Item7Appendix2BGeneral20200293DETBridgeOfGairn

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 7 Appendix 2B 26/03/2021

AGENDA ITEM 7

APPENDIX 2B

2020/0293/DET

REP­RES­ENT­A­TIONS GENERAL

From: Colin Sandi­lands To: Plan­ning Online Cc: ​“Jam­ie Pyper” Sub­ject: Rep­res­ent­a­tions: Applic­a­tions APP/2020/2284 and APP/2020/2286 Bridge of Gairn, Bal­later, Aber­deen­shire [STRON-LIVE.FID282663] Date: 07 Decem­ber 2020 11:38:09 Attach­ments: Let­ter to Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil Decem­ber 2020 FINAL(2).pdf Let­ter to Aber­deen­shire Council.PDF

For the atten­tion of Mr Neil Mair

Dear Sirs

Our Cli­ent: Mr R.W. Mitchell, Old Mill, Bridge of Gairn, Bal­later, Aber­deen­shire Rep­res­ent­a­tions: Applic­a­tions APP/2020/2284 and APP/2020/2286 Bridge of Gairn, Bal­later, Aberdeenshire

We act on behalf of Mr R.W. Mitchell, the own­er of the Old Mill, Bridge of Gairn, Aber­deen­shire. Our cli­ent wishes to make rep­res­ent­a­tions in rela­tion to the two plan­ning applic­a­tions iden­ti­fied above. As such, we enclose:

1. A let­ter from ourselves, dated 7 Decem­ber 2020, sum­mar­iz­ing our client’s pos­i­tion; and
2. A let­ter from nineteen47, dated 4 Decem­ber 2020, set­ting out our client’s pos­i­tion in more detail, togeth­er with a copy of our client’s Land Certificate.

A hard copy of the attached cor­res­pond­ence is being posted.

As noted in our let­ter, we would be grate­ful if any com­mu­nic­a­tion could, in the first instance, be dir­ec­ted to our client’s plan­ning con­sult­ant, Mr Pyper of nineteen47.

Regards

Colin Sandi­lands Part­ner & Soli­cit­or Advoc­ate Dir­ect Dial: 01463663389 Mobile: 07794 335950 Fax: 01463 238177 www​.stronachs​.com Stronachs LLP Camas House Fair­ways Busi­ness Park Inverness IV2 6AA

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For the atten­tion of: Mr Neil Mair Chief Plan­ning Officer Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil View­mount Arduth­ie Road Stone­haven AB39 2DQ

By email and post

Our Ref: CS/PS MIT.116.1 Date: 7 Decem­ber 2020

Dear Sir/​Madam

Mr R W Mitchell Rep­res­ent­a­tions: Applic­a­tions APP/2020/2284 and APP/2020/2286 Bridge of Gairn, Bal­later, Aberdeenshire

We act on behalf of Mr R W Mitchell, the own­er of the Old Mill, Bridge of Gairn, Bal­later. Our client’s prop­erty is a res­id­en­tial home imme­di­ately to the North of the applic­a­tion sites.

Our cli­ent wishes to make rep­res­ent­a­tions in rela­tion to the applic­a­tions and has engaged ourselves and plan­ning con­sult­ants, nineteen47, to assist with that. Please find enclosed a let­ter by nineteen47, dated 4 Decem­ber 2020, set­ting out those rep­res­ent­a­tions in detail. Also attached is the title plan referred to in their correspondence.

As noted in the detailed rep­res­ent­a­tions, our cli­ent has lim­ited com­ments in rela­tion to applic­a­tion APP/2020/2284. His obser­va­tions in rela­tion to applic­a­tion APP/2020/2286, whilst set out more fully in the attached cor­res­pond­ence, can be sum­mar­ised as follows:-

