Item7Appendix2HRA20220328PPPHolidayApartments

Cairngorms Item 7 Appendix 2 11 August 2023 Nation­al Park Author­ity Ügh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Agenda item 7

Appendix 2

2022/0328/PPP

Hab­it­ats reg­u­la­tions appraisal

HAB­IT­ATS REG­U­LA­TIONS APPRAISAL

Plan­ning ref­er­ence and pro­pos­al inform­a­tion | 2022/0328/PPP Erec­tion of hol­i­day apart­ments —-| — - Appraised by | Kar­en Ald­ridge, Plan­ning Eco­lo­gic­al Advice Officer Date | 16 May 2023 Checked by | NatureScot Date | Date of con­sulta­tion response from NatureScot

INFORM­A­TION

European site details —-| — - Name of European site(s) poten­tially affected | 1) Kin­veachy Forest SPA

It is recog­nised that effects on caper­cail­lie at any one of the Badenoch and Strath­spey caper­cail­lie SPAs or asso­ci­ated wood­lands shown on the map in Annex III has the poten­tial to affect the wider caper­cail­lie meta­pop­u­la­tion of Badenoch and Strath­spey. Atten­tion has been focused in this HRA on the woods likely to be used reg­u­larly for recre­ation by users of the pro­posed devel­op­ment site, which in this case are Kin­veachy Forest SPA and the asso­ci­ated Boat of Garten, Loch Garten, Glen­more and Rothiemurchus woods (woods I, J, K, L, M, N and O on the map). Oth­er caper­cail­lie SPAs and woods were con­sidered dur­ing the ini­tial phase of the assess­ment (see Annex I ques­tion 3) but detect­able effects were ruled out, so they have not been included in this HRA. If how­ever the HRA had con­cluded an adverse effect on site integ­rity, or required mit­ig­a­tion, then all of the caper­cail­lie SPAs in Badenoch and Strath­spey would have been reas­sessed in rela­tion to poten­tial effects on the metapopulation.

The River Spey SAC is with­in 200 m of the pro­posed devel­op­ment site, how­ever there is a lack of dir­ect eco­lo­gic­al con­nectiv­ity between the pro­posed devel­op­ment site and the SAC. There­fore, the River Spey SAC will not be con­sidered further.

Qual­i­fy­ing interest(s) —-| — -

1. Kin­veachy Forest SPA:

Breed­ing capercaillie

Breed­ing Scot­tish crossbill

Con­ser­va­tion object­ives for qual­i­fy­ing interests —-| — -

1. Kin­veachy Forest SPA:

To avoid deteri­or­a­tion of the hab­it­ats of the qual­i­fy­ing spe­cies or sig­ni­fic­ant dis­turb­ance to the qual­i­fy­ing spe­cies, thus ensur­ing that the integ­rity of the site is main­tained; and

To ensure for the qual­i­fy­ing spe­cies that the fol­low­ing are main­tained in the long term:

Pop­u­la­tion of the spe­cies as a viable com­pon­ent of the site

Dis­tri­bu­tion of the spe­cies with­in site

Dis­tri­bu­tion and extent of hab­it­ats sup­port­ing the species

Struc­ture, func­tion and sup­port­ing pro­cesses of hab­it­ats sup­port­ing the species

No sig­ni­fic­ant dis­turb­ance of the species

APPRAIS­AL

STAGE 1: —-| — - What is the plan or pro­ject? | Rel­ev­ant sum­mary details of pro­pos­al (includ­ing loc­a­tion, tim­ing, meth­ods, etc) | The pro­pos­al includes the con­struc­tion of 22, 2‑bedroom hol­i­day apart­ments and asso­ci­ated infra­struc­ture. Site clear­ance works will include the remov­al of six mature trees and sev­er­al young self-seeded trees. The site is loc­ated with­in Aviemore town centre and Kin­veachy Forest SPA is approx­im­ately 1.65km from the site.

STAGE 2: —-| — - Is the plan or pro­ject dir­ectly con­nec­ted with or neces­sary for the man­age­ment of the European site for nature con­ser­va­tion? | No

STAGE 3: —-| — - Is the plan or pro­ject (either alone or in-com­bin­a­tion with oth­er plans or pro­jects) likely to have a sig­ni­fic­ant effect on the site(s)? |

1. Kin­veachy Forest SPA —-| — - Caper­cail­lie: yes, there is a risk of likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects from the poten­tial long term dis­turb­ance through increased human activ­ity by the addi­tion of the occu­pants of the pro­posed devel­op­ment, as explained with­in Annex I.

