Item8AA20230302DETClarackCarParkCommitteeReport

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 8

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

DEVEL­OP­MENT PRO­POSED: Per­mit­ted reten­tion of car park and asso­ci­ated toi­let and refuse facil­it­ies (pre­vi­ous plan­ning per­mis­sion ref­er­ence APP/2021/0891) at Land At Clarack Farm­house Din­net Aboyne AB34 5LP

REF­ER­ENCE: 2023/0302/DET

APPLIC­ANT: Din­net and Kinord Estate

DATE CALLED-IN: 24 July 2023

RECOM­MEND­A­TION: APPROVE sub­ject to conditions

CASE OFFICER: Kath­er­ine Don­nach­ie Plan­ning Officer

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CNPA Plan­ning Committee

Applic­a­tion Site 0 35 70 140 Meters

Earth­work Cla­s­ack Hotel A93 169m North Lodge

A97 lects 165m Clarack Cot­tage 167m FIRMOUNTH ROAD (A93)

Crown copy­right and data­base rights 2021. Ord­nance Sur­vey Licence num­ber 100040965 CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 8

Slui 166m FIRMOUNTH ROAD (A

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 8

SITE DESCRIP­TION, PRO­POS­AL AND HIS­TORY Site Description

1. The pro­posed site is loc­ated at Clarack just west of Din­net, and dir­ectly adja­cent to the A93 Bal­later to Aber­deen road. The site itself is an exist­ing hard­core park­ing area. It takes access via the exist­ing upgraded access point onto the A93 road to the south. Farm build­ings at Clarack lie to the west and north and com­prise a mix­ture of tra­di­tion­al stone and slate stead­ings and more mod­ern build­ings includ­ing Dutch barn to north. There is also a stone and slate farm­house to the east of the intern­al access.

2. The house, farm stead­ing and dairy build­ings are lis­ted as being of his­tor­ic and archi­tec­tur­al interest – Cat­egory C. His­tor­ic Environment

3. Site access is shared with the farm build­ings and house. From the car park there is access to the path net­work to and around Loch Kin­nord which lies to the north. This net­work is a core path, and the Deeside Way lies to the south on the oth­er side of the main road.

4. The site itself is not des­ig­nated but is adja­cent to the Muir of Din­net Nation­al Nature Reserve with des­ig­nated sites to the north being the Muir of Din­net Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Area (SPA) and Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion (SAC) and the River Dee SAC.

Pro­pos­al

1. The draw­ings and doc­u­ments asso­ci­ated with this applic­a­tion are lis­ted below and are avail­able on the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity web­site unless noted otherwise:

http://​www​.eplan​ningcnpa​.co​.uk/​o​n​line- applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=RXQG 13SI0CP00

Title Draw­ing Num­ber Date on Plan* Date Received Gen­er­al — Loc­a­tion Plan 01/04/21 20/07/23 Gen­er­al — Exist­ing Gen­er­al Arrange­ments Plan L (90)0001 Rev E 18/05/23 20/07/23 Gen­er­al — Site Plan 16/06/23 20/07/23 Gen­er­al — Toi­let Block Screen­ing 2023- 01/11/23 17/11/23

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 8 102/PO1 rev A Gen­er­al — Gen­er­al Arrange­ment L (90)0001 Rev G 17/11/23 17/11/23 Plan hard and soft land­scap­ing Gen­er­al — Vehicle Swept paths 21002- 003 Rev B 27/11/23 17/11/23 Oth­er — Waste Agree­ment 17/11/23 *Where no spe­cif­ic day of month has been provided on the plan, the sys­tem defaults to the 1^st of the month.

1. Fol­low­ing on from an earli­er grant of tem­por­ary con­sent in 2021 this applic­a­tion seeks per­man­ent con­sent for the change of use of the farm­yard to car park, with asso­ci­ated toi­let block and refuse facil­it­ies. The toi­let block is presently a brightly col­oured self-con­tained small toi­let facil­ity with no asso­ci­ated extern­al drain­age. This struc­ture meas­ures some 2.2 metres by 1.6 metres and some 2.2 metres high. It is pro­posed to retain this struc­ture and to screen it with 2.3‑metre-high tim­ber larch board fen­cing on three sides. It is pro­posed to have a lit­ter bin on site. There are also car park­ing tick­et machines, bike racks and sig­nage on site com­pris­ing CCTV cam­era and five signs advising of park­ing charges. The facil­ity is inten­ded to provide access to Loch Kinord. No changes to the farm build­ings around the site are pro­posed nor to the sur­fa­cing of this yard area with a total of 59 park­ing spaces indic­ated on the site plan.

