Item7Appendix4Objections20230007DETLaurelBank

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 7 Appendix 4 10/03/2023

AGENDA ITEM 7

APPENDIX 4

2023/0007/DET

REP­RES­ENT­A­TIONS OBJECTIONS

Emma Green­lees From: Sent: 09 Janu­ary 2023 15:06 To: Plan­ning Sub­ject: 22/05824/FUL | Erec­tion of 22 self cater­ing apart­ments, shops, hotel and under­ground park­ing | Land 80M SW Of Moun­tain Café 111 Grampi­an Road Aviemore Cat­egor­ies: Emma G, Comments

Dear Sir/​madam,

I would like to object to the above development;

The pro­posed devel­op­ment is too high in the centre of Aviemore. It shall neg­at­ively impact Aviemore, do not need anoth­er large com­mer­cial devel­op­ment of this size. It is tak­ing away the char­ac­ter of Aviemore by build­ing huge over­sized build­ings and we are now in jeop­ardy of los­ing site of the beauty that the Cairngorm Nation­al Park offers. This site should offer a swim­ming pool and sports com­plex that would actu­ally bene­fit the park. With only 1 access road to the devel­op­ment, it shall cause huge con­ges­tion with traffic and car fumes. The vil­lage is already strug­gling with traffic and this shall add a fur­ther strain to the vil­lage. We are a vil­lage not a city! Cars will end up park­ing in neigh­bour­ing spaces. We do not need this. 1

2023/0007/DET — Objection

Deirdre Straw From: Sent: 12 Janu­ary 2023 12:18 To: Plan­ning Sub­ject: Object­ing to plan­ing Cat­egor­ies: Pending

To whom it may concern,

I would like to object to these 3 plan­ning applications:

22/05824/FUL Erec­tion of 22 self cater­ing apart­ments, shop, hotel and under­ground park­ing on Grampi­an Road.

22/05826/FUL change of use of land for sit­ing of 27 lodges

22/05826/FUK C22/05497/PIP Change of use from Guest house to 11 ser­vices apartments

Firstly, I under­stand CNP run as a tour­ist inform­a­tion rather than a Nation­al Park and I think this needs to change and CNP should be look­ing at oth­er Nation­al Parks to see how they run. We can­not cope with more tour­ism as we struggle with what we do have, we do not have afford­able hous­ing for loc­al people work­ing in the area to rent or buy. People are being pushed out of the vil­lage because of this, busi­nesses are hav­ing to close to give staff days off. The main road is con­ges­ted. We do not have the infra­struc­ture for more hotels or lodges.

As a nation­al park you should be pro­tect­ing the green land and sup­port­ing the com­munity, unfor­tu­nately this does not seem to be the case and it is really very sad. All plan­ning that goes through, noth­ing is in keep­ing, it is not afford­able for the loc­al com­munity and is tak­ing away pre­cious green land.

22/05824/FUL Erec­tion of 22 self-cater­ing apart­ments, shop, hotel and under­ground park­ing on Grampi­an Road. We have enough hotels in the area we do not need more, as stated above we do not have the infra­struc­ture or the people to work in these hotels and apart­ments. Where are all the staff going to come from and where will they live. Aviemore is at break­ing point and this will just give vis­it­ors a really bad vis­it­or exper­i­ence. The con­ges­tion will pol­lute the area with fumes and sound pol­lu­tion. The main road is already con­ges­ted. I pre­sume the hotel and apart­ments will also not have to pay for the new licensing.

22/05826/FUL change of use of land for sit­ing of 27 lodges, this is at McDon­alds Resort and will be tak­ing away much loved Green­land and will rew­in the feel of that area and will look very over crowded. Again we have too much hol­i­day accom­mod­a­tion as it is. I also think they should be spend­ing their money on the four sea­sons hotel rather than let­ting that go to ruin and build­ing more lodges. Years ago they already had plans to turn that into apart­ments which would be much bet­ter. Again these lodges will not need the licen­cing that is com­ing in.