Scot­tish cross­bill: no likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects, as none of their hab­it­at will be affected. Scot­tish cross­bills are there­fore not con­sidered fur­ther in this assessment.

STAGE 4: —-| — - Under­take an Appro­pri­ate Assess­ment of the implic­a­tions for the site(s) in view of the(ir) con­ser­va­tion objectives |

1. Kin­veachy Forest SPA —-| — - Dis­tri­bu­tion of the spe­cies with­in the site: | The dis­tri­bu­tion of caper­cail­lie with­in the site will not be affected as addi­tion­al use of woods (described in Annex I) is not likely to res­ult in addi­tion­al off path activ­ity, there­fore this con­ser­va­tion object­ive will be met.

Dis­tri­bu­tion and extent of hab­it­ats sup­port­ing the spe­cies; Struc­ture, func­tion and sup­port­ing pro­cesses of hab­it­ats sup­port­ing the species: |

There will be no effect on the struc­ture, func­tion or sup­port­ing pro­cesses of the hab­it­ats sup­port­ing caper­cail­lie as a res­ult of the pro­posed devel­op­ment, there­fore this con­ser­va­tion object­ive will be met.

No sig­ni­fic­ant dis­turb­ance of the spe­cies | See Annexes I‑III for detailed assess­ment. In sum­mary, there would not be addi­tion­al dis­turb­ance to caper­cail­lie over and above what is already occur­ring through use of exist­ing routes in woods I, J, K, L, M, N and O. There­fore, this con­ser­va­tion object­ive can be met.

Pop­u­la­tion of the spe­cies as a viable com­pon­ent of the site: | As the oth­er con­ser­va­tion object­ives can be met, the pop­u­la­tion of caper­cail­lie should not be affected and so this con­ser­va­tion object­ive will be met.

In con­clu­sion, all con­ser­va­tion object­ives can be met.

STAGE 5: —-| — - Can it be ascer­tained that there will not be an adverse effect on site integrity? |

1. Kin­veachy Forest SPA —-| — - Yes, as all con­ser­va­tion object­ives are met it is pos­sible to con­clude that there will not be an adverse effect on site integrity.

Annex I Caper­cail­lie Assess­ment: 2022/0328/PPP — Erec­tion of hol­i­day apartments.

QI. Is the pro­posed devel­op­ment likely to change levels of human activ­ity or pat­terns of recre­ation around the pro­posed development/​associated set­tle­ment? | Yes, there would be an increase in the level of human activ­ity (but not pat­terns of recre­ation). —-| — - Q1: This and Q2 are included as screen­ing ques­tions to fil­ter out any devel­op­ments that aren’t likely to have changed levels or pat­terns of recre­ation. | The pro­posed devel­op­ment includes 22 apart­ments with 2 bed­rooms each, so assum­ing 4 people per apart­ment, res­ult­ing in 88 people stay­ing at the pro­posed devel­op­ment. The exist­ing pop­u­la­tion of Aviemore was estim­ated to be around 3,800 people in 2020 (based on Nation­al Records of Scot­land 2019 mid-year estim­ate of the population).

In the plan­ning sys­tem, there is con­sent for addi­tion­al res­id­en­tial units, as lis­ted in Annex II. Using the 2.07 occu­pancy rate applied for the LDP (in the absence of a robust altern­at­ive), this would amount to an addi­tion­al 697 people, giv­ing a poten­tial pop­u­la­tion of around 4,497.

Adding an addi­tion­al 88 people to the exist­ing Aviemore pop­u­la­tion (assum­ing full occu­pancy year round, which is unlikely giv­en the sea­son­al fluc­tu­at­ing nature of tour­ism in the Nation­al Park) would increase the cur­rent pop­u­la­tion* by around 2%. This would be a slight increase in the poten­tial num­ber of people using exist­ing paths and routes, should all the vis­it­ors use them (which not all vis­it­ors will).

*based on occu­pancy of exist­ing prop­er­ties, not includ­ing con­sen­ted but not yet built

There are a num­ber of exist­ing pro­moted and well used paths and routes in Aviemore and the sur­round­ing area, as seen in the fig­ure over­leaf (taken from the Aviemore Paths leaf­let https://​www​.vis​itaviemore​.com/​w​p​-​c​o​n​t​e​n​t​/​u​p​l​o​a​d​s​/​2​0​1​3​/​0​9​/​C​N​P​A​.​Paper .1911.Aviemore- Paths.pdf). There are also inform­al un-pro­moted but well used routes that con­nect with form­al paths and roads. Vis­it­ors stay­ing at the pro­posed devel­op­ment (marked by the black star in the below fig­ure) are con­sidered likely to use the pro­moted paths, due to inform­a­tion being avail­able about them. There is no reas­on to believe that vis­it­ors stay­ing at the pro­posed devel­op­ment would under­take a dif­fer­ent pat­tern of recre­ation to exist­ing users of paths and routes in Aviemore and the sur­round­ing area.

