Item7AALaurelBank20230007DET

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 10/03/2023

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

DEVEL­OP­MENT PRO­POSED: Erec­tion of 22 self-cater­ing apart­ments, shops, hotel and under­ground park­ing at Land 80m south-west Of Moun­tain Café, Grampi­an Road, Aviemore

REF­ER­ENCE: 2023/0007/DET

APPLIC­ANT: Upland Devel­op­ments Ltd

DATE CALLED-IN: 9 Janu­ary 2023

RECOM­MEND­A­TION: Approve sub­ject to conditions

CASE OFFICER: Alan Atkins — Plan­ning Officer

CNPA Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Applic­a­tion Site 0 20 40 Meters N 80

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 10/03/2023

SITE DESCRIP­TION, PRO­POS­AL AND HIS­TORY Site Description

1. The applic­a­tion site is loc­ated with­in the centre of Aviemore and lies on the west side of Grampi­an Road (the B9152), the main thor­ough­fare through the vil­lage. It is a brown­field site cov­er­ing an area of approx­im­ately 0.807 hec­tares. There were pre­vi­ously indi­vidu­al build­ings includ­ing two res­id­en­tial prop­er­ties (a Vic­tori­an villa known as Laurel Bank and a more con­tem­por­ary bun­ga­low Meall Buidhe), a former BT exchange build­ing and a scout hall loc­ated on the site. To the north of the site is an area that was used as a small fair­ground for young­er chil­dren. The build­ings have been demol­ished and the site has now been cleared. A num­ber of trees have also been removed from the site.

2. A ped­es­tri­an foot­way runs along the south­ern bound­ary of the site with the Tesco super­mar­ket car park lying bey­ond. The rear bound­ary (west­ern bound­ary) of the site is bounded by a private access road which serves the Aviemore High­land resort. The site gradu­ally falls from this bound­ary towards its front­age which runs along Grampi­an Road. There is a steep fall in the middle of the site where it levels and adjoins the Milton Burn to the north­ern bound­ary. A steep embank­ment lies bey­ond with the car park for an out­door equip­ment shop and a pizzer­ia lying bey­ond that on a high­er ground level.

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=RNYO4YSI0CP0 0

Title Draw­ing Date on Date Num­ber Plan* Received Loc­a­tion Plan AVI-NOR- 22/02/2020 06/01/2023 ZZ-XX- DR-A-0- 0001 Site Lay­out Plan AVI-NOR- 22/02/2020 06/01/2023 ZZ-XX- DR-A-0002 Site Level Plan 191083 – 903 13/08/2020 06/01/2023

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 10/03/2023

Elev­a­tion Plan (west and north AVI-NOR- 06/01/2023 elev­a­tions of self-cater­ing ZZ-XX- apart­ments) DR-A-0011 Elev­a­tions Plan (east and south AVI-NOR- 06/01/2023 elev­a­tions of self – cater­ing ZZ-XX- apart­ments) DR-A-0012 Elev­a­tions Plan (hotel) AVI-NOR- 06/01/2023 ZZ-XX- DR-A-0031 Elev­a­tions Sheet I (hotel) AVI-NOR- 06/01/2023 ZZ-XX- DR-A-0030 Floor Plans (self — cater­ing AVI-NOR- 06/01/2023 apart­ments) ZZ-XX- DR-A-0010 Gen­er­al Floor Plan and Sec­tions 191083- 06/01/2023 000-CAM- DR-C-001 Gen­er­al Plan, Base­ment Level AVI-NOR- 06/01/2023 (Hotel) ZZ-XX- DR-A-0020 Ground Floor Plan (Hotel) AVI-NOR- 06/01/2023 ZZ-XX- DR-A-0021 First Floor Plan (Hotel) AVI-NOR- 06/01/2023 ZZ-XX- DR-A-0022 Second Floor Plan (Hotel) AVI-NOR- ⁰⁶⁄₀₁.2023 ZZ-XX- DR-A-0023 Third Floor Plan (Hotel) AVI-NOR- 06/01/2023 ZZ-XX- DR-A-0024 Roof Plan AVI-NOR- 06/01/2023 ZZ-XX- DR-A-0025 Topo­graph­ic­al Plan CTCH- 06/01/2023 J3429-003 Land­scap­ing Plan UDL100.21 06/01/2023 LM-01 Land­scap­ing Pro­pos­al Plan UDL100.21 06/01/2023 SL-02

