Item8Appendix1CPreAppResponsePRE20220021Distillery

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 8 Appendix IC 23/09/2022

AGENDA ITEM 8

APPENDIX IC

PRE/2022/0021

PRE-APP RESPONSE The High­land Coun­cil Com­hairle na Gàidhealtachd

Pre Applic­a­tion Advice Ser­vice: Response

Plan­ning Ref: 21/05266/PREMAJ CNPA Ref. PRE/2022/0004 Pro­pos­al Name Con­struc­tion of 2 No. 1000 m² whis­key mat­ur­a­tion ware­houses and asso­ci­ated access roads and land­scap­ing. Later phases of works include the con­struc­tion of new dis­til­lery and asso­ci­ated infra­struc­ture, vis­it­or centre, car park­ing and land­scap­ing. Date of Meet­ing 9 Feb­ru­ary 2022 Date of Response 23 Feb­ru­ary 2022

Response Gen­er­al and Policy Background

This pro­pos­al for the con­struc­tion of two whis­key mat­ur­a­tion ware­houses and the sub­sequent new dis­til­lery with asso­ci­ated infra­struc­ture, vis­it­or centre and car park­ing and land­scap­ing will be con­sidered in rela­tion to the policies of the Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (LDP) 2021 and asso­ci­ated sup­ple­ment­ary guid­ance as well as any oth­er mater­i­al con­sid­er­a­tions that may apply includ­ing the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan and Scot­tish Plan­ning Policy.

The LDP and asso­ci­ated guid­ance are avail­able on this web link:

http://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​p​a​r​k​-​a​u​t​h​o​r​i​t​y​/​p​l​a​n​ning/

Prin­ciple of Development

The prin­ciple of devel­op­ment must be con­sidered against the rel­ev­ant policies and guid­ance as con­tained with­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021, the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2017 – 2022 and Scot­tish Plan­ning Policy. These doc­u­ments lend sup­port to the prin­ciple of sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment sub­ject to detailed assess­ment regard­ing the land­scape and eco­lo­gic­al impacts of the pro­posed development.

Policy 2: Sup­port­ing Eco­nom­ic Growth, of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan sup­ports this type of devel­op­ment in prin­ciple where it con­trib­utes to sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic growth and where it is appro­pri­ate and com­pat­ible with its sur­round­ings. In this instance a case a jus­ti­fic­a­tion for this par­tic­u­lar rur­al loc­a­tion will be required. As such inform­a­tion on the spe­cif­ic require­ments of the devel­op­ment along with the site spe­cif­ic loc­a­tion­al bene­fits of the site will be sought and should accom­pany any forth­com­ing applic­a­tion. This sup­port in prin­ciple is also sub­ject to meet­ing all policies of the LDP in terms of sit­ing, land­scape and design, nat­ur­al her­it­age, access and ser­vi­cing, amen­ity and resources. Land­scape Impacts and Design

Policy 5: Land­scape of the LDP sets out the need for new devel­op­ment to con­serve and enhance the land­scape char­ac­ter and spe­cial qual­it­ies of the Nation­al Park. Policy 3 Design and Place­mak­ing also sets out the design con­sid­er­a­tion to be taken into account.

The impact on the land­scape will be a key con­sid­er­a­tion in assess­ing com­pli­ance with this policy. The import­ance of a high qual­ity of design, set­ting and land­scap­ing can­not be over emphas­ised. The ini­tial sketch pro­pos­als indic­ate an under­stand­ing of this import­ance, but fur­ther devel­op­ment will be required and this should be informed by a detailed assess­ment of land­scape char­ac­ter­ist­ics and of the spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies of the Nation­al Park as they apply here and an assess­ment of the his­tor­ic value of any archae­olo­gic­al fea­tures, includ­ing Dun da Lahm pic­tish hill fort. This will inform detailed sit­ing and design.

Envir­on­ment­al Impacts

Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Her­it­age of the LDP requires that new devel­op­ment fully con­siders and as neces­sary mit­ig­ates impacts on des­ig­nated and loc­al sites, and Policy: 10 Resources sets out key issues in rela­tion to resource use. NatureScot will be advise fur­ther on impacts on des­ig­nated sites and the require­ments which will be neces­sary to fully con­sider impacts on the River Spey Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion and for the CNPA to carry out any Hab­it­at Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­als that may be required. Suf­fi­cient inform­a­tion will need to be sub­mit­ted to enable such assess­ment to take place.