22/05826/FUK C22/05497/PIP Change of use from Guest house to 11 ser­vices apart­ments, This can­not be allowed, this is a fam­ily home that did bed and break­fast for 4 rooms now plan­ning on turn­ing into 11 apart­ments, this has deck­ing all around them which will cause noise pol­lu­tion, park­ing I do not think is enough, gravel park­ing which will be noisy, neon signs and this is unmanned on a res­id­en­tial street. We have a massive issue with hous­ing and this will be the second B&B fam­ily home to be changed. If I had 1

real­ised about the plan­ning for Ver­mont, I would have objec­ted. If this is allowed, it will set a pres­id­ent for oth­er com­pan­ies to buy houses and turn into hol­i­day let apart­ments as they do not need to get the new licence for short lets and this will take away even more homes. Aviemore can­not cope with what we do have and no more apart­ments, hotels or lodges etc should be allowed until we can sort infra­struc­ture and housing.

Please do not allow these to go ahead and please start treat­ing the area as a pro­tec­ted area.

Kind regards

2

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 22/05824/FUL

Applic­a­tion Sum­mary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: 22/05824/FUL Address: Land 80M SW Of Moun­tain Café 111 Grampi­an Road Aviemore Pro­pos­al: Erec­tion of 22 self cater­ing apart­ments, shops, hotel and under­ground park­ing Case Officer: Roddy Dowell

Cus­tom­er Details Name: Address:

Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Mem­ber of Pub­lic Stance: Cus­tom­er objects to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Comment:I would like to object to this plan­ning applic­a­tion on the fol­low­ing grounds:

The site is already elev­ated, there­fore a 5‑storey build­ing is too high, there are no oth­er 5‑storey build­ings on Grampi­an Road except the unused Strath­spey Hotel, until exist­ing build­ings are in use no oth­er sim­il­ar devel­op­ments should be considered.

Aviemore does not have the infra­struc­ture to cope with more short-term hol­i­day accom­mod­a­tion. 83 bed­rooms, 22 self-cater­ing apart­ments is excess­ive and unnecessary.

Grampi­an Road is already grid locked dur­ing busy peri­ods and the traffic gen­er­ated from this devel­op­ment will add to the congestion.

There is not enough green space on the plans, the site is overdeveloped.

A build­ing of this size will ruin the char­ac­ter of the vil­lage and over­crowd the area.

The devel­op­ment may cause pol­lu­tion and block­ages of Milton burn increas­ing the flood risk upstream.

I do hope these objec­tions will be ser­i­ously considered.

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 22/05824/FUL

Applic­a­tion Sum­mary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: 22/05824/FUL Address: Land 80M SW Of Moun­tain Café 111 Grampi­an Road Aviemore Pro­pos­al: Erec­tion of 22 self cater­ing apart­ments, shops, hotel and under­ground park­ing Case Officer: Roddy Dowell

Cus­tom­er Details Name: Address:

Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Mem­ber of Pub­lic Stance: Cus­tom­er objects to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Comment:I would like to strongly object to this pro­posed devel­op­ment. Aviemore is already over developed and sat­ur­ated with hol­i­day accom­mod­a­tion. Entire hotel blocks are sit­ting empty up at the Mac­don­ald resort. What is needed here is low cost hous­ing to rent to to buy for loc­al people and for work­ers. There is already insuf­fi­cient res­taur­ant staff in the whole vil­lage to cope with the level of tour­ists. Res­taur­ants are hav­ing to close for 2 or more days per weeks they don’t have enough staff. The reas­on for that is because there is nowhere for staff to live. People can­not come to the vil­lage to find work, as although there are plenty of jobs they can­not find any­where to live. By adding these addi­tion­al hol­i­day accom­mod­a­tions it will only make the prob­lem worse. There will be no staff to run or main­tain the addi­tion­al accom­mod­a­tion as there isn’t enough already to go round. Catch 22 situ­ation. This will also cre­ate a bot­tle­neck of traffic in already con­ges­ted street. There is abso­lutely no bene­fit to the vil­lage at all in allow­ing this devel­op­ment to go ahead. It is a massive build­ing in an area of two storey build­ings and would look com­pletely out of place and not in keep­ing with the sur­round­ings. We need accom­mod­a­tion for work­ers and loc­al fam­il­ies. That is what should be get­ting built as a priority.

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 22/05824/FUL

Applic­a­tion Sum­mary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: 22/05824/FUL Address: Land 80M SW Of Moun­tain Café 111 Grampi­an Road Aviemore Pro­pos­al: Erec­tion of 22 self cater­ing apart­ments, shops, hotel and under­ground park­ing Case Officer: Roddy Dowell

Cus­tom­er Details Name: Address:

Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Mem­ber of Pub­lic Stance: Cus­tom­er objects to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Comment:What the vil­lage needs urgently is afford­able prop­er­ties for sale or long term rent. This devel­op­ment is not what we need and is out of scale and char­ac­ter. It will also cre­ate extra traffic on a road that’s already too congested.

