Item7Appendix2SupportingInformation20200037NOT

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 7 Appendix 2 22/05/2020

AGENDA ITEM 7

APPENDIX 2

2020/0037/NOT

PRI­OR APPROV­AL – SUP­PORT­ING INFORMATION

Glen Clova Estate Cad­dam Wood – Track Construction

Pri­or Approv­al Sup­port­ing Information

Tilhill FORESTRY

Octo­ber 2019 (Updated April 2020)

Pre­pared by: Dav­id Bruce BSC Tilhill Forestry 1 Duck­burn Park Stirl­ing Road Dun­blane FK15 0EW T: 01786 821666 E: david.​bruce@​tilhill.​com

Sum­mary This pro­pos­al relates to the con­struc­tion of approx­im­ately 1,016m of new track, upgrade of approx­im­ately 589m of exist­ing tracks, cre­ation of 1 new forest bor­row pit and the install­a­tion or renew­al of 3 water cross­ings. The new track is required in order to provide access to thin the tim­ber on the upper slopes of Cad­dam Wood, extens­ive thin­ning has been undetaken on the lower slopes with no thin­ning under­taken on the upper slopes to date. Thin­ning oper­a­tions will improved the tim­ber qual­ity of the crop whilst improv­ing the biod­iversity value of the wood. Tim­ber arising from thin­ning oper­a­tions will be util­ised loc­ally with­in the glen as Bio­mass, utl­ised at the Glen Clova Hotel. The access track will provide access to the upper slopes by smal­ler-scale tim­ber har­vest­ing equip­ment and will allow tim­ber to be brought to the tim­ber stack area close to the B955.

There is exist­ing track infra­struc­ture on the lower slopes which these new tracks will con­nect with. The upper slopes of Cad­dam Wood are situ­ated on a series of shelves which severly lim­its access by tim­ber har­vest­ing equip­ment and there­fore forest management.

The pro­posed new track as per this Pri­or Approv­al applic­a­tion, will sigini­fic­antly increase the forest man­age­ment oppor­tun­it­ies, provide sus­tain­able loc­al wood­fuel and allow for improve­ment of tim­ber crops through thinning.

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Table of Con­tents Summary…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….1 1.Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..4 1.1Location………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..4 1.2Site Description……………………………………………………………………………………………………..4 2 Consultation………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..4 3 Site Constraints…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..6 3.1 Cairngorm Nation­al Park………………………………………………………………………………………6 3.2 River South Esk SAC……………………………………………………………………………………………….8 3.3 Archaeology…………………………………………………………………………………………………………9 3.6 Breed­ing Birds……………………………………………………………………………………………………..9 3.7 Pro­tec­ted Species…………………………………………………………………………………………………9 4 Surveys………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………11 5 Con­struc­tion Meth­od Statement………………………………………………………………………………..11 5.1 Forest Quarry…………………………………………………………………………………………………….11 5.2 New Forestry Track……………………………………………………………………………………………..13 5.3 Upgrad­ing exist­ing track………………………………………………………………………………………15 5.4 Cul­vert Pipes………………………………………………………………………………………………………17

1. Gen­er­al Con­struc­tion Works……………………………………………………………………………………….18
2. Approx­im­ate Tim­ing & Dur­a­tion of Works…………………………………………………………………..18
3. Traffic Man­age­ment Scheme (TMS)……………………………………………………………………………18
4. Dif­fuse Pol­lu­tion Con­trol Measures………………………………………………………………………………19 Appendices…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….20 1.Maps……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………20 1.1Location Map………………………………………………………………………………………………….20 1.1aPrior Approv­al – Loc­a­tion Plan……………………………………………………………………..20 1.2Track Over­view Map………………………………………………………………………………………..20 1.3Track Con­straints Map……………………………………………………………………………………20 1.4Prior Approv­al Detail Map………………………………………………………………………………20 1.5Archaeology Map……………………………………………………………………………………………20 2.Ecological Sur­vey Report……………………………………………………………………………………20 2.1Prior Approv­al – Wild­life Map………………………………………………………………………….20 2.4Prior Approv­al – Wild­life Over­view Map…………………………………………………………..20 3.Landscape Appraisal………………………………………………………………………………………….20 3.1Landscape Apprais­al Map……………………………………………………………………………….20 3.2Site pho­tos and illustrations…………………………………………………………………………..20 4.Toolbox Talks…………………………………………………………………………………………………….20 2| Page