Q2. Are caper­cail­lie woods sig­ni­fic­antly more access­ible from this devel­op­ment site than from oth­er parts of the asso­ci­ated set­tle­ment? | No. —-| — - Q2: This is included to ensure the effect of oth­er­wise small-scale devel­op­ment sites par­tic­u­larly close to caper­cail­lie woods are adequately con­sidered. Evid­ence from set­tle­ments in Strath­spey where houses are | From the pro­posed devel­op­ment site, the closest entry point to a known caper­cail­lie wood (Kin­veachy Forest, wood I on the Badenoch and Strath­spey caper­cail­lie wood­lands map in Annex III, part of the Kin­veachy Forest SPA) is approx­im­ately 2 km from the pro­posed devel­op­ment along either pub­lic roads/​footpaths or the Aviemore Orbit­al route. As this is some dis­tance from the pro­posed devel­op­ment, and makes use of exist­ing routes, the pro­posed devel­op­ment site is not more access­ible than from oth­er parts of Aviemore.

adja­cent to wood­lands indic­ates that net­works of inform­al paths and trails have developed with­in the woods link­ing back gar­dens with form­al path net­works and oth­er pop­u­lar loc­al des­tin­a­tions (eg primary schools). Such paths are likely to be used by visitors.

If QI & Q2 = No, con­clu­sion is no sig­ni­fic­ant dis­turb­ance to caper­cail­lie and assess­ment ends here —-| — - If QI or Q2 = Yes, con­tin­ue to Q3 —-| — - Q3. Which caper­cail­lie woods are likely to be used reg­u­larly for recre­ation by users of the devel­op­ment site at detect­able levels? | None at detect­able levels. —-| — - (list all) Q3: This is included to identi­fy which caper­cail­lie woods are likely to be used for recre­ation by users of non- hous­ing devel­op­ment sites at levels that would be detect­able. The answer will be assessed using pro­fes­sion­al judge­ment based on know­ledge of exist­ing pat­terns of recre­ation around set­tle­ments and in the loc­al area, the rel­at­ive appeal of the caper­cail­lie woods con­cerned com­pared to oth­er recre­ation­al oppor­tun­it­ies in the area, the volume of recre­ation­al vis­its likely to be gen­er­ated by the devel­op­ment site, and informed by nation­al sur­vey data (eg on the dis­tances people travel for recre­ation­al vis­its). | The closest entry point to a known caper­cail­lie wood (Kin­veachy Forest, wood I on the map in Annex III and part of the Kin­veachy Forest SPA) is approx­im­ately 2km from the pro­posed devel­op­ment, loc­ated at Milton of Burn­side as described in ques­tion 2. The tracks and paths in Kin­veachy are well used by res­id­ents of Burn­side for recre­ation includ­ing dog walk­ing, as well as by oth­er res­id­ents of Aviemore and oth­er people from the wider area.

Due to the dis­tance between the pro­posed devel­op­ment and the entry point to Kin­veachy, it is unlikely that a sig­ni­fic­ant pro­por­tion of vis­it­ors stay­ing at the pro­posed devel­op­ment would recre­ate in Kin­veachy. There are oth­er closer and pro­moted routes, such as the routes with­in Craigel­lach­ie SSSI or the orbit­al path.

In recent years Kin­veachy has become known for down­hill bik­ing, with illi­cit route cre­ation caus­ing dis­turb­ance in sens­it­ive caper­cail­lie areas. How­ever, the pro­por­tion of people stay­ing at the pro­posed devel­op­ment who might vis­it Kin­veachy and who would be equipped, inclined and cap­able of doing the down­hill bik­ing routes that are caus­ing exist­ing dis­turb­ance issues in the wood would be very small. Vis­it­ors are also more likely to use exist­ing down­hill routes than cre­ate new ones, as they are unlikely to stay long enough to identi­fy poten­tial new routes and cre­ate them.

It is reas­on­able to expect people stay­ing at the pro­posed devel­op­ment to also vis­it oth­er areas pop­u­lar for recreation/​with vis­it­or amen­it­ies, such as Boat of Garten, Loch Garten, and Glen­more and Rothiemurchus – all of which are also loc­a­tions of caper­cail­lie woods (woods J, K, L, M, N and O in Annex III, which are part of Aber­nethy Forest SPA). How­ever, it is very unlikely that all the people stay­ing at the pro­posed devel­op­ment would go to the same place at the same time — they are more likely to dis­perse spa­tially and also tem­por­ally. These areas are already well used and so the level of addi­tion­al activ­ity caused by people vis­it­ing from the pro­posed devel­op­ment would be undetect­able com­pared to exist­ing levels of use.