The site is bounded by forestry and the pro­pos­als will likely involve tree remov­al and as such a Tree Sur­vey will be required to be under­taken – this should note the pres­ence of any pro­tec­ted spe­cies, e.g. red squir­rel. Com­pens­at­ory plant­ing will be required for any felled trees. This could be replanted as ripari­an wood­land provid­ing shad­ing to the river, if there are no wader con­straints (see below), and con­trib­ute to works under­taken by the Spey Catch­ment Ini­ti­at­ive – fur­ther inform­a­tion can be giv­en on this.

An exten­ded Phase 1 Hab­it­at Sur­vey of the entire site must be under­taken to note the pres­ence of hab­it­ats and the poten­tial for pro­tec­ted spe­cies. Fur­ther future sur­veys should be dis­cussed and agreed with the CNPA, e.g. waders may breed with­in the applic­a­tion site and there­fore a sur­vey will be required to devel­op appro­pri­ate mit­ig­a­tion. All rel­ev­ant Spe­cies Pro­tec­tion Plans (for European Pro­tec­ted Spe­cies) must be under­taken pri­or to plan­ning per­mis­sion approv­al. It is also likely that the applic­a­tion site sup­ports hab­it­ats and Spe­cies on the CNPA list (Cairngorms Nature Action Plan). There is also poten­tial for peat­land hab­it­at which will be iden­ti­fied through the Phase 1 Hab­it­at Sur­vey. A fully detailed Eco­lo­gic­al Con­straints and Oppor­tun­it­ies Plan should be included with­in the sub­mis­sion based on the hab­it­ats and spe­cies iden­ti­fied dur­ing the eco­lo­gic­al surveys.

The out­line design shows an indic­at­ive SuDS pond. The pro­pos­als provide an ideal oppor­tun­ity to integ­rate SuDS for the dis­pos­al of sur­face water pos­it­ively into the over­all devel­op­ment to secure the max­im­um biod­iversity and land­scape bene­fits. Fur­ther inform­a­tion can be provided. There is no indic­a­tion of a cool­ing pond on the out­line plans. Should this be neces­sary mod­el­ling must be under­taken of thermal uplift on the River Spey SAC from any cool­ing water dis­charge. Cla­ri­fic­a­tion must be giv­en of the treat­ment of wastewa­ter on the site.

A Pol­lu­tion Pre­ven­tion Plan will be required for the con­struc­tion phase to pro­tect the River Spey SAC from silts, sed­i­ments and nutri­ents. Access and Servicing

Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing of the LDP requires that new devel­op­ment main­tains and max­im­ises all oppor­tun­it­ies for respons­ible out­door access, includ­ing links into the exist­ing path net­work. All devel­op­ments must be con­sist­ent with the Core Paths Plan.

This devel­op­ment would have sig­ni­fic­ant implic­a­tions on access routes and core paths at the loc­a­tion. The pro­posed devel­op­ment site straddles Gen­er­al Wades Mil­it­ary Road which is a Core Path (UBS30) and a Right of Way. In addi­tion a fur­ther core path (UBS23) runs adja­cent to the site, and the site also bound­ar­ies with the River Spey — core path LBS1, a pub­lic Right of Navigation.

It is advised that the applic­ant pre­pares an Out­door Access Plan (OAP) which will assist them in identi­fy­ing vari­ous issues, impacts and oppor­tun­it­ies relat­ing to pub­lic out­door access and enable them to provide clear inform­a­tion on how these have been con­sidered, how they will be impacted and man­aged or any mit­ig­a­tions pro­posed, etc. For example; if they intend to accom­mod­ate and incor­por­ate Gen­er­al Wades Mil­it­ary Road into the devel­op­ment and how this would be done; or if they would be seek­ing to divert the route. If the applic­ant is pro­pos­ing to re-route any core paths they should demon­strate a clear under­stand­ing that they are aware of the pro­cesses and times­cales required to do this.

The OAP should also include meas­ures such as safely man­aging pub­lic access along paths both dur­ing con­struc­tion and dur­ing oper­a­tion of the site.

The applic­ant is also encour­aged to look for ways to enhance access oppor­tun­it­ies and cre­ate links to exist­ing access net­works. Con­sid­er­a­tion should also be giv­en to act­ive travel e.g. how vis­it­ors could reach the pro­posed vis­it­or attrac­tion by pub­lic trans­port or cycle.

A brief guide to pre­par­ing an Out­door Access Plan has been pro­duced NatureScot (SNH) and is avail­able here: Microsoft Word — A409251.doc (nature.scot) High­land Coun­cil Roads team will provide advice on trans­port and road safety issues.

