9 MW), con­trol build­ing, switch room, bat­tery stor­age con­tain­ers, invert­er con­tain­ers, land­scap­ing and asso­ci­ated works (ref­er­ence 2023/0381/DET). This applic­a­tion was gran­ted con­sent in Septem­ber 2022 and was sub­ject to 11 plan­ning con­di­tions, all of which have still to be dis­charged. At the time of sub­mis­sion of this cur­rent Sec­tion 42 applic­a­tion the ori­gin­al con­sent was still extant.

2. This applic­a­tion now seeks to vary the terms of con­di­tion 6 which relates to noise immis­sion con­straints and is a pre-com­mence­ment con­di­tion. It cur­rently reads as follows:

3. ‘No devel­op­ment shall com­mence on site until a detailed spe­cific­a­tion of the pro­posed noise bar­ri­er and an updated Noise Impact Assess­ment are sub­mit­ted to and approved in writ­ing by the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity, act­ing as Plan­ning Author­ity, in con­sulta­tion with the High­land Council’s Envir­on­ment­al Health Team.

The Noise Impact Assess­ment must demon­strate that: a) cumu­lat­ive noise arising from the pro­posed devel­op­ment and exist­ing elec­tri­city sub-sta­tion does not exceed 30Db at noise sens­it­ive premises and; b) the Rat­ing Level of the cumu­lat­ive noise arising from the use of plant, machinery or equip­ment installed or oper­ated in asso­ci­ation with the devel­op­ment and adja­cent elec­tri­city sub-sta­tion, must not exceed the cur­rent back­ground noise levels at noise sens­it­ive premises. The Rating

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 08/12/2023

Level should be cal­cu­lated in accord­ance with Brit­ish Stand­ards 4142: ​‘Meth­ods for rat­ing and assess­ing indus­tri­al and com­mer­cial sound’.

1. A Noise Impact Assess­ment was sub­mit­ted with the applic­a­tion and demon­strated that the noise levels would com­ply with the rel­ev­ant stand­ards. The reas­on for the con­di­tion is to obtain detailed spe­cific­a­tion of the pro­posed noise bar­ri­ers and mit­ig­a­tion and ensure that the noise levels arising from the devel­op­ment and adja­cent sub would not exceed 30Db at any noise sens­it­ive premises (the closest neigh­bour­ing res­id­en­tial properties).

2. Pri­or to the applic­a­tion being called in by CNPA, the applic­ant had been in dis­cus­sion with the High­land Council’s Envir­on­ment­al Health Officer on account of the chal­lenges asso­ci­ated with the pro­posed cumu­lat­ive noise lim­its and that the pro­ject should be approved with spe­cif­ic lim­it val­ues stated in con­di­tions. This was agreed with Envir­on­ment­al Health how­ever due to a cler­ic­al error the agreed word­ing of the noise con­di­tion was omitted.

3. In addi­tion, the applic­ant has also set out in the sup­port­ing state­ment that ​‘Secur­ing oper­a­tion­al immis­sion guar­an­tees for the nearest recept­ors that are com­pat­ible with the pro­posed 30dB(A) rat­ing level con­tin­ues to be a chal­lenge’. As such, the applic­ant is pro­pos­ing to increase the noise rat­ing level from 30dB to 33dB. 33dB would be night hours back­ground level plus 5dB or day­time plus 3dB which accord­ing to the applic­ant is an accept­able level of impact in many jurisdictions.

4. There­fore, this s42 applic­a­tion seeks to amend the word­ing of Con­di­tion 6 in line with what was agreed and to increase the noise lim­it to a max­im­um of 33dB at the cur­til­age of any noise sens­it­ive premises (neigh­bour­ing prop­er­ties East­er Croft­more and Aldon Lodge).

