Item7Appendix2HRA20230007DETLaurelBank

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 7 Appendix 2 10/03/2023

AGENDA ITEM 7

APPENDIX 2

2023/0007/DET

HAB­IT­ATS REG­U­LA­TIONS APPRAISAL

HAB­IT­ATS REG­U­LA­TIONS APPRAISAL

Plan­ning ref­er­ence and pro­pos­al inform­a­tion 2021/0105/DET Erec­tion of 23 self-cater­ing apart­ments, shops, hotel and under­ground park­ing at land 80m south west of (formerly) Moun­tain Café, 111 Grampi­an Road, Aviemore, includ­ing con­nec­tion to pub­lic sew­er­age and mains freshwater.

Appraised by Nina Caudrey – Plan­ning Officer (Devel­op­ment Plan­ning and Envir­on­ment­al Advice)

Date 20 April 2022

Checked by Hay­ley Wiswell – Con­ser­va­tion Officer

Date 26 April 2022

13 Feb­ru­ary 2023 Update Applic­a­tion resub­mit­ted — 2023/007/DET. Mater­i­al change to design res­ult­ing in slight reduc­tion in capa­city (22 Self-cater­ing apart­ments) A review of the HRA for Kin­veachy Forest SPA (and oth­er caper­cail­lie wood­lands) and the River Spey SAC has con­sidered the cur­rent assess­ment to remain valid.

INFORM­A­TION

European site details

Name of European site(s) poten­tially affected

1. Kin­veachy Forest SPA’
2. River Spey SAC

Qual­i­fy­ing interest(s)

1. Breed­ing — caper­cail­lie and Scot­tish crossbill
2. Atlantic sal­mon, fresh water pearl mus­sel, sea lamprey and otter

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

1. River Spey SAC: Con­ser­va­tion Object­ive 2. To ensure that the integ­rity of the River Spey SAC is restored by meet­ing object­ives 2a, 2b, 2c for each qual­i­fy­ing fea­ture (and 2^d for fresh­wa­ter pearl mussel):

2b. Restore the dis­tri­bu­tion of fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sel through­out the site

2c. Restore the hab­it­ats sup­port­ing fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sel with­in the site and avail­ab­il­ity of food

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 I 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 Kin­vech­ie 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.

2^d. Restore the dis­tri­bu­tion and viab­il­ity of fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sel host spe­cies and their sup­port­ing hab­it­ats 2a. Restore the pop­u­la­tion of fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sel as a viable com­pon­ent of the site 2b. Main­tain the dis­tri­bu­tion of sea lamprey through­out the site 2c. Main­tain the hab­it­ats sup­port­ing sea lamprey with­in the site and avail­ab­il­ity of food 2a. Main­tain the pop­u­la­tion of sea lamprey as a viable com­pon­ent of the site 2b. Restore the dis­tri­bu­tion of Atlantic sal­mon through­out the site 2c. Restore the hab­it­ats sup­port­ing Atlantic sal­mon with­in the site and avail­ab­il­ity of food 2a. Restore the pop­u­la­tion of Atlantic sal­mon, includ­ing range of genet­ic types, as a viable com­pon­ent of the site 2b. Main­tain the dis­tri­bu­tion of otter through­out the site 2c. Main­tain the hab­it­ats sup­port­ing otter with­in the site and avail­ab­il­ity of food 2a. Main­tain the pop­u­la­tion of otter as a viable com­pon­ent of the site

Con­ser­va­tion Object­ive I. To ensure that the qual­i­fy­ing fea­tures of the River Spey SAC are in favour­able con­di­tion and make an appro­pri­ate con­tri­bu­tion to achiev­ing favour­able con­ser­va­tion status

APPRAIS­AL

STAGE 1:

What is the plan or project?

Rel­ev­ant sum­mary details of pro­pos­al (includ­ing loc­a­tion, tim­ing, meth­ods, etc) The pro­pos­al is for the erec­tion of 23 self-cater­ing apart­ments, shops, hotel, park­ing and asso­ci­ated infra­struc­ture (includ­ing con­nec­tion to pub­lic sew­er­age and mains fresh­wa­ter). The site com­prises land that pre­vi­ously had two dwell­ings and their asso­ci­ated gar­dens, which included mature trees. The dwell­ings, gar­dens and trees have now been cleared, leav­ing a brown­field site with a tree belt remain­ing along the Milton burn. The pro­pos­al involves built devel­op­ment across the major­ity of the site with a small pro­por­tion of space for land­scape plant­ing. The built foot­print will be very close to the Milton burn, which becomes a trib­u­tary of the River Spey SAC on the oppos­ite side of the main road adjoin­ing the site (a dis­tance of approx­im­ately 6m).

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 cross­bill are there­fore not con­sidered fur­ther in this assessment.

1. River Spey SAC

Yes: there is poten­tial for a likely sig­ni­fic­ant effect on all the qual­i­fy­ing interests due to change in water qual­ity affect­ing the hab­it­ats relied upon by the qual­i­fy­ing interests and/​or their prey/​food, due poten­tial for pol­lu­tion dur­ing con­struc­tion activ­ity from sed­i­ment run off, par­tic­u­larly dur­ing the re-pro­fil­ing and oth­er works in close prox­im­ity to the Milton burn, which flows dir­ectly into the River Spey SAC approx­im­ately 6m downstream.

In addi­tion, dis­turb­ance to otter could occur dur­ing con­struc­tion and occu­pa­tion through human activ­ity, as otter are known to com­mute and for­age along the Milton burn.

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.