There­fore any addi­tion­al dis­turb­ance in caper­cail­lie woods from people stay­ing at the proposed

devel­op­ment would be min­im­al (com­pared to exist­ing levels of use), on exist­ing paths and routes and in well used areas of exist­ing dis­turb­ance. There­fore the addi­tion­al use of the woods by people stay­ing at the pro­posed devel­op­ment as iden­ti­fied above would not be at detect­able levels. Con­tin­ue to Q4 —-| — - Q4. Are res­id­ents / users of this devel­op­ment site pre­dicted to under­take any off path recre­ation­al activ­it­ies in any of the woods iden­ti­fied at Q3 at detect­able levels? | No. There is no reas­on to believe that people stay­ing in the pro­posed devel­op­ment would not fol­low exist­ing pat­terns of beha­viour and use exist­ing paths and tracks for recre­ation and dog walk­ing. —-| — - Q4: This is included because any off path recre­ation­al use in caper­cail­lie woods will res­ult in sig­ni­fic­ant dis­turb­ance and require mitigation.

If Q4 = No for any woods, con­tin­ue to Q5 —-| — - If Q4 = Yes for any woods, mit­ig­a­tion is needed. Note and con­tin­ue to Q5. —-| — - Q5: Are each of the woods iden­ti­fied at Q3 already estab­lished loc­a­tions for recre­ation? | Yes. See answers to ques­tions 1, 2 and 3. —-| — - Q5: This is included because if users of the devel­op­ment site are likely to access pre­vi­ously infre­quently-vis­ited caper­cail­lie woods, or parts of these woods, for recre­ation, sig­ni­fic­ant dis­turb­ance is likely and mit­ig­a­tion is needed. This will be answered on the basis of pro­fes­sion­al knowledge.

If Q5 = No for any woods, mit­ig­a­tion is needed. Note and con­tin­ue to Q6. —-| — - If Q5 = Yes for any woods, con­tin­ue to Q6 —-| — - Q6: For each of the woods iden­ti­fied at Q3, are users of the devel­op­ment site pre­dicted to have dif­fer­ent tem­por­al pat­terns of recre­ation­al use to any exist­ing vis­it­ors, or | No. The woods are all already well used at a vari­ety times of day for walk­ing, run­ning and cyc­ling, as well as dog walk­ing, by both res­id­ents and vis­it­ors to Aviemore and the wider area. Vis­it­ors stay­ing at the pro­posed devel­op­ment are unlikely to under­take a dif­fer­ent tem­por­al pat­tern or pro­file of activ­it­ies com­pared to exist­ing use. —-| — - to under­take a dif­fer­ent pro­file of activ­it­ies? (eg. more dog walk­ing, or early morn­ing use) Q6: This is included because some types of recre­ation are par­tic­u­larly dis­turb­ing to caper­cail­lie; and increased levels of these types of recre­ation will cause sig­ni­fic­ant dis­turb­ance and require mit­ig­a­tion. This will be answered on the basis of pro­fes­sion­al know­ledge on exist­ing pat­terns of recre­ation­al use and wheth­er each loc­a­tion is suf­fi­ciently close and/​or con­veni­ent in rela­tion to the devel­op­ment site and pat­terns of travel from there, to be used by users of the devel­op­ment for dif­fer­ent recre­ation­al activ­it­ies or at dif­fer­ent times of day. For example, caper­cail­lie woods with safe routes for dogs that are loc­ated close to devel­op­ment sites are likely to be used for early morn­ing &/or after work dog walking.

If Q6 = yes for any woods, mit­ig­a­tion is needed. Note and con­tin­ue to Q7 —-| — - If Q6 = No for any woods, con­tin­ue to Q7 —-| — - Q7: For each of the woods iden­ti­fied at Q3, could the pre­dicted level of use by res­id­ents / users of the devel­op­ment site sig­ni­fic­antly increase over­all levels of recre­ation­al use? | No. There would not be a detect­able or sig­ni­fic­ant increase in human activ­ity in Kin­veachy Forest or the caper­cail­lie wood­lands asso­ci­ated with Boat of Garten, Loch Garten, and Glen­more and Rothiemurchus (woods I, J, K, L, M, N and O in Annex III). —-| — - Q7: This is included because a sig­ni­fic­ant increase in recre­ation­al use could res­ult in sig­ni­fic­ant dis­turb­ance to caper­cail­lie, even in situ­ations where the caper­cail­lie wood is already pop­u­lar for recre­ation, and no changes to cur­rent recre­ation­al pat­terns / activ­it­ies or off path activ­it­ies are pre­dicted. The answer was assessed on the basis of pro­fes­sion­al judge­ment of cur­rent levels of use and wheth­er the increase is likely to be more than approx­im­ately 10%.

