CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 8 09/12/2022

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Title: NATION­AL PLAN­NING FRAME­WORK 4 UPDATE

Pre­pared by: Dan Har­ris, Plan­ning Man­ager (For­ward Plan­ning and Ser­vice Improvement)

Pur­pose

1. To update and inform the Com­mit­tee on the cur­rent status of Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4’ (NPF4).

Back­ground

1. Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 will be the long-term plan for Scot­land that sets out the Scot­tish Government’s vis­ion of where devel­op­ment and infra­struc­ture is needed up to 2045. Work began on NPF4 in 2020 and it is designed to be con­sid­er­ably dif­fer­ent to the cur­rent NPF3² which, along with Scot­tish Plan­ning Poli­cy³ (SPP), were pub­lished in 2014. NPF4 will incor­por­ate an updated SPP and will there­fore con­tain detailed nation­al policy on a num­ber of plan­ning top­ics as well as an over­all spa­tial strategy.

2. On Novem­ber 8^th 2022, a revised ver­sion of the NPF4⁴ was laid before the Scot­tish Par­lia­ment for approv­al. Once adop­ted by Scot­tish Min­is­ters NPF4 will be part of the stat­utory Devel­op­ment Plan sys­tem, and be used to guide plan­ning decisions across Scot­land in a more expli­cit way than the cur­rent SPP or NPF3.

Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4

1. The Revised NPF4 is divided into three sec­tions: a. Part I — A Nation­al Spa­tial Strategy for Scot­land 2045 b. Part 2 — Nation­al Plan­ning Policy c. Part 3 — Annexes

2. This report high­lights some of the sig­ni­fic­ant points with­in NPF4 for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park from parts I and 2 of NPF4.

¹ https://www.transformingplanning.scot/national-planning-framework/ ² https://www.gov.scot/publications/national-planning-framework‑3/ ³ https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-planning-policy/ ⁴ https://www.transformingplanning.scot/national-planning-framework/revised-draft-npf4/

1. A deliv­ery pro­grammes to guide how NPF4 will be imple­men­ted by all rel­ev­ant stake­hold­ers will be pub­lished along­side NPF4.

NPF4 Part I – A Nation­al Spa­tial Strategy for Scot­land 2045

1. NPF4 sets out the fol­low­ing six over­arch­ing spa­tial prin­ciples: a. Just trans­ition. We will empower people to shape their places and ensure the trans­ition to net zero is fair and inclus­ive. b. Con­serving and recyc­ling assets. We will make pro­duct­ive use of exist­ing build­ings, places, infra­struc­ture and ser­vices, lock­ing in car­bon, min­im­ising waste, and build­ing a cir­cu­lar eco­nomy. c. Loc­al liv­ing. We will sup­port loc­al live­ab­il­ity and improve com­munity health and well­being by ensur­ing people can eas­ily access ser­vices, green­space, learn­ing, work and leis­ure loc­ally. d. Com­pact urb­an growth. We will lim­it urb­an expan­sion so we can optim­ise the use of land to provide ser­vices and resources, includ­ing car­bon stor­age, flood risk man­age­ment, blue and green infra­struc­ture and biod­iversity. e. Rebal­anced devel­op­ment. We will tar­get devel­op­ment to cre­ate oppor­tun­it­ies for com­munit­ies and invest­ment in areas of past decline, and man­age devel­op­ment sus­tain­ably in areas of high demand. f. Rur­al revital­isa­tion. We will encour­age sus­tain­able devel­op­ment in rur­al areas, recog­nising the need to grow and sup­port urb­an and rur­al com­munit­ies together.

2. These prin­ciples are inten­ded to play key role in deliv­er­ing on the United Nations (UN) Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals (SDGs) as well as Scot­tish Government’s Nation­al Outcomes⁷.

3. To reflect the diverse char­ac­ter of Scotland’s char­ac­ter, assets and chal­lenges, NPF4’s Spa­tial Strategy is inden­ted to be taken for­ward in dif­fer­ent ways across the coun­try. To guide this, five broad regions are iden­ti­fied with their own spa­tial pri­or­it­ies. These will inform the pre­par­a­tion of region­al RSSs and LDPs by plan­ning authorities.