5. It is pro­posed that the word­ing of con­di­tion 6 is amended to read:

a) Pri­or to the devel­op­ment com­men­cing, the applic­ant shall provide a detailed spe­cific­a­tion of the pro­posed noise mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures includ­ing details of the noise bar­ri­er and an updated noise assess­ment for the writ­ten approv­al of the Plan­ning author­ity. The assess­ment should demon­strate that the bar­ri­er in com­bin­a­tion with oth­er meas­ures can achieve a min­im­um reduc­tion of 10dB as cal­cu­lated at the cur­til­age of Aldon Lodge and that the fol­low­ing noise lim­its can be com­plied with.

b) Noise arising from the devel­op­ment, when meas­ured and/​or cal­cu­lated as an Leq, 5min, in the 100Hz one third octave fre­quency band must not exceed 30 dB, at the cur­til­age of any noise sens­it­ive premises.

c) The Rat­ing Level of noise arising from the use of plant, machinery or equip­ment installed or oper­ated in asso­ci­ation with the devel­op­ment, must

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 08/12/2023

not exceed 33dB LAeq at the cur­til­age of any noise sens­it­ive premises. The Rat­ing Level should be cal­cu­lated in accord­ance with BS 4142: 2014+A1:2019 Meth­ods for rat­ing and assess­ing indus­tri­al and com­mer­cial sound.

1. No oth­er alter­a­tions to the terms of the plan­ning per­mis­sion are proposed.

2. Plans of the pro­pos­als are attached as Appendix 1.

His­tory

1. Pre applic­a­tion advice for the con­struc­tion of the bat­tery energy stor­age facil­ity (49.9 MW), con­trol build­ing, switch room, bat­tery stor­age con­tain­ers, invert­er con­tain­ers, land­scap­ing and asso­ci­ated works was provided by CNPA who fed into the High­land Council’s response. This set out key areas to be addressed in any future sub­mis­sion (ref­er­ence PRE/2021/0015).

2. CNPA also provided a con­sulta­tion response to the Pro­pos­al of Applic­a­tion Notice (ref­er­ence PRE/2021/0015) which was repor­ted to CNPA Plan­ning Com­mit­tee in June 2021.

3. A detailed plan­ning applic­a­tion for the same pro­pos­al (2022/0069/DET) was sub­mit­ted in Feb­ru­ary 2022. It was called in by CNPA and approved in Septem­ber 2022.

HAB­IT­ATS REG­U­LA­TIONS APPRAISAL

1. A Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al [HRA] was under­taken for the ori­gin­al applic­a­tion (2022/0069/DET) to con­sider the poten­tial effects of the devel­op­ment upon the con­ser­va­tion object­ives of the Natura sites lis­ted with­in the HRA doc­u­ment which is attached as Appendix 2.

2. The Hab­it­at Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al con­cluded that the pro­posed devel­op­ment is unlikely to have any sig­ni­fic­ant effects on hab­it­ats sup­port­ing the qual­i­fy­ing interest of the Cairngorms SAC and Kin­veachy Forest SPA. How­ever, it does have the poten­tial to pre­vent the con­ser­va­tion object­ives of the River Spey SAC being met.

3. This could occur through sed­i­ment release into the adja­cent water­course that flows into the River Spey, and pol­lu­tion from the pro­posed fire sup­press­ant sys­tem and soak away. How­ever, the sub­mit­ted Con­struc­tion Envir­on­ment Man­age­ment State­ment (CEMP), dated 13 August 2022, should address the risk of sed­i­ment release through appro­pri­ate pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion and con­trol meas­ures, such that the pol­lu­tion risk could be min­im­ised. Fur­ther­more, it was recom­men­ded that a con­di­tion is included to ensure that a type of fire

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 08/12/2023

sup­press­ant that is not harm­ful to aquat­ic life is used, thus fur­ther avoid­ing the risk of pol­lu­tion. The HRA con­cluded that with the appro­pri­ate mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures the pro­posed devel­op­ment will not have sig­ni­fic­ant effect on the site integ­rity of the River Spey SAC. The full apprais­al is attached at Appendix 2.