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 10/03/2023

Land­scap­ing Plan UDL100.21 06/01/2023 SL-02 Visu­al­isa­tion Sheet I AVI-NOR- 06/01/2023 ZZ-XX- DR-A-0040 Visu­al­isa­tion Sheet 2 AVI-NOR- 06/01/2023 ZZ-XX- DR-A-0041 Sec­tion Plan A191083- 04/08/2021 06/01/2023 906 Sec­tion Plan 191083 – 907 05/04/2022 06/01/2023 Drain­age Lay­out Plan 191083- 13÷0÷2020 06/01/2023 905REV12 Gen­er­al Plan — Roads Lay­out Plan 191033 – 904 13/08/2020 06/01/2023 Sup­port­ing Inform­a­tion Arbor­i­cul­tur­al Meth­od State­ment 100186020 27/05/2021 06/01/2023 Design State­ment 100186024 06/01/2023 Flood Risk Assess­ment 100186032 06/01/2023 Flood Risk Assess­ment 100186034 06/01/2023 Soft Land­scap­ing Works 100186053 24/11/2022 06/01/2023 Tree Sched­ule 100186058 06/01/2023 Swept Path Ana­lys­is 91083−000− 13/08/2020 06/01/2023 CAM-DR‑C CEMP 100186405 01/11/2022 06/01/2023 Drain­age Impact Assess­ment 100186025 01/11/2022 06.01.2023 Trans­port Assess­ment 100187257 01/01/2023 01/02/2023 Tree Pro­tec­tion Plan 1249-TPP 27/05/2021 06/01/2023 Otter Sur­vey 01/06/2021 06/01/2023 *Where no spe­cif­ic day of month has been provided on the plan, the sys­tem defaults to the 1^st of the month.

1. The applic­a­tion seeks con­sent for a mixed — use devel­op­ment of 22 self-cater­ing hol­i­day apart­ments with retail units at ground floor level and an 83 bed­room hotel with asso­ci­ated accesses and parking.

2. The apart­ment block will have an ​‘L’ shaped con­fig­ur­a­tion, run­ning along the south and west­ern bound­ar­ies. The build­ing will have a simple design with a stepped form to address the change in levels over the site and design fea­tures to define the dif­fer­ent storeys. It will have a pitched roof clad in grey con­crete roof tiles and will be fin­ished in tim­ber effect and met­al clad­ding pan­els and off-white render. 6 retail units will be provided at ground floor level, 5 with­in the block run­ning along the south­ern bound­ary and a lar­ger one along the west­ern bound­ary. The first floor with provide 12 self — cater­ing units with 10 units on the second floor. The apart­ments will provide twenty, 2 bed/​4 per­son and two,

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 10/03/2023

3 bed/​6 per­son units. Access will be via the pub­lic space to the front of the development.

1. The hotel will be loc­ated to the north of the site, with base­ment car­park­ing which has been incor­por­ated in response to the topo­graphy of this part of the site. The hotel offers 83 bed­rooms with ancil­lary accom­mod­a­tion, includ­ing a bar and a sep­ar­ate din­ing room/​restaurant. Four double bed­rooms with en-suites with­in the hotel will be ded­ic­ated to staff accom­mod­a­tion. A simple, func­tion­al design has also been adop­ted. A semi-cir­cu­lar, single story glazed ele­ment with a ter­race is pro­posed to the elev­a­tion front­ing Grampi­an Road provid­ing addi­tion­al seat­ing for the din­ing area. The extern­al fin­ishes will be tim­ber effect clad­ding, off white render and grey con­crete roof tiles to the pitched roof.

2. The remain­ing cent­ral part of the site will form a ​‘court­yard’ space which will provide car park­ing and ser­vi­cing. A smal­ler, more form­al pub­lic realm space will be formed to the front of the court­yard to the east of the site, front­ing Grampi­an Road and the space to the front of the apart­ment block’s gable, also front­ing Grampi­an Road, and will provide an oppor­tun­ity for fur­ther pub­lic realm space. This will be land­scaped and will include seat­ing and cycle park­ing provision.

3. The devel­op­ment will neces­sit­ate the remov­al of approx­im­ately three trees. How­ever, the major­ity of trees on site, which are prin­cip­ally loc­ated along the edge of the Milton Burn, will be retained. Fur­ther plant­ing is pro­posed through­out the site with detailed land­scape pro­pos­als hav­ing be provided.