There is no point build­ing shops, they won’t be able to get staff as there’s no afford­able place for them to live!

Plan­ning should nev­er have been giv­en to demol­ish the exist­ing Vic­tori­an lodge on that site.

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 22/05824/FUL

Applic­a­tion Sum­mary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: 22/05824/FUL Address: Land 80M SW Of Moun­tain Café 111 Grampi­an Road Aviemore Pro­pos­al: Erec­tion of 22 self cater­ing apart­ments, shops, hotel and under­ground park­ing Case Officer: Roddy Dowell

Cus­tom­er Details Name: Address:

Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Mem­ber of Pub­lic Stance: Cus­tom­er objects to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Comment:Totally inap­pro­pri­ate for this small res­id­en­tial street. Not enough car park­ing to sup­port this num­ber of apart­ments. Hard enough to get out of Craig Na Gower dur­ing busy time as is, this will add to the congestion.

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 22/05824/FUL

Applic­a­tion Sum­mary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: 22/05824/FUL Address: Land 80M SW Of Moun­tain Café 111 Grampi­an Road Aviemore Pro­pos­al: Erec­tion of 22 self cater­ing apart­ments, shops, hotel and under­ground park­ing Case Officer: Roddy Dowell

Cus­tom­er Details Name: Address:

Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Mem­ber of Pub­lic Stance: Cus­tom­er objects to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Comment:I wish to object to this applic­a­tion on the basis that the devel­op­ment would place addi­tion­al pres­sure on Aviemore in terms of con­ges­tion, both from ped­es­tri­ans and vehicles, as well as addi­tion­al pres­sures on the lim­ited work­force. If Aviemore is to retain its repu­ta­tion as a lovely place to vis­it whilst hol­i­day­ing in the heart of the Cairngorm nation­al Park, then over devel­op­ment of the town must be con­trolled. We do not need more hotels or lodges, the town already does not have the capa­city or infra­struc­ture to deal with the extra vis­it­ors each year. In Aviemore at present many hol­i­day pro­viders and oth­er asso­ci­ated food and drink out­lets are strug­gling to find staff as there is little or no new pro­vi­sion for the num­bers of staff required — 4 double rooms for staff as per the plan­ning applic­a­tion will not suf­fice for a devel­op­ment of this size which includes a café and retail which all need staff. Simply build­ing more and more accom­mod­a­tion will not work in the Aviemore area, the Glen­more cor­ridor and all the loc­al loch beach park­ing sites are already over­crowded in the sum­mer, where are these hol­i­day makers sup­posed to go. The town is so over­crowded in the sea­son, it can’t take any more. In addi­tion, many small accom­mod­a­tion pro­viders which are loc­ally owned and staffed will be put out of busi­ness by these large scale multi mil­lion pound devel­op­ments. Aviemore is small both in geo­graph­ic size and pop­u­la­tion, and there are very real effects of over­tour­ism and over-demand. Demand for hol­i­day accom­mod­a­tion has removed most of the cheap­er rent­al prop­er­ties that used to be used for loc­al tran­si­ent hol­i­day work­ers, this means shops, cafes, hotels, out­door ven­ues Cairngorm ski area, can’t find employ­ees, mak­ing the whole ​‘Aviemore’ exper­i­ence a more unpleas­ant one for vis­it­ors. Even before this pro­pos­al, pubs and res­taur­ants are clos­ing dur­ing the week due to lack of staff, clean­ing com­pan­ies are hav­ing to employ school chil­dren and the one fuel sta­tion not only has reduced it’s open­ing hours due to lack of staff, but dur­ing the busiest

times simply can’t cope with the extra vehicles. Yes, it may be seen as a great idea to cap­it­al­ise on the ​‘stayc­a­tion’ after effects, but Aviemore is in grave danger of simply becom­ing one big accom­mod­a­tion pro­vider, but with no one to staff it, it’s beauty spots over run and the very thing that used to attract people here — the quiet nat­ur­al beauty, being ruined under the pres­sure of too many people.