2. The sub­mit­ted land­scape plan shows plant­ing along the east­ern site bound­ary, part of the north­ern site bound­ary to the west of the Dutch Barn, and nat­ive hedging along the road­side to the east of the access point – this land is also under the applicant’s con­trol. The plan also provides details of trees pre­vi­ously planted which have failed and will be replaced. Nat­ive tree plant­ing is pro­posed, a mix­ture of row­an, sil­ver birch, oak, cherry,

3. The pro­pos­al was ini­tially put for­ward for a two-year tem­por­ary per­mis­sion to address vis­it­or needs in the area whilst the applic­ant developed detailed plans for longer term vis­it­or facil­it­ies in the area which is the cur­rent application.

4. In terms of ser­vi­cing there are no changes pro­posed with the toi­let facil­ity being self- con­tained with no con­nec­tions to water or drain­age sup­plies, being ser­viced by the sup­pli­ers. A sup­port­ing waste

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 8 state­ment has been sub­mit­ted which is essen­tially a trade waste agree­ment with Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil for uplift­ing of waste.

1. Plans for the pro­pos­als are included with­in Appendix 1

His­tory

1. Pre applic­a­tion advice was provided in 2020 (Ref­er­ence PRE/2020/0019) for the form­a­tion of a car park and cara­van / camper­van ser­vi­cing station.

2. In 2021 con­sent was gran­ted for the tem­por­ary change of use of the farm­yard to car park, with toi­let and refuse facil­it­ies. (ref­er­ence 2021/0143//DET) This con­sent was for a two year peri­od and was sub­ject to sus­pens­ive con­di­tions includ­ing land­scap­ing and con­struc­tion meth­od state­ment require­ments which were sub­sequently discharged.

Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Appraisal

1. A Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al (HRA) has been under­taken to con­sider the poten­tial effects of the devel­op­ment upon the con­ser­va­tion object­ives of the Natura sites lis­ted with­in the HRA doc­u­ment. This is attached as Appendix 2. The Natura sites in this case are Muir of Din­net Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion (SAC) des­ig­nated for otter, degraded raised bogs, dry heaths, clear water lakes and lochs , trans­ition mires and quak­ing bogs interest; Muir of Din­net Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Area (SPA) des­ig­nated for non-breed­ing greylag goose and water­fowl assemblage; and the River Dee SAC which is des­ig­nated for its Atlantic sal­mon, fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sels (FWPM) and otter interests.

2. A HRA was car­ried out with the ori­gin­al applic­a­tion for tem­por­ary con­sent. This noted that there was poten­tial for likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects to otter, grey lag goose and water­fowl assemblage through dis­turb­ance caused by increased human activ­ity high­light­ing that users would be likely to keep to well used exist­ing paths and con­cluded that there will not be an adverse effect on site integ­rity for the des­ig­nated sites.

3. The cur­rent HRA notes that the pro­pos­al is for the per­man­ent reten­tion of the tem­por­ary car park not­ing that it has not been overly used in the peri­od in which it has been oper­at­ing with the ori­gin­al assess­ment of users using the exist­ing net­works of paths remain­ing val­id. It is fur­ther noted that the car park includes sig­nage for avoid­ing disturbing

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 8 activ­it­ies around the loch dur­ing the nest­ing sea­son (1^st March — 31^st August).

1. Nature Scot has been con­sul­ted and has no comments.

DEVEL­OP­MENT PLAN CON­TEXT Policies Nation­al Policy Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 (NPF4) Scot­land 2045 POLICY 1 Tack­ling the Cli­mate and Nature Crises POLICY 2 Cli­mate Mit­ig­a­tion and Adapt­a­tion POLICY 3 Biod­iversity POLICY 4 Nat­ur­al Places POLICY 6 Forestry, Wood­land and Trees POLICY 7 His­tor­ic Assets and Places POLICY 9 Brown­field, Vacant and Derel­ict Land, and Empty Build­ings POLICY 12 Zero Waste POLICY 13 Sus­tain­able Trans­port POLICY 14 Design, Qual­ity and Place POLICY 22 Flood Risk and Water Man­age­ment POLICY 29 Rur­al Devel­op­ment POLICY 30 Tour­ism Stra­tegic Policy Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2022 – 2027 Loc­al Plan Policy Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (2021) Those policies rel­ev­ant to the assess­ment of this applic­a­tion are marked with a cross POLICY 1 NEW HOUS­ING DEVEL­OP­MENT POLICY 2 SUP­PORT­ING ECO­NOM­IC GROWTH x POLICY 3 DESIGN AND PLACE­MAK­ING x POLICY 4 NAT­UR­AL HER­IT­AGE x POLICY 5 LAND­SCAPE x POLICY 6 THE SIT­ING AND DEISGN OF DIGIT­AL COM­MU­NIC­A­TIONS EQUIP­MENT POLICY 7 RENEW­ABLE ENERGY POLICY 8 OPEN SPACE, SPORT AND RECRE­ATION POLICY 9 CUL­TUR­AL HER­IT­AGE x POLICY 10 RESOURCES x POLICY 11 DEVELOPER OBLIGATIONS