4. The exist­ing access off Grampi­an Road (the B9152) will be used for vehicle access to the site, tak­ing the form of a single bell mouth enhanced pri­or­ity junc­tion. The junc­tion and access road will be designed to adopt­able stand­ards and pro­moted for adop­tion by the Coun­cil with min­im­um vis­ib­il­ity splays of 2.4 metres x 60 metres. Giv­en the mix of uses the access road will also be designed to indus­tri­al stand­ards. The exist­ing ped­es­tri­an foot­path that runs along the south­ern edge of the site will be upgraded and a pend will be formed on the east­ern bound­ary to allow for enhanced ped­es­tri­an move­ments between the vil­lage and the High­land Resort.

5. There are two sep­ar­ate car park­ing areas pro­posed which will provide a total of 87 car park­ing spaces. One lies to the north of the site with­in the base­ment of the hotel build­ing provid­ing a total of 43 spaces and where there will be 2 access­ible spaces loc­ated. The oth­er one is to the south and will provide a total of 44 stand­ard spaces, 4 dis­abled spaces and 5 elec­tric vehicle char­ging spaces to sup­port the self — cater­ing units and retail ele­ment of the development.

6. The site will be ser­viced by exist­ing Scot­tish Water sew­ers although diver­sions will be required to accom­mod­ate the devel­op­ment. Sur­face water will be dealt with through the use of infilt­ra­tion devices used in accord­ance with the CIRIA pub­lic­a­tion ​‘SuDS Design Manu­al’. These will include atten­u­ation trenches at lower ground levels and for roof water areas and por­ous pav­ing for the high­er ground levels.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 10/03/2023

1. Plans and visu­al­isa­tions of the pro­pos­al are attached as Appendix 1.

His­tory

1. Applic­a­tion 2021/0105/DET, for the erec­tion of 23 self-cater­ing apart­ments, shops, hotel and under­ground park­ing, plan­ning per­mis­sion was refused on 24/06/2022. Earli­er con­sents for the redevel­op­ment of the site expired a dec­ade ago. Applic­a­tion 04/211/OUTBS gran­ted Janu­ary 2006 for Devel­op­ment of Retail and Com­munity Use with Asso­ci­ated Park­ing and 09/011/CP that exten­ded the dur­a­tion of plan­ning per­mis­sion of that con­sent for three years from May 2009.

Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Assessment

1. An Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al [HRA] has been under­taken to con­sider the effects of the pro­pos­als upon the con­ser­va­tion object­ives of the Natura Sites as lis­ted with­in the doc­u­ment attached at Appendix 2.

2. In terms of the Kin­veachy Forest SPA, all con­ser­va­tion object­ives can be met. The pro­posed devel­op­ment, how­ever, has the poten­tial to pre­vent the con­ser­va­tion object­ives being met for the River Spey SAC. This would occur due to the very high risk of sed­i­ment release enter­ing the Milton Burn that flows dir­ectly into the River Spey dur­ing con­struc­tion work. This would affect the water qual­ity relied upon by qual­i­fy­ing spe­cies and poten­tially smoth­er hab­it­ats sup­port­ing the qual­i­fy­ing spe­cies and their food, there­fore affect­ing dis­tri­bu­tion and pop­u­la­tion levels. The applic­ants have sub­mit­ted a Con­struc­tion Envir­on­ment­al Man­age­ment Plan (CEMP) incor­por­at­ing an out­line Con­struc­tion Meth­od State­ment (CMS). This would address the risk of sed­i­ment release through appro­pri­ate pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion and con­trol meas­ures such that pol­lu­tion risk could be min­im­ised. The CEMP also includes spe­cies pro­tec­tion meas­ures that would min­im­ise the risk of dis­turb­ance to otter. The CEMP and CMS must be secured by con­di­tion should plan­ning per­mis­sion be granted.

3. This applic­a­tion is a resub­mis­sion of the applic­a­tion that was refused in June

4. The cur­rent pro­pos­als are of a reduced scale and mass­ing and as such there is a slight reduc­tion in capa­city from 23 to 22 self-cater­ing apart­ments. The amended design will have no sig­ni­fic­ant changes regard­ing impact on the des­ig­nated sites. A review of the HRA for Kin­veachy Forest SPA (and oth­er caper­cail­lie wood­lands) and River Spey SAC has con­sidered that the cur­rent assess­ment (above) remains valid.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 10/03/2023