1. It is not con­sidered that this s42 applic­a­tion for the amend­ment to Con­di­tion 6 would change the con­clu­sions of the ori­gin­al HRA. Nature Scot have been con­sul­ted and have con­firmed they agree.

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 11 Energy POLICY 23 Health and Safety Stra­tegic Policy 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 POLICY 3 DESIGN AND PLACE­MAK­ING X POLICY 4 NAT­UR­AL HER­IT­AGE POLICY 5 LAND­SCAPE X POLICY 6 THE SIT­ING AND DEISGN OF DIGIT­AL COM­MU­NIC­A­TIONS EQUIP­MENT POLICY 7 RENEW­ABLE ENERGY

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 08/12/2023

POLICY 8 OPEN SPACE, SPORT AND RECRE­ATION POLICY 9 CUL­TUR­AL HER­IT­AGE POLICY 10 RESOURCES 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​-​L​D​P​-​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 Guid­ance Policy 3 Design and Place­mak­ing Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance X Policy 4 Nat­ur­al Her­it­age Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance Policy 5 Land­scape Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance X Policy 7 Renew­able Energy Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance Policy 8 Open Space, Sport and Recre­ation Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance Policy 9 Cul­tur­al Her­it­age Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance Policy 10 Resources Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance Policy 11 Developer Oblig­a­tions Sup­ple­ment­ary Guidance

CON­SULTA­TIONS

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

2. SSEN have no fur­ther com­ments on this application.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 08/12/2023

1. The High­land Coun­cil Con­tam­in­ated Land has no fur­ther com­ments on this application.

2. The High­land Coun­cil Envir­on­ment­al Health Ser­vice does not object to the pro­posed changes.

3. They note the slight increase in noise lim­its at the two nearest noise sens­it­ive loc­a­tions (East Croft­more and Aldon Lodge) and that as the former is fin­an­cially involved, so a lim­it of 5dB above back­ground is reasonable.

4. In respect of Aldon Lodge, the Envir­on­ment­al Health Officer is sat­is­fied that the slightly raised lim­it will provide a small buf­fer and in prac­tic­al­ity, it is extremely unlikely that the noise levels would ever reach this lim­it due to the cool­ing fans which are designed for warm cli­mates. Based on the typ­ic­al tem­per­at­ures in north­ern Scot­land, it is unlikely that the fans would ever oper­ate at more than 70% and even less likely this would occur at night. As such, they are com­fort­able with the amendment.

5. As such they pro­pose the fol­low­ing wording: -

a) Pri­or to the devel­op­ment com­men­cing, the applic­ant shall provide a detailed spe­cific­a­tion of the pro­posed noise bar­ri­er and an updated noise assess­ment for the writ­ten approv­al of the Plan­ning author­ity. The assess­ment should demon­strate that the bar­ri­er can achieve a min­im­um reduc­tion of 10dB as cal­cu­lated at the cur­til­age of Aldon Lodge and that the fol­low­ing noise lim­its can be com­plied with.

b) The Rat­ing Level of noise arising from the use of plant, machinery or equip­ment installed or oper­ated in asso­ci­ation with the devel­op­ment, must not exceed 33dB LAeq 15mins at the cur­til­age of East Croft­more and 32dB LAeq 15 mins at the cur­til­age of Aldon Lodge. The Rat­ing Level should be cal­cu­lated in accord­ance with BS 4142: 2014+A1:2019 Meth­ods for rat­ing and assess­ing indus­tri­al and com­mer­cial sound.”

c) In the event of any changes to the pro­posed equip­ment or mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures which res­ult in an increased noise level, then a revised noise impact assess­ment shall be sub­mit­ted to and approved in writ­ing by the Plan­ning Author­ity, pri­or to any devel­op­ment commencing.