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 8

1. All new devel­op­ment pro­pos­als require to be assessed in rela­tion to policies con­tained in the adop­ted Devel­op­ment Plan which com­prises Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 (NPF4) and the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021. The full word­ing of policies can be found at:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/national-planning-framework- 4/​documents/​

and at:

https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​w​p​-​c​o​n​t​e​n​t​/​u​p​l​o​a​d​s​/​2​0​2​1​/​0​3​/​C​N​P​A​-​L​D​P​-​2021- web.pdf

Plan­ning Guidance

1. Sup­ple­ment­ary guid­ance also forms part of the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan and provides more details about how to com­ply with the policies. Guid­ance that is rel­ev­ant to this applic­a­tion is marked with a cross. Policy 1 Hous­ing Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance Policy 2 Sup­port­ing Eco­nom­ic Growth Non-Stat­utory x Guid­ance Policy 3 Design and Place­mak­ing Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance x Policy 4 Nat­ur­al Her­it­age Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance x Policy 5 Land­scape Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance x Policy 7 Renew­able Energy Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance Policy 8 Open Space, Sport and Recre­ation Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance Policy 9 Cul­tur­al Her­it­age Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance x Policy 10 Resources Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance x Policy 11 Developer Oblig­a­tions Sup­ple­ment­ary Guidance

CON­SULTA­TIONS

1. A sum­mary of the main issues raised by con­sul­tees now follows:

2. Nature Scot — when ini­tially con­sul­ted noted that the pre­vi­ous HRA of the pro­pos­al for a tem­por­ary car park noted a poten­tial increase in levels of human activ­ity caused by users going on walks in area. Although the tem­por­ary car park does not appear to have been well used it has poten­tial to be. The HRA pre­vi­ously con­cluded that this increase would occur on well used paths already exper­i­en­cing dis­turb­ance and con­cluded that all con­ser­va­tion object­ives would be

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 8 met. They do not con­sider there are any changes requir­ing reas­sess­ment and as noted earli­er have no com­ments on the HRA.

1. Trans­port Scot­land has no objections

2. Scot­tish Water has no objec­tions, they note that this does not mean the site can be ser­viced by them and high­light that they will not accept any sur­face water con­nec­tions into their com­bined systems.

3. Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil Envir­on­ment­al Health Officer has no comments.

4. Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil Flood Risk and Coastal Pro­tec­tion Team advise that assum­ing there has been no changes to the arrange­ments they com­men­ted upon in 2021 they have no comments.

5. Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil Roads Devel­op­ment has no objections

6. Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil Waste Ser­vice ini­tially reques­ted fur­ther inform­a­tion regard­ing details of ser­vi­cing, waste col­lec­tion point and swept paths ana­lys­is. On receipt of addi­tion­al inform­a­tion, they have con­firmed no objec­tions sub­ject to the Roads Devel­op­ment ser­vice hav­ing no objec­tions to the pro­posed lay­out in terms of vehicu­lar access for large vehicles

7. Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil Con­ser­va­tion Officer noted that the site is beside the cat­egory C lis­ted Clarack farm­house and stead­ing whereby the set­ting of the build­ings must be con­sidered. They con­sider that the cur­rent park­ing sur­face is appro­pri­ate, and prefer­able to a harder sur­face such as tar, with any mark­ing of spa­cing recom­men­ded to be car­ried out by logs in order not to detract from the set­ting. They also recom­mend that con­sid­er­a­tion be giv­en to clad­ding the toi­let block in tim­ber as opposed to the cur­rent brightly col­oured tem­por­ary appearance.

8. CNPA Out­door Eco­logy Officer has no objec­tions not­ing that biod­iversity enhance­ments could be secured simply by main­ten­ance of plant­ing and green­spaces and ensur­ing that any failed trees are replaced. No impacts on pro­tec­ted spe­cies are anti­cip­ated with the car park being oper­a­tion­al whereby spe­cies will have become accus­tomed to activ­ity here. The poten­tial for slight impacts upon des­ig­nated sites due to increased vis­it­or num­bers is addressed the HRA process.

9. CNPA Out­door Land­scape Officer con­siders that the land­scape and visu­al effects are lim­ited by the dis­crete loc­a­tion adja­cent to exist­ing farm build­ings and wood­land to the west, north and east. However,

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 8 some failed land­scap­ing on site and the exist­ing car park infra­struc­ture res­ults in some neg­at­ive effects in the loc­al area. Mit­ig­a­tion is recom­men­ded by way of redesign of the toi­let block (which is prom­in­ent and incon­gru­ous to the rur­al char­ac­ter of the area); ration­al­ise and improve exist­ing sig­nage on site which are numer­ous and have cumu­lat­ive effects; assess exist­ing plant­ing and fail­ures, and provide new road­side hedging to com­pensate for the loss of the ori­gin­al road­side hedging here; and com­mit to improved maintenance/​aftercare scheme for two years post plant­ing. Fol­low­ing receipt of fur­ther inform­a­tion, the Officer is now gen­er­ally sat­is­fied with the pro­pos­als, although expresses dis­ap­point­ment with the lim­ited extent of new hedging.