If Q4‑7 = No for all woods, con­clu­sion is no sig­ni­fic­ant dis­turb­ance to caper­cail­lie and assess­ment ends here —-| — -

If Q4, 5, 6 and/​or 7 = Yes for any woods, mit­ig­a­tion is needed —-| — - Con­clu­sion: Is mit­ig­a­tion needed as a con­sequence of this devel­op­ment site in rela­tion to each wood lis­ted at Q3? | None required. Reas­ons mit­ig­a­tion needed: | n/​a

Annex II – inform­a­tion on plan­ning applic­a­tions with con­sent but not yet built The num­ber of people per applic­a­tion site has, unless oth­er­wise stated fully in applic­a­tion, been cal­cu­lated using the 2.07 per­son occu­pancy fig­ure used for the LDP assess­ment as explained in the answer to ques­tion I of this document:

GRAMPI­AN ROAD, 2 people: 21/01746/FUL, Change of use from office space to 2 bed­room flat, 85 Grampi­an Road, Aviemore, PH22 IRH —-| — - PINE BANK CHALETS – no change, replace­ment of one large cab­in with two smal­ler cab­ins: 21/01221/FUL, Demoli­tion of hol­i­day units, erec­tion of 2 new units, Pine Bank Chalets, Dal­faber Road, Aviemore, PH22 IPX —-| — - GRAMPI­AN ROAD NEAR ACHANTOUL 3 people based on num­ber of guest beds per the approved floor plan: 20/03708/FUL Con­ver­sion of gar­age annex to form guest bed­room accom­mod­a­tion, Carn Mhor Guest House, The Sheil­ing, Aviemore, PH22 IQD —-| — - INVER­DRUIE 13 people: 2016/0158/DET Erec­tion of 6 dwell­ings, upgrade cur­rent access point and a new access track formed; private drain­age (shared treat­ment plant and soakaway), Land 175M SE Of Heatherb­ank, Rothiemurchus, Aviemore —-| — - SOUTH END OUT­SIDE AVIEMORE 2 people: 20/04360/FUL Demoli­tion of gar­age and replace­ment with double gar­age with granny flat, Kin­mundy, Grampi­an Road, Aviemore, PH22 IRH —-| — - SOUTH END OF AVIEMORE LA TAV­ERNA 8 people based on 4 double beds in each unit as per the approved floor plan: 19/00846/FUL Con­struc­tion of 4no. units for hol­i­day let­ting, High Range Motel, 19 Grampi­an Road, Aviemore, PH22 IPT —-| — - NEXT TO HAPPY HAG­GIS 56 people: 2019/0363/DET, Erec­tion of three blocks of flats (27 units) with asso­ci­ated park­ing and access, Devel­op­ment Site On Former Filling Sta­tion Grampi­an Road Aviemore High­land —-| — - NEAR HOS­PIT­AL 34 people: 2019/0298/DET, Spey House Phase 2 — Devel­op­ment of 14 no dwell­ings includ­ing 6no ter­raced houses, 4no bun­ga­lows and 4no cot­tage flats, Land 20M South East of Spey House, Cairngorm Tech­no­logy Park, Dal­faber Drive, Aviemore —-| — - Part of HI in LDP: 193 people: Applic­a­tions asso­ci­ated with 2018/0184/MSC Sat­is­fy the Con­di­tions of Plan­ning Per­mis­sion PPA-270‑2126 for res­id­en­tial units, Land North West Of Dal­faber Farm, Dal­faber Drive, Aviemore —-| — - PART OF H2 in LDP: 79 people: 2016/0224/DET Pro­posed 30 flats and 8 ter­raced units, Land 30M West Of 31 Allt Mor, Aviemore —-| — - PART OF AHR MI in LDP: 33 units of the 140 already built, so for the remain­ing units it will be 221 people: 05/306/CP Erec­tion of 140 dwell­ings, con­struc­tion of roads and ser­vices and land­scap­ing, Horse Field (Land North Of Scand­inavi­an Vil­lage), Aviemore —-| — - SEAFIELD PLACE –22/04334/­FUL- Con­ver­sion of a gar­age into a one bed­room self con­tained flat. 2 people.

Annex III Badenoch and Strath­spey caper­cail­lie woods map (con­sidered wood­lands high­lighted blue)