Amen­ity

Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing of the LDP requires that new devel­op­ment pro­tect the amen­ity enjoyed by neigh­bours includ­ing min­im­isa­tion of dis­turb­ance caused by access to the devel­op­ment site. In this regard poten­tial noise issues will have to be fully con­sidered and assessed as well as any issues relat­ing to exist­ing water sup­plies in the area. It is recom­men­ded that any neigh­bour­ing pro­pri­et­ors are kept informed of the pro­pos­als and their input act­ively sought.

Resources

It is assumed that SEPA and the High­land Coun­cil Flood Pre­ven­tion and Envir­on­ment­al Health Teams will be provid­ing advice on any flood­ing, hydro­logy and drain­age issues, includ­ing inform­a­tion on abstrac­tion points, hydro­logy, exist­ing water sup­plies etc. How­ever there are also poten­tial eco­lo­gic­al issues arising from any water abstrac­tion and water out­flow in terms of the poten­tial effect on low water on any pro­tec­ted spe­cies and any knock on effect of increas­ing water tem­per­at­ure from cool­ing water input back into the river. Sim­il­arly the impacts on these spe­cies in respect of the water out­flow in terms of tem­per­at­ure and nutri­ent con­tent. This will need to be fully con­sidered and it is recom­men­ded that the Spey Fish­ery Board be con­tac­ted for advice at the earli­est oppor­tun­ity. Process

This pro­pos­al will likely con­sti­tute a major applic­a­tion under the Scot­tish Government’s hier­archy of devel­op­ment so appro­pri­ate pre applic­a­tion con­sulta­tion with the com­munity will require to be undertaken.

In addi­tion the pro­pos­al will require to be screened to estab­lish if Envir­on­ment­al Impact Assess­ment is required – the applic­ant will require to make such a request to the High­land Coun­cil who will con­sult with the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity (CNPA).

Any applic­a­tion would be sub­mit­ted to the High­land Coun­cil for val­id­a­tion. There­after once val­id, an applic­a­tion for this type and scale of devel­op­ment would be called in by the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity (CNPA) for determ­in­a­tion as it con­sti­tutes a Type 1 devel­op­ment under our cri­ter­ia for call in more detail on this link:

http://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/wp- content/uploads/2016/02/151218PANApplyingForPlanningPermissionV22.pdf

The CNPA would then offer a pro­cessing agree­ment set­ting out a timetable towards determ­in­a­tion and identi­fy­ing which Plan­ning Com­mit­tee it would be con­sidered at. All applic­a­tions determ­ined by the CNPA are decided at Com­mit­tee. The CNPA would wel­come ongo­ing dis­cus­sion on the pro­pos­als pri­or to sub­mis­sion of an application.

Con­clu­sion

In order to fully con­sider any applic­a­tion we will need full sup­port­ing inform­a­tion as set out below. Sub­mis­sion of a com­plete pack­age of inform­a­tion will help to facil­it­ate swift pro­cessing, avoid­ing the need for re con­sulta­tion with oth­er parties and import­antly enable the pub­lic to com­ment fully. It will also avoid, in the event of the applic­a­tion being sup­por­ted, the need for extens­ive use of ​“sus­pens­ive” plan­ning con­di­tions which would later hold up a start on site. Inform­a­tion set out below rep­res­ents our ini­tial assess­ment and we will of course be guided by the responses of con­sul­tees who it is expec­ted will be seek­ing addi­tion­al inform­a­tion. Key Points Assess­ments to be car­ried out and/​or sub­mit­ted with applic­a­tion Detailed Plans All stand­ard plans to be provided

Site Sec­tions — to show exist­ing, pro­posed and restored ground levels across the site. These should extend across the entire site to clearly show the final ground con­tour­ing and treat­ment. Sec­tions should be across the site in both dir­ec­tions. Plans, sec­tions and elev­a­tions show­ing all pro­posed built ele­ments indi­vidu­ally and col­lect­ively. Col­oured up plans to illus­trate fin­ishes would be use­ful togeth­er with samples of fin­ishes. Design and Access State­ment – this is required for any major applic­a­tion and more advice on mat­ters to be covered is avail­able on the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment web­site. In terms of access this should fully address ped­es­tri­an, cyc­lists and oth­er non-motor­ised users as well as vehicles and the rela­tion­ship to the adja­cent core path at the River Spey. In terms of design it should cov­er the rationale and evol­u­tion of the design and include a sus­tain­able design check­list as required by Land­scape Impacts, Design and Sit­ing Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing. It should cov­er mat­ters such as energy provision.