• The basis of the applic­a­tion, in terms of Cri­terion 9 of Policy 1 of the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan is questioned.
• Our cli­ent is not opposed in prin­ciple to a new dwell­ing house being con­struc­ted on the site, but there are sig­ni­fic­ant issues in terms of its rela­tion­ship with his prop­erty which it is con­sidered require to be addressed.
• In par­tic­u­lar, it is con­sidered that the pro­posed loc­a­tion of the new dwell­ing would both (1) lack an appro­pri­ate sep­ar­a­tion from our client’s prop­erty and, (2) espe­cially giv­en its elev­ated loc­a­tion above the Old Mill, con­sti­tute an over­bear­ing pres­ence, impact­ing our client’s pri­vacy and cast­ing sig­ni­fic­ant shad­ows on his property.
• In this regard, the applic­a­tion lacks appro­pri­ate inform­a­tion con­cern­ing the rela­tion­ship between the pro­posed dwell­ing and the Old Mill. Sub­ject to con­sid­er­a­tion of any sec­tion­al draw­ings that may be provided to rem­edy this, it may be that a re-sit­ing of the pro­posed dwell­ing in the order of

Stronachs LLP is a lim­ited liab­il­ity part­ner­ship registered in Scot­land: No. SO301806 Registered Office: 28 Albyn Place, Aber­deen AB10 1YL A list of mem­bers of Stronachs LLP is open to inspec­tion at the registered office info@​stronachs.​com Also at: 28 Albyn Place, Aber­deen Ab10 1YL DX AB41 T: 01224 845845 F:01224 845800 www​.stronachs​.com

• 8 10 metres to the South West of its cur­rent pro­posed loc­a­tion would address our client’s concerns.
• The extent of the applicant’s land own­er­ship has been incor­rectly shown on the site loc­a­tion plan, cre­at­ing an inac­cur­ate pic­ture of the rela­tion­ship between our client’s prop­erty and the pro­posed dwelling.

We would be grate­ful if these obser­va­tions, more fully developed in the attached cor­res­pond­ence from nineteen47, could be taken in to account in any con­sid­er­a­tion of Applic­a­tions APP/2020/2284 and APP/2020/2286.

Please dir­ect any com­mu­nic­a­tion in rela­tion to our client’s rep­res­ent­a­tions to Mr Pyper of nineteen47 in the first instance.

Yours faith­fully

Colin Sandi­lands Part­ner & Soli­cit­or Advoc­ate Colin.​sandilands@​stronachs.​com Dir­ect dial 01463663389

Enc

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JP/​01/​n9999

Chief Plan­ning Officer Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil View­mount Arduth­ie Road Stone­haven AB39 2DQ FAO Mr. Neil Mair

nineteen47 CHARTERED TOWN PLAN­NERS & URB­AN DESIGNERS

4^th Decem­ber 2020

Dear Sir/​Madam

Rep­res­ent­a­tions in respect of applic­a­tion APP/2020/2284 Erec­tion of 3 Dwell­ing­houses and Detached Gar­ages and applic­a­tion APP/2020/2286 Erec­tion of Dwell­ing­house and Gar­age — Bridge Of Gairn, Adja­cent To Water­works Bridge Of Gairn Bal­later Aberdeenshire

nineteen47 has been instruc­ted on behalf of Mr. R W Mitchell to sub­mit rep­res­ent­a­tions in respect of the afore­men­tioned applic­a­tions which are cur­rently under con­sid­er­a­tion by the Author­ity. Mr. Mitchell is the own­er of The Old Mill which is a res­id­en­tial prop­erty loc­ated imme­di­ately to north of these applic­a­tions sites, which he has owned since 1978. Mr. Mitchell has a num­ber of obser­va­tions to these applic­a­tions, which it is respect­fully asked are taken into consideration.

With regards to applic­a­tion APP/2020/2284 which pro­poses the erec­tion of 3 dwell­ings, it is accep­ted that this is broadly con­sist­ent with Policy 1 of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015 which states inter alia that new hous­ing devel­op­ment which adds to an exist­ing rur­al group (three or more build­ings) will be con­sidered favour­ably where: a) they con­nect to, rein­force and enhance the char­ac­ter of the group integ­rat­ing with exist­ing built form, pat­tern of exist­ing devel­op­ment; and b) do not add more than one third to the exist­ing num­ber of build­ings in the group with­in the plan peri­od (based on the size of the group on the date of plan adop­tion). This pos­i­tion is also reflec­ted in Policy 1 of the emer­ging Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (2020). Should the Loc­al Plan­ning Author­ity be sat­is­fied that this par­tic­u­lar applic­a­tion sat­is­fies all nor­mal plan­ning con­sid­er­a­tions, then our cli­ent has no fur­ther com­ments to make in respect of these pro­pos­als which appear gen­er­ally sym­path­et­ic to the loc­al area.