4.1TT08 — Archaeology………………………………………………………………………………………….20 4.2TT10Otters…………………………………………………………………………………………………….20 4.3TT11-Water Pollution……………………………………………………………………………………….20 4.4TT18 — Water Crossings…………………………………………………………………………………….20 4.5TT38 — Sediment………………………………………………………………………………………………20 8.6TT67 — Dif­fuse Pol­lu­tion – Pictorial…………………………………………………………………….20 8.7TT71 — Dif­fuse Pol­lu­tion & Pro­tect­ing the water environment…………………………..20 4.8TT82 — Wildcats………………………………………………………………………………………………..20 4.9Forestry & Water Scot­land – Know the rules – 2^nd edition……………………………….20 5Diffuse Pol­lu­tion Con­trol Plan…………………………………………………………………………….20 6Track Pro­pos­als – Draw­ings & Diagrams……………………………………………………………..20 3 | Page

1.Introduction 1.1 Loc­a­tion The pro­ject is loc­ated with­in Glen Clova Estate ground to the south of the River South in Angus. The elev­a­tion of the pro­posed route of the road ranges from approx­im­ately 240m to the east to 250m at the highest point. The grid ref­er­ence to the pro­pos­al entrance is NO 323 727, and the nearest post code, DD8 4QQ. The pro­pos­al falls with­in the Cairngorm Nation­al Park bound­ary and admin­istered by Angus Coun­cil – See Loc­a­tion Map in Appendix 1.1 & 1.1a

1.2 Site Descrip­tion Exist­ing land use with­in the pro­pos­al area com­prises of semi-mature con­ifer plantation

Soils over much of the pro­posed road line com­prise mainly free drain­ing upland brown earths and pod­zols on the upper slopes. Lower slopes are dom­in­ated with deep­er brown-earth with sur­face water gleying.

2 Con­sulta­tion Angus Coun­cil Plan­ning depart­ment were engaged at an early stage of plan­ning this pro­pos­al. As the work is not for a full spe­cific­a­tion forest road suit­able for road going HGV’s, an ElA determ­in­a­tion was sub­mit­ted to Scot­tish Forestry (SF) in the first instance. As the pro­pos­al is situ­ated entirely with­in the Nation­al Park bound­ary with­in 300m of the River South Esk SAC and more the half of the pro­posed tracks loc­ated with­in the Cairngorm Mas­sif SPA, SF advised that Pri­or Noti­fic­a­tion would be required in this instance. A Pri­or Noti­fic­a­tion applic­a­tion was made to Angus Coun­cil who advised that due to the site sens­it­iv­it­ies that Pri­or Approv­al would be required

Con­sulta­tion feed­back gained from the Pri­or Noti­fic­a­tion applic­a­tion sub­mit­ted in May 2018 raised the fol­low­ing points:

Scot­tish Envir­on­ment­al Pro­tec­tion Agency (SEPA) Water engin­eer­ing works •Devel­op­ments should be designed to leave the water envir­on­ment in a nat­ur­al state with engin­eer­ing activ­it­ies such as cul­verts as cul­verts and bridges avoided where pos­sible. •SEPA have a policy against the closed cul­vert­ing of water­courses as bridging struc­tures for trans­port­a­tion routes. Cul­verts should be open to the river bed for inver­teb­rates and pos­sible fish •The above should be added as a con­di­tion of any approv­al •All oper­a­tions will come under Con­trolled Activ­it­ies Reg­u­la­tion (CAR) and will be covered by spe­cif­ic Gen­er­al Bind­ing Rules (GBR) •Applic­a­tion should make ref­er­ence to ​“Con­struc­tion of River Cross­ings Good Prac­tice Guide” •The inclu­sion of a Dif­fuse Pol­lu­tion Con­trol Plan (DPCP) as well as Pol­lu­tion Pre­ven­tion Plan (PPP) 4|Page