Land­scape and Visu­al Impact Assess­ment (in accord­ance with the 3^rd edi­tion of the Land­scape Institute’s GLVIA). This should be informed by site assess­ment, ZTV ana­lys­is and con­sid­er­a­tion of a num­ber of visu­al­isa­tions and pho­tomont­ages. Loc­a­tions for visu­al­isa­tions to be agreed with CNPA. The baseline for land­scape char­ac­ter should be taken from the Cairngorms Nation­al Park LCA (2009): http://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​c​a​r​i​n​g​-​f​u​t​u​r​e​/​c​a​i​r​n​g​orms- land­scapes/­land­scape-areas/ Sequen­tial and cumu­lat­ive effects for land­scape and visu­al recept­ors must be con­sidered for pro­moted tracks and pop­u­lar routes. Atten­tion is drawn to the need to pay regard to elev­ated loc­a­tions includ­ing: Munroe’s, wolf tracks and the Dun da Lahm Pic­tish hill fort, as this will affect the abil­ity to mit­ig­ate though trees and oth­er meas­ures. Spe­cial Land­scape Qual­it­ies Impact Assess­ment — con­sid­er­a­tion of the impacts of the devel­op­ment on the Spe­cial Land­scape Qual­it­ies is order to con­sider com­pli­ance with policy. This assess­ment to be informed by the ZTV, visu­al­isa­tions and the assess­ment of land­scape and visu­al effects. Cur­rent draft guid­ance is avail­able from NatureScot. The baseline for Spe­cial land­scape Qual­it­ies should be taken from:

http://​www​.snh​.org​.uk/​p​d​f​s​/​p​u​b​l​i​c​a​t​i​o​n​s​/​c​o​m​m​i​s​s​ioned reports/375.pdf Hab­it­at-based land­scape mas­ter plan — to be informed by the land­scape vis­ion for the site which should be rooted in the con­ser­va­tion and enhance­ment of the spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies and the land­scape char­ac­ter­ist­ics which under­pin these. Tim­ing of land­scap­ing and struc­ture plant­ing to be included with ele­ments iden­ti­fied for early imple­ment­a­tion par­tic­u­larly wood­land struc­ture plant­ing and SUDs. Tree sur­vey, Arbor­i­cul­tur­al Impact Assess­ment and Tree pro­tec­tion plan — which should be used to inform the sit­ing and design of the devel­op­ment. There appears to be a heavy reli­ance on the exist­ing plant­a­tion wood­lands. These must be assessed for longev­ity and con­di­tion and a state­ment on their future felling is required. Detailed land­scape plans with full plant­ing / seed­ing spe­cific­a­tions and object­ive-based land­scape man­age­ment plan and land­scape main­ten­ance sched­ule — this inform­a­tion should clearly identi­fy areas to be planted, spe­cies mix and dens­ity, pro­tec­tion and future main­ten­ance. Mit­ig­a­tion Pro­pos­als – to include any off-site enhance­ments relat­ing to the exper­i­ence of land­scape and spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies and any envir­on­ment­al impacts. Visu­al­isa­tions to demon­strate from vari­ous view­points how the pro­posed devel­op­ment will fit into the land­scape. This could use­fully include pho­tomont­ages and visu­al sec­tions suit­able for present­ing the pro­pos­als to the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee. The CNPA is happy to input to view­point selec­tion. Envir­on­ment­al Impacts Light­ing plan for the whole devel­op­ment includ­ing visu­al­isa­tions from key view­points (to be agreed with CNPA) This should seek to min­im­ising impacts at night on land­scape recept­ors and biodiversity.