In terms of applic­a­tion APP/2020/2286, which relates to the replace­ment of the exist­ing Bothy with a new dwell­ing house (the replace­ment being stated in the applic­a­tion forms rather than the descrip­tion of devel­op­ment as val­id­ated by the Author­ity), we have a num­ber of obser­va­tions which it is asked are taken into consideration.

As a point of prin­ciple, this applic­a­tion is made by the Applic­ant on the basis of the Bothy being an exist­ing dwell­ing under the pro­vi­sions of Cri­terion 9 of Policy 1 of the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan. This states;

Pro­pos­als to replace exist­ing hous­ing stock will be sup­por­ted where: a) the exist­ing house is struc­tur­ally unsound and incap­able of rehab­il­it­a­tion, or is of non-stand­ard con­struc­tion; and b) the exist­ing house is not a lis­ted build­ing; and

nineteen47 Ltd 106 Mickleg­ate, York, YO1 6JX 0330 818 1947- info@​nineteen47.​co.​uk.​www.​nineteen47.​co.​uk. Com­pany num­ber 9875776

c) nineteen47 CHARTERED TOWN PLAN­NERS & URB­AN DESIGN­ERS the new house incor­por­ates the foot­print of the ori­gin­al, unless an altern­at­ive adja­cent site would min­im­ise any neg­at­ive envir­on­ment­al, land­scape or social effects of the development

In this regard, the fun­da­ment­al require­ment of this cri­terion is that the build­ing to be replaced is an exist­ing dwell­ing. Hav­ing been famil­i­ar with this build­ing since 1978, our cli­ent has indic­ated that with­in this peri­od, it has nev­er been used as a dwell­ing and was most recently used as an ancil­lary domest­ic struc­ture by the former occu­pi­ers of Gairn Cliffe who lived here until a couple of years ago when the prop­erty was sold and ren­ov­ated for use as a hol­i­day cot­tage. These former occu­pi­ers who moved to Gairn Cliffe in the mid 1960’s only ever used the Bothy as a work­shop for leather­work nd stor­age and the last known use as an inde­pend­ent dwell­ing is believed to be in the early 1960’s when 2 eld­erly ladies resided here. On this basis, the use of the Bothy as a dwell­ing­house has long since been ​‘aban­doned” due to it not being used for these pur­poses for circa 60 years. The fact that there has been an inter­ven­ing use and also the cur­rent con­di­tion which the applicant’s agent has con­firmed to be in a ​‘poor state of repair’ all sup­port this conclusion.

On the basis that the Bothy can­not be law­fully clas­si­fied as a dwell­ing it there­fore can­not be replaced and there­fore the pro­vi­sions of Cri­terion 9 of Policy 1 can­not apply.

Fur­ther­more, as a com­pan­ion to Policy 1, the Loc­al Plan­ning Author­ity has pro­duced the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan Non-Stat­utory Plan­ning Guid­ance which provides fur­ther cla­ri­fic­a­tion on the inter­pret­a­tion of this policy. Para­graph 35 of this doc­u­ment states;

The replace­ment house should be sim­il­ar in scale to that which it replaces and the set­ting of the new house should be sim­il­ar to that of the exist­ing house in terms of ori­ent­a­tion and dis­tance from road unless indi­vidu­al site con­di­tions sug­gest that anoth­er pos­i­tion (with­in the site bound­ar­ies) would cre­ate a bet­ter land­scape fit. [emphas­is added]

As cur­rently presen­ted, the pro­pos­als do not observe this guid­ance which although non-stat­utory, is a mater­i­al con­sid­er­a­tion and should be giv­en weight in the event that the Loc­al Plan­ning Author­ity were pre­pared to con­sider this to be a replace­ment dwell­ing, regard­less of our obser­va­tions on this point. Fur­ther­more, the exist­ing site bound­ar­ies asso­ci­ated with the Bothy are clearly defined and the pro­posed dwell­ing is out­side of this cur­til­age on adja­cent agri­cul­tur­al land so as well as a new ​‘replace­ment’ dwell­ing, the Applic­ant is also seek­ing a change of use of land which is not inferred in the descrip­tion of development.