•Where appro­pri­ate veget­a­tion recovered from site should be used to re- veget­ate excav­a­tions or where neces­sary appro­pri­ate nat­ive seed used to re-veget­ate areas •Bor­row pits should only be per­mit­ted if there are sig­ni­fic­ant envir­on­ment­al or eco­nom­ic bene­fits com­pared to obtain­ing mater­i­al from loc­al quar­ries, they are time lim­ited, tied to a spe­cif­ic pro­ject and appro­pri­ate reclam­a­tion meas­ures are in place •No objec­tions to the use of bor­row pits from a plan­ning per­spect­ive but would require fur­ther details of these, includ­ing a map show­ing loc­a­tion, size, depths and dimen­sions, loc­a­tion of stor­age of quar­ried mater­i­al and res­tor­a­tion and after­care pro­pos­als is provided in the PPP •Applic­ant to con­tact with the loc­al reg­u­lat­ory team to dis­cuss in detail their plans for the cross­ing points and pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion measures

Scot­tish Nat­ur­al Her­it­age (SNH) – provided the fol­low­ing points for con­sid­er­a­tion and inclu­sion: •Works should be car­ried out in accord­ance with a site spe­cif­ic meth­od state­ment which iden­ti­fies the meas­ures required to min­im­ise the risk of pol­lu­tion dur­ing con­struc­tion. •The track is designed in accord­ance with our pub­lic­a­tion ​‘Con­struc­ted tracks in the Scot­tish Uplands’ and SEPA’s pub­lic­a­tion ​“Engin­eer­ing in the water envir­on­ment: good prac­tice guide: River crossings”.

Cairngorm Nation­al Park Author­ity (CNPA) – Raised the fol­low­ing issues relat­ing the pro­pos­als •The pro­pos­als are loc­ated with­in the Wild­cat Pri­or­ity Area •Not enough inform­a­tion was provided with regard to Pro­tec­ted Spe­cies for Pri­or Noti­fic­a­tion recom­mend­a­tion •Pro­tec­ted spe­cies sur­vey would be required for Otters, Wild­cats Red squir­rels and Pine martens. •Con­struc­tion Meth­od State­ment detail­ing water cross­ings and pre­cau­tions to deal with any poten­tial impacts upon the SAC •Poten­tial for the new track to become a more prom­in­ent fea­ture with­in the land­scape than the cur­rent pub­lic road 5 | Page

3 Site Con­straints 3.1 Cairngorm Nation­al Park The entire length of track con­struc­tion and main­ten­ance oper­a­tions falls with­in the Cairngorm Nation­al Park Author­ity area. The pro­posed track will be par­tially vis­ible from the B955, on the north side of the glen. There is poten­tial for the track works to become a prom­in­ent and vis­ible fea­ture with­in the land­scape when viewed from the B955 on the north side of the glen.

An exper­i­enced civil engin­eer­ing con­tract­or with a vast exper­i­ence execut­ing this type of pro­ject, includ­ing deliv­ery of pro­jects in areas of high land­scape sens­it­iv­ity, has been con­sul­ted with plan­ning of the pro­posed track line. Fol­low­ing guid­ance provided in ​“SNH Con­struc­ted Tracks in the Scot­tish Uplands”, the pro­posed route of the new road has been care­fully assessed on the ground and links into exist­ing estate tracks. Land­scape was a major con­sid­er­a­tion when plan­ning the route of the track with the align­ment closely respond­ing to land­form. (Appendix 3 — Land­scape Apprais­al) (Appendix 1 – 1.3 Con­straints Map)

In order to min­im­ise the poten­tial land­scape impact of the pro­posed route, the track will be situ­ated on nat­ur­al shelfs on the hill­side, which will assist with land­scap­ing and also coin­cide with drier routes with access to bor­row pit material.