Con­struc­tion Meth­od State­ment – to include a con­struc­tion soil man­age­ment plan cov­er­ing a) Areas to be stripped and identi­fy­ing likely volumes of top­soils, sub­soils and rock, b) Meth­ods and tim­ings for turf strip­ping, soil remov­al, stock­pil­ing, sus­tain­able stor­age, replace­ment, re-pro­fil­ing, de-com­pac­tion and re-use of veget­ated soils. c) Loc­a­tion for stock­piles. It should also cov­er the role and respons­ib­il­it­ies of the Envir­on­ment­al Clerk of Works, includ­ing mon­it­or­ing of works, chan­nels of com­mu­nic­a­tion, report­ing sched­ule, post-com­ple­tion Nat­ur­al Her­it­age / Eco­logy Reports Breed­ing bird sur­veys in par­tic­u­lar wad­ing birds and birds on river banks; Drain­age A Wader Impact Assess­ment – up to date sur­vey inform­a­tion and his­tor­ic­al data is avail­able from the RSPB and must be used to inform the Wader Impact Assess­ment; Pro­tec­ted Mam­mals Sur­vey (includ­ing otter in both in terms of holts and use of river banks, bat roosts in exist­ing build­ings and trees, water vole activ­ity with­in the site area); Phase 1 Hab­it­at sur­vey; Inform­a­tion on water abstrac­tion and out­flow and con­sid­er­a­tion of any impacts on fresh water pearl mus­sels and Atlantic sal­mon; Badger Sur­vey; Rep­tile Sur­vey; Spe­cies Pro­tec­tion Plans will be required to demon­strate how impacts will be avoided, reduced or mit­ig­ated for any pro­tec­ted spe­cies that are likely to be affected by the pro­pos­al. Hydro­logy and Flood­ing Reports – NatureScot, SEPA and the Spey Fish­ery Board will advise in more detail on this aspect on the type of inform­a­tion required such as fish sur­veys, tim­ing of any works in river, rela­tion­ship to exist­ing ditches, changes to flow rates and water levels, water qual­ity, private sup­plies, flood risk assess­ment etc. This inform­a­tion will be required for any Hab­it­at Reg­u­la­tions Appraisal.

Mon­it­or­ing and review pro­cesses togeth­er with details of the con­struc­tion pro­gramme includ­ing tim­ings and phas­ing. A Site Waste Man­age­ment Plan should be included too. Drain­age Impact Assess­ment, includ­ing inform­a­tion on foul and sur­face water drain­age arrange­ments. This should reflect the need for SUDs to be used to max­im­ise biod­iversity and land­scape enhance­ments. Inform­a­tion on main­ten­ance to be included. Site drain­age plan — exist­ing and pro­posed- should also be included. Cul­tur­al Impacts Cul­tur­al Her­it­age – con­sid­er­a­tion of any impacts upon any lis­ted build­ing, ancient monu­ments and fea­tures of archae­olo­gic­al interest (Stand­ing Stones). Eco­nom­ic Impacts Eco­nom­ic State­ment – to explain the need for a rur­al loc­a­tion and eco­nom­ic bene­fits of the pro­pos­al cov­er­ing mat­ters such as number/​type of jobs cre­ated and any oth­er rel­ev­ant inform­a­tion such as eco­nom­ic bene­fits of the devel­op­ment to the wider area and the role and pur­pose of the accom­mod­a­tion. Res­id­en­tial Amen­ity Noise Impact Assess­ment Trans­port Impacts and Pub­lic Access Trans­port Impact Assess­ment — Trans­port Scot­land and High­land Coun­cil Roads Ser­vice will advise on this aspect, but from CNPA per­spect­ive inform­a­tion on anti­cip­ated vehicle num­bers at both con­struc­tion and oper­a­tion­al stage and any mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures pro­posed in respect of impacts iden­ti­fied on site and upon the sur­round­ing roads net­work. Details of any vis­ib­il­ity improve­ments and/​or oth­er roads works should be included with the sub­mis­sion. Any assess­ment should also con­sider non — vehicu­lar move­ments, and the rela­tion­ship to core paths in the area. It should also con­sider green travel ini­ti­at­ives (e.g. car shar­ing by work­ers, oppor­tun­it­ies for staff to walk/​cycle to work depend­ing on their loc­a­tion, cycle racks etc. Pre Applic­a­tion Con­sulta­tion with the com­munity (PAC Pre Applic­a­tion Con­sulta­tion Report as required by Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment legis­la­tion explain­ing how the pub­lic con­sulta­tion pro­cess has informed devel­op­ment of the pro­pos­al and the meas­ures taken to inform the pub­lic. It is also recom­men­ded that, aside from the neigh­bour noti­fic­a­tion pro­cess which will be car­ried out by the High­land Coun­cil, the developer advises res­id­ents in the area of the sub­mis­sion of the applic­a­tion in the interests of good prac­tise and pub­lic rela­tions as it is our exper­i­ence that this type of pro­act­ive work is usu­ally bene­fi­cial. Organ­isa­tion Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity (CNPA) Gav­in Miles and Emma Bryce Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning and Plan­ning Man­ager (DM) Name Pos­i­tion Email Phone 01479 873535 planning@​cairngorms.​co.​uk Please attach any addi­tion­al inform­a­tion as a sep­ar­ate file and send to majorpreapps@​highland.​gov.​uk