d) With­in 4 weeks of the site becom­ing oper­a­tion­al, hav­ing been fully tested and com­mis­sioned, the oper­at­or shall arrange for a com­pet­ent per­son to under­take com­pli­ance mon­it­or­ing and to pre­pare a report. With­in 2 weeks of the mon­it­or­ing exer­cise being com­pleted, the com­pli­ance mon­it­or­ing report shall be sub­mit­ted for the writ­ten approv­al of the Plan­ning Author­ity. If the mon­it­or­ing iden­ti­fies that con­di­tion 2 is not

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 08/12/2023

being met, the report shall include a pro­posed scheme of mit­ig­a­tion, includ­ing times­cales, to ensure com­pli­ance can be achieved. There­after any mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures shall be imple­men­ted in accord­ance with the approved scheme. Details of the com­pli­ance mon­it­or­ing must be agreed in writ­ing before­hand with the Council’s Envir­on­ment­al Health Service.

1. Fur­ther to dis­cus­sions with the applic­ant in respect of how they will meet the noise lim­it at Aldon Lodge, a fur­ther amend­ment (under­lined) was pro­posed to the first part (a) of the con­di­tion to read:

‘Pri­or to the devel­op­ment com­men­cing, the applic­ant shall provide a detailed spe­cific­a­tion of the pro­posed noise mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures includ­ing details of the noise bar­ri­er and an updated noise assess­ment for the writ­ten approv­al of the Plan­ning author­ity. The assess­ment should demon­strate that the bar­ri­er in com­bin­a­tion with oth­er meas­ures can achieve a min­im­um reduc­tion of 10dB as cal­cu­lated at the cur­til­age of Aldon Lodge and that the fol­low­ing noise lim­its can be com­plied with’.

1. THC Envir­on­ment­al Health accep­ted the amended word­ing not­ing that for cla­ri­fic­a­tion, the updated noise impact assess­ment will need to demon­strate that the lim­its can be met based on full work­ing capa­city of the development.

2. Nature Scot was con­sul­ted on the ori­gin­al Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al (HRA) for the full pro­pos­al (2022/0069/DET). They were re-con­sul­ted on this s42 applic­a­tion and have con­firmed agree­ment with its con­clu­sions and have no fur­ther com­ments to make.

3. These com­ments are attached as Appendix 3

REP­RES­ENT­A­TIONS

1. The have been no representations.

APPRAIS­AL

1. Sec­tion 42 of the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning (Scot­land) Act 1997 as amended allows applic­ants to apply to devel­op land without com­pli­ance with con­di­tions pre­vi­ously attached to a plan­ning con­sent. In determ­in­ing such an applic­a­tion, the Coun­cil, as Plan­ning Author­ity can only con­sider the con­di­tions sub­ject to which plan­ning per­mis­sion should be gran­ted and may:

a) grant per­mis­sion uncon­di­tion­ally (i.e. remove the con­di­tions attached to the plan­ning con­sent); b) grant per­mis­sion con­di­tion­ally with dif­fer­ing con­di­tions; or

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 08/12/2023

c) refuse the applic­a­tion (i.e., keep the con­di­tions attached to the plan­ning consent).

1. In con­sid­er­ing a Sec­tion 42 applic­a­tion the plan­ning author­ity can only con­sider the con­di­tions that are the sub­ject of the applic­a­tion although this does not pre­clude con­sid­er­a­tion of the over­all effect of grant­ing a new per­mis­sion. The effect of grant­ing of a Sec­tion 42 applic­a­tion is the cre­ation of a new plan­ning per­mis­sion and there­fore all con­di­tions of the pre­vi­ous con­sent must be reit­er­ated in order to have effect.

2. 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 (NPF) and the adop­ted Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 unless mater­i­al con­sid­er­a­tions indic­ate otherwise.