DEVEL­OP­MENT PLAN CON­TEXT Policies Nation­al Policy Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 (NPF4) Scot­land 2045 POLICY I Tack­ling the Cli­mate and Nature Crises X POLICY 3 Biod­iversity X POLICY 9 Brown­field, Vacant and Derel­ict Land, and X Empty Build­ings POLICY 13 Sus­tain­able Trans­port X POLICY 14 Design, Qual­ity and Place X POLICY 22 Flood Risk and Water Man­age­ment X POLICY 26 Busi­ness and Industry X POLICY 27 City, Town, Loc­al and Com­mer­cial Centres X POLICY 28 Retail X POLICY 30 Tour­ism X 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 I NEW HOUS­ING DEVEL­OP­MENT POLICY 2 SUP­PORT­ING ECO­NOM­IC GROWTH X POLICY 3 DESIGN AND PLACE­MAK­ING X POLICY 4 NAT­UR­AL HER­IT­AGE X POLICY 5 LAND­SCAPE X POLICY 6 THE SIT­ING AND DESIGN OF DIGIT­AL COM­MU­NIC­A­TIONS EQUIP­MENT POLICY 7 RENEW­ABLE ENERGY POLICY 8 OPEN SPACE, SPORT AND RECRE­ATION POLICY 9 CUL­TUR­AL HER­IT­AGE POLICY 10 RESOURCES X POLICY 11 DEVELOPER OBLIGATIONS

1. All new devel­op­ment pro­pos­als require to be assessed in rela­tion to policies con­tained in the adop­ted Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan. The full word­ing of policies can be found 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​-​2​0​2​1​-​w​e​b.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 10/03/2023

Policy I Hous­ing Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance Policy 2 Sup­port­ing Eco­nom­ic Growth Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance X 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 Oblig­a­tions Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance CONSULTATIONS

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

2. SEPA have objec­ted to the pro­pos­als in terms of flood risk as the pro­posed devel­op­ment and land rais­ing falls with­in the func­tion­al flood­plain and is there­fore likely to place build­ings and people at flood risk con­trary to nation­al policy. The scheme should be amended to ensure all built devel­op­ment and land rais­ing is loc­ated out­with the flood risk area. They advise that if the applic­a­tion is to be recom­men­ded for approv­al con­trary to their objec­tion on flood risk, then ref­er­ence must be made to the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning (Noti­fic­a­tion of Applic­a­tions) (Scot­land) Dir­ec­tion 2009 which provides cri­ter­ia for refer­ral to Scot­tish Min­is­ters of such cases. The cur­rent pro­pos­als are also con­trary to Policy 10 of the Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan in that there will be sig­ni­fic­ant earth­works adja­cent to the Aviemore Burn and that this will encroach into the required 6 metre wide buf­fer. A con­di­tion is recom­men­ded that this buf­fer is pro­tec­ted by fen­cing to avoid poten­tial encroachment.

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

4. Scot­tish Water records indic­ate that there is live infra­struc­ture in the prox­im­ity of the devel­op­ment site that may impact on exist­ing Scot­tish Water assets. The applic­ant must identi­fy any poten­tial con­flicts with Scot­tish Water assets and con­tact the Asset Impact Team via the cus­tom­er portal, for an approv­al of the pro­pos­als. Any con­flict with assets iden­ti­fied will be sub­ject to restric­tions on prox­im­ity of con­struc­tion. Writ­ten per­mis­sion must be obtained before any works are star­ted with­in the area of any Scot­tish Water Assets.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 10/03/2023

1. Trans­port Scot­land have stated that they do not pro­pose to advise against the grant­ing of plan­ning permission.

2. Police Scot­land has no objec­tions. How­ever, it is recom­men­ded that the applic­ants fol­low the prin­ciples of Crime Pre­ven­tion through Envir­on­ment­al Design (CPTED) and seek fur­ther assist­ance or advice with any aspect of secur­ity for the devel­op­ment, espe­cially dur­ing the con­struc­tion phase or if CCTV and/​or oth­er elec­tron­ic secur­ity meas­ures are being considered.

3. High­land Coun­cil Flood Risk Man­age­ment Team object to the pro­posed devel­op­ment on the grounds of flood risk. The pro­pos­als require land rais­ing in the iden­ti­fied flood­plain to accom­mod­ate the hotel and car park access ramp. The pro­posed base­ment level of the hotel will have a fin­ished floor level that will be in the flood­plain and at risk of flood­ing. The Flood Risk Man­age­ment Team requires the applic­ant to avoid devel­op­ing in areas iden­ti­fied as being at risk of flood­ing in a I in 200 year plus cli­mate change flood event. In terms of drain­age, it is recom­men­ded that a suit­ably worded con­di­tion is included that a detailed drain­age design is sub­mit­ted for approv­al pri­or to works com­men­cing on site.