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 22/05824/FUL

Applic­a­tion Sum­mary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: 22/05824/FUL Address: Land 80M SW Of Moun­tain Café 111 Grampi­an Road Aviemore Pro­pos­al: Erec­tion of 22 self cater­ing apart­ments, shops, hotel and under­ground park­ing Case Officer: Roddy Dowell

Cus­tom­er Details Name: Address:

Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Mem­ber of Pub­lic Stance: Cus­tom­er objects to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Comment:Development Park­ing Provision

It was agreed that a sur­vey of the loc­al car parks sur­round­ing the site would be under­taken to demon­strate that there was suf­fi­cient car park­ing in the neigh­bour­ing car parks, thereby con­firm­ing no addi­tion­al park­ing is required on site.

The fol­low­ing areas formed part of the park­ing study network:-

1. Myr­tle­field Shop­ping Centre Car Park — Capa­city 87 spaces;
2. Myr­tle­field Shop­ping Centre (Grampi­an Road On-Street Park­ing Lay-by) — Capa­city 12 space;
3. Aviemore Retail Park — Capa­city 304 spaces;
4. Aviemore Car Park — Capa­city 50 spaces;
5. Bank of Scot­land (Grampi­an Road On-Street Park­ing Lay-by) — Capa­city 4 spaces;
6. Aviemore Shop­ping Centre Car Park — Capa­city 30 spaces;
7. Tesco Car Park — Capa­city 98 spaces;
8. Aviemore Shop­ping Centre (Grampi­an Road On-Street Lay-by) — Capa­city 11 spaces;
9. Aviemore Rail­way Sta­tion Car Park — Capa­city 11 spaces. 2.23.

Transur­veys was com­mis­sioned to under­take a park­ing study between the hours of 0800 — 2000 Fri­day 22^nd Novem­ber and Sat­urday 23^rd Novem­ber 2019.

My com­ments on the sur­vey are as follows:

Many of the park­ing areas included in the sur­vey are not gen­er­al park­ing areas in the sense that a muni­cip­al car park is. In par­tic­u­lar, areas 5 and 7 are provided by busi­nesses for the use of their

cus­tom­ers. People do not always use them for the inten­ded pur­pose, but the busi­nesses con­cerned would not view the park­ing that they provide as part of a gen­er­al park­ing resource avail­able to people who want to park for reas­ons not con­nec­ted with their business.

Area 2 in the above list is used as a short-term park­ing facil­ity by busi­nesses and people who want to access the nearby shops. If its use were to change, it would greatly incon­veni­ence people who want to make quick vis­its to the shops, par­tic­u­larly those with mobil­ity issues. The retail out­lets would also be adversely affected by the loss of this con­veni­ent facil­ity that is heav­ily used by their cus­tom­ers. The same applies to Area 8, which is used in a sim­il­ar way.

Area 9 is provided for the use of people who want to use the rail net­work, and for people want­ing to pick up and drop off people who use the rail ser­vice. This is an essen­tial adjunct to the rail ser­vice that is used by people from across the Spey Val­ley, and is often very con­ges­ted. It is not reas­on­able to sug­gest that this park­ing area should be seen as part of a more gen­er­al park­ing resource.

Area 3 was provided as part of the retail park facil­ity for the use of cus­tom­ers of the retail out­lets. There is a 3 hour lim­it to park­ing which is vig­or­ously enforced. This area is not inten­ded to be a gen­er­al resource, and provides short-term park­ing at best.

The sur­vey was con­duc­ted over two days 22 – 23 Novem­ber 2019. This peri­od is one of the quietest in the year, and the use of park­ing at this time of year is very much less than it is dur­ing the busier hol­i­day periods.

A spot sur­vey that lasts for two days at one time in the year can not be said to reflect year-round usage patterns.

The sur­vey was con­duc­ted more than 3 years ago, and so can not be said to provide evid­ence of cur­rent usage patterns.

My exper­i­ence of park­ing in Aviemore is that it is often very highly util­ised, par­tic­u­larly dur­ing busy hol­i­day peri­ods. This affects the abil­ity of loc­al people to find con­veni­ent park­ing spaces. Aviemore is increas­ingly becom­ing a shop­ping, travel, and ser­vices hub for the wider Spey Val­ley, and those who have to vis­it Aviemore or choose to do so face the same prob­lems with parking.