The route will fol­low exist­ing track lines that are cur­rently loc­ated with­in wood­land, new tracks will fol­low con­tours and util­ise nat­ur­al land fea­tures to help gain height gradu­ally and access drier routes. At the north­ern end of the pro­pos­als it will be neces­sary to con­struct a switch back to allow the track to meet up with the exist­ing track net­work, much of this fea­ture will occur on cur­rently open ground, how­ever the track will be designed to min­im­ise the the cut and fill required and will also under­take cre­ate a land­scaped out­ward facing verge and haunch to act­ively reduce visibility..

A land­scape apprais­al has been under­taken, with pho­to­graphs taken from a view­point on the B955 from where the pro­posed roadline is poten­tially at its most prom­in­ent. The apprais­al has con­cluded that much of the pro­pos­al will be screened by wood­land and land­form and will remain largely unseen when viewed from the sur­round­ing area. As men­tioned above a short sec­tion at the west end has the poten­tial to be vis­ible in the sur­round­ing land­scape this is due to the loc­al­ised steep­ness of the land­form and that the track con­struc­tion will take place out with the woodland.

In order to ful­fil the require­ments of good land­scap­ing the plan­ning pro­cess has sought to align the track to fol­low con­tours and to be screened by the land­form and mature wood­land. Cut and fill will be kept to a min­im­um with­in steep, vis­ible sec­tions. Any cut sec­tions will fea­ture gently slop­ing sides and will be re-veget­ated using turves won dur­ing con­struc­tion of the form­a­tion where pos­sible — See Land­scape Apprais­al in Appendix 3 6|Page

Mit­ig­a­tion Example 1 of re-veget­at­ing works using turves.

Example 2 of re-veget­at­ing works •Track designed with land­scape in mind and know­ledge of exper­i­enced engin­eer and con­tract­ors have been util­ised. •Con­tours fol­lowed where pos­sible. •SNH Con­struc­ted Tracks in the Scot­tish Uplands guid­ance fol­lowed. •Exist­ing wood­land areas and land­form provide screen­ing for much of road. 7| Page

•Cut and fill to be kept to a min­im­um dur­ing con­struc­tion with­in steep areas. •Cut sec­tions re-veget­ated where pos­sible. •Land­scape Apprais­al car­ried out.

3.2 River South Esk SAC The River South Esk and asso­ci­ated trib­u­tar­ies are loc­ated to the north of the pro­pos­al and forms part of the River South Esk Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion. (Appendix 1 – 1.3 Track Con­straints Map)

All works will be care­fully planned, mapped and pegged out by a suit­ably exper­i­enced forest man­ager and oper­at­ors will be super­vised to ensure that these stand­ards are met – per Forest and Water Guidelines, Fifth Edi­tion, and SNH Con­struc­ted tracks in the Scot­tish Uplands .

Only approved and com­pet­ent con­tract­ors and machine oper­at­ors will be util­ised and will be fully briefed on safe work­ing, risks of dif­fuse pol­lu­tion and pro­tec­tion of sens­it­ive areas. Pol­lu­tion con­trol will be enforced by daily machine checks, car­ry­ing spill kits, and refuel­ling only at agreed loc­a­tions. In addi­tion, reg­u­lar water­course inspec­tions, use of silt traps and silt fen­cing will be util­ised to guard against silt move­ment – See Dif­fuse Pol­lu­tion Con­trol Plan in Appendix 5

Mit­ig­a­tion •Use of bot­tom­less cul­verts over lar­ger water­courses will res­ult in less excav­a­tion in the ripari­an zone and provide a buf­fer between excav­a­tions and the burn. •Works to be car­ried out by com­pet­ent con­tract­ors with a track record of sim­il­ar works. •Tool­box Talks briefed to all oper­at­ors pri­or to works com­men­cing. •Works car­ried out dur­ing dry peri­ods and work plan­ning to alter depend­ing upon weath­er con­di­tions. •Spill kits car­ried with­in all machinery. •Fuel stored and refuel­ling car­ried out at agreed loc­a­tions only. •Water­courses inspec­ted reg­u­larly. •Use of silt traps and silt fen­cing to guard against silt move­ment. •Dif­fuse Pol­lu­tion Con­trol Plan pre­pared and enforced. 8| Page