4. High­land Coun­cil Trans­port Plan­ning Team objects to the pro­posed devel­op­ment on the fol­low­ing grounds: a) Insuf­fi­cient car park­ing; b) Trip gen­er­a­tion has not been car­ried out fol­low­ing best prac­tice guidelines; c) Trip gen­er­a­tion is under­es­tim­ated; d) Impact of devel­op­ment traffic on Grampi­an Road has not been assessed; e) Scale of devel­op­ment will cause traffic man­age­ment issues on Grampi­an Road; f) Road safety issues relat­ing to HGVs mix­ing with ped­es­tri­ans; g) Addi­tion­al traffic on Grampi­an Road will pose road safety issues for vul­ner­able road users; h) Site lay­out does not con­form to prin­ciples in Design­ing Streets; i) Cycle Pro­vi­sion does not meet Coun­cil Guidelines; j) No evid­ence to show suf­fi­cient level of ser­vice for pub­lic trans­port; k) Meas­ures to pre­vent sur­face water flow­ing onto adop­ted road are inad­equate; l) No assess­ment of the amount of stor­age bins for waste and recyc­ling has been provided. This is required to demon­strate that the min­im­um capa­cit­ies for com­mer­cial and retail devel­op­ments are provided; m) Ser­vi­cing arrange­ments do not com­ply with Coun­cil guidelines; n) The revised Trans­port Assess­ment fails to ref­er­ence the pro­pos­als for increas­ing act­ive travel as set out in the Act­ive Aviemore Report; o) The policy sec­tion of the Trans­port Assess­ment is out of date and fails to ref­er­ence the Nation­al Trans­port Strategy 2000.

5. In addi­tion, the Trans­port Plan­ning Team has stated that, giv­en that the devel­op­ment con­sists entirely of hol­i­day accom­mod­a­tion, the Coun­cil con­siders this to be a private devel­op­ment and will, there­fore, not adopt any of the intern­al access roads.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 10/03/2023

1. The High­land Coun­cil Forestry Officer has not responded.

2. CNPA Out­door Access Team recom­mends that the devel­op­ment sup­ports the deliv­ery of recom­mend­a­tions made in the Act­ive Aviemore Report. The Out­door Access Team agree with the sub­mit­ted Design State­ment regard­ing the poten­tial to util­ise the core path as a means of access, whilst max­im­ising con­nectiv­ity into the loc­al non-motor­ised net­work. Fur­ther­more, there are oppor­tun­it­ies to enhance the core path.

3. CNPA Land­scape Officer has stated states that the devel­op­ment site has land­scape capa­city for the type of mixed devel­op­ment pro­posed, how­ever, there are sev­er­al land­scape and visu­al design sens­it­iv­it­ies asso­ci­ated with the site. In addi­tion to its loc­a­tion with­in the Nation­al Park, it is an import­ant and prom­in­ent loc­a­tion with­in Aviemore, and its redevel­op­ment should relate to exist­ing build­ings, its topo­graphy and the reten­tion of key views that all con­trib­ute to the dis­tinct Spe­cial Land­scape Qual­it­ies and sense of place. There is a need to rein­force and enhance its front­age onto Grampi­an Road and pro­tect and enhance the adja­cent Milton Burn.

4. It is their view that the devel­op­ment would res­ult in some sig­ni­fic­ant adverse land­scape and visu­al effects. In sum­mary these would be: a) The scale of the build­ings would con­trast with nearby build­ings along Grampi­an Road. These would appear pro­por­tion­ally massive and over­bear­ing, obstruct­ing key views. b) The lay­out of the pro­pos­al con­trasts with the loc­al land­scape pat­tern and lin­ear streets­cape of Grampi­an Road. c) The archi­tec­tur­al design does not respond to the dis­tinct land­scape char­ac­ter or loc­al ver­nacu­lar. d) New tree, hedge, shrub and grass­land plant­ing is wel­comed, how­ever, is unam­bi­tious and the design concept and struc­ture is unclear and not appro­pri­ate for this prom­in­ent site. There is insuf­fi­cient space provided for the exist­ing trees, pro­posed trees and green space. e) The devel­op­ment would have a det­ri­ment­al impact on the Milton Burn. f) The pro­posed small pub­lic area of open space will not provide a high qual­ity land­scape design in terms of rein­for­cing or enhan­cing the dis­tinct land­scape char­ac­ter­ist­ics, visu­al amen­ity and SLQs of Aviemore.