To sum­mar­ise, this survey

Over­states the true extent of park­ing avail­able in Aviemore Under­states the use made of the park­ing areas Mis­rep­res­ents the nature of the park­ing areas that are avail­able by fail­ing to take into account their inten­ded pur­pose and the reli­ance that people place on them Was too brief, and can not be said to show year-round usage patterns

Was con­duc­ted at at time of year when usage is min­im­al, and shows usage levels well below the norm Was done more than 3 years ago, and so does not provide a reli­able reflec­tion of park­ing usage as it is now The pur­pose of this sur­vey was to demon­strate that there is enough spare park­ing capa­city in Aviemore to absorb the poten­tial impact of this devel­op­ment. In my view, the con­clu­sions set out in this sur­vey are not soundly based and are highly mis­lead­ing. I there­fore oppose this applic­a­tion. Should a sim­il­ar sur­vey be con­duc­ted in future, I sug­gest that its terms of ref­er­ence be defined more rig­or­ously, per­haps with the involve­ment of loc­al agen­cies such as AVCC and CNPA.

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 22/05824/FUL

Applic­a­tion Sum­mary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: 22/05824/FUL Address: Land 80M SW Of Moun­tain Café 111 Grampi­an Road Aviemore Pro­pos­al: Erec­tion of 22 self cater­ing apart­ments, shops, hotel and under­ground park­ing Case Officer: Roddy Dowell

Cus­tom­er Details Name: Address:

Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Mem­ber of Pub­lic Stance: Cus­tom­er objects to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Comment:Lack of green space

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 22/05824/FUL

Applic­a­tion Sum­mary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: 22/05824/FUL Address: Land 80M SW Of Moun­tain Café 111 Grampi­an Road Aviemore Pro­pos­al: Erec­tion of 22 self cater­ing apart­ments, shops, hotel and under­ground park­ing Case Officer: Roddy Dowell

Cus­tom­er Details Name: Address:

Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Mem­ber of Pub­lic Stance: Cus­tom­er objects to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Comment:The pro­posed devel­op­ment of of 22 self cater­ing apart­ments, shops, hotel and under­ground park­ing | Land 80M SW Of Moun­tain Café 111 Grampi­an Road Aviemore, Is not in keep­ing with the char­ac­ter of the area. It will lead to over devel­op­ment of the area and over crowding.

Con­ges­tion and dis­turb­ance: Aviemore town is already con­ges­ted at busy times and this will increase the con­ges­tion along the main road in Aviemore, mak­ing get­ting through the vil­lage ardu­ous and dan­ger­ous at times for ped­es­tri­ans and cyc­lists. Instead of attract­ing vis­it­ors to the area, it will likely bring frus­tra­tion to vis­it­ors, due to lack of flow of traffic. A devel­op­ment of this size requires a sig­ni­fic­ant num­ber of heavy good vehicle ser­vices. The applic­a­tion only men­tions refuse vehicles how­ever there would also be the numer­ous deliv­ery vehicles such as daily food deliv­er­ies, laun­dry and addi­tion­al coaches etc. We already see heavy goods vehicles caus­ing issue in the vil­lage as there is little space for them to oper­ate safely when vehicu­lar and ped­es­tri­an traffic is heavy.

Park­ing: the park­ing sur­vey con­duc­ted, does not take into account the fact that the near by car parks have time lim­its on them, and are of no use to people stay­ing overnight in self cater­ing apart­ments or hotels. There is not enough space or park­ing to cope with these addi­tion­al vis­it­ors. The applic­a­tion men­tions that park­ing demand for the self cater­ing apart­ments and retail out­lets will be at dif­fer­ent times how­ever there will be cross over at times of the day, par­tic­u­larly late after­noon when vis­it­ors are arriv­ing or return­ing from activ­it­ies for the day at the same time as retail is see­ing a peak in demand. Dur­ing this time of the day there is already con­ges­tion and lim­ited park­ing and this will only be exacer­bated without fur­ther pro­vi­sion. Fur­ther­more, the park­ing sur­vey was con­duc­ted between the hours of 0800 — 2000 Fri­day 22^nd Novem­ber and Sat­urday 23^rd Novem­ber 2019 which is prob­ably one of the quietest times of the

year. Surely for a sig­ni­fic­ant applic­a­tion such as this, a sur­vey would have been bet­ter car­ried out over the busy New Year peri­od or in August when the Vil­lage is at capa­city so the real impact could be meas­ured. The occu­pancy fig­ures stated in the applic­a­tion are unreal­ist­ic at best and could be con­sidered mis­lead­ing which also brings into ques­tion the cred­ib­il­ity of any oth­er fig­ures quoted.

