Item8AABruartrack20190113DET

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 8 24/05/2019

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

DEVEL­OP­MENT PRO­POSED: Alter­a­tions to hill track (in ret­ro­spect) at Meall Tio­n­ail Access Track Blair Atholl

REF­ER­ENCE: 2019/0113/DET

APPLIC­ANT: Mr Juli­en Clarke (Athol Estates)

DATE CALLED-IN: 10 April 2019

RECOM­MEND­A­TION: Approve sub­ject to conditions

CASE OFFICER: Edward Swales Mon­it­or­ing and Enforce­ment Officer

CNPA Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Applic­a­tion Site

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 8 24/05/2019

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 8 24/05/2019

SITE DESCRIP­TION, PRO­POS­AL AND HISTORY

Site Descrip­tion

1. The site is accessed from the estate office in Blair Atholl along around 7km of exist­ing estate track run­ning between Carn Dearg Beag, Meall Dubh, Carn Dearg Mor and Meall Tio­n­ail towards the Allt Sheicheachan Bothy.

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=PPSN42SI0CH00

Title	Draw­ing Num­ber	Date on Plan*	Date Received
Loc­a­tion Plan/​Site Plan — SITE PLAN		05/04/19	15/04/19
Loc­a­tion Plan/​Site Plan — Loc­a­tion Plan			15/04/19
Oth­er — Photo of Bor­row Pit I as existing			15/04/19
Oth­er — Photo of Bor­row Pit 2 as existing			15/04/19
Oth­er — Photo of Bor­row Pit 3 as existing			15/04/19
Oth­er — Resur­faced track as existing			15/04/19

*Where no spe­cif­ic day of month has been provided on the plan, the sys­tem defaults to the 1^st of the month.

1. The works have been under­taken and included resur­fa­cing and upgrade an exist­ing track from a rut­ted land rover track to form a smooth­er sur­face. The track itself has not been widened from its ori­gin­al form.

His­tory

1. The estate installed a hydro between 2014 and 2016 with remedi­ation works tak­ing place since. There is no rel­ev­ant track applic­a­tion his­tory, although the applic­a­tion was reques­ted by the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity in 2018 and sub­mit­ted this year by the estate without the need for form­al enforce­ment measures.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 8 24/05/2019

DEVEL­OP­MENT PLAN CONTEXT

Policies

Nation­al Policy	Scot­tish Plan­ning Policy 2014
Stra­tegic Policy	Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2017 — 2022
Loc­al Plan Policy	Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (2015)Those policies rel­ev­ant to the assess­ment of this applic­a­tion are marked with a cross
POLICY I	NEW HOUS­ING DEVELOPMENT
POLICY 2	SUP­PORT­ING ECO­NOM­IC GROWTH
POLICY 3	SUS­TAIN­ABLE DESIGN	X
POLICY 4	NAT­UR­AL HERITAGE	X
POLICY 5	LAND­SCAPE	X
POLICY 6	THE SIT­ING AND DESIGN OF DIGIT­AL COM­MU­NIC­A­TIONS EQUIPMENT
POLICY 7	RENEW­ABLE ENERGY
POLICY 8	SPORT AND RECREATION
POLICY 9	CUL­TUR­AL HERITAGE
POLICY 10	RESOURCES
POLICY 11	DEVELOPER CON­TRI­BU­TIONS

1. All new devel­op­ment pro­pos­als require to be assessed in rela­tion to policies con­tained in the adop­ted Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan. The full word­ing of policies can be found at: http://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​u​p​l​o​a​d​s​/​d​o​c​u​m​e​n​t​s​/Park Authority/Planning/LDP15.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 I	New Hous­ing Devel­op­ment Non-Stat­utory Guidance
Policy 2	Sup­port­ing Eco­nom­ic Growth Non-Stat­utory Guidance
Policy 3	Sus­tain­able Design Non-Stat­utory Guidance	X
Policy 4	Nat­ur­al Her­it­age Sup­ple­ment­ary Guidance	X
Policy 5	Land­scape Non-Stat­utory Guidance	X
Policy 7	Renew­able Energy Sup­ple­ment­ary Guidance
Policy 8	Sport and Recre­ation Non-Stat­utory Guidance
Policy 9	Cul­tur­al Her­it­age Non-Stat­utory Guidance
Policy 10	Resources Non-Stat­utory Guidance
Policy 11	Developer Con­tri­bu­tions Sup­ple­ment­ary Guidance

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 8 24/05/2019

CON­SULTA­TIONS

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

2. CNPA Land­scape Advisor states that the sub­mit­ted inform­a­tion lacks details regard­ing bor­row pit res­tor­a­tion, centre strip reve­get­a­tion and the final cul­vert details.

3. CNPA Eco­lo­gic­al Advisor states that care should be taken when the res­tor­a­tion of the bor­row pits is car­ried out to ensure no rep­tiles are dis­turbed as a res­ult of any works undertaken.

4. Com­munity Coun­cil no com­ments received at the time of writing.

REP­RES­ENT­A­TIONS

1. There have been 2 rep­res­ent­a­tions on the applic­a­tion, both com­ment­ing on the use and res­tor­a­tion of bor­row pits along the route as well as con­cerns regard­ing the centre grass strip.

APPRAIS­AL

1. The works have been under­taken and as such the applic­a­tion is ret­ro­spect­ive. The works did include the remov­al of mater­i­al from 3 no. bor­row pits along the route and the sur­face of the track scraped and the new mater­i­al placed on top and rolled into place. The sur­face height of the track has been increased in order to cre­ate a cam­ber to ensure water run-off and pro­long the life of the track. Along the route cul­verts have been improved where they pre­vi­ously exis­ted and any drain­age ditches cleared.

Envir­on­ment­al Impacts

1. Policy 4: Eco­logy of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015 states that devel­op­ment that would have an adverse effect on any European Pro­tec­ted Spe­cies will only be per­mit­ted if the devel­op­ment is not det­ri­ment­al to the main­ten­ance of the pop­u­la­tion of the spe­cies con­cerned at a favour­able con­ser­va­tion status in their nat­ur­al range. With appro­pri­ate pre­cau­tions, there will be no harm to hab­it­ats or spe­cies from this devel­op­ment so the devel­op­ment com­plies with Policy 4: Eco­logy of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015.

2. Policy 5: Land­scape of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015 pre­sumes against devel­op­ment which does not con­serve and enhance the land­scape char­ac­ter and spe­cial qual­it­ies of the Nation­al Park and in par­tic­u­lar the set­ting of the pro­posed devel­op­ments. The Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Land­scape Advisor has com­men­ted that there is no pro­vi­sion cur­rently for a green strip down the middle of the track nor details of bor­row- pit res­tor­a­tion or fin­ish­ing details of cul­verts, all of which can be secured through plan­ning con­di­tion, so the devel­op­ment is con­sidered to com­ply with

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 8 24/05/2019

Policy 5: Land­scape of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015.

CON­CLU­SION

1. The repair and upgrade to the exist­ing track are accept­able sub­ject to the pro­posed con­di­tions and as such are con­sidered to accord with the policies in the Cairngorm Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015.

RECOM­MEND­A­TION

That Mem­bers of the Com­mit­tee sup­port a recom­mend­a­tion to Approve the Alter­a­tions to hill track (in ret­ro­spect) at Meall Tio­n­ail Access Track Blair Atholl sub­ject to the fol­low­ing conditions:

Those con­di­tions lis­ted below in bold text are sus­pens­ive con­di­tions, which require to be dis­charged pri­or to imple­ment­a­tion of the development.

Con­di­tions

1. Not­with­stand­ing the inform­a­tion sub­mit­ted, before the end of 2019 the middle line of the track shall be seeded with loc­ally won seed. The centre of the track shall meas­ure not less than 75cm where the track itself is 2m in width.

Reas­on: To min­im­ise the land­scape and visu­al impacts of the devel­op­ment, to man­age sur­face water run-off asso­ci­ated with the devel­op­ment and min­im­ise dam­age to hab­it­ats adja­cent to the devel­op­ment in accord­ance with Policies 3, 4 and 5 of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015.

1. Pri­or to the peri­od of 6 months passing from the date of this decision notice a bor­row pit res­tor­a­tion plan shall be sub­mit­ted, approved and imple­men­ted in its entirety. This plan shall include any fur­ther remod­el­ling works, con­sid­er­a­tion of any rep­tiles present as well as a plan show­ing how the bor­row pits along the route of the track will be seeded.

Reas­on: To ensure the mit­ig­a­tion works are car­ried out to a com­pet­ent stand­ard and in accord­ance with Policy 5: Land­scape of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015.

1. Pri­or to the peri­od of 6 months passing from the date of this decision notice a plan show­ing the fin­ish­ing details of the cul­verts along the route shall be sub­mit­ted, approved and imple­men­ted in its entirety. This plan shall include ensur­ing any cul­vert pipes are cut as well as any fur­ther seed­ing along the route.

Reas­on: To min­im­ise the land­scape and visu­al impacts of the devel­op­ment, to man­age sur­face water run-off asso­ci­ated with the devel­op­ment and min­im­ise dam­age to hab­it­ats adja­cent to the devel­op­ment in

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 8 24/05/2019

Inform­at­ives accord­ance with Policies 3, 4 and 5 of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015.

1. Fol­low­ing com­ple­tion of the devel­op­ment, a noti­fic­a­tion of the com­ple­tion shall, as soon as prac­tic­able, be giv­en to the Plan­ning Author­ity. Attached to this decision notice is a Notice of Com­ple­tion of Devel­op­ment for com­ple­tion and sub­mis­sion. Sub­mis­sion of this form will assist the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Mon­it­or­ing and Enforce­ment Officer in mak­ing a final inspec­tion and check­ing com­pli­ance with the approved draw­ings and con­di­tions. If the devel­op­ment hereby approved is to be car­ried out in phases, then a notice of com­ple­tion should be sub­mit­ted at the com­ple­tion of each phase.