5. CNPA Eco­logy Officer has stated that there may be a slight impact on the eco­logy of the site, due to the pro­posed loss of three trees. To pro­tect exist­ing trees on site, a con­di­tion is recom­men­ded that the Tree Pro­tec­tion Plan (dated 27^th May 2021) and Arbor­i­cul­tur­al Meth­od State­ment (dated 27^th May 2021) should be imple­men­ted in full.

6. The pre­vi­ous eco­lo­gic­al sur­veys did not con­firm the pres­ence of any pro­tec­ted spe­cies (otter or rep­tiles). How­ever, the hab­it­ats on site are assessed as being suit­able for sup­port­ing these spe­cies and any breed­ing birds that are com­mon with­in the loc­al area. A con­di­tion is recom­men­ded that a pre­con­struc­tion check ।।

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 10/03/2023

for rep­tiles is under­taken for any veget­a­tion clear­ance and ground works dur­ing months when rep­tiles may be act­ive. Any poten­tial hiber­nacula will be hand checked by a suit­ably exper­i­enced eco­lo­gist. A fur­ther con­di­tion is recom­men­ded that the Spe­cies Pro­tec­tion Plans in Appendix C of the Con­struc­tion Envir­on­ment Meth­od State­ment (CEMP) 12/04/2022 should be imple­men­ted in full.

1. In addi­tion, there is poten­tial for an impact on breed­ing birds if the pro­posed works des­troy act­ive nests. There­fore, veget­a­tion clear­ance and ground­works should com­mence out with the bird breed­ing sea­son (March — Septem­ber). Altern­at­ively, if this is not pos­sible, any veget­a­tion clear­ance should be pre­ceded with a nest­ing bird check, com­pleted by a suit­ably exper­i­enced eco­lo­gist with­in 24 to 48 hours of clearance.

2. The devel­op­ment site lies adja­cent to the Aviemore Burn, which could be sub­ject to pol­lu­tion and run- off. In addi­tion, the Milton Burn feeds into the River Spey Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion (SAC) approx­im­ately 200m down­stream of the devel­op­ment site. There could be a sig­ni­fic­ant impact in the event of a pol­lu­tion incid­en, but this is mit­ig­ated against through the pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion meas­ures set out in the CEMP. In order to pro­tect the water envir­on­ment, it is recom­men­ded that a con­di­tion is included that the CEMP is imple­men­ted in full.

3. There are oppor­tun­it­ies to enhance the eco­logy of the site through the plant­ing of nat­ive trees and shrubs around the site, and the cre­ation of a wild­flower mead­ow. In order to fur­ther enhance the biod­iversity of the site, a con­di­tion is recom­men­ded that bat and bird boxes are installed through­out the site.

4. Aviemore and Vicin­ity Com­munity Coun­cil has provided com­ments object­ing to the pro­pos­als (full copy avail­able to view at Appendix 3): a) The pro­posed build­ings, par­tic­u­larly the hotel, will dom­in­ate the centre of Aviemore and could lead to over­de­vel­op­ment. b) The pro­pos­als will res­ult in a high volume of traffic, with asso­ci­ated con­ges­tion and park­ing issues. c) There is con­cern over the impact of vehicles enter­ing and leav­ing the site onto Grampi­an Road. The major­ity of the pro­posed pub­lic gath­er­ing space will be used up by car park­ing. d) The pro­posed self-cater­ing flats should be avail­able for rent or afford­able ownership.

REP­RES­ENT­A­TIONS

1. The applic­a­tion was advert­ised when it was ori­gin­ally sub­mit­ted and five rep­res­ent­a­tions of objec­tion to the pro­pos­als were received. Fol­low­ing the sub­mis­sion of amend­ments, sub­sequent neigh­bour noti­fic­a­tion and pub­li­city, a fur­ther 10 rep­res­ent­a­tions of objec­tion were sub­mit­ted. Cop­ies of all the third- party rep­res­ent­a­tions can be found at Appendix 4. The fol­low­ing is a sum­mary of the objections:

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 10/03/2023

a) The pro­posed devel­op­ment will lead to the fur­ther over-devel­op­ment of Aviemore; b) There is an insuf­fi­cient level of avail­able, loc­al staff accom­mod­a­tion for this devel­op­ment; c) Lack of afford­able hous­ing to address the needs of the loc­al com­munity and hous­ing crisis in the area; d) In terms of its size and scale, the pro­posed devel­op­ment will not be in keep­ing with the sur­round­ing area; e) The pro­pos­als will lead to an increase in traffic con­ges­tion; f) The pro­posed five storey build­ing is too high for Aviemore town centre; g) There is a lack of green space pro­posed for the devel­op­ment site; h) The height of the pro­posed build­ings will res­ult in a loss of views; i) There is insuf­fi­cient park­ing pro­posed for a devel­op­ment of this size, and there is a lack of avail­able park­ing in Aviemore as a whole; j) The pro­posed devel­op­ment will detract from the char­ac­ter of the main street of Aviemore; k) The pro­pos­als will neg­at­ively impact on the Milton Brun flood­plain; l) The devel­op­ment will under­mine the func­tion­ing of the Milton Burn as a nature net­work; m) The pro­pos­als have the poten­tial to impact on the biod­iversity of the Milton Burn, and adja­cent River Spey SAC; n) The devel­op­ment is with­in, and will res­ult in changes to, the func­tion­al flood­plain of the Milton Burn.; o) Cumu­lat­ive impact of the devel­op­ment on the des­ig­nated site down­stream; p) Impact on pro­tec­ted spe­cies (otter, lamprey, stone­fly); q) Insuf­fi­cient sur­vey work under­taken, and full suite of sur­veys required; r) Increased risk of pol­lu­tion and flood­ing giv­en insuf­fi­cient sur­face water drain­age details; s) SuDS design not fully sustainable.

APPRAIS­AL

1. The main plan­ning con­sid­er­a­tions are con­sidered to be the prin­ciple of devel­op­ment; land­scape, sit­ing and design; envir­on­ment­al issues; amen­ity; flood­ing and sur­face water man­age­ment; access, park­ing and sus­tain­able travel and developer contributions.

Prin­ciple

1. 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 high foot­fall retail, com­mer­cial and leis­ure devel­op­ment where they are loc­ated with­in an iden­ti­fied town centre. The applic­a­tion site lies with­in Aviemore’s town centre bound­ary and is well located

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 10/03/2023

in terms of access to ser­vices and amen­it­ies. The LDP iden­ti­fies the site as a mixed-use devel­op­ment oppor­tun­ity. The site which was formerly occu­pied by sporad­ic­ally loc­ated res­id­en­tial units and a small fun­fair has now been cleared and offers a suit­able loc­a­tion for this type of devel­op­ment which will provide facil­it­ies with­in the heart of the vil­lage and would con­trib­ute to the vital­ity and viab­il­ity of this exist­ing town centre.

1. Policy 2.2: Tour­ist Accom­mod­a­tion of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 sup­ports tour­ist related accom­mod­a­tion where it has no adverse envir­on­ment­al or amen­ity impacts on the site or neigh­bour­ing areas, where it con­trib­utes to/​supports the pro­vi­sion of a wide range of vis­it­or accom­mod­a­tion options includ­ing low cost accom­mod­a­tion and sup­ports or con­trib­utes to a year round eco­nomy. The devel­op­ment of 22 self-cater­ing two and three bed­room hol­i­day apart­ments and the 83 bed­room hotel with ancil­lary facil­it­ies will provide a mix of tour­ist accom­mod­a­tion options. This in turn will attract a range of vis­it­ors to the area through­out the year.

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 2021 sub­ject to com­pli­ance with oth­er rel­ev­ant Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan policies.

Land­scape, Sit­ing and Design

1. Policy 5: Land­scape of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 pre­sumes against devel­op­ment that does not con­serve and enhance the land­scape char­ac­ter and spe­cial qual­it­ies of the Nation­al Park and in par­tic­u­lar the set­ting of the pro­posed devel­op­ment. Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 requires design state­ments to accom­pany all devel­op­ment pro­pos­als to demon­strate the pro­pos­als have been designed to be sym­path­et­ic to the tra­di­tion­al pat­tern and char­ac­ter of the sur­round­ing area, loc­al ver­nacu­lar and loc­al dis­tinct­ive­ness whilst encour­aging innov­a­tion in design and use of mater­i­als. Devel­op­ment should seek to use mater­i­als and land­scap­ing that will com­ple­ment the set­ting of the development.

2. The site has been cleared but his­tor­ic­ally had a lim­ited num­ber of build­ings on it with garden spaces. The pro­posed devel­op­ment will con­trast sig­ni­fic­antly with its cur­rent open char­ac­ter and with pre­vi­ous devel­op­ment on the site but would also be con­sist­ent with a busy town centre loc­a­tion. Aviemore has developed over time in a prin­cip­ally lin­ear form, with an assor­ted com­pos­i­tion of archi­tec­tur­al styles and pub­lic realm com­ple­men­ted by vary­ing land­scape ele­ments. The scale and lay­out of the pro­posed devel­op­ment, how­ever, has had to take ref­er­ence from the con­straints of this par­tic­u­lar site – its form, topo­graphy, eco­lo­gic­al value and its loc­a­tion and access off the key route (Grampi­an Road B9152) through Aviemore.

