Item8AALethenWindfarmCommitteeReport

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 8 22/04/2022

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

DEVEL­OP­MENT PRO­POSED: Leth­en wind farm

Con­sulta­tion from Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment Energy Con­sents and Deploy­ment Unit

REF­ER­ENCE: 2022/0021/PAC (ECU00002216)

APPLIC­ANT: Fred Olsen Renewables

DATE CON­SUL­TED: 6 Janu­ary 2022

RECOM­MEND­A­TION: Objection

CASE OFFICER: Nina Caudrey, Plan­ning Officer (Devel­op­ment Plan­ning and Envir­on­ment­al Advice)

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 8 22/04/2022

PUR­POSE OF REPORT

1. The pur­pose of this report is to inform the com­mit­tee decision and sub­sequent con­sulta­tion response to the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment Energy Con­sents and Deploy­ment Unit (ECDU) on an applic­a­tion sub­mit­ted under Sec­tion 36 of the Elec­tri­city Act 1989 for a pro­posed wind farm loc­ated to the north of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. The Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment are the determ­in­ing Author­ity for this applic­a­tion as the out­put is more than 50 MW. The applic­a­tion is accom­pan­ied by an Envir­on­ment­al Report (ER), which presents the find­ings of the applicant’s Envir­on­ment­al Impact Assess­ment (EIA).

2. The plan­ning issues to be con­sidered are con­fined to the effects of the pro­posed wind farm on the land­scape char­ac­ter and Spe­cial Land­scape Qual­it­ies (SLQs) of the Nation­al Park. All oth­er mat­ters, such as eco­logy, noise, gen­er­al amen­ity, etc, are assessed by the decision maker (Scot­tish Min­is­ters) with advice from stat­utory consultees.

3. Under the cur­rent work­ing agree­ment on roles in land­scape case­work between NatureScot and the Park Author­ity, NatureScot lead on the pro­vi­sion of advice on the effects on the SLQs caused by pro­pos­als out­with the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. Their advice has been used to inform this report.

SITE DESCRIP­TION AND PRO­POSED DEVELOPMENT

1. The pro­posed wind farm would be loc­ated approx­im­ately 10 kilo­metres (km) north- west of Grant­own and 2.5km to the west of Loch­indorb, as shown in the applicant’s fig­ure 3.1 on page 2 of this report (the edge of Grant­own being shown in the bot­tom right hand corner of the figure).

2. The pro­posed devel­op­ment would com­prise 17 tur­bines with a max­im­um height of 185m to the tip of the blade in an upright pos­i­tion (5 of which would have avi­ation light­ing), approx­im­ately 14.5km of new access tracks and 2.5km of existing/​upgraded access tracks, as well as oth­er infra­struc­ture and works (such as sub­sta­tion, under­ground cabling, bor­row pits, energy stor­age sys­tem, etc). The pro­posed wind farm would make use of the exist­ing infra­struc­ture from the oper­a­tion­al Tom nan Clach wind farm where pos­sible, includ­ing the site entrance and access track from the B9007.

3. The pro­posed wind farm would have an estim­ated total installed capa­city of around 102MW depend­ing on the tur­bine spe­cific­a­tion used, plus 10MW from the energy stor­age system.

4. The nearest tur­bines would be approx­im­ately 3 km to the north of the closest part of the bound­ary of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park, with the oth­er tur­bines, tracks and asso­ci­ated infra­struc­ture loc­ated fur­ther from the Nation­al Park boundary.

5. The­or­et­ic­al vis­ib­il­ity of the pro­posed wind farm from with­in the Nation­al Park is shown by the applicant’s Zone of The­or­et­ic­al Vis­ib­il­ity fig­ure (Appendix I). When con­sid­er­ing the cumu­lat­ive visu­al effects, the blue and green shown in the applicant’s cumu­lat­ive Zone of The­or­et­ic­al Vis­ib­il­ity fig­ure (Appendix II) demon­strates that vis­ib­il­ity of the pro­posed wind farm from with­in the Nation­al Park. Much of where it would be seen from is already influ­enced by vis­ib­il­ity of a num­ber of oth­er exist­ing and con­sen­ted wind

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 8 22/04/2022

farms (the com­bined vis­ib­il­ity shown in green). There are how­ever some areas (shown in blue) with­in the Nation­al Park where it would intro­duce vis­ib­il­ity of a wind farm where cur­rently there is none.