Instead, it is con­sidered that Cri­terion 8 of Policy 1 is more applic­able to this exist­ing build­ing, as it relates to con­ver­sions. This policy states;

Con­ver­sion of exist­ing tra­di­tion­al and ver­nacu­lar build­ings will be sup­por­ted where: a) it is demon­strated that the build­ing is cap­able of the pro­posed con­ver­sion works; and b) it main­tains the style and char­ac­ter of the ori­gin­al build­ing in terms of form, scale, mater­i­als and detail­ing, where they con­trib­ute pos­it­ively to the con­text and set­ting of the area.

As sub­mit­ted, the pro­pos­als do not con­form to this policy as it is not inten­ded to re-use the exist­ing build­ing and it has not been demon­strated that it is cap­able of conversion.

It is there­fore the case that as mat­ters stand, the pro­pos­als are con­trary to the Devel­op­ment Plan with not­able con­flict with the pro­vi­sions of Policy 1.

Hughes v Sec­ret­ary of State for the Envir­on­ment, Trans­port and the Regions 2 of 4

nineteen47 CHARTERED TOWN PLAN­NERS & URB­AN DESIGNERS

Not­with­stand­ing this, our cli­ent is not against the prin­ciple of a new ​‘replace­ment’ dwell­ing per-se if the Loc­al Plan­ning Author­ity wish to sup­port such pro­pos­als although as presen­ted, there are a num­ber of sig­ni­fic­ant con­cerns which would need to be addressed in order to ensure a sat­is­fact­ory rela­tion­ship with the Old Mill is achieved.

Fig­ure 1 The Old Mill viewed from the south Fig­ure 2 View towards applic­a­tion site from the north

As can be seen from Fig­ures 1 and 2, the Old Mill is loc­ated in a basin with the Applic­a­tion Site being loc­ated at a high­er level. The roof of the Bothy is just vis­ible in the top right of Fig­ure 2 and the Old Mill is on the left of this image.

The rela­tion­ship of the pro­posed dwell­ing with the Old Mill has not been robustly con­sidered or jus­ti­fied in the applic­a­tion sub­mis­sion. How­ever, we have sought to very crudely show this inten­ded arrange­ment in Fig­ure 3 below;

Fig­ure 3 Pro­posed Dwell­ing impor­ted onto site plan

It is respect­fully sug­ges­ted that the Applic­ant demon­strates this rela­tion­ship in fur­ther detail, account­ing for the dif­fer­ence in levels, by includ­ing a sec­tion. In terms of the cur­rent scheme, the pro­posed rela­tion­ship between the new dwell­ing and the Old Mill would be unac­cept­able not just in terms of the min­im­al sep­ar­a­tion dis­tances, but also the res­ult­ing over­bear­ing impact it would have giv­en it would be sited at a sig­ni­fic­antly high­er level, as well as loss of pri­vacy, with the pro­posed north east­ern elev­a­tion ori­ent­ated towards our cli­ents’ private gardens.

When the nearby water­works to the north west were under­tak­ing con­struc­tion activ­it­ies a num­ber of years ago, they tem­por­ar­ily sited mobile cab­ins in the field in which the pro­posed dwell­ing has been shown and this cast a notice­able shad­ow on the Old Mill and its grounds dur­ing winter months. It is 3 of 4

nineteen47 CHARTERED TOWN PLAN­NERS & URB­AN DESIGNERS

there­fore anti­cip­ated that the pro­posed dwell­ing, where shown, would have a sim­il­ar neg­at­ive impact on the daylight/​sunlight levels of our client’s prop­erty due to it being loc­ated due north and at a lower level. The Applic­ant should there­fore con­sider under­tak­ing a daylight/​sunlight ana­lys­is with any revised pro­pos­als that are submitted.