4. The CNP is loc­ated with­in the North region which cov­ers the High­lands of Scot­land, Moray, main­land Argyll, north­ern parts of rur­al Stirl­ing and Perth­shire. The Nation­al Park is spe­cially described as ​“a nation­al asset with inter­na­tion­ally sig­ni­fic­ant hab­it­ats and land­scapes”. Accord­ing to the NPF the region can con­tin­ue to make a strong con­tri­bu­tion towards achiev­ing Scotland’s net zero tar­get and can help Scot­land become a nature pos­it­ive coun­try by demon­strat­ing how nat­ur­al assets can be man­aged and used to secure a more sus­tain­able future. By guid­ing RSSs and LDPs in this area, the strategy aims to: a. Pro­tect envir­on­ment­al assets and stim­u­late invest­ment in nat­ur­al and engin­eered solu­tions to cli­mate change and nature res­tor­a­tion, whilst decar­bon­ising trans­port and build­ing resi­li­ent connections.

⁵ https://www.transformingplanning.scot/national-planning-framework/delivery-programme/ ⁶ https://​sdgs​.un​.org/​goals ⁷ https://nationalperformance.gov.scot/national-outcomes

b. Main­tain and help to grow the pop­u­la­tion by tak­ing a pos­it­ive approach to rur­al devel­op­ment that strengthens net­works of com­munit­ies. C. Sup­port loc­al eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment by mak­ing sus­tain­able use of the areas’ world-class envir­on­ment­al assets to innov­ate and lead green­er growth.

1. NPF4 includes 18 nation­al devel­op­ments to sup­port this strategy These include single large-scale pro­jects as well as net­works of sev­er­al smal­ler scale pro­pos­als that are col­lect­ively nation­ally sig­ni­fic­ant. Region­al Spa­tial Strategies (RSSs) and Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plans (LDPs) are required to identi­fy and sup­port nation­al devel­op­ments which are rel­ev­ant to their areas.

2. There are no spe­cif­ic nation­al devel­op­ments iden­ti­fied with­in the bound­ary of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park (CNP). How­ever, there are a num­ber of Scot­land wide nation­al devel­op­ments that the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity (CNPA) and its part­ners may need to take account of and help deliv­er, namely: a. Pumped Hydro Stor­age b. Stra­tegic Renew­able Elec­tri­city Gen­er­a­tion and Trans­mis­sion Infra­struc­ture c. Cir­cu­lar Eco­nomy Mater­i­als Man­age­ment Facil­it­ies d. Nation­al Walk­ing, Cyc­ling and Wheel­ing Net­work e. Digit­al Fibre Network

NPF4 Part 2 – Nation­al Plan­ning Policy

1. The sec­tion con­tains 33 nation­al policies grouped under three broad themes, namely Sus­tain­able Places, Live­able Places and Pro­duct­ive Places. Along with each policy a state­ment of intent, a list of out­comes and inform­a­tion on how LDPs should take account of the policy area is provided.

2. While it is inten­ded that all policies be used togeth­er, great­er weight appears to be giv­en to Policy 1: Tack­ling the cli­mate and nature crisis. The policy states that when con­sid­er­ing all devel­op­ment pro­pos­als sig­ni­fic­ant weight will be giv­en to the glob­al cli­mate and nature crises.

3. There do not appear to be any sig­ni­fic­ant con­flicts between the policies of NPF4 and those of the cur­rent LDP and NPPP. In many areas they will help sup­port the ambi­tious aims set out with­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP) as well cer­tain pro­jects to be delivered through the Her­it­age Hori­zons – Cairngorms 2030 project.

Rela­tion­ship with Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan

1. The Plan­ning (Scot­land) Act 2019 intro­duced a new approach to stra­tegic plan­ning with the intro­duc­tion of Region­al Spa­tial Strategies (RSSs). Accord­ing to Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment these new arrange­ments are expec­ted to sup­port bet­ter align­ment with oth­er strategies and decisions at a region­al and sub­n­a­tion­al scale. There­fore, RSSs are con­sidered to be in a strong pos­i­tion for sup­port­ing the imple­ment­a­tion of NPF4.