3. The main plan­ning issues are con­sidered below:

Prin­ciple

1. There are a num­ber of NPF4 policies that are rel­ev­ant to the wider devel­op­ment such as Policy 1: Tack­ling the Cli­mate and Nature Crises and Policy 2: Cli­mate Change Mit­ig­a­tion and Adapt­a­tion which include giv­ing weight to the cli­mate crisis and facil­it­at­ing devel­op­ment that min­im­ises emis­sions and adapts to the impacts of cli­mate change. Whilst the pro­pos­al will con­trib­ute to these object­ives, its accept­ab­il­ity has already been estab­lished through the approv­al of the plan­ning per­mis­sion (2022/0069/DET) gran­ted in Septem­ber 2022 and the Com­mit­tee Report is con­tained in Appendix 3.

2. This applic­a­tion simply seeks to amend Con­di­tion 6 in respect of noise arising from the use of plant, machinery or equip­ment installed or oper­at­ing as part of the devel­op­ment and to con­sider wheth­er it remains accept­able with this alteration.

3. NPF4 Policy 11: Energy sets out that the ​“pro­ject design and mit­ig­a­tion will demon­strate how the fol­low­ing impacts [includ­ing noise] are addressed”. In addi­tion, Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing of the Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 requires pro­pos­als to be designed to pro­tect amen­ity of neigh­bours and min­im­ise any dis­turb­ance. In addi­tion, Policy 5: Land­scape requires min­im­ising and mit­ig­at­ing any adverse impacts on the set­ting of the development.

4. This applic­a­tion seeks to simply vary the noise bar­ri­er con­di­tion as attached to the ori­gin­al plan­ning per­mis­sion (2022/0069/DET). In brief this will mean that the pro­pos­al will be required to meet spe­cif­ic noise lim­its instead of

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 08/12/2023

cumu­lat­ive noise lim­its and demon­strate how a noise bar­ri­er in com­bin­a­tion with oth­er mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures will achieve a 10dB reduc­tion at the cur­til­age of Aldon Lodge.

1. In addi­tion, it is pro­posed that the 30dB noise lim­it at the cur­til­age of the noise sens­it­ive prop­er­ties is increased to 33dB at East Croft­more (which has a fin­an­cial interest in the pro­ject) and 32dB at Aldon Lodge.

2. As set out in the sup­port­ing state­ment and fur­ther examined by THC Envir­on­ment­al Health, the noise gen­er­ated from the devel­op­ment is asso­ci­ated with the cool­ing sys­tem and fan noise which is very unlikely to ever oper­ate at full capa­city in the Scot­tish cli­mate. The pre­dicted hours of peak oper­a­tion will likely cor­rel­ate with levels of human activ­ity, gen­er­ally dur­ing the day and even­ing and unlikely dur­ing the night. As such, this amend­ment will not res­ult in a sig­ni­fic­ant adverse impact that would make the over­all pro­pos­al unacceptable.

3. It is there­fore con­sidered that these amend­ments are accept­able in terms of NPF4 Policy 11 and will not impact on the amen­ity of sur­round­ing prop­er­ties. As such it com­plies with Policy 3: Design and Placemaking.

CON­CLU­SION

1. Over­all, this pro­pos­al presents a rel­at­ively minor change to the ori­gin­al pro­pos­al that will not res­ult in adverse impacts in respect of noise or wider amen­ity. It is con­sidered that they com­ply with all rel­ev­ant policies of the Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 and Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 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 Applic­a­tion under s42 to amended con­di­tion 6 (noise bar­ri­er) of (2022/0069/DET) at Land 380M West Of East Croft­more Boat Of Garten 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.

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Con­di­tions CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 08/12/2023

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 devel­op­ment shall com­mence on site until a final­ised Decom­mis­sion­ing and Res­tor­a­tion Plan (includ­ing appro­pri­ate mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures) cov­er­ing the remov­al of all infra­struc­ture has been sub­mit­ted to and approved in writ­ing by the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity act­ing as Plan­ning Authority.

Reas­on: To ensure that decom­mis­sion­ing works are done in an envir­on­ment­ally sens­it­ive man­ner in accord­ance with Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Her­it­age and Policy 5: Land­scape of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021.