1. CNPA Out­door Access Officer has no objections.

2. Mid Deeside Com­munity Coun­cil was con­sul­ted but has not provided a response to date.

REP­RES­ENT­A­TIONS

1. There have been no rep­res­ent­a­tions received.

APPRAIS­AL

1. Sec­tion 25 of the 1997 Act as amended requires applic­a­tions to be determ­ined in accord­ance with the Devel­op­ment Plan. This now com­prises the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 and the Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4(NPF4). Where there is con­flict between policies, NPF4 policies will be used.

2. The main plan­ning con­sid­er­a­tions in this case are the prin­ciple of devel­op­ment, the impact upon land­scape, any envir­on­ment­al impacts, access and ser­vi­cing, and any impacts on amen­ity of res­id­ents in the area. These will now be considered

Prin­ciple

1. NPF4 Policy 29: Rur­al Devel­op­ment seeks to sup­port devel­op­ment pro­pos­als that con­trib­ute to the viab­il­ity, sus­tain­ab­il­ity and diversity of rur­al com­munit­ies and the loc­al rur­al eco­nomy. It explains that pro­pos­als in rur­al areas should be suit­ably scaled, sited and designed to be in keep­ing with the char­ac­ter of the area and should con­sider how they will con­trib­ute to loc­al liv­ing and take into account the trans­port needs as appro­pri­ate for the rur­al loc­a­tion. More spe­cific­ally in this case NPF4 Policy 30: Tour­ism sets out that pro­pos­als for new or

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 8 exten­ded tour­ist facil­it­ies or accom­mod­a­tion in loc­a­tions iden­ti­fied in the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan will be sup­por­ted. It also seeks to ensure that pro­pos­als for tour­ism related devel­op­ments, amongst oth­er cri­ter­ia, take into account the con­tri­bu­tion to the loc­al eco­nomy, com­pat­ib­il­ity with the sur­round­ing area in terms of the nature and scale of the activ­ity and impacts of increased vis­it­ors, and the oppor­tun­it­ies for sus­tain­able travel, appro­pri­ate man­age­ment of park­ing and traffic gen­er­a­tion and the scope for sus­tain­ing pub­lic trans­port ser­vices par­tic­u­larly in rur­al areas, access­ib­il­ity for dis­abled people, meas­ures taken to min­im­ise car­bon emis­sions and the oppor­tun­it­ies to provide access to the nat­ur­al envir­on­ment. Policy 9: Brown­field, vacant and derel­ict land and empty build­ings sup­ports devel­op­ment which will res­ult in the sus­tain­able reuse of brown­field land includ­ing vacant and derel­ict land and build­ings, wheth­er per­man­ent or temporary.

1. In terms of the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan the applic­a­tion site is part of a site expressly des­ig­nated for eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment in the Din­net set­tle­ment state­ment under the des­ig­na­tion ED1. This sets out that the site is a former farm, now redund­ant and provides an oppor­tun­ity for eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment. It notes that there is a medi­um to high prob­ab­il­ity flood risk adja­cent to the site and that it lies dis­tant from pub­lic wastewa­ter net­work so this will need to be con­sidered with any pro­pos­als. It also explains that Din­net is a key gate­way into the Nation­al Park

2. Policy 2: Sup­port­ing Eco­nom­ic Growth of the Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 sets out that devel­op­ment which enhances form­al and inform­al recre­ation and leis­ure facil­it­ies; tour­ism and leis­ure-based busi­ness activ­it­ies and attrac­tions; and improved oppor­tun­it­ies for respons­ible out­door access will be sup­por­ted where: a) it has no adverse envir­on­ment­al or amen­ity impacts on the site or neigh­bour­ing areas; and b) it makes a pos­it­ive con­tri­bu­tion to the exper­i­ence of vis­it­ors; and c) it sup­ports or con­trib­utes to a year-round economy

3. When the ori­gin­al applic­a­tion for tem­por­ary con­sent was sub­mit­ted it was explained that it sought to address the lack of suit­able park­ing, toi­let and waste dis­pos­al facil­it­ies in the area, improve man­age­ment, and ease the grow­ing pres­sure from cars and camper vans with­in the wider area. It was noted then that the site involved an exist­ing area of hard stand­ing loc­ated in a less sens­it­ive loc­a­tion than some smal­ler park­ing areas around the Lochs Kinord and Dav­an on the estate here.

4. This pro­pos­al is for the per­man­ent reten­tion of this car park and asso­ci­ated ser­vices, which effect­ively ser­vice the adja­cent vis­it­or des­tin­a­tion at Loch Kinord, situ­ated on des­ig­nated brown­field land

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 8 dir­ectly beside a main traffic route. As such it is con­sidered to be in prin­ciple to read­ily com­ply with NPF4 and Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan policy sub­ject to design, land­scap­ing, ser­vi­cing and envir­on­ment­al issues which will now be considered.