3.3 Archae­ology A desk based sur­vey has con­cluded that there is one fea­ture of unsched­uled archae­ology that the pro­posed track upgrade line passes through. fea­tures — See Appendix 1 – Archae­ology Map in Appendix 1.5

Fea­ture Ref­er­ence Fea­ture Descrip­tion Mit­ig­a­tion 1 Mit­ig­a­tion 2 NO37SW0017 South Inch­downie — Remains of farm­stead — depic­ted on the OS 1864 map Exist­ing track cur­rently dis­ects the site – no expan­sion of track foot­print in this area Site to be added to oper­a­tion­al con­straints map. Machines to be excluded from the area Walk over sur­vey pri­or to start­ing Tool­box talk briefing

Mit­ig­a­tion •Ground and desk based sur­veys car­ried out. •Track foot­print to be main­tained where the route passes through archae­ology area. •No excav­a­tion of track with­in the archae­ology area •Walk over sur­vey to be car­ried out pri­or to work com­men­cing on site •Oper­at­ives to be briefed on the poten­tial for fur­ther archaeology

3.6 Breed­ing Birds A breed­ing bird sur­vey has not been under­taken as part of the site sur­vey work. The road line will involve felling approx­im­ately 600 trees. Pre-oper­a­tion­al checks will be car­ried out pri­or to under­tak­ing any works and tim­ings altered accordingly.

Mit­ig­a­tion •Fur­ther sur­veys to be car­ried out pri­or to works com­men­cing •Work plans amended as necessary

3.7 Pro­tec­ted Spe­cies Pro­tec­ted spe­cies were con­sidered in con­junc­tion with the SAC des­ig­nated fea­tures. Otters, Pine martens and Wild­cats formed the main focus of the sur­vey, with the River South Esk and trib­u­tar­ies along the pro­posed route sur­veyed for otters. As the pro­posed track is loc­ated with­in the Wild­cat Pri­oity Area a 200m buf­fer around the pro­posed track line was sur­veyed for Wildcat.

The ini­tial sur­vey car­ried out between Decem­ber 2018 and Feb­ru­ary 2019. The sur­vey noted sig­ni­fic­ant pres­ence of Wild­cat and fre­quent indic­at­ors of otters were noted along the entire length of the River South Esk. As such there is a like­li­hood that without appro­pri­ate mit­ig­a­tion there would poten­tially be impacts upon pro­tec­ted spe­cies. A num­ber of cam­era traps were deployed on suit­able den­ning hab­it­at along the length of the pro­posed track and a num­ber ofloca­tions have pos­it­ively iden­ti­fied Wild­cats with a high pel­age score. Fur­ther sur­veys will be required pri­or to com­men­cing and dur­ing works – See pro­tec­ted spe­cies sur­vey in Appendix 2 9 Page

Mit­ig­a­tion – Wild­cats & Otters •Begin works with­in 12 months of the Pro­tec­ted spe­cies report (April 2019) to ensure data is cur­rent •Ideally under­take oper­a­tions out­with the breed­ing sea­son (August – end of Janu­ary) •Appoint an Eco­lo­gist to over­see works and to provide sur­vey assist­ance and advice dur­ing oper­a­tions •Adhere to a 200m buf­fer zone from known wild­cat dens dur­ing the breed­ing sea­son (Feb­ru­ary – August) and deploy cam­era traps to estab­lish use •Adhere to a 100m buf­fer zone from known wild­cat dens out-with the breed­ing sea­son (August – Feb­ru­ary) again deploy­ing cam­era traps to estab­lish use •Under­take works with­in the buf­fer zone only under licence from SNH •Fre­quent signs of Otter will require fur­ther sur­veys to be car­ried out pri­or to works com­men­cing. •Where holt sites are found an exclu­sion zone of 200m will be set up and, if appro­pri­ate reduced to 100m, where topography/​landform allows. •Otter rest­ing sites will be buf­fered by 30m 10 | Page

4 Sur­veys The fol­low­ing sur­veys have been under­taken; •Land­scape — Land­scape apprais­al under­taken and is in included in Appendix 3 •Des­ig­na­tions (SPA, SAC) — Scot­tish Forestry Land Inform­a­tion Search tool used to ini­tially identi­fy des­ig­na­tions with­in the pro­pos­al area and wider land­scape. •Archae­ology – See Archae­olo­gic­al Map in Appendix 1.10 •Pro­tec­ted Spe­cies — See Eco­lo­gic­al Sur­vey Report in Appendix 2

See Appen­dices for details of all sur­veys car­ried out.

