Item7Appendix2HRAredacted

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 7 Appendix 2 14/05/2021

AGENDA ITEM 7

APPENDIX 2

2021/0112/DET

HAB­IT­ATS REG­U­LA­TIONS APPRAISAL

HAB­IT­ATS REG­U­LA­TIONS APPRAISAL

Plan­ning ref­er­ence and pro­pos­al information	2021/0112/DET, recon­fig­ur­a­tion of exist­ing car park and pro­vi­sion of infra­struc­ture for camper van overnight facil­ity includ­ing peri­met­er fen­cing, gat­ing, rub­bish col­lec­tion point, fresh water sup­ply and chem­ic­al toilet/​waste water col­lec­tion point in under­groun­ded sealed tank that will be reg­u­larly emp­tied and dis­posed of off-site.
Appraised by	Nina Caudrey, Plan­ning Officer
Date	29 April 2021
Checked by	Sally Mack­en­zie, Con­ser­va­tion Officer
Date	29th April 2021

page 1 of 16

INFORM­A­TION

European site details
Name of European site(s) poten­tially affected	Cairngorms SPA
Qual­i­fy­ing interest(s)	Breed­ing: capercaillie
	dot­ter­el
	golden eagle
	mer­lin
	osprey
	per­eg­rine
	Scot­tish crossbill
Con­ser­va­tion object­ives for qual­i­fy­ing interests
	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

page 2 of 16

APPRAIS­AL

STAGE 1:
What is the plan or project?
Rel­ev­ant sum­mary details of pro­pos­al (includ­ing loc­a­tion, tim­ing, meth­ods, etc)	Recon­fig­ur­a­tion of exist­ing car park and pro­vi­sion of infra­struc­ture for camper van* overnight facil­ity includ­ing peri­met­er fen­cing, gat­ing, rub­bish col­lec­tion point, fresh water sup­ply and chem­ic­al toilet/​waste water col­lec­tion point in under­groun­ded sealed tank that will be reg­u­larly emp­tied and dis­posed of off-site. *Although the applic­a­tion title refers to ​“camper van” overnight facil­ity, the sup­port­ing doc­u­ments cla­ri­fy that this refers to motorhome users and camper­vans with cas­sette toi­lets. Camper­vans without toi­lets, cara­vans and tents will not be per­mit­ted. There­fore in this HRA the term ​‘motorhome’ is used to describe the pro­posed use by motorhomes and camper­vans with cas­sette toi­lets The pro­posed overnight motorhome park­ing facil­ity will be situ­ated on an exist­ing sur­faced car park. Park­ing there is unres­tric­ted and so is already used by people in motorhomes, camper­vans and oth­er vehicles, park­ing both dur­ing the day and overnight. Cairngorm Moun­tain have col­lec­ted data on overnight usage of their car parks over 6 years, presen­ted in the vis­it­or man­age­ment plan accom­pa­ny­ing the plan­ning applic­a­tion. This has helped inform the HRA.
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)?
Caper­cail­lie:	YES there is a risk of LSE from long term dis­turb­ance effects arising dur­ing use of the overnight park­ing, through the poten­tial for a small pro­por­tion of the people to recre­ate along the route into and through woods known to be used by caper­cail­lie for lekking and breed­ing. This route is how­ever indis­tinct, cross­ing rough and wet ter­rain, so is unlikely to appeal to many people look­ing to explore the area sur­round­ing the motorhome overnight park­ing area, par­tic­u­larly as there are oth­er, more access­ible and appeal­ing routes lead­ing dir­ectly from the exist­ing car park/​proposed motorhome overnight facility.

page 3 of 16

The route is known to be used by hill­walk­ers (Forestry and Land Scot­land advice, pers comm 21 April 2021). Strava data from 2018 con­firms that it is reg­u­larly used for recre­ation, as shown by the ​‘heat’ map of routes recor­ded by Strava users in 2018 in and around the Glen­more and Cairngorm area (the route is shown in purple on the below fig­ure, with Strava route data shown in vary­ing shades of purple, the bright­er and more obvi­ous the purple line indic­at­ing the more times that route has been recor­ded by Strava users dur­ing that year). Non­ethe­less, fur­ther con­sid­er­a­tion of the poten­tial risk of addi­tion­al or dif­fer­ent dis­turb­ance occur­ring on the route through use of the overnight motorhome park­ing facil­ity is required.