Impacts on Land­scape and Spe­cial Land­scape Qualities

1. NPF4 Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Places sets out that devel­op­ment pro­pos­als which affect a Nation­al Park will only be sup­por­ted where the object­ives of des­ig­na­tion and the over­all integ­rity of the area will not be com­prom­ised and any sig­ni­fic­ant adverse effects on the qual­it­ies for which the area has been des­ig­nated are clearly out­weighed by social, envir­on­ment­al or eco­nom­ic bene­fits of nation­al importance.

2. Policy 5: Land­scape of the Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 sets out that there will be a pre­sump­tion against any devel­op­ment that does not con­serve or enhance the land­scape char­ac­ter or spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park, with devel­op­ment that does not achieve this again only to be per­mit­ted where any sig­ni­fic­ant effects are clearly out­weighed by out­weighed by social, envir­on­ment­al or eco­nom­ic bene­fits of nation­al import­ance and all adverse effects on the set­ting have been min­im­ised and mitigated

3. In this instance, as noted by the CNPA Land­scape Advisor, the site is dis­cretely loc­ated on an exist­ing hardstanding/​farmyard beside an exist­ing farm com­plex com­pris­ing a mix­ture of tra­di­tion­al lis­ted build­ings (includ­ing farm house) and more mod­ern ones, whereby there are not con­sidered to be any sig­ni­fic­ant impacts. Some land­scap­ing has been imple­men­ted around the site, but some of these trees have failed. Once these are replaced and the land­scap­ing matures the site will bene­fit from an improved land­scaped set­ting. This will be assisted by the pro­posed road­side hedging to the east of the access point. Although fur­ther hedging on the west­ern side of the access point would have been ideal the applic­ants have explained that this would not be prac­tic­al in terms of the oper­a­tion of the farm. Over­all, it is con­sidered that the pro­posed land­scap­ing is suf­fi­cient to cre­ate a suit­able land­scape setting.

4. The oth­er ele­ment of the devel­op­ments which has land­scape impacts is the toi­let block. At present it is a small brightly col­oured struc­ture which, even tak­ing into con­sid­er­a­tion its loc­a­tion to the rear of the site and near to more mod­ern agri­cul­tur­al build­ings, appears some­what incon­gru­ous due to its col­our­ing. The applic­ants have amended the cur­rent pro­pos­als to include larch screen­ing around the block. This mit­ig­a­tion is con­sidered to be appro­pri­ate to the set­ting here and will help to min­im­ise any visu­al and land­scape impacts.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 8

1. In these cir­cum­stances the pro­posed devel­op­ment is con­sidered to com­ply with NPF4 and LDP policies in terms of land­scape impacts and spe­cial qual­it­ies – the detail of the design and lay­out will now be considered.

Design, Lay­out and Cul­tur­al Impacts

1. NPF4 Policy 14: Design, qual­ity and place states devel­op­ment pro­pos­als should improve the qual­ity of an area and be con­sist­ent with the six qual­it­ies of suc­cess­ful places. It also sets out that pro­pos­als which are poorly designed and det­ri­ment­al to the amen­ity of the area will not be sup­por­ted. This echoes the require­ments of Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing of the Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 which also sets out prin­ciples of sus­tain­able design to be met with new devel­op­ment includ­ing require­ments to ensure that new devel­op­ment is sym­path­et­ic to the tra­di­tion­al pat­tern and char­ac­ter of the sur­round­ing area whilst encour­aging innov­a­tion in design and mater­i­al, min­im­ising the effects on cli­mate change in terms of sit­ing and con­struc­tion and using mater­i­als and land­scap­ing to com­ple­ment the set­ting of development.

2. In this case as the site is loc­ated beside lis­ted build­ings NPF4 Policy 7: His­tor­ic Assets and Places also applies which sets out that where there is poten­tial for non-des­ig­nated bur­ied archae­olo­gic­al remains to exist below a site, developers should provide eval­u­ation of the site an early stage, with non-des­ig­nated his­tor­ic envir­on­ment assets and their set­tings to be pro­tec­ted and pre­served in situ wherever feas­ible. It also seeks to ensure that any pro­pos­als affect­ing the set­ting of a lis­ted build­ing should pre­serve its char­ac­ter and spe­cial interest, with devel­op­ments affect­ing sched­uled monu­ments only sup­por­ted where dir­ect or sig­ni­fic­ant adverse impacts are avoided. Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 Policy 9: Cul­tur­al Her­it­age has sim­il­ar requirements.

3. In terms of design the car park is loc­ated on a hard­core farm yard with lim­ited changes/​impacts arising. The toi­let block as noted earli­er is of bright col­our, incon­gru­ous in the area, but this will be sat­is­fact­or­ily addressed by the pro­posed larch board screen­ing. The bike stands are low key in terms of scale and of simple design entirely appro­pri­ate to the area.