5 Con­struc­tion Meth­od State­ment 5.1 Forest Quarry 1 single bor­row pit loc­a­tion has been iden­ti­fied on the ground that will sup­ply stone for the proposal.

The bor­row pit will be loc­ated in exist­ing wood­land and based on a rock out­crop close to the line of the pro­posed track. The bor­row pit will not be prom­in­ent with­in the land­scape as it will be loc­ated with­in and screened by a stand of semi-mature trees, the loc­a­tion is also situ­ated on a nat­ur­al topo­graph­ic­al shelf will also reduce any poten­tial land­scape impacts. On com­ple­tion of this pro­ject the bor­row pit will be restored and land­scaped, with some of the foot print retained as a vehicle turn­ing area.

It is estim­ated that 480m³ (963t) of stone will be required for all track works. — See bor­row pit draw­ing & pic­ture below. Also see Appendix 3 – Land­scape Apprais­al 11 | Page

Pri­or Approv­al Site Glen Clova Estate — Cad­dam Wood Bor­row Pit Land­scaped pro­file match­ing ori­gin­al land­form and re- veget­ated using recovered turves Tilhill FORESTRY Haul road per Forest Track con­struc­tion spe­cific­a­tions Stone, crushed, graded and stock­piled. Date — 08/10/2019 Example of restored and land­scaped bor­row pit Gravel and stone to be ripped out by excav­at­or, with peck­er where necessary

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5.2 New Forestry Track It is pro­posed to con­struct approx­im­ately 1,022m of new forest track (includ­ing turn­ing areas), to link in with exist­ing estate tracks which are to be upgraded to a sim­il­ar spe­cific­a­tion. The total area of new road will be approx­im­ately 0.61ha, assum­ing an aver­age of 6m wide form­a­tion, to include side drain­age and corners.

Track con­struc­tion will first com­prise cre­at­ing a run­ning form­a­tion to a min­im­um width of 3.5m, and graded to a top side cam­ber to shed sur­face water into new top side drains. Cut and fill will be kept to a min­im­un, par­tic­u­larly where vis­ible in the land­scape. Drains will be cut to at least 150mm below the edge of the road form­a­tion and will stop at least 5m short of water­courses and cul­verts, and silt traps installed to avoid pol­lu­tion and sed­i­ment­a­tion of water­courses. The road will be sur­faced with loc­ally won stone, hauled in from the nearest bor­row pit, and spread to an aver­age depth of 150mm to 200mm. The stone will be spread to an aver­age width of 3.5m, more on corners, and tracked in with an excav­at­or. Geo­tex­tile may also be used pri­or to sur­fa­cing with stone if there are any soft sec­tions with­in the form­a­tion. The track sur­face will then be rolled to refus­al using a heavy vibrat­ing roller.

Tree felling will be required to facil­it­ate the track con­struc­tion in order to cre­ate a 6 metre clear cor­ridor. Approx­im­ately 1,100 trees will need to be felled to accom­mod­ate the track construction.

Pri­or Approv­al Site Glen Clova Estate — Cad­dam Wood Landrover Track Con­struc­tion Tilhill FORESTRY

Run­ning sur­face of site-won rock 150 – 200mm depth as dic­tated by rock qual­ity Top soil haunch, with verge to aid land­scap­ing 2 degree cross fall Date — 08/10/2019 As-dug spoil from track excav­a­tion sup­por­ted by Geo- tex­tile 3.5m width Total width of dis­turbed cor­ridor — 6m ↑ Top side ditch

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2 example pho­tos of the above track spe­cific­a­tion 14 | Page

5.3 Upgrad­ing exist­ing track Approx­im­ately 913m of exist­ing track/​track form­a­tion will be widened to approx­im­ately 3.5m and graded to a top side cam­ber. Exist­ing side ditches will cleaned out and new drains cut where required.