1. Visu­al­isa­tions from sev­en view­points were provided in the applicant’s ER that demon­strate the pre­dicted level of vis­ib­il­ity that would be had from within/​on the bound­ary of the Nation­al Park: a) VPI Carn Glas-choire, approx­im­ately 5.7km south west of the closest tur­bine. b) VP4 Cre­ag Ealraich, approx­im­ately 3.7km south of the closest tur­bine. c) VP9 Gor­ton Hill, approx­im­ately 9km south east of the closest tur­bine. d) VP10 Beinn Mhor approx­im­ately 8.5km south east of the closest tur­bine. e) VPII Cre­agan a Chaise approx­im­ately 19.7km south east of the closest tur­bine in the Crom­dale Hills. f) VP12 Meall a’Bhuachaille Cairn, approx­im­ately 23.2km south of the closest tur­bine. g) VP15 Lymore on the A939 approx­im­ately 16km south of the closest turbine.

2. The visu­al­isa­tions asso­ci­ated with each view point are avail­able to the pub­lic by search­ing the applic­a­tion doc­u­ments on the ECDU web­site https://www.energyconsents.scot/ApplicationDetails.aspx?cr=ECU00002216 for the rel­ev­ant fig­ures: a) EIAR_V4_CH06_FIG 6.37 NS AI View­point I b) EIAR_V4_CH06_FIG 6.40 NS AI View­point 4 c) EIAR_V4_CH06_FIG 6.45 NS AI View­point 9 d) EIAR_V4_CH06_FIG 6.46 NS AI View­point 10 e) EIAR_V4_CH06_FIG 6.47 NS AI View­point || f) EIAR_V4_CH06_FIG 6.48 NS AI View­point 12 g) EIAR_V4_CH06_FIG 6.51 NS AI View­point 15

REL­EV­ANT PLAN­NING HIS­TORY ।।. PRE/2020/0007 in Feb­ru­ary 2021 CNPA respon­ded to a scop­ing con­sulta­tion from ECDU for the cur­rent application.

PLAN­NING POLICY CONTEXT

1. The pro­posed devel­op­ment is loc­ated wholly out­with the Nation­al Park, there­fore the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan policies do not apply. How­ever, an assess­ment of the pro­pos­al must have regard to Scot­tish Plan­ning Policy (SPP) and the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP).

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 8 22/04/2022

Nation­al Policy

1. Scot­tish Plan­ning Policy sets out nation­al plan­ning policies that reflect Scot­tish Min­is­ters pri­or­it­ies for the devel­op­ment and use of land, as well as for oper­a­tion of the plan­ning sys­tem. The con­tent of SPP is a mater­i­al con­sid­er­a­tion in plan­ning decisions that car­ries sig­ni­fic­ant weight.

2. Policy relat­ing spe­cific­ally to Nation­al Parks and devel­op­ment man­age­ment can be found in para­graphs 84 and 85 of SPP. These re-state the four aims of the Nation­al Parks as set out in the Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000, as well as the need to pur­sue these col­lect­ively. SPP high­lights that if there is a con­flict between the first aim (con­serving and enhan­cing the nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age of the area) and any of the oth­ers, then great­er weight must be giv­en to the first aim. Plan­ning decisions are expec­ted to reflect this weight­ing and be con­sist­ent with the four aims.

3. Para­graph 85 of SPP also cla­ri­fies that the aims and require­ments of para­graphs 84 and 85 apply to devel­op­ment out­with a Nation­al Park that affects the Park.

4. Para­graph 212 of SPP states that ​“where devel­op­ment affects a Nation­al Park… it should only be per­mit­ted where: a) the object­ives of the des­ig­na­tion and the over­all integ­rity of the area will not be com­prom­ised; or b) 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”.

Stra­tegic Policy

1. The Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP) 2017 – 2022 is required under sec­tion |1 of the Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000. It is the man­age­ment plan for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park approved by Scot­tish Min­is­ters. The NPPP sets out how all those with a respons­ib­il­ity for the Nation­al Park will coordin­ate their work to tackle the most import­ant issues. There is a duty for decision makers to have regard to the NPPP, a require­ment set out in Sec­tion 14 of the Act. As such, the NPPP is a mater­i­al con­sid­er­a­tion in plan­ning decisions.

2. The NPPP iden­ti­fies that the land­scapes of the Nation­al Park are val­ued by many and under­pin the area’s eco­nomy. It con­tains policies to safe­guard land­scape interests. Of rel­ev­ance to wind farm devel­op­ment pro­pos­als are policies 1.3 and 3.3.

3. Policy 1.3 seeks to con­serve and enhance the SLQs. Policy 3.3 seeks to sup­port devel­op­ment of a low car­bon eco­nomy and increase renew­able energy gen­er­a­tion where this is com­pat­ible with con­serving the SLQs. In rela­tion to wind farm devel­op­ment, the policy states that ​“large scale wind tur­bines are not com­pat­ible with the land­scape char­ac­ter or spe­cial qual­it­ies of the Nation­al Park. They are inap­pro­pri­ate with­in the Nation­al Park, or where out­side the Park they sig­ni­fic­antly adversely affect its land­scape char­ac­ter or spe­cial land­scape qualities”.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 8 22/04/2022

CON­SULTA­TIONS NatureScot advice

1. In accord­ance with the NatureScot/​CNPA case­work agree­ment, NatureScot have provided CNPA with advice in rela­tion to the effects on the Nation­al Park, of the pro­posed wind farm both alone and cumu­lat­ively with oth­er exist­ing and con­sen­ted wind farms in the sur­round­ing area.

2. There were defi­cien­cies in the applicant’s assess­ment of effects on the SLQs, so NatureScot under­took their own assess­ment to inform their advice. They looked at three poten­tial study areas.

3. Con­sid­er­a­tion was giv­en by NatureScot to effects on the north-west facing slopes of the Braes of Aber­nethy. How­ever this area was scoped out due to dis­tance, degree of wood­land cov­er lim­it­ing vis­ib­il­ity and the over­all (low) like­li­hood of sig­ni­fic­ant effects.

4. NatureScot con­sider that the areas of the Nation­al Park that would be most affected by the pro­pos­al include the rim of the Nation­al Park to the south of the pro­posed wind farm (study area 1), and the hills above Crom­dale (study area 2). NatureScot used these two areas as study areas to focus their assess­ment. While the uplands that form the bound­ary to the Nation­al Park imme­di­ately south of the pro­posed wind farm are not espe­cially pop­u­lar loc­a­tions for vis­it­ors, the Crom­dale Hills are an area pop­u­lar with walk­ers, both loc­als and visitors.

5. Three SLQs are con­sidered to the sig­ni­fic­antly affected by the pro­posed devel­op­ment: Dark skies; Wild­ness; Land­scapes both cul­tur­al and natural.

6. In rela­tion to the Dark skies SLQ, while there would be no vis­ib­il­ity of the five pro­posed tur­bine lights from with­in the Dark Skies Park, there is vis­ib­il­ity of the tur­bine lights from with­in oth­er parts of the Nation­al Park includ­ing the two study areas. NatureScot’s advice is that there would be a sig­ni­fic­ant effect on the Dark skies SLQ with­in close prox­im­ity (<10km) of the pro­posed devel­op­ment around the rim of the Nation­al Park (study area 1) for the reas­ons giv­en in para­graphs 26 and 27.

7. As light fades, the strength of the Dark skies qual­ity increases par­tic­u­larly where light sources are only not­able from dis­tant Moray coastal strip, A95 cor­ridor, occa­sion­al lights from scattered build­ings and inter­mit­tent head­lights such as from the rim of hills look­ing north to the site (study area 1). The Dark skies qual­ity is well expressed and mod­er­ately sus­cept­ible to change. The pro­posed tur­bine light­ing would add a new lay­er of obvi­ous bright red lights at a dis­tance of between 4km (VP4) and 9km (VP9). While there are no night time visu­al­isa­tions to sup­port this ana­lys­is from this loc­a­tion, there is a visu­al­isa­tion provided from VP6 at 4.7km to the east of the site. Unfor­tu­nately NatureScot do not con­sider that this, togeth­er with the oth­er two night time visu­al­isa­tions, present an accur­ate image of the intens­ity of pre­dicted tur­bine light­ing. From NatureScot’s exper­i­ence, the tur­bine lights would appear from these dis­tances as prom­in­ent bright red lights, an unchar­ac­ter­ist­ic col­our in this set­ting, which would draw atten­tion to new struc­tures that would oth­er­wise not be vis­ible after dusk. This is espe­cially the case where the lights are seen to flash (due to rotor blades mov­ing in

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 8 22/04/2022

front of them), while provid­ing clear points of ref­er­ence in the land­scape, aid­ing nav­ig­a­tion and redu­cing the sense of risk.

1. Where street light­ing and light emit­ting from dwell­ings is clustered high­light­ing set­tle­ment, such as from views where Grant­own-on-Spey, and the occa­sion­al inter­mit­tent lights from minor roads is evid­ent (study area 2), the Dark skies qual­ity is less well expressed and less sus­cept­ible to change. The five tur­bine lights would appear bey­ond and above both the lower lying settled man­aged land­scape and the sur­round­ing hills. They would have the effect of both extend­ing areas of arti­fi­cial light­ing, and intrud­ing on the exper­i­ence of dark skies, appear­ing as a dis­trac­tion, draw­ing atten­tion away from the appre­ci­ation of the stars and moon on clear nights. At dis­tances of around 20km, the lights would appear as small albeit notice­able fea­tures (more akin to the intens­ity of lights illus­trated at VP 6) that would add to and be with­in the same field of view than the exist­ing light­ing described in the baseline.

2. In rela­tion to the Wild­ness SLQ, NatureScot advice is that there would be a sig­ni­fic­ant effect on the SLQ along the mar­gins of the Nation­al Park after dark as a res­ult of the tur­bine light­ing (study area 1), for the reas­ons giv­en in para­graphs 29 to 33.

3. Away from the settled and man­aged Strath Spey and its side slopes, the roun­ded hills, long ridges and glens of the Strath­dearn Hills with­in the Nation­al Park give way to the wilder, broad, roun­ded hills of the north­ern part of Dava Moor to the north of the Nation­al Park bound­ary, where the pro­posed wind farm would be loc­ated. The land­scape here exhib­its some of the char­ac­ter­ist­ics of the Wild­ness SLQ, such as a per­cep­tion of rel­at­ive remote­ness, and while there are numer­ous obvi­ous signs of man­age­ment (such as hill tracks, both­ies and muir­burn, along with roads tran­sect­ing it, for example the B9007 and the A939), there still remains an over­arch­ing dom­in­ance of nature in the large scale land­scape. The Wild­ness SLQ is mod­er­ately well expressed here.

4. The pro­posed wind farm would be loc­ated with­in (and sig­ni­fic­antly affect) the roun­ded hills out­side of the Nation­al Park. There is a strong con­nec­tion between this and the adja­cent Land­scape Char­ac­ter Type inside the Nation­al Park, where they share some key char­ac­ter­ist­ics, such as a sense of remote­ness, under­pin­ning the Wild­ness SLQ. Vis­ib­il­ity from with­in the Nation­al Park would be lim­ited to the ridgeline that demarc­ates both the Nation­al Park bound­ary (and the less obvi­ous on the ground change in char­ac­ter type). The expres­sion of the Wild­ness SLQ is high on and along this ridgeline espe­cially where it draws on the char­ac­ter­ist­ics that con­tin­ue bey­ond the Nation­al Park boundary.

5. Oth­er wind farms in the baseline either appear at some dis­tance and do not affect the Wild­ness SLQ due to their sep­ar­a­tion, or are largely screened due to the rim of hills that form the bound­ary of the Nation­al Park in this north­ern extent. Whilst Tom nan Clach wind farm reduces the sense of expans­ive­ness, this is from very lim­ited loc­a­tions with­in the study area and there are few instances where both Leth­en and Tom nan Clach wind farms would be seen togeth­er (as the cumu­lat­ive ZTV illustrates).

6. Leth­en wind farm would erode the cur­rent dom­in­ance of nature when look­ing from this part of the Nation­al Park due to the intro­duc­tion of obvi­ous devel­op­ment in close prox­im­ity and would fur­ther reduce the sense of expans­ive­ness. The effects of the

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 8 22/04/2022

pro­pos­al (both tur­bines and the asso­ci­ated infra­struc­ture where seen) would be lim­ited in their extent to a lin­ear band for around 10km at dis­tances of approx­im­ately 4 – 9km from the pro­pos­al, with VPs 9 and 10 illus­trat­ing the worst case scen­ari­os where Leth­en wind farm would be seen with Tom nan Clach. Dur­ing the day, these effects on the Wild­ness SLQ are not con­sidered to be significant.

1. How­ever, as day­light fades the key char­ac­ter­ist­ics that under­pin the Wild­ness qual­ity change, alter­ing the baseline. Some char­ac­ter­ist­ics such as the nat­ur­al­ness of veget­a­tion are weakened and ulti­mately no longer present, as they rely on not­ing the dif­fer­en­ti­ation between land uses, which is chal­len­ging as light fades. Oth­er char­ac­ter­ist­ics are how­ever strengthened, such as the appar­ent lack of devel­op­ment due to it becom­ing increas­ingly less vis­ible. From this study area, the strength of the Wild­ness SLQ would increase with the reduc­tion in nat­ur­al light, as fea­tures which cur­rently weak­en it, such as (unlit) wind farms, are no longer notice­able and the sus­cept­ib­il­ity of the SLQ to the pro­posed wind farm would height­en. The addi­tion of the five Leth­en tur­bine lights would reduce the cur­rent sense of tran­quil­lity and sense of wild­ness from this part of the Nation­al Park to a degree that is con­sidered significant.

2. In rela­tion to the Land­scapes both cul­tur­al and nat­ur­al SLQ, NatureScot advice is that there would be a sig­ni­fic­ant effect on the SLQ as a res­ult of the pro­pos­al blur­ring the dis­tinc­tion between two key under­pin­ning char­ac­ter­ist­ics, for the reas­ons giv­en in para­graphs 35 to 39.

3. Study area 2 (Crom­dale hills) includes the north-west facing slopes of the Crom­dales and the lower farmed ground either side of the A939. It is an area where the Land­scapes both cul­tur­al and nat­ur­al SLQ is well expressed and sus­cept­ible to the pro­posed development.

4. Across the lower ground of the wooded and farmed strath around Grant­own-on-Spey and Crom­dale, the land­scape exhib­its evid­ence of set­tle­ment and land use that is rich in cul­tur­al his­tory. To the imme­di­ate south east the land rises up to the smooth­er roun­ded hills of the Crom­dales, where wild­ness char­ac­ter­ist­ics of nat­ur­al­ness become increas­ingly more pre­val­ent. To the north­w­est the land rises up to the Strath­dearn hills where the per­cep­tion of remote­ness increases. This con­trast in char­ac­ter either side of the cul­tur­al low­land land­scape under­pin the Land­scapes both cul­tur­al and nat­ur­al SLQ and is strongly evid­ent from both lower and high­er elevations.

5. The pro­posed tur­bines would be vis­ible across a swath of the north­east facing slopes of the Crom­dales when out of wood­land cov­er. This is an area where the trans­ition from the settled and man­aged strath floor to the moor­land clad hills on either side of the strath exem­pli­fies the Land­scapes both cul­tur­al and nat­ur­al SLQ. Mov­ing high­er up these rel­at­ively gentle slopes, the pro­posed wind farm would rap­idly become increas­ingly not­able, with all 17 tur­bine hubs being vis­ible along the ridgeline. These areas of vis­ib­il­ity largely coin­cide with where the Tom nan Clach wind farm, which lies a fur­ther 5km fur­ther away from the Nation­al Park at this point, is also cur­rently vis­ible. Leth­en wind farm would bring wind tur­bines closer to the Nation­al Park and have the effect of rein­for­cing the north­ern bound­ary of the Nation­al Park whilst blur­ring the cur­rent dis­tinc­tion between the cul­tur­al (settled strath) and nat­ur­al (moor­land hills) land­scapes. Its effects would extend across the north­east facing slopes and tops. While NatureScot recog­nise that these loc­a­tions are some dis­tance from the pro­pos­al at around 20km,

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 8 22/04/2022

they are well with­in the interi­or of the Nation­al Park where the Land­scapes both cul­tur­al and nat­ur­al SLQ is well expressed as described. There would be a sig­ni­fic­ant effect on the SLQ as a res­ult of the pro­posed wind farm blur­ring the dis­tinc­tion between these two key under­pin­ning characteristics.