2. The Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2022 – 27⁸ is the Region­al Spa­tial Strategy for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. It sets out the long-term spa­tial strategy in terms of stra­tegic devel­op­ment, in the con­text of the wider range of pri­or­it­ies iden­ti­fied to deliv­er the aims of the Nation­al Park in a col­lect­ive and coordin­ated way. It there­fore provides the stra­tegic con­text for the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan.

Implic­a­tions for next Cairngorms Nation­al Park LDP

1. Once NPF4 is adop­ted by Scot­tish Min­is­ters the CNPA will have five years to adopt a new LDP. The next LDP will be developed in accord­ance with the pro­vi­sions of the Plan­ning (Scot­land) Act 2019 which intro­duced a new LDP sys­tem. The new style LDP is expec­ted to be place-based with a great­er emphas­is on maps, site briefs and mas­ter­plans, with min­im­al policy word­ing. It is envis­aged that the policies and pro­pos­als with­in the LDP will be focused on places and loc­a­tions, work­ing with­in the con­text provided by NPF4.

2. New reg­u­la­tions and guid­ance that will provide more detail on how the new LDP sys­tem will work in prac­tice are yet to be pub­lished in their final form.

Implic­a­tions for Hous­ing Policy in next LDP

1. Policy 16 is the main policy cov­er­ing the deliv­ery of hous­ing and while may prin­ciples have been car­ried for­ward from SPP their elev­a­tion to a part of the stat­utory devel­op­ment plan gives them addi­tion­al weight in decision making.

2. The Policy requires that the onsite pro­vi­sion of afford­able homes be at least 25% of the total num­ber of homes, unless the LDP sets out loc­a­tions or cir­cum­stances where the pro­por­tion may dif­fer. Sig­ni­fic­antly, the policy is expli­cit about the abil­ity of LDP’s to require a high­er con­tri­bu­tion if jus­ti­fied by evid­ence of need. This is a stronger word­ing than cur­rently with­in SPP, which states that the level of afford­able hous­ing ​“should gen­er­ally be no more than 25% of the total num­ber of houses.” (SPP, para 129).

3. The Policy there­fore sup­ports NPPP’s action to use the next LDP to identi­fy fur­ther loc­a­tions where more than 25% afford­able hous­ing is required and bring this up to 75% afford­able overall.

4. One of the sig­ni­fic­ant changes from NPF3 and SPP is the inclu­sion of great­er dir­ec­tion on the level of hous­ing land required in LDPs. NPF4 sets out a 10-year Min­im­um All- Ten­ure Hous­ing Land Require­ment (MATHLR)⁹, which is the min­im­um amount of land, by ref­er­ence to the num­ber of hous­ing units, that is to be provided for a 10-year peri­od by each plan­ning author­ity (see NPF4, Annexe E).

5. Table Iprovides inform­a­tion on the MATH­LR for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park, which will need to be taken account of in the next Nation­al Park’s next LDP. For

⁸ https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​w​o​r​k​i​n​g​-​t​o​g​e​t​h​e​r​/​p​a​r​t​n​e​r​s​h​i​p​plan/ ⁹ An explan­at­ory report for the MATH­LR has been pub­lished along­side the revised NPF4: https://www.gov.scot/publications/national-planning-framework-4-housing-land-requirement-explanatory-report-addendum/

ref­er­ence the Hous­ing Land Require­ment (HLR) as set out in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park LDP 2021, which is also expressed in hous­ing units, is also provided.

Table | NPF4 10-year Min­im­um All- Ten­ure Hous­ing Land Require­ment and CNP LDP 2021 Hous­ing Land Requirement.