The build­ings will bring about a neg­at­ive visu­al impact on the vil­lage, as they are over­bear­ing and impos­ing and not in keep­ing with the Nation­al Park devel­op­ment or the char­ac­ter of the loc­al area. A build­ing of three floors situ­ated that close to the main road will be out of character.

Trees: there are a num­ber of trees marked for remov­al and also whose roots will be impacted by the struc­tur­al design, out­lined on the plans.

Com­munity: 22 self cater­ing, plus shops and a hotel requires staff­ing, and there is only pro­vi­sion for 4 people. There is cur­rently a short­age of staff and staff hous­ing in Aviemore, so this will impact on the abil­ity of the devel­op­ment to be sus­tain­able in staff­ing levels. Com­munity: part 2: there was pre­vi­ously a scout hut on the site. There are no pro­vi­sions to provide any areas for the com­munity to gath­er and the cur­rent scouts have no where to meet any more.

New devel­op­ment that is sym­path­et­ic to the sur­rounds and an aid to the area and vis­it­or exper­i­ence should be wel­comed. In par­tic­u­lar hav­ing new retail space and any afford­able accom­mod­a­tion how­ever, the scale of this devel­op­ment with the num­ber of addi­tion­al beds and asso­ci­ated impact is just too much for the cur­rent infra­struc­ture. Per­haps an devel­op­ment that is smal­ler in size might be more suited to Aviemore

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 22/05824/FUL

Applic­a­tion Sum­mary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: 22/05824/FUL Address: Land 80M SW Of Moun­tain Café 111 Grampi­an Road Aviemore Pro­pos­al: Erec­tion of 22 self cater­ing apart­ments, shops, hotel and under­ground park­ing Case Officer: Roddy Dowell

Cus­tom­er Details Name: Address:

Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Mem­ber of Pub­lic Stance: Cus­tom­er objects to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Com­ment: I strongly object to the devel­op­ment of this 83 roomed hotel in the centre of Aviemore. It is far too big and will over­whelm the hori­zon. The shops and court­yard gath­er­ing space is an attract­ive pro­spect that might enhance the space for the loc­al com­munity and vis­it­ors, but please no more hol­i­day apart­ments and gigant­ic hotels that will put smal­ler loc­al pro­viders out of business.

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 22/05824/FUL

Applic­a­tion Sum­mary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: 22/05824/FUL Address: Land 80M SW Of Moun­tain Café 111 Grampi­an Road Aviemore Pro­pos­al: Erec­tion of 22 self cater­ing apart­ments, shops, hotel and under­ground park­ing Case Officer: Roddy Dowell

Cus­tom­er Details Name: Address:

Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Mem­ber of Pub­lic Stance: Cus­tom­er objects to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Comment:I have sev­er­al ser­i­ous con­cerns about this development:

This devel­op­ment will cause ser­i­ous traffic con­ges­tion in an area that is already grid­locked dur­ing peak tour­ist sea­son. I dont see any pro­pos­als for traffic calm­ing in the plans. Park­ing — where will all the vehicles park for this devel­op­ment? Even with park­ing provided on site, it wont be enough and park­ing will no doubt over­spill onto the already busy main street. It will also cre­ate too much pres­sure on the road junc­tion which is already very busy.

We do not need any more hol­i­day accom­mod­a­tion. Aviemore is already sat­ur­ated with short term lets. The area needs more afford­able res­id­en­tial hous­ing and long term lets — plan­ning need to pri­or­it­ise them rather than private busi­nesses! Where are staff for these new shops and cafes going to live? Will afford­able accom­mod­a­tion be provided to them?

Who will ser­vice these hol­i­day lets — no one can afford to live and work here because of my point above. Will pri­or­ity be giv­en to small inde­pend­ent busi­ness for the pro­posed shops?

And lastly — surely some plan­ning should have been agreed and passed on this piece of land before the pre­vi­ous struc­ture was taken down. We are left with an eye­sore in the centre of the vil­lage. I pro­pose this land could be put to much bet­ter use provid­ing ser­vices the com­munity can bene­fit from — a swim­ming pool, com­munity centre, sec­ond­ary school, park, etc.

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 22/05824/FUL

Applic­a­tion Sum­mary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: 22/05824/FUL Address: Land 80M SW Of Moun­tain Café 111 Grampi­an Road Aviemore Pro­pos­al: Erec­tion of 22 self cater­ing apart­ments, shops, hotel and under­ground park­ing Case Officer: Roddy Dowell

Cus­tom­er Details Name: Address:

Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Mem­ber of Pub­lic Stance: Cus­tom­er objects to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Com­ment: This is a com­pletely unne­ces­sary devel­op­ment. It will over­power the cur­rent build­ings in the area due to its sheer size. There is no need for either addi­tion­al hotel or self cater­ing accom­mod­a­tion in Aviemore. There are entire hotel blocks sit­ting empty, up in the Mac­don­ald com­plex and self cater­ing units are now requir­ing licences, due to the fact that there are so many, so adding more does not make sense. There is also a prob­lem get­ting staff to ser­vice the hotel rooms and self cater­ing units. Already we have the prob­lem that there are not enough staff to cov­er the exist­ing jobs in hos­pit­al­ity as there is no accom­mod­a­tion for loc­al people in the vil­lage. Res­taur­ants are hav­ing to close two days per week as they can’t get enough staff to open every day. By brin­ing in more tour­ists, it just makes this prob­lem worse. A bet­ter solu­tion for the area would be low cost or coun­cil hous­ing to partly alle­vi­ate the hous­ing short­ages and allow the exist­ing ser­vices to oper­ate more effect­ively. This just doesn’t make any bene­fit to the area.

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 22/05824/FUL

Applic­a­tion Sum­mary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: 22/05824/FUL Address: Land 80M SW Of Moun­tain Café 111 Grampi­an Road Aviemore Pro­pos­al: Erec­tion of 22 self cater­ing apart­ments, shops, hotel and under­ground park­ing Case Officer: Roddy Dowell

Cus­tom­er Details Name: Address:

Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Mem­ber of Pub­lic Stance: Cus­tom­er objects to the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Comment:I strongly object to this devel­op­ment on the basis of increased con­ges­tion from traffic in the very centre of Aviemore and the height of the pro­posed devel­op­ment which will adversely impact on the char­ac­ter of the vil­lage. There is essen­tially only one road through Aviemore and traffic at that par­tic­u­lar point is already prob­lem­at­ic due to cars com­ing in and out of Tesco adding anoth­er park­ing struc­ture and the apart­ments etc will cause that sec­tion of road to snarl up com­pletely dur­ing busy sea­son mak­ing trav­el­ling from one end of the vil­lage miser­able for loc­als and tour­ists alike. As to the height neces­sary to fit all that is planned into such a small area, I believe this will be an eye­sore that will dra­mat­ic­ally and neg­at­ively impact the char­ac­ter of the Main Street.

Emma Green­lees From: Alan Atkins Sent: 06 Feb­ru­ary 2023 22:59 To: Alan Atkins; Plan­ning Sub­ject: 2023/0007/DET Com­ment Cat­egor­ies: Com­ments, Request to Speak

Alan Atkins CNPA Grant­own on Spey 6 Feb­ru­ary 2023

Dear Alan Atkins 2023/0007/DET | Erec­tion of 22 self-cater­ing apart­ments, shops, hotel and under­ground park­ing | Land 80M SW Of Moun­tain Café 111 Grampi­an Road Aviemore o objects to the above applic­a­tion and we request the oppor­tun­ity to address the plan­ning com­mit­tee when the applic­a­tion is determined.

Impacts on the Milton (or Aviemore) Burn The pro­pos­al site is imme­di­ately upstream of the stretch of the Milton Burn des­ig­nated as part of the River Spey & Trib­u­tar­ies SAC. The pro­pos­al has the poten­tial to adversely impact the integ­rity of the des­ig­nated site. The stretch of the burn that bor­ders the pro­posed devel­op­ment can be con­sidered to con­trib­ute to the integ­rity of the site and the long-term qual­ity of this part of the burn has implic­a­tions for the des­ig­nated site down­stream. The built foot­print of the devel­op­ment site is too close to the import­ant water course of the Milton Burn which sup­ports sig­ni­fic­ant biod­iversity. We con­sider there should be a sub­stan­tially lar­ger sep­ar­a­tion between the burn and built devel­op­ment. This would allow for high­er qual­ity hab­it­at in the ripari­an cor­ridor, with great­er resi­li­ence and high­er nat­ur­al­ness. This would enable a bet­ter-con­nec­ted land­scape with healthy hab­it­at net­works in this import­ant ripari­an cor­ridor. Otters are known to use the burn, with spraints found at least as far up the burn as the cross­ing of the A9. It is reas­on­able to regard otters using all of the burn as part of the SAC pop­u­la­tion. An inver­teb­rate sur­vey under­taken for what was at that stage the new Tesco site and is now the retail park (a short way upstream of the pro­pos­al), repor­ted the use of the burn by North­ern Feb­ru­ary Red stone­fly Bra­chyptera putata. We are dis­ap­poin­ted that this stone­fly spe­cific­ally, and river flies in gen­er­al, are not referred to in the CNPA Eco­logy Response. River­flies play a major eco­lo­gic­al role, for example provid­ing a source of food for dip­per and grey wag­tail. The burn is known to be used by Lamprey and sup­ports breed­ing amphi­bi­ans. Sal­monids have been recor­ded upstream of the pro­pos­al site. A full suite of eco­lo­gic­al sur­veys, under­taken at appro­pri­ate times of year, should be required to accom­pany this applic­a­tion and inform decisions. 1