If the Loc­al Plan­ning Author­ity are minded to sup­port a new dwell­ing, it is essen­tial that it is re-sited to the south west of the loc­a­tion shown and we would sug­gest a dis­tance in the order on 8 to 10 metres to achieve a sat­is­fact­ory rela­tion­ship with the Old Mill which appears to have been dis­reg­arded in the cur­rent scheme. This is par­tic­u­larly evid­ent as the rela­tion­ship between the pro­pos­als and the Old Mill has not been shown on any of the plans. We would though wish to retain judge­ment on this mat­ter until we have been con­sul­ted on any new lay­out plans and sec­tions which seek to improve this relationship.

In sum­mary, our cli­ent has no obser­va­tions in respect of the applic­a­tion for 3 new dwell­ings (ref­er­ence APP/2020/2284) but has a num­ber of con­cerns in respect of the pro­pos­als to replace the Bothy (ref­er­ence APP/2020/2286). Whilst it has been shown that the pro­pos­als have failed to cor­rectly inter­pret the pro­vi­sions of Policy 1 of the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan, our cli­ent is not against a new dwell­ing pe-se, but is under­stand­ably con­cerned about the impact that the sub­mit­ted pro­pos­als would have upon the res­id­en­tial amen­ity of his prop­erty, the Old Mill. It is there­fore reques­ted that sub­stan­tial modi­fic­a­tions are sought and the rela­tion­ship with the Old Mill prop­erly jus­ti­fied, includ­ing the sub­mis­sion of detailed sec­tions. In these cir­cum­stances, where there is a clear con­flict with plan­ning policy, this request is con­sidered to be wholly reas­on­able and if officers are pre­pared to sup­port a new dwell­ing, it is hoped that the con­cerns raised in this let­ter are giv­en sig­ni­fic­ant weight.

As a final obser­va­tion, we note the extent of the Applicant’s land own­er­ship has been shown on the site loc­a­tion plan (ref­er­ence 2018 – 108/P17). Please find attached my client’s Land Registry Title Plans which show the extent of his own­er­ship. This shows that the land own­er­ship asso­ci­ated with the Old Mill is more sig­ni­fic­ant than the Applicant’s Agent has shown on the sub­mit­ted plans and it is essen­tial that this is cor­rec­ted, not least because as mat­ters stand, the applic­a­tion includ­ing land own­er­ship cer­ti­fic­ates as sub­mit­ted is unsound. It also mis­rep­res­ents the applic­a­tion pro­pos­als and their rela­tion­ship to my client’s prop­erty, the extent of which being more sig­ni­fic­ant and closer to the pro­posed dwell­ing than has been shown.

If revised plans are sub­mit­ted to the Loc­al Plan­ning Author­ity, it is asked that my cli­ent is re-con­sul­ted so that we have the oppor­tun­ity to recon­sider the pro­pos­als and determ­ine wheth­er a more accept­able rela­tion­ship with the Old Mill has been achieved.

Yours faith­fully

Jam­ie Pyper Dir­ect­or jamie.​pyper@​nineteen47.​co.​uk

Enc. Title Plans — The Old Mill, Bal­later 4 of 4

N 83 LAND REGISTER OF SCOT­LAND Officer’s ID / Date TITLE NUM­BER 6913 21/2/2019 ABN137752 ORD­NANCE SUR­VEY NATION­AL GRID REF­ER­ENCE 140m NO3496 NO3596 NO3497 NO3597 Sur­vey Scale 1/2500 CROWN COPY­RIGHT© This copy hos been pro­duced from the ROS Digit­al Map­ping Sys­tem on 23/02/2019 with the author­ity of Ord­nance Sur­vey under Sec­tion 47 of the Copy­right, Designs and Pat­ents Act 1988. Unless there is a rel­ev­ant excep­tion to copy­right, the copy must not be copied without the pri­or per­mis­sion of the copy­right own­er. OS Licence no 100041182.

Crown copy­right 2014

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