1. Oth­er wind farms are vis­ible at com­par­able dis­tances from the Nation­al Park, such as Berry Burn and Pauls Hill. NatureScot’s exper­i­ence of these and oth­er devel­op­ments from with­in this part of the Nation­al Park is that they are seen from extens­ive areas, par­tic­u­larly up the north facing slopes and tops of the Crom­dales, and form part of the wider land­scape back­drop of reced­ing low-lying hills in out­ward facing views. The exist­ing Moray wind farms (loc­ated on the Moray upland plat­eau) appear closely asso­ci­ated with the land­forms to the north and out­side the Nation­al Park, clearly dis­tinct and sep­ar­ated from the nat­ur­al land­scapes that are an integ­ral part of this part of the Nation­al Park. As a res­ult their effect on the Land­scapes both cul­tur­al and nat­ur­al SLQ is more lim­ited than the effects that would arise as a res­ult of the pro­posed wind farm.

2. In rela­tion to tur­bine light­ing, as day­light fades the key char­ac­ter­ist­ics that under­pin the Land­scapes both cul­tur­al and nat­ur­al qual­ity tend to be less well expressed, as the char­ac­ter­ist­ics are largely reli­ant on visu­al inform­a­tion, there­fore the strength of this SLQ is reduced. The appear­ance of tur­bine light­ing would there­fore have little adverse effect on the Land­scapes both cul­tur­al and nat­ur­al SLQ.

3. As a res­ult of the effects on the three SLQs described in para­graphs 25 — 39 above, NatureScot con­clude that from close prox­im­ity to and along the rim of the Park, which is a less well vis­ited and geo­graph­ic­ally lim­ited area, the pro­pos­al would have a sig­ni­fic­ant effect on the appre­ci­ation of both the Dark skies and Wild­ness SLQs as a res­ult of the tur­bine light­ing. From the more dis­tant and well vis­ited Crom­dale Hills, the pro­pos­al would have a sig­ni­fic­ant effect on the Land­scapes both cul­tur­al and nat­ur­al SLQ.

4. The nature and sig­ni­fic­ance of the effects are how­ever such that NatureScot advise that the integ­rity of the Nation­al Park would not be compromised.

APPRAIS­AL

1. The policies of the NPPP and SPP set out how pro­pos­als out­with the bound­ary of the Nation­al Park should be con­sidered in terms of effects on the Nation­al Park.

2. Policy 3.3 of the NPPP sets out a test for con­sid­er­ing effects on the land­scapes of the Nation­al Park, in that large scale wind tur­bines are inap­pro­pri­ate out­side the Park where they ​‘sig­ni­fic­antly adversely affect its land­scape char­ac­ter or spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies’. If a pro­pos­al fails policy 3.3, it would also be in con­flict with policy 1.3, which seeks to con­serve and enhance the SLQS.

3. Para­graph 212 of SPP sets out that ​“devel­op­ment that affects a Nation­al Park… should only be per­mit­ted where: a) the object­ives of des­ig­na­tion and the over­all integ­rity of the area will not be com­prom­ised; or

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 8 22/04/2022

b) 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.”

1. In the policy con­text of the NPPP and SPP, con­sid­er­a­tion is required of the effects of the pro­posed devel­op­ment, on land­scape char­ac­ter and the SLQs, both alone and cumu­lat­ively with oth­er wind farms in the sur­round­ing area.

2. Due to the effects on three SLQs described in para­graphs 25 — 39, the pro­pos­al is con­sidered to con­flict with Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan policies 3.3a and 1.3.

3. When con­sid­er­ing the nature and sig­ni­fic­ance of the effects, the pro­pos­al would not com­prom­ise the integ­rity or object­ives of the Nation­al Park. The pro­pos­al is there­fore con­sidered to be in accord­ance with Scot­tish Plan­ning Policy para­graph 212.

4. Non­ethe­less, because the pro­posed devel­op­ment con­flicts with the NPPP policies 1.3 and 3.3a, it is con­sidered that CNPA should object to the pro­posed wind farm development.

RECOM­MEND­A­TION That Mem­bers of the Com­mit­tee confirm:

That CNPA object to the applic­a­tion for the pro­posed Leth­en wind farm, due to sig­ni­fic­ant adverse effects on the Land­scapes both cul­tur­al and nat­ur­al, Dark skies and Wild­ness Spe­cial Land­scape Qualities.