The impacts of cli­mate change are pre­dicted to get worse, with great­er extremes of weath­er. The like­li­hood of low water levels becomes great­er, with poten­tially sig­ni­fic­ant eco­lo­gic­al con­sequences, such as raised water tem­per­at­ures and high­er con­cen­tra­tions of pol­lut­ants. In addi­tion, the like­li­hood of flood events, which can be eco­lo­gic­ally destruct­ive, becomes great­er. A lar­ger dis­tance between the burn and the built foot­print would allow for more trees and oth­er ripari­an veget­a­tion, which would provide shade and lower water tem­per­at­ure, as well as main­tain and poten­tially improve water qual­ity, and provide organ­ic mat­ter and food sources in the burn.

Impacts on Con­nectiv­ity and Nature Net­works The pro­pos­al would under­mine the func­tion­ing of the Milton Burn cor­ridor as a Nature Net­work, due to it severely restrict­ing the space avail­able for nature, includ­ing ripari­an trees, along this part of the cor­ridor. The pro­pos­al would under­mine, rather than sup­port, the goal of achiev­ing bet­ter func­tion­ing, bet­ter con­nec­ted and more resi­li­ent eco­sys­tems in the CNP.

Impacts on the Milton Burn flood­plain At present we are on a tra­ject­ory of a tem­per­at­ure rise sig­ni­fic­antly above 1.5° C, indic­at­ing that much stormi­er weath­er, with more severe flood­ing epis­odes, can be pre­dicted. This pro­pos­al, which would neg­at­ively impact on the Milton Burn flood­plain, under­mines rather than pro­motes the goals of redu­cing flood risk and achiev­ing nature-based solu­tions to flood risks.

Non-com­pli­ance with CNPA Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 The pro­pos­al does not com­ply with Policy 3 Design & Place­mak­ing of the CNPA LDP 2021 due to the height of build­ings, the num­bers of self-cater­ing units, the design and lay­out, and the scale of the pro­pos­als, which would lead to over devel­op­ment of the site. The pro­posed build­ings, espe­cially the hotel, would dom­in­ate Aviemore’s centre, and are not of a scale that fits sym­path­et­ic­ally into the loc­a­tion. Along Grampi­an Road from the north, the import­ant views towards Craigel­lach­ie that con­trib­ute sig­ni­fic­antly to Aviemore’s sense of place would be obstructed.

The pro­pos­al does not com­ply with CNPA LDP Policy 5 Impacts on Land­scape due to the design, lay­out and scale of devel­op­ment, height of build­ings, and num­bers of self-cater­ing units, lead­ing to over devel­op­ment of the site.

The pro­pos­al does not com­ply with Policy 10 Resources due to devel­op­ment with­in, and changes to, the func­tion­al flood­plain of the Milton Burn.

Cumu­lat­ive impacts We are con­cerned about cumu­lat­ive impacts on the burn from devel­op­ments. A sub­stan­tial amount of build­ing along the Milton Burn has been con­struc­ted and per­mis­sioned in recent years. This includes: High­er Burn­side; devel­op­ments around Milton Side down­stream of the A9; the devel­op­ments on the pony field; and the retail park devel­op­ment, that involved the destruc­tion of one of the nation­al park’s most eco­lo­gic­ally rich ponds. The Milton Burn is under ever-increas­ing pres­sures and impacts, and this pro­pos­al would add very sig­ni­fic­antly to these.

Yours sin­cerely 2