1. No devel­op­ment shall com­mence on site until a full Land­scape Plan has been sub­mit­ted to and approved in writ­ing by the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity act­ing as Plan­ning Author­ity. The Land­scape Plan shall incor­por­ate the Plant­ing Plan and shall include details of how open areas with­in the devel­op­ment site, but out­with the extent of the Plant­ing Plan, are to be seeded with a nat­ive high­land wild­flower mix. The approved Land­scape Plan shall be imple­men­ted in full by the first full grow­ing sea­son fol­low­ing com­ple­tion of development.

Reas­on: To ensure that all of the devel­op­ment site is effect­ively man­aged in terms of land­scape in accord­ance with Policy 5: Land­scape of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021.

1. No devel­op­ment shall com­mence on site until a Land­scape Main­ten­ance and Man­age­ment Plan cov­er­ing a peri­od of at least five years fol­low­ing con­struc­tion, includ­ing the care of exist­ing and pro­posed trees and shrubs and open area, has been sub­mit­ted to and approved in writ­ing by the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity act­ing as Plan­ning Authority.

Reas­on: Το avoid biod­iversity loss and to ensure the estab­lish­ment, reten­tion and pro­tec­tion of the pro­posed land­scap­ing in accord­ance with Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Her­it­age and Policy 5: Land­scape of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 08/12/2023

1. No devel­op­ment shall com­mence on site until full details of the pro­posed retain­ing wall have been sub­mit­ted to and approved in writ­ing by the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity act­ing as Plan­ning Authority.

Reas­on: To ensure that the pro­posed retain­ing wall is sym­path­et­ic to the char­ac­ter of the sur­round­ing area in accord­ance with Policy 3: Sus­tain­able Design and Policy 5: Land­scape of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021.

1. No devel­op­ment shall com­mence on site until details of the col­our and fin­ish of the bat­tery stor­age units and asso­ci­ated fen­cing is sub­mit­ted to and approved in writ­ing by the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity act­ing as Plan­ning Authority.

Reas­on: To ensure that the pro­posed devel­op­ment is sym­path­et­ic to the char­ac­ter of the sur­round­ing area in accord­ance with Policy 3: Sus­tain­able Design and Policy 5: Land­scape of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021.

1. Pri­or to the devel­op­ment com­men­cing, the applic­ant shall provide a detailed spe­cific­a­tion of the pro­posed noise mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures includ­ing details of the noise bar­ri­er and an updated noise assess­ment for the writ­ten approv­al of the Plan­ning author­ity. The assess­ment should demon­strate that the bar­ri­er in com­bin­a­tion with oth­er meas­ures can achieve a min­im­um reduc­tion of 10dB as cal­cu­lated at the cur­til­age of Aldon Lodge and that the fol­low­ing noise lim­its can be com­plied with.

The Rat­ing Level of noise arising from the use of plant, machinery or equip­ment installed or oper­ated in asso­ci­ation with the devel­op­ment, must not exceed 33dB LAeq 15mins at the cur­til­age of East Croft­more and 32dB LAeq 15 mins at the cur­til­age of 33dB Aldon Lodge. The Rat­ing Level should be cal­cu­lated in accord­ance with BS 4142: 2014+A1:2019 Meth­ods for rat­ing and assess­ing indus­tri­al and com­mer­cial sound.”

In the event of any changes to the pro­posed equip­ment or mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures which res­ult in an increased noise level, then a revised noise impact assess­ment shall be sub­mit­ted to and approved in writ­ing by the Plan­ning Author­ity, pri­or to any devel­op­ment commencing.