4. The only remain­ing visu­al impact is that of sig­nage. The loc­a­tion of the car park is import­ant in that it effect­ively provides an entrance to Loch Kinord and as noted in the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan set­tle­ment state­ment, Din­net itself is a key gate­way into the Nation­al Park. At

12

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 8 present the car park is some­what dom­in­ated by sig­nage advising of park­ing costs. It is under­stood that this sig­nage is required to ensure that appro­pri­ate notice is giv­en to drivers of the charges in place. Whilst it would be ideal if the num­ber of these signs could be reduced, this require­ment is under­stood, how­ever it is con­sidered that pro­vi­sion could be made for prom­in­ent, wel­com­ing inter­pret­at­ive mater­i­al for vis­it­or to help min­im­ise neg­at­ive impacts from the park­ing sig­nage. This could be addressed by a suit­ably worded plan­ning condition.

1. In these over­all cir­cum­stances and sub­ject to appro­pri­ate plan­ning con­di­tions to secure screen­ing of the toi­let block and suit­able sig­nage strategy the devel­op­ment is con­sidered to com­ply with NPF4 Policy 14 and Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan Policy 3.

2. With regard to cul­tur­al her­it­age, there is no ground excav­a­tion pro­posed so no impacts on archae­ology, and at the time of the ori­gin­al applic­a­tion here the Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil Archae­ology Team did not require any mit­ig­a­tion. In terms of impacts upon the adja­cent lis­ted build­ings the farm com­plex is still in use and the park­ing area is sim­il­ar to a farm­yard in nature and appear­ance so there will be little impact on the lis­ted build­ings. Whilst the toi­let block is loc­ated some dis­tance from the lis­ted build­ings tim­ber screen­ing is now pro­posed to render it more sym­path­et­ic visu­ally. Con­sequently there are not con­sidered to be any adverse impacts upon the build­ings or their set­ting whereby the devel­op­ment is con­sidered to com­ply with NPF4 Policy 7 and LDP Policy 9.

Trans­port issues

1. NPF4 Policy 13: Sus­tain­able Trans­port sup­ports new devel­op­ment where it is line with the sus­tain­able trans­port and invest­ment hier­arch­ies and where appro­pri­ate provides safe links to loc­al facil­it­ies via walk­ing, wheel­ing and cyc­ling net­works, is access­ible by pub­lic trans­port, provides low or zero emis­sion char­ging points and secure cyc­ling park­ing, is designed to incor­por­ate safe cross­ing for walk­ing and wheel­ing and redu­cing the speed of vehicles, and takes account of the trans­port needs of diverse groups and adequately mit­ig­ates any impact on loc­al pub­lic access routes. It also refers to require­ments for devel­op­ments pro­pos­als for sig­ni­fic­ant traffic gen­er­at­ing uses. Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing of the Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 also requires devel­op­ment to have an appro­pri­ate means of access, park­ing and pro­mote sus­tain­able trans­port meth­ods and act­ive travel. It also requires new devel­op­ment to main­tain and max­im­ise all oppor­tun­it­ies for respons­ible out­door access includ­ing links into the exist­ing path net­work and ensur­ing con­sist­ency with the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Core Paths Plan.

13

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 8

1. In this case the devel­op­ment is well sited in rela­tion to the pub­lic road net­work tak­ing dir­ect access onto the A93 Bal­later to Aber­deen main road and will con­tin­ue to provide a use­ful facil­ity for those per­sons access­ing Loch Kinord and the wider area. At present the car park does not appear to be heav­ily used, but this could change in the future and it would have been ideal to con­sider the poten­tial to provide elec­tric vehicle char­ging points here. The applic­ant has advised that they have invest­ig­ated this and are not minded to include it at this point – how­ever this poten­tial could be high­lighted by an appro­pri­ate inform­at­ive attached to any con­sent issued.

2. The access point has been upgraded in accord­ance with the terms of the ori­gin­al con­sent here and the tech­nic­al con­sul­tees (Trans­port Scot­land and Aber­deen­shire Roads Devel­op­ment) have no objec­tions to the pro­pos­als. Con­di­tions pre­vi­ously required regard­ing the main­ten­ance of the vis­ib­il­ity splays can be reim­posed here for completeness.

3. In terms of sus­tain­able trans­port, as noted the site is loc­ated beside the main A93 road where there is a bus route. It is also well placed in rela­tion to the Deeside Way (which runs on the oth­er side of the A93, with fur­ther core paths to the north lead­ing around Loch Kinord from Din­net. In addi­tion, ample bike stands are provided on site.