1. River Spey SAC

The pro­posed devel­op­ment 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 SAC dur­ing con­struc­tion work, due to prox­im­ity of works along­side the Milton burn. This would affect the water qual­ity relied upon by the qual­i­fy­ing spe­cies, and poten­tially smoth­er hab­it­ats sup­port­ing the qual­i­fy­ing spe­cies and their food, there­fore affect­ing dis­tri­bu­tion and pop­u­la­tion levels.

How­ever, the April 2022 Upland Devel­op­ments and Enviro­centre ​‘Laurel Bank, Aviemore Con­struc­tion Envir­on­ment­al Man­age­ment Plan’ incor­por­at­ing an out­line Con­struc­tion Meth­od State­ment, sub­mit­ted to CNPA on 12 April 2022, should address the risk of sed­i­ment release through appro­pri­ate pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion and con­trol meas­ures, such that the pol­lu­tion risk could be min­im­ised. The Con­struc­tion Envir­on­ment­al Man­age­ment Plan also includes spe­cies pro­tec­tion meas­ures that would min­im­ise the risk of dis­turb­ance to otter. The Con­struc­tion Envir­on­ment­al Man­age­ment Plan and Con­struc­tion Meth­od State­ment would need to be secured by con­di­tion, should plan­ning per­mis­sion be granted.

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.

2. River Spey SAC

Provided the below con­di­tion is applied to plan­ning per­mis­sion (should per­mis­sion be gran­ted), then the con­ser­va­tion object­ives will be met and there will not be an adverse effect on site integrity:

Con­di­tion: The Upland Devel­op­ments and Enviro­centre ​‘Laurel Bank, Aviemore Con­struc­tion Envir­on­ment­al Man­age­ment Plan’ includ­ing the out­line Con­struc­tion Meth­od State­ment dated April 2022, as sub­mit­ted to CNPA on 12 April 2022, is agreed in writ­ing with CNPA pri­or to any works com­men­cing on site, and there­after imple­men­ted in full, in par­tic­u­lar the pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion and con­trol meas­ures to pre­vent sed­i­ment enter­ing the Milton burn and the meas­ures to avoid dis­turb­ance to otter.

Reas­on: To ensure pol­lu­tion does not enter the River Spey SAC and avoid dis­turb­ance to SAC otter, and so avoid an adverse effect on site integrity.

Annex I Laurel Bank: 2021/0105/DET Erec­tion of 23 self-cater­ing apart­ments, shops, hotel and under­ground park­ing land 80M south west of (formerly) Moun­tain Café, 111 Grampi­an Road, Aviemore

NOTE: This assess­ment con­siders the effects of addi­tion­al vis­it­ors to the area stay­ing at the pro­posed tour­ist accom­mod­a­tion. The assess­ment would need to be recon­sidered should the pro­posed tour­ist accom­mod­a­tion be changed at any point to include a res­id­en­tial ele­ment. This is because res­id­ents have a dif­fer­ent pat­tern of beha­viour over time com­pared to short stay vis­it­ors (ie res­id­ents are more likely to explore off path, identi­fy and cre­ate new routes over time, com­pared to people vis­it­ing the area for a short peri­od of time).

QI. Is the pro­posed devel­op­ment likely to change levels of human activ­ity or pat­terns of recre­ation around the pro­posed development/​associated settlement?

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. Yes, there would be an increase in the level of human activ­ity (but not pat­terns of recre­ation). The pro­posed devel­op­ment includes 23 self cater­ing units with 2 beds each, so 4 people per unit, res­ult­ing in 92 extra people; plus a 83 bed hotel, which assum­ing two people per room would res­ult in an extra 166 people; equalling around 270 addi­tion­al 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 609 people, giv­ing a poten­tial pop­u­la­tion of around 4,410.

The res­id­en­tial ele­ments of the pro­posed devel­op­ment are aimed at the tour­ism mar­ket. They would provide hotel and self cater­ing accom­mod­a­tion for around 270 people, assum­ing max­im­um occupation.

Adding an addi­tion­al 270 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 7%. This would be a mod­er­ate 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

The poten­tial pop­u­la­tion of Aviemore (ie baseline exist­ing pop­u­la­tion plus con­sen­ted but not yet built) would increase the baseline exist­ing pop­u­la­tion by around 16% to 4,410 people. Adding 270 people from the pro­posed devel­op­ment to this would res­ult in an increase in the poten­tial pop­u­la­tion of a fur­ther 6%.

Con­sid­er­a­tion there­fore needs to be giv­en as to wheth­er the addi­tion of the pro­posed devel­op­ment on top of the poten­tial pop­u­la­tion is likely to res­ult in changes in the levels or pat­terns of human activ­ity and recreation.

While the addi­tion of 270 to the exist­ing or poten­tial pop­u­la­tions will likely res­ult in an increase in the levels of human activ­ity, this needs to be put into con­text of exist­ing levels of use by oth­er vis­it­ors, as well as residents.

The Aviemore and Glen­more area hosts 1,000,000 vis­it­ors a year (https://​www​.vis​itaviemore​.com/​a​v​i​e​m​o​r​e​-​c​o​m​m​u​nity/). In the absence of more detailed fig­ures, this would res­ult in around an addi­tion­al 2,740 people vis­it­ing the area each day (assum­ing that the I mil­lion vis­it­ors are spread evenly over 365 days of the year, which they are not as the tour­ist sea­son is skewed to sum­mer between June and Septem­ber https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/wp- content/uploads/2016/06/160620VisitorInfrastructureandInformationFINAL.pdf). In this con­text, the addi­tion of an extra 270 people would be a mod­er­ate addi­tion to the usu­al levels of use.

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​.​P​a​p​e​r​_​.​1​9​1​1​.​A​v​i​e​more- 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 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.