1. With­in 4 weeks of the site becom­ing oper­a­tion­al, hav­ing been fully tested and com­mis­sioned, the oper­at­or shall arrange for a com­pet­ent per­son to under­take com­pli­ance mon­it­or­ing and to pre­pare a report. With­in 2 weeks of the mon­it­or­ing exer­cise being com­pleted, the com­pli­ance mon­it­or­ing report shall be sub­mit­ted for the writ­ten approv­al of the Plan­ning Author­ity. If the mon­it­or­ing iden­ti­fies that con­di­tion 2 is not being met, the report shall include a pro­posed scheme of mit­ig­a­tion, includ­ing times­cales, to ensure compliance

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 08/12/2023

can be achieved. There­after any mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures shall be imple­men­ted in accord­ance with the approved scheme. Details of the com­pli­ance mon­it­or­ing must be agreed in writ­ing before­hand with the Council’s Envir­on­ment­al Health Service.

Reas­on: In the interests of amen­ity, in accord­ance with Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing and Policy 5: Land­scape of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021.

1. No devel­op­ment shall com­mence on site until a final­ised drain­age design, includ­ing cal­cu­la­tions to demon­strate that storms up to and includ­ing the 1 in 200 year plus cli­mate change event will be man­aged, 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 Flood Risk Man­age­ment Team.

Reas­on: In order to ensure that the pro­posed devel­op­ment is not at risk of flood­ing in accord­ance with Policy 10: Resources of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021.

1. No devel­op­ment shall com­mence on site until full details of the pro­posed site access, includ­ing geo­metry, con­struc­tion, drain­age and traffic man­age­ment meas­ures are 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.

Reas­on: In the interests of road safety and to ensure an accept­able stand­ard of con­struc­tion with­in the pub­lic road bound­ary in accord­ance with Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021.

1. No devel­op­ment shall com­mence on site until a Con­struc­tion Traffic Man­age­ment Plan 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. This plan shall include but not be lim­ited to details of the following:

Iden­ti­fic­a­tion of the routes to the site for gen­er­al con­struc­tion traffic and details of the num­ber and type of vehicle move­ments anti­cip­ated on these routes dur­ing the con­struc­tion period;

a) A detailed pro­tocol for the deliv­ery of any Abnor­mal Indi­vis­ible Loads, pre­pared in con­sulta­tion and agree­ment with inter­ested parties, includ­ing the Coun­cil, Police, Trans­port Scot­land and, as required, com­munity representatives;

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 08/12/2023

b) Pro­posed traffic man­age­ment meas­ures on the routes to the site for con­struc­tion traffic. Meas­ures such as tem­por­ary speed lim­its, suit­able tem­por­ary sig­nage, road mark­ings and the use of speed activ­ated signs should be con­sidered; c) Pro­posed meas­ures to mit­ig­ate the impact of gen­er­al con­struc­tion traffic on the routes to the site fol­low­ing detailed assess­ment of the rel­ev­ant roads; d) A pro­ced­ure for the reg­u­lar mon­it­or­ing of road con­di­tions and the imple­ment­a­tion of any remedi­al works required dur­ing the con­struc­tion peri­od; e) Meas­ures to ensure that all affected pub­lic roads are kept free of mud and debris arising from the devel­op­ment; f) Meas­ures to take account of cyc­lists using the B970 pro­moted cycle route and cyc­lists, ped­es­tri­ans and oth­er users trav­el­ing between Boat of Garten and oth­er pro­motes paths and routes; g) As deemed neces­sary by the Roads Oper­a­tions Man­ager, a con­cluded agree­ment in accord­ance with Sec­tion 96 of the Roads (Scot­land) Act under which the developer will be respons­ible for the repair of any dam­age to the loc­al road net­work attrib­ut­able to con­struc­tion related traffic. Should an agree­ment be required, pre- start and post-con­struc­tion road con­di­tion sur­veys shall be car­ried out by the developer to the sat­is­fac­tion of the roads author­ity. The sub­mis­sion of an appro­pri­ate fin­an­cial bond accept­able to the Coun­cil may also be necessary.

There­after the con­struc­tion of the devel­op­ment shall be imple­men­ted in accord­ance with those approved details, unless oth­er­wise approved in writ­ing by the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity act­ing as Plan­ning Author­ity in con­sulta­tion with the Roads