4. Finally in terms of trans­port issues the farm use is still oper­at­ing in con­junc­tion with the car park use with the lay­out facil­it­at­ing both uses with no appar­ent con­flicts. In this regard the car park use is not con­sidered to pre­ju­dice the ongo­ing use of the build­ings or the des­ig­na­tion for eco­nom­ic development

5. In these over­all cir­cum­stances the devel­op­ment is con­sidered to com­ply with NPF and Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan policies

Water envir­on­ment and drainage

1. NPF4 Policy 22: Flood Risk and Water Man­age­ment cre­ates a pre­sump­tion against all devel­op­ment at risk from flood­ing and seeks to ensure that that there is no risk of sur­face water flood­ing to oth­ers, and that all rain and sur­face water is man­aged through sus­tain­able urb­an drain­age sys­tems (SUDS) with area of imper­meable sur­faces min­im­ised. NPF4 Policy 20: Green and Blue Infra­struc­ture is also of some rel­ev­ance. This sup­ports devel­op­ment which incor­por­ates new or enhanced blue and/​or green infra­struc­ture with pro­pos­als for their future man­age­ment to be included. Policy 10: Resources of the

14

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 8 Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan requires devel­op­ment to min­im­ise the use of treated and abstrac­ted water, treat sur­face water in accord­ance with the SUDS manu­al, ensure no adverse impacts on private water sup­plies, and ensure no det­ri­ment­al impacts on the water envir­on­ment as well as to be free from flood risk and not increase the risk of flood­ing elsewhere.

1. With regard to foul drain­age for the toi­let block this is as noted earli­er a self-con­tained toi­let which is emp­tied and ser­viced by the sup­pli­er so there is no con­nec­tion to water sup­plies or any new drainage/​soakaway involved. Provid­ing this is prop­erly main­tained by the applic­ants there is no envir­on­ment­al impacts arising.

2. With regard to sur­face water and flood­ing issues, the car park sur­face is per­meable. Sur­face water drain­age arrange­ments for this and the road improve­ments which have been car­ried out were agreed at the time of the pre­vi­ous applic­a­tion with the tech­nic­al con­sul­tee (Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil Flood Risk Team) with no flood risk issues arising. There are no pro­pos­als to change these arrange­ments with the cur­rent application.

3. In these over­all cir­cum­stances the pro­pos­als are con­sidered to com­ply with NPF4 and Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan policies

Envir­on­ment­al, Biod­iversity, Eco­logy and Trees Issues

1. NPF4 Policy 6: Forestry, Wood­land and Trees sup­ports devel­op­ment that enhances, expands and improves wood­land and tree cov­er and sets out that devel­op­ment will not be sup­por­ted where there are adverse impacts on nat­ive wood­land and hedgerows of high biod­iversity value or iden­ti­fied for pro­tec­tion. Frag­ment­a­tion of wood­land hab­it­ats is not sup­por­ted. Any wood­land remov­al must deliv­er sig­ni­fic­ant and clearly defined pub­lic bene­fits with com­pens­at­ory plant­ing required. NPF4 Policy 3: Biod­iversity requires that the devel­op­ment pro­pos­als includ­ing where rel­ev­ant restor­ing degraded hab­it­ats and build­ing and strength­en­ing nature net­works and the con­nec­tions between them. They should also integ­rate nature based solu­tions where pos­sible, and include appro­pri­ate meas­ures to con­serve, restore and enhance biod­iversity pro­por­tion­ate to the scale of the devel­op­ment . NPF4 Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Places does not sup­port devel­op­ment which will have an unac­cept­able impact on the nat­ur­al envir­on­ment or which will have a sig­ni­fic­ant effect on European Site des­ig­na­tions which include Spe­cial Areas of Con­ser­va­tion and Sites of Spe­cial Sci­entif­ic Interest.

15

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 8

1. Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Her­it­age of the Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 sim­il­arly requires new devel­op­ment to have no adverse effects on the integ­rity of des­ig­nated sites, the Nation­al Park or on pro­tec­ted spe­cies or hab­it­ats. Wood­land remov­al is only per­mit­ted where it com­plies with Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment policy on the con­trol of wood­land remov­al and where remov­al would achieve clearly defined addi­tion­al pub­lic bene­fits, with a strong pre­sump­tion against remov­al of ancient semi nat­ur­al woodland.

2. In this regard no trees will be lost as a res­ult of the devel­op­ment and exist­ing failed trees which formed the land­scap­ing for the tem­por­ary con­sent are to be replaced. Road­side hedging is also pro­posed. Over­all, this is con­sidered to rep­res­ent an oppor­tun­ity for enhan­cing biod­iversity at the site.

3. In terms of oth­er envir­on­ment­al issues the devel­op­ment does not involve any loss of hab­it­at or impacts upon pro­tec­ted spe­cies, with the poten­tial for any sig­ni­fic­ant effects upon the des­ig­nated sites in the vicin­ity fully con­sidered in the HRA pro­cess (Appendix 2 refers) This con­cluded that there will not be an adverse effect on the integ­rity of the des­ig­nated sites.

4. In these cir­cum­stances the devel­op­ment is con­sidered to com­ply with NPF and Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan policies

Amen­ity Issues

1. NPF4 Policy 23: Health and Safety has require­ments with regards to noise and air qual­ity. The policy explains that devel­op­ment pro­pos­als which will have an adverse effect on health will not be sup­por­ted. Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing of the Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 sets also out that new devel­op­ment must pro­tect the amen­ity enjoyed by res­id­ents includ­ing min­im­isa­tion of dis­turb­ance caused by access to the devel­op­ment site.