The track will be sur­faced with loc­ally won stone to a depth of approx­im­ately 150 — 200mm x 3.5m in width, spread using a tracked excav­at­or. The main func­tion of the upgrad­ing work will be to cre­ate run­ning sur­face of con­sist­ent width, easy any cur­rent nar­row curves/​corners, cul­vert cur­rent open water-cross­ing and cre­ate a side cam­ber to 2 degrees drain­ing in to the top-side ditch.

It is an anti­cpated that tree felling may be required in loc­al­ised sec­tions to facil­it­ate sec­tions where the track width requires widen­ing how­ever tree felling will not be extens­ive and is likely to involved felling no more than 50 trees. Pri­or Approv­al Site — Glen Clova Estate — Cad­dam Wood Tilhill FORESTRY Forestry Track Upgrade

Run­ning sur­face of site-won rock 150 – 200mm depth as dic­tated by rock qual­ity Pro­cess 3 Re-veget­ate and land­scape lower side to include a verge to assist land­scap­ing 2 degree cross fall 3.5m width ↑ Date — 08/10/2019 Pro­cess 1A Track widened and veget­a­tion cut and stored. Addi­tion­al infill mater­i­al impor­ted to increase the run­ning width Exist­ing track pro­file Pro­cess 2 Addi­tion­al site won stone to be incor­por­ated in to the run­ning sur­face and side cam­ber imposed Pro­cess 1B Top side ditch to be cleaned out 15 | Page

Site photo of track to be upgraded 16 | Page

5.4 Cul­vert Pipes Cul­vert pipes will be installed where water­courses nar­row­er than 1 metre are encountered dur­ing track con­struc­tion. Exist­ing cul­vert pipes on the sec­tions of road prposed for upgrad­ing will be inspec­ted and replaced as required. All works will be sub­ject to Con­trolled Activ­ity Reg­u­la­tions (CAR), with all new cul­verts installed on water­courses detailed on a 1:50,000 scale map, registered with SEPA as an Engin­eer­ing Activity.

Smal­ler 300mm cul­vert pipes will be installed at inter­vals of no more than 200m to dir­ect water from road­side drains. The base of the cul­vert will be excav­ated approx­im­ately 100mm into the water­couse bed top and bot­tom. Trenches will be excav­ated down to firm ground (with all peat removed) where prac­tic­able. Stone revet­ments will be con­struc­ted to guide water into the pipe on the upstream side of the cul­vert using loc­ally won stone where pos­sible. Head­walls will be con­struc­ted upstream and down­stream of the cul­vert to provide sup­port for the cul­vert and new track using suit­able stone also won loc­ally. Min­er­al based as dug infill will be used as the base for the new track over the top of the pipe and this will be sur­faced with loc­ally won crushed stone. Pri­or Approv­al Site Glen Clova Estate — Cad­dam Wood Cul­vert Detail Cul­verts gen­er­ally spaced at 50m to 100m inter­vals to inter­cept run-off and allow ground water cross­flow Water­course cul­verts will be sub­ject to SEPA licens­ing. Date — 08/10/2019 Tilhill FORESTRY

3.5m width

Egress bed­ded in out­fall ditch Twin-walled, smooth-bore 300mm or 450mm dia­met­er Silt trap Cul­vert bed­ded at 2 degree cross­fall and length dic­tated by form­a­tion width. 17 | Page

1. Gen­er­al Con­struc­tion Works All work be under­taken by exper­i­enced con­tract­ors and super­vised under the dir­ec­tion of a civil engin­eer and forest man­ager with extens­ive experience.

All works will be care­fully planned, mapped and pegged out by a suit­ably exper­i­enced forest man­ager and oper­at­ors will be super­vised to ensure that these stand­ards are met – per Forest and Water Guidelines, Fifth Edi­tion and SNH Con­struc­ted tracks in the Scot­tish Uplands .