NPF 4 10-year Min­im­um All- Ten­ure Hous­ing Land Requirement
Total 10-year MATHLR	850
CNP Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 Hous­ing Land Require­ment (includ­ing 10% flex­ib­il­ity allowance)
HLR 2020 – 2024	484
HLR 2025 – 2029	335
HLR 2030 – 2039 (indic­at­ive target)	648
HLR 2020 – 2024 + 2025 – 2029	819

1. The MATH­LR rep­res­ents the min­im­um require­ment for hous­ing land and it is expec­ted that the LDP’s Loc­al Hous­ing Land Require­ment (LHLR) exceed it. To reach that LHLR the CNPA LDP will be informed by the Hous­ing Need and Demand Assess­ments, Hous­ing Land Audits and Hous­ing Strategies pro­duced by the Loc­al Author­it­ies cov­er­ing its area. The exact LHLR is there­fore still an evid­ence-based policy decision that lies with the CNPA.

2. Rur­al hous­ing devel­op­ment is covered in Policy 17. Over­all, the cri­ter­ia are more demand­ing than those in the cur­rent CNPA LDP (2021). How­ever, NPF4 states that LDP’s should identi­fy remote rur­al areas using Scot­tish Government’s 6‑fold Urb­an Rur­al Clas­si­fic­a­tion 2020. Except for Aviemore, which is iden­ti­fied as a Remote Small Town, the whole of the CNP is iden­ti­fied as Remote Rur­al clas­si­fic­a­tion. The Policy con­tains a gen­er­ally per­missive approach to rur­al hous­ing which states that new homes will be sup­por­ted where the pro­pos­al sup­ports and sus­tains exist­ing fra­gile com­munit­ies, sup­ports iden­ti­fied loc­al hous­ing out­comes and is suit­able in terms of loc­a­tion, access, and envir­on­ment­al impact. NPF4 also appears to sup­port LDP’s tak­ing loc­al factors into account through being “…informed by an under­stand­ing of pop­u­la­tion change over time, loc­ally spe­cif­ic needs and mar­ket cir­cum­stances…”, and by set­ting out “…tailored approaches to rur­al housing …”.

3. With­in the inform­a­tion provided the North region the neg­at­ive impact of second homes is recog­nised with the state­ment: ​“Demand for devel­op­ment, includ­ing in pres­sured areas, will require a planned response to min­im­ise the impact of second homes on loc­al com­munit­ies and ensure new homes are afford­able and meet loc­al needs” (NPF4, page 125). How­ever, NPF4 does not provide any tools to dir­ectly con­trol the use of dwell­ings as second homes.

4. Policy 30, which cov­ers mat­ters relat­ing to Tour­ism, strengthens the policy pos­i­tion on short term lets stat­ing that the reuse of exist­ing build­ings will not be sup­por­ted if the pro­pos­al will res­ult in ​“An unac­cept­able impact on loc­al amen­ity or the char­ac­ter of a neigh­bour­hood or area” or ​“The loss of res­id­en­tial accom­mod­a­tion where such loss is not out­weighed by demon­strable loc­al eco­nom­ic benefits”.

Wind Energy

1. Policy 11 which deals with energy devel­op­ment main­tains the pos­i­tion that wind­farm pro­pos­als in Nation­al Parks and Nation­al Scen­ic Areas (NSAs) will not be sup­por­ted. Policy 4 on Nat­ur­al Places con­tin­ues to provide the same level of pro­tec­tion for Nation­al Parks as nation­al des­ig­na­tions as set out in the cur­rent SPP.

2. How­ever, in areas out­side these areas the policy tests asso­ci­ated with land­scape impacts have been relaxed to sup­port wind energy devel­op­ments. Policy 4 on Nat­ur­al Places now also expli­citly sup­ports devel­op­ment in wild land areas that con­trib­utes towards renew­able energy tar­gets. In over­all terms this is likely to increase the num­bers of wind farm pro­pos­als in areas around the Nation­al Park to meet nation­al targets.

Next Steps

1. The Plan­ning Com­mit­tee will be informed when NPF4 is adop­ted and once it is adop­ted reports to Plan­ning Com­mit­tee will include ref­er­ence to rel­ev­ant policy as part of the stat­utory devel­op­ment plan.

Dan Har­ris danharris@​cairngorms.​co.​uk

Links:

https://www.transformingplanning.scot/national-planning-framework/revised-draft-npf4/