3. Although the Grampi­an Road front­age of Aviemore already has a wide vari­ety of forms of devel­op­ment in the vicin­ity, it is recog­nised that this devel­op­ment will

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 10/03/2023

be indi­vidu­al in char­ac­ter and appear­ance and will be in con­trast to the loc­al land­scape pat­tern and lin­ear streets­cape. The most sig­ni­fic­ant dif­fer­ence in the pro­posed devel­op­ment is the height of build­ings which are a storey or more high­er than most build­ings nearby, though not incon­sist­ent with a busy town centre loc­a­tion. Oth­er set­tle­ments in Badenoch and Strath­spey that grew before Aviemore, include taller build­ings front­ing dir­ectly to their main streets. The height of build­ings will inev­it­ably have some impact on views across the site towards the hills west of the A9. Fol­low­ing the refus­al of the pre­vi­ous scheme, a fur­ther assess­ment of the site levels and the over­all scale and mass­ing of the apart­ment block and hotel has res­ul­ted in a reduc­tion in ridge height of approx­im­ately 2.7 metres of the apart­ment block and 1.7 metres of the hotel. This is con­sidered to have addressed con­cerns regard­ing the scale and mass­ing of the devel­op­ment and is more com­men­sur­ate with that of the exist­ing urb­an form of Aviemore.

1. In addi­tion, the gable of the self- cater­ing apart­ment block that fronts Grampi­an Road is set back at top floor level, step­ping down to the open front­age of the ground floor retail units. Sim­il­arly, the hotel gable that fronts onto Grampi­an Road has been set back allow­ing the res­taur­ant to pro­ject bey­ond the gable, thus redu­cing the scale of the devel­op­ment to Grampi­an Road. The mass­ing of the apart­ment block has been fur­ther broken up at the roof line over the access stairs, with reg­u­larly spaced dormer win­dows at the eaves line. Fur­ther­more, the façade has been broken up with pro­ject­ing bal­conies and glazed can­op­ies over the ground floor shops.

2. Because the site is iden­ti­fied for a mixed used devel­op­ment oppor­tun­ity with­in the adop­ted Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan, it was anti­cip­ated that any future redevel­op­ment on this prom­in­ent cent­ral loc­a­tion would be expec­ted to res­ult in a new form of devel­op­ment that would change the char­ac­ter of the streets­cape. The design eth­os is to cre­ate a focal point with­in the town centre. The devel­op­ment will intro­duce uses that are inten­ded to attract people (tour­ist accom­mod­a­tion, res­taur­ants, cafés and shops) and includes a pub­lic amen­ity space front­ing Grampi­an Road. It is envis­aged that this will evolve into a ​‘people gath­er­ing point’ which in turn will cre­ate an inform­al hub with­in the centre of the vil­lage. Giv­en its prom­in­ence and anti­cip­ated status, it is con­sidered essen­tial that the devel­op­ment is of a high stand­ard and incor­por­ates high qual­ity extern­al fin­ishes and land­scap­ing fea­tures to max­im­ise its appeal and encour­age people to vis­it and use the space. Should the applic­a­tion be sup­por­ted it is recom­men­ded that con­di­tions requir­ing fur­ther details of these ele­ments are recom­men­ded to ensure the devel­op­ment is of the qual­ity that will con­trib­ute to the enhance­ment of its surroundings.

3. There are a lim­ited num­ber of trees remain­ing on the site and these are in a nar­row, but visu­ally and eco­lo­gic­ally import­ant ripari­an strip to the east of the site, adja­cent to the Milton Burn. The pro­pos­als identi­fy three of these for remov­al and some meas­ures are pro­posed to pro­tect the remain­ing trees. It is recog­nised that the trees and veget­a­tion with­in this part of the site make a sig­ni­fic­ant con­tri­bu­tion to the site visu­ally and eco­lo­gic­ally. It is recom­men­ded that a con­di­tion is attached to any con­sent requir­ing the sub­mis­sion, and

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 10/03/2023

approv­al, of appro­pri­ate tree pro­tec­tion meas­ures to ensure the reten­tion of these import­ant nat­ur­al land­scape fea­tures of the site.

1. Not­with­stand­ing the con­cerns raised, the pro­pos­al will intro­duce a new form of devel­op­ment on a con­strained, brown field site with­in the town