Only approved and com­pet­ent machine oper­at­ors will be util­ised and will be fully briefed on safe work­ing, risks of dif­fuse pol­lu­tion and pro­tec­tion of sens­it­ive areas. Pol­lu­tion con­trol will be enforced by daily machine checks, car­ry­ing spill kits, and refuel­ling only at agreed loc­a­tions. In addi­tion, reg­u­lar water­course inspec­tions, use of silt traps and silt fen­cing will be util­ised to guard against silt move­ment All road­ing works will only be com­pleted dur­ing dry weath­er to min­im­ise risk of silt run-off. In addi­tion, if it is felt that there is any risk of silt access­ing the water­course, then a silt trap fence will be installed – See Appen­dices 4 to 6 for track con­struc­tion detail.

1. Approx­im­ate Tim­ing & Dur­a­tion of Works It is anti­cip­ated that all works would be under­taken out with the Wild­cat breed­ing sea­son and will also aim to avoid, where pos­sible, peak winter months from Decem­ber through to Feb­ru­ary to min­im­ise risk of dif­fuse pol­lu­tion and ground dam­age. Con­struc­tion work will com­mence in the east and work west­wards. Works are estim­ated to take up to 1 months weath­er per­mit­ting if under­taken dur­ing the autumn/​early winter.

2. Traffic Man­age­ment Scheme (TMS) It is estim­ated that the fol­low­ing plant/​equipment will be used dur­ing con­struc­tion; •15t 360-degree excav­at­ors x 2 •10t dump trucks x 1 •1 x stone crushing/​grading plant. •Vari­ous drain­age pipes

This equates to approx­im­ately 6 HGV move­ments to/​from site.

Plant and equip­ment will be brought into site as and when required and on dif­fer­ing days.

All road con­struc­tion mater­i­als will be taken from bor­row pits with­in the site and not brought in, thus a full TMS is not con­sidered appro­pri­ate for this project.

The fol­low­ing rules will how­ever apply to HGV move­ments; •Vehicles will avoid trav­el­ing in con­voy and there will be a min­im­um of 5 minutes sep­ar­a­tion between vehicles. 18 | Page

•Lar­ger vehicles will dis­play amber beacons to warn oth­er road users of presence.

1. Dif­fuse Pol­lu­tion Con­trol Meas­ures Dif­fuse pol­lu­tion will be a major con­sid­er­a­tion dur­ing this pro­ject due to the prox­im­ity of the River South Esk Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion (SAC).

Three water­courses are present with­in the vicin­ity of the pro­posed works and meas­ures will be put in place dur­ing con­struc­tion to ensure no silt enters the water­courses and ulti­mately into the SAC – See Dif­fuse Pol­lu­tion Con­trol Plan in Appendix 5 and Appendix 4 Tool­box Talks 19 | Page

Appen­dices 1.Maps 1.1 Loc­a­tion Map 1.1a Pri­or Approv­al – Loc­a­tion Plan 1.2 Track Over­view Map 1.3 Track Con­straints Map 1.4 Pri­or Approv­al Detail Map 1.5 Archae­ology Map

2.Ecological Sur­vey Report 2.1 Pri­or Approv­al – Wild­life Map 2.4 Pri­or Approv­al – Wild­life Over­view Map

3.Landscape Apprais­al 3.1 Land­scape Apprais­al Map 3.2 Site pho­tos and illustrations

4.Toolbox Talks 4.1 TT08 — Archae­ology 4.2 TT10 — Otters 4.3 TT11 — Water Pol­lu­tion 4.4 TT18 — Water Cross­ings 4.5 TT38 — Sed­i­ment 8.6 TT67 — Dif­fuse Pol­lu­tion – Pictori­al 8.7 TT71 – Dif­fuse Pol­lu­tion & Pro­tect­ing the water envir­on­ment 4.8 TT82 — Wild­cats 4.9 Forestry & Water Scot­land – Know the rules – 2^nd edition

5 Dif­fuse Pol­lu­tion Con­trol Plan 6 Track Pro­pos­als – Draw­ings & Dia­grams 20 | Page