2. There is one cur­rently unoc­cu­pied res­id­en­tial prop­erty dir­ectly adja­cent to the site, along with the agri­cul­tur­al build­ings. Clarack Cot­tage is loc­ated east of the site and there is anoth­er res­id­en­tial prop­erty loc­ated west of the site on the south side of the A93. Any landscape/​visual impacts may be mit­ig­ated by the meas­ures out­lined earli­er with regard to land­scap­ing and screen­ing. The oper­a­tion of the car park itself is unlikely to give rise to any par­tic­u­lar loss of res­id­en­tial amen­ity, with the devel­op­ment oper­at­ing for the past few years with no appar­ent issues/​conflicts.

16

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 8

1. On this over­all basis the pro­pos­al is con­sidered to com­ply with NPF4 and Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan policies

Waste Issues

1. The NPF recog­nises the need to min­im­ise waste with NPF4 Policy 12: Zero Waste seek­ing to encour­age, pro­mote and facil­it­ate devel­op­ment that is con­sist­ent with the waste hier­archy. Sim­il­arly, Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing of the Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 also requires new devel­op­ment to make arrange­ments for stor­age, segreg­a­tion and col­lec­tion of recyc­lable mater­i­als and pro­vi­sion for com­post­ing, and to make sus­tain­able use of resources includ­ing min­im­isa­tion of waste and energy usage. Policy 10: Resources of the Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 also seeks to ensure min­im­isa­tion of waste dur­ing con­struc­tion and life of developments.

2. Oth­er than the screen­ing of the toi­let block there is no new con­struc­tion activ­it­ies pro­posed on site. From an oper­a­tion­al per­spect­ive, a refuse bin is provided on site with this waste to be uplif­ted by Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil who have no objec­tions to the pro­pos­al. It is con­sidered that in order to com­ply with the policy dir­ec­tion to pro­mote the waste hier­archy there is a need to sup­port recyc­ling whereby an addi­tion­al bin for recyc­lable mater­i­al or advice on recyc­ling should be provided. This may be secured by an appro­pri­ate plan­ning condition.

3. On this basis the devel­op­ment is con­sidered to com­ply with NPF4 and Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan policies.

Oth­er Issues Raised in Representations

1. As noted earli­er there have been no rep­res­ent­a­tions to the application.

CON­CLU­SION

1. This applic­a­tion seeks to per­man­ently retain a car park with asso­ci­ated facil­it­ies which has oper­ated without rais­ing any land use plan­ning issues for the past two years under the terms of a tem­por­ary plan­ning con­sent gran­ted in 2021. The devel­op­ment is loc­ated on des­ig­nated eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment land and is inten­ded to serve nearby vis­it­or attrac­tions at Loch Kinord and the Muir of Din­net Nature Reserve. It is well placed in rela­tion to trans­port routes and has no par­tic­u­lar envir­on­ment­al or amen­ity impacts, involving brown­field land with access shared with exist­ing agri­cul­tur­al complex.

17

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 8

1. It is con­sidered to fully com­ply with NPF4 and LDP policies sub­ject to con­di­tions to ensure the best land­scape fit, achieve zero waste aims and to deliv­er biod­iversity enhance­ments all as out­lined earli­er in the report.

RECOM­MEND­A­TION That Mem­bers of the Com­mit­tee sup­port a recom­mend­a­tion to APPROVE the Per­mit­ted reten­tion of car park and asso­ci­ated toi­let and refuse facil­it­ies (pre­vi­ous plan­ning per­mis­sion ref­er­ence APP/2021/0891) at Land At Clarack Farm­house Din­net Aboyne AB34 5LP to the fol­low­ing con­di­tions Those con­di­tions lis­ted below in bold text are time lim­ited con­di­tions, which require to be dis­charged with­in a spe­cified time peri­od from issu­ing of con­sent giv­en that the facil­it­ies are existing.

Con­di­tions

1. With­in six months of the date of this con­sent the toi­let block screen­ing shall be imple­men­ted in accord­ance with the approved plans Reas­on: To ensure the devel­op­ment com­ple­ments and enhances the land­scape in accord­ance with Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Places of the Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 and Policy 5: Land­scape of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021.
2. With­in three months of the date of this con­sent a sig­nage and inter­pret­a­tion strategy (includ­ing details of design, size and sit­ing of all sig­nage and timetable for imple­ment­a­tion) shall be sub­mit­ted to the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity act­ing as Plan­ning Author­ity. This strategy shall reflect the require­ment to mit­ig­ate the dom­in­ance of park­ing pay­ment signs and provide wel­com­ing inter­pret­a­tion sig­nage on site. The sig­nage shall there­after be imple­men­ted in accord­ance with the approved timetable. Reas­on: To ensure the devel­op­ment com­ple­ments and enhances the land­scape in accord­ance with Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Places of the Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 and Policy 5: Land­scape of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 and enhances recre­ation, leis­ure and tour­ism facil­it­ies in accord­ance with Policy 30: