CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 25/09/2020

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

DEVEL­OP­MENT PROPOSED: Con­struc­tion of enclos­ures, sit­ing of stor­age con­tain­er, erec­tion of fen­cing at High­land Wild­life Park, Kin­craig, High­land, PH21 INL

REF­ER­ENCE: 2020/0177/DET

APPLIC­ANT: Mr Steph­en Plowman

DATE CALLED-IN: 10 August 2020

RECOM­MEND­A­TION: Approve sub­ject to conditions

CASE OFFICER: Katie Crerar, Plan­ning Officer

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 25/09/2020

SITE DESCRIP­TION, PRO­POS­AL AND HISTORY

Site Descrip­tion

1. The applic­a­tion site lies with­in the High­land Wild­life Park which is loc­ated 3km south of Kin­craig. The High­land Wild­life Park is an estab­lished 105 Hec­tare safari park run by the Roy­al Zoolo­gic­al Soci­ety of Scot­land. It is home to a wide range of nat­ive and non-nat­ive anim­al spe­cies which vis­it­ors can come to see. The Wild­life Park takes its main access from the B9152 and the site is largely a mix­ture of grass­land, scrub and wood­land with a vari­ety of anim­al enclos­ures and lim­ited built devel­op­ment (con­cen­trated in the south west). There is a large cir­cu­lar main drive through the reserve cov­er­ing the north and east­ern part of the Wild­life Park in a large cir­cuit that con­nects to the main vis­it­or hub (in the south west) with a café, shop and ped­es­tri­an paths con­nect­ing dif­fer­ent anim­al enclos­ures. There is a main sur­faced vehicle track which runs through the open reserve part of the park. The applic­a­tion site is loc­ated in the north of the Wild­life Park that is not accessed by the public.

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​l​i​n​e​-​a​p​p​l​i​c​a​t​i​o​n​s​/​a​p​p​l​i​c​a​t​i​o​n​D​e​t​a​i​l​s​.​d​o​?​a​c​t​i​v​e​T​a​b​=​s​u​m​m​a​r​y​&​k​e​y​V​a​l​=​Q​E​J​H​S​X​S​I​0CH00

Title	Draw­ing Num­ber	Date on Plan*	Date Received
*Loc­a­tion Plan, 1:2250		24/07/2020	10/08/2020
*SWA­forLife Site plan	SWA24072020/SP	24/07/2020	10/08/2020
*SWA­forLife Bio secure fence detail	SWA24072020/FE NCE	24/07/2020	10/08/2020
*SWA­forLife Breed­ing Unit Plan	SWA24072020/01	24/07/2020	10/08/2020
*SWA­forLife Breed­ing Unit End Elev­a­tion (02)	SWA24072020/02	24/07/2020	10/08/2020
*SWA­forLife Breed­ing Unit End Elev­a­tion (03)	SWA24072020/03	24/07/2020	10/08/2020
*SWA­forLife Breed­ing Unit Front Elevation	SWA24072020/03	24/07/2020	10/08/2020
*SWA­forLife Breed­ing Unit Rear Elevation	SWA24072020/04	24/07/2020	10/08/2020
*SWA­forLife Breed­ing Unit iso with dims	SWA24072020/06	24/07/2020	10/08/2020
*SWA­forLife Breed­ing Unit post detail	SWA24072020/08	24/07/2020	10/08/2020
*SWA­forLife bio secure post detail	SWA24072020/09	24/07/2020	10/08/2020
*SWA­forLife Rein­tro­duc­tion pen post detail	SWA24072020/10	24/07/2020	10/08/2020
Tree Sur­vey		31/08/2020	01/09/2020

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 25/09/2020

Title	Draw­ing Num­ber	Date on Plan*	Date Received
*Tree Con­strains Plan 1:400		08/2020	01/09/2020

• 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 full plan­ning per­mis­sion for the con­struc­tion of a Wild­cat breed­ing com­pound required to estab­lish a breed­ing pro­gramme to save Wild­cats from extinc­tion in Scot­land. This applic­a­tion will deliv­er part of the LIFE fun­ded wild­cat rein­tro­duc­tion pro­ject, of which CNPA are a part­ner. The tim­ing of this pro­ject is import­ant to ensure kit­tens reared this year can enter the breed­ing pro­gramme at the Wild­life Park this winter.

2. The applic­a­tion site is loc­ated on the north west­ern edge of the High­land Wild­life Park in an exist­ing ​‘off-show’ anim­al enclos­ure cur­rently being used as Wild­cat rein­tro­duc­tion enclos­ures. The site itself extends to 2.97 hec­tares and the pro­ject will com­prise of 12 breed­ing units, 8 fenced pre-release enclos­ures and a stor­age con­tain­er all bound by a bio-secure fence.

3. Access to the devel­op­ment site will be taken from the south east­ern bound­ary from an exist­ing track adja­cent to the pro­posed wood clad stor­age shed.

4. The 12 breed­ing units are tim­ber framed struc­tures with mesh covered pitched roofs and will be built in four blocks of two and one block of four (see Site Plan). The double breed­ing unit extends 29.85m in length by 6m wide and 4.5m high (to the pitch of the roof). In addi­tion, there are small flat roofed annexed enclos­ures attached to each side of the main breed­ing units extend­ing 3m on one side and 1.2m on the other.

5. The block of four breed­ing units will be con­struc­ted using the same design and dimen­sions of the double units arranged in an ​‘L’ shape to fit into the space available.

6. The breed­ing units are all mesh covered to con­tain the wild­cats but will be built on the exist­ing ground hab­it­at to provide a nat­ur­al envir­on­ment for them. The breed­ing units will be grouped in the south east corner of the applic­a­tion site.

7. Adja­cent to the group of breed­ing units, there will be a wood clad stor­age con­tain­er meas­ur­ing 2.6m by 6m on the south east­ern bound­ary of the applic­a­tion site.

8. The pre-release enclos­ures will be situ­ated to the north and west of the breed­ing units and meas­ure approx­im­ately 60m by 20m, with a cent­ral divid­ing fence. They will be fenced using 100 x100mm posts situ­ated 2.4m above ground, dug in to a depth of 1.2m with the base set in post­crete. The posts will be sur­roun­ded by 50x50mm box 14 gauge mesh sunk to a depth of 50cm and set in lean con­crete. At the top of the posts will be 2m angle iron cranks drilled to accom­mod­ate three line wires and the total height of the fen­cing (includ­ing the crank) will be 3 metres.

9. The whole applic­a­tion site is sur­roun­ded by exist­ing bio secure fen­cing. How­ever parts of it will require to be upgraded and/​or filled in to the same spe­cific­a­tions as the pre- release enclos­ures using 100 ×100mm posts 2.4m above ground, and dug in to a depth of 1.2m with the base set in post­crete sur­roun­ded by 50x50mm box 14 gauge mesh sunk to a depth of 50cm and set in lean con­crete. This bio secure fen­cing will have

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 25/09/2020

100mm box Rylock stock net over­lap­ping the lower mesh to the full height of the post and meas­ure a total of 2.4 metres in height.

1. The site is cur­rently a mix­ture of grass­land, juni­per scrub and wood­land. A tree sur­vey under­taken for the site con­cluded that the devel­op­ment can be accom­mod­ated whilst avoid­ing the radi­al Root Pro­tec­tion Areas of the sur­veyed trees. With the use of some tem­por­ary tree pro­tec­tion fen­cing, the pro­pos­al should not lead to any dam­age to the appear­ance or con­ser­va­tion value of the area.

2. The applic­a­tion doesn’t require any ser­vices and any anim­al and food waste from the site will be removed to the exist­ing waste facil­ity at the Wild­life Park.

His­tory

1. There have been a num­ber of small plan­ning applic­a­tions at the High­land Wild­life Park includ­ing erect­ing a poly­tun­nel (09/00032/FULBS), installing a small ped­es­tri­an access (14/02893/FUL), extend­ing the kit­chen build­ing at the café (14/02789/FUL) and con­struct­ing a road and car park (16/04258/FUL). How­ever there is no recent plan­ning his­tory on the spe­cif­ic area of land that this pro­pos­al is located.

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	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	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/LDPI5.pdf

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 25/09/2020

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 I	New Hous­ing Devel­op­ment Non-Stat­utory Guidance
Policy 2	Sup­port­ing Eco­nom­ic Growth Non-Stat­utory Guidance
Policy 3	Sus­tain­able Design 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	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

CON­SULTA­TIONS

Sum­mary of the Main Issues Raised by Consultees

1. Envir­on­ment­al Health raise no objec­tion to the pro­pos­al but note that the applic­ant should ensure that any devel­op­ment com­plies with the site licence conditions.

2. CNPA Land­scape Adviser is sat­is­fied that this pro­pos­al will have min­im­al impact upon the ground veget­a­tion of this area and that the design of the fences and enclos­ures are in keep­ing with oth­er struc­tures in the imme­di­ate area and the wider Wild­life Park. Most of the struc­tures will be largely hid­den with­in the retained scrub cov­er and they advise that there will be no adverse effect upon the land­scape char­ac­ter or visu­al amen­ity of this site or sur­round­ing areas.

3. CNPA Eco­logy Adviser is also sat­is­fied that the pro­pos­al is designed to have min­im­al impact upon the exist­ing wood­land, trees and ground veget­a­tion of this area. The pro­pos­al aims to retain as many trees and as much scrub cov­er (includ­ing juni­per) as pos­sible to provide valu­able cov­er for Wild­cat. The Eco­logy Advisor is sat­is­fied that suf­fi­cient meas­ures are in place to ensure impacts to mature trees are avoided dur­ing construction.

4. The site veget­a­tion is a mix­ture of grass­land, juni­per scrub and open birch wood­land, some of which is already enclosed in exist­ing fences. There is one breed­ing pen that will occupy the juni­per area how­ever very few small (less than 1.0m high) juni­per will have to be removed. Juni­per will be retained with­in the breed­ing pens. The juni­per is of an age that can suc­cess­fully be replanted.

5. The wooded scrub area will have fence lines erec­ted with­in it. How­ever it was again indic­ated that all sig­ni­fic­ant trees will be avoided. There will be some loss of small (less than 2m high) of regen­er­at­ing birch along the fence line. How­ever these are very fre­quent on site and there would be no over­all impact upon the cov­er of the area.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 25/09/2020

1. In respect of pro­tec­ted spe­cies, the area pro­posed for the works is cur­rently fenced and there is a second fence to pre­vent large mam­mals (i.e. fox, badger and otter) enter­ing the site due bio secur­ity risks. There­fore it is highly unlikely that these spe­cies are present with­in the site. The trees are not of such an age or con­di­tion (with large cracks or hol­lows) to sup­port bats and red squir­rels are not recor­ded in this area.

REP­RES­ENT­A­TIONS

1. No rep­res­ent­a­tions have been received.

APPRAIS­AL

The Prin­ciple

1. The prin­ciple of the Wild­cat breed­ing units and asso­ci­ated enclosures/​fencing are con­sidered to fit well with the exist­ing activ­it­ies of the High­land Wild­life Park. This pro­ject seeks to fur­ther expand the con­ser­va­tion work of the Roy­al Zoolo­gic­al Soci­ety of Scot­land and enhance the exist­ing oper­a­tions in terms of con­ser­va­tion of a pro­tec­ted species.

2. The pro­pos­al is designed to be in keep­ing with and com­ple­ment the exist­ing style of the struc­tures and fences already present on the applic­a­tion site and in the wider sur­round­ing Wild­life Park.

3. Over­all, it is con­sidered that the prin­ciple of this this applic­a­tion com­plies with Policy 3: Sus­tain­able Design.

Land­scape

1. The devel­op­ment is loc­ated with­in the exist­ing High­land Wild­life Park and relates well to the rest of the Park. The devel­op­ment site is already fenced with large deer fen­cing (some posts are 100 – 150 square with gate posts of 250 dia­met­er) and the new pro­pos­al will be con­sist­ent with this, com­pris­ing smal­ler fenced enclos­ures and tim­ber framed breed­ing units. This style of fen­cing and enclos­ure is com­mon with­in the Wild­life Park and will not intro­duce a new land­scape feature.

2. The devel­op­ment site already has oth­er sim­il­ar fea­tures. There­fore whilst there would be addi­tion­al fen­cing it will not appear inap­pro­pri­ate or detract from the char­ac­ter of the imme­di­ate and sur­round­ing area.

3. The devel­op­ment will be vis­ible from with­in the Wild­life Park and espe­cially the vehicle cir­cuit of the main reserve. How­ever the design of the breed­ing units and fen­cing will be less vis­ible than exist­ing enclos­ures in the same area (they will not have the green sheet mater­i­al at the top of the fence). There­fore they may be less vis­ible than exist­ing fea­tures. Only one enclos­ure will actu­ally be vis­ible form this road and the rest will be hid­den from view by the topography.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 25/09/2020

1. The views from out­with the Wild­life Park are lim­ited and over some dis­tance. There­fore, there will be no adverse effect upon the visu­al amen­ity. The pro­pos­al is con­sidered to com­ply with Policy 5: Landscape.

Eco­logy / Envir­on­ment­al Impacts

1. The devel­op­ment is unlikely to have any sig­ni­fic­ant adverse envir­on­ment­al or eco­lo­gic­al impacts. The site veget­a­tion is a mix­ture of grass­land, juni­per scrub and open birch wood­land, some of which is already enclosed in exist­ing fences. Juni­per will be retained with­in the breed­ing pens to provide nat­ur­al hab­it­at for the Wild­cats. Any small scale dis­turb­ance by vehicles will be min­im­al and should regen­er­ate naturally.

2. The wooded scrub area will have fence lines erec­ted with­in it. A Tree Sur­vey was under­taken which set out that the pro­pos­al will avoid the radi­al Root Pro­tec­tion Areas of the sur­veyed trees on the site and whilst some tem­por­ary tree pro­tec­tion fen­cing may be required, there should not be any dam­age to sig­ni­fic­ant trees on the site. There may be some lim­ited loss of regen­er­at­ing birch how­ever these are very fre­quent on site and would not impact upon the cov­er of the area.

3. There are unlikely to be any pro­tec­ted spe­cies at the site because of exist­ing fen­cing and the devel­op­ment itself will fur­ther the con­ser­va­tion of wild­cat which are a pro­tec­ted spe­cies. The pro­pos­al is con­sidered to com­ply with Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Heritage.

CON­CLU­SION

1. It is con­sidered that this pro­pos­al for the con­struc­tion of Wild­cat breed­ing units and enclos­ures is accept­able in land use plan­ning terms. The prin­ciple, char­ac­ter and design of the pro­pos­al is com­pat­ible with the exist­ing struc­tures and oper­a­tions of the High­land Wild­life Park. It is not con­sidered that there will be any sig­ni­fic­ant land­scape or eco­lo­gic­al impacts as a res­ult of the pro­pos­al and there­fore the applic­a­tion is con­sidered to com­ply with the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan policies and is recom­men­ded for approval.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 25/09/2020

RECOM­MEND­A­TION

That Mem­bers of the Com­mit­tee sup­port a recom­mend­a­tion to approve the Con­struc­tion of enclos­ures, sit­ing of stor­age con­tain­er, erec­tion of fen­cing at High­land Wild­life Park, Kin­craig, High­land, PH21 INL for the fol­low­ing 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.

Con­di­tions

1. No devel­op­ment shall com­mence until full details and spe­cific­a­tions of the extern­al fin­ish­ing mater­i­als of the wood clad stor­age con­tain­er have been sub­mit­ted to and approved in writ­ing by the CNPA act­ing as Plan­ning Authority.

   There­after the devel­op­ment shall be imple­men­ted in accord­ance with the approved details.

   Reas­on: To ensure a full assess­ment is under­taken of the appro­pri­ate­ness of the extern­al mater­i­als of the stor­age con­tain­er and the devel­op­ment will not adversely impact upon the land­scape set­ting of the devel­op­ment site in accord­ance with Policy 3: Sus­tain­able Design and Policy 5: Land­scape of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015.

2. No devel­op­ment shall com­mence until details of the tree pro­tec­tion meas­ures have been sub­mit­ted to and approved in writ­ing by the CNPA act­ing as Plan­ning Authority.

   There­after the devel­op­ment shall be imple­men­ted in accord­ance with the approved details.

   Reas­on: To ensure the devel­op­ment will not adversely impact upon exist­ing trees and the land­scape set­ting of the devel­op­ment site in accord­ance with Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Her­it­age and Policy 5: Land­scape of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015.

Inform­at­ives

1. The devel­op­ment hereby approved must com­mence with­in 3 years of the date of this decision notice. If devel­op­ment has not com­menced with­in this peri­od then this plan­ning per­mis­sion will lapse.

2. The per­son under­tak­ing the devel­op­ment is required to give the Plan­ning Author­ity pri­or writ­ten noti­fic­a­tion of the date which it is inten­ded to com­mence the devel­op­ment. Attached to this decision notice is a Notice of Ini­ti­ation of Devel­op­ment for com­ple­tion and sub­mis­sion. Sub­mis­sion of this inform­a­tion assists

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 25/09/2020

the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Mon­it­or­ing and Enforce­ment Officer in mon­it­or­ing act­ive work with­in the area to ensure com­pli­ance with the approved details and to identi­fy and cor­rect any poten­tial prob­lems, as they arise, rather than later when it may be more dif­fi­cult and more costly to rec­ti­fy. Fail­ure to give notice would con­sti­tute a breach of plan­ning con­trol which may res­ult in enforce­ment action being taken.

1. Fol­low­ing com­ple­tion of the devel­op­ment, a noti­fic­a­tion of com­ple­tion shall, as soon as prac­tic­able, be giv­en to the Plan­ning Author­ity. Attached to this decision notice is a Notice of Com­ple­tion of Devel­op­ment for com­ple­tion and sub­mis­sion. Sub­mis­sion of this form will assist the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Mon­it­or­ing and Enforce­ment Officer in mak­ing a final inspec­tion and check­ing com­pli­ance with the approved draw­ings and con­di­tions. If the devel­op­ment hereby approved is to be car­ried out in phases, then a notice of com­ple­tion should be sub­mit­ted at the com­ple­tion of each phase.

The map on the first page of this report has been pro­duced to aid in the stat­utory pro­cess of deal­ing with plan­ning applic­a­tions. The map is to help identi­fy the site and its sur­round­ings and to aid Plan­ning Officers, Com­mit­tee Mem­bers and the Pub­lic in the determ­in­a­tion of the pro­pos­al. Maps shown in the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Report can only be used for the pur­poses of the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee. Any oth­er use risks infringing Crown Copy­right and may lead to pro­sec­u­tion or civil pro­ceed­ings. Maps pro­duced with­in this Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Report can only be repro­duced with the express per­mis­sion of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity and oth­er Copy­right hold­ers. This per­mis­sion must be gran­ted in advance.