Item9AAClashindarrochWindFarm20230023PAC

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 9 28/04/2023

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

DEVEL­OP­MENT PRO­POSED: Applic­a­tion under Elec­tri­city Act Sec­tion 36 and Sched­ule 8: Applic­a­tion for the pro­posed Clashin­dar­roch Wind Farm Exten­sion in the Plan­ning Author­ity of Moray Coun­cil at Clashin­dar­roch Wind Farm West Of Exist­ing Clashin­dar­roch Wind Farm Approx­im­ately 11kkm South East Of Dufftown Moray

REF­ER­ENCE: 2023/0023/PAC

APPLIC­ANT: Energy Con­sents Unit

DATE CALLED-IN: 13 Janu­ary 2023

RECOM­MEND­A­TION: No objection

CASE OFFICER: Emma Bryce, Plan­ning Man­ager (Devel­op­ment Management)

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 9 28/04/2023

KEY

• Site Bound­ary Study Area 35km Loc­al Author­ity Bound­ary Cairngorms Nation­al Park LVIA View­points Oth­er Wind Farms
• Oper­a­tion­al
• Con­sen­ted
• In Plan­ning

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 9 28/04/2023

Rathesi Rothes Clash Gour Rothes Bl Berry Barn 150 NGORM M BEN MAC NTAINS Lar CHAP­LEST Aut­mare Land at Muirake Neth­er­ton of Windy­hills Myre­ton New­ton of Eling­ight REITH Editore Deu­chries New­tos of Fortrie Kirk­ten Ballyquas Clashinder­roch Derenell lashindan Upper Wher Pegas­us Group BALLATER

LVIA View­points 1‑A961-Black­wa­ter Bridge 2‑Minor road near Bog­head 3‑Minor road near Back­side 4‑Meikle Fir­briggs 5‑Minor road near Cab­rach Par­ish Church 6 – 89002, near Innes­brae 7‑A920 Between Huntly and Dufftown 8‑Clashmach Hal 9‑Tag Noth 10-The Buck 11-Meikle Baloch 12-Ben Aigan 13-Ben Finnes 14-Lad­der Hills, Ittie Deal Cham 15-Cor­reen Hills, Old Mil­it­ary Roed Title: Oth­er Wind Farms with­in 35km with View­points Clashin­dar­roch Wind Farm Exten­sion Source Crown copy­right and data­base rights 3002 Ond­ance Sur­vey 1000 Cli­ents Clashindan­roch Wind Farm Exten­sion Lim­ited Drawn by: OG Date: Novem­ber 2022 Checked by: OG/OT Fig­ures 7.29 Scale: Revi­sion: 1:290000 АЗ

INFINERGY

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 9 28/04/2023

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 & Deploy­ment Unit (ECDU) on an applic­a­tion sub­mit­ted under Sec­tion 36 of the Elec­tri­city Act 1989 for an exten­sion to the exist­ing Clashin­dar­roch wind farm which is loc­ated to the north east 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 for a wind farm com­pris­ing of 22 tur­bines. This was accom­pan­ied by an Envir­on­ment­al Impact Assess­ment Report (EIAR).

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 (formerly Scot­tish Nat­ur­al Her­it­age, SNH) 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 is loc­ated approx­im­ately 11km south east of Dufftown, 13km south west of Huntly and 8km to the north west of Rhynie. It lies approx­im­ately 7km at its closest point to the Nation­al Park bound­ary. The site lies with­in Moray, with its east­ern bound­ary largely coin­cid­ent­al with the bound­ary between Moray and Aber­deen­shire. The site lies with­in the Cab­rach Estate and cov­ers an area of approx­im­ately 859 hec­tares. It is pre­dom­in­antly heath­er upland which has been man­aged as grouse moor. Clashin­dar­roch Forest lies to the east where the exist­ing Clashin­dar­roch wind farm is loc­ated on land that has now been largely clear felled. The exist­ing wind farm com­prises 18 tur­bines with blade tip heights of 110m.

2. The pro­posed wind farm will com­prise 22 tur­bines, 13 with a max­im­um blade tip height of 200m and 9 with a max­im­um blade tip height of 180m. The pro­pos­al also includes asso­ci­ated infra­struc­ture and ancil­lary works includ­ing intern­al tracks, con­struc­tion com­pound, sub­sta­tion and bat­tery stor­age com­pound and bor­row pits. It has been

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 9 28/04/2023

iden­ti­fied that 9 of the tur­bines will require avi­ation light­ing. It is estim­ated that the pro­posed wind farm will have an estim­ated total installed capa­city of 145.2MW.

1. The­or­et­ic­al vis­ib­il­ity of the pro­posed wind farm from with­in the Nation­al Park is shown by the applicant’s EIAR fig­ure 7.6 (Appendix 1). When con­sid­er­ing the cumu­lat­ive visu­al effects, the applicant’s draw­ing P18-1991.400 Com­bined CZTV Pro­posed Clashin­dar­roch Wind Farm (Appendix 2) demon­strates 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 farms (the com­bined vis­ib­il­ity shown in yel­low). There are how­ever some areas (shown in green) with­in the Nation­al Park where it would intro­duce vis­ib­il­ity of a wind farm where cur­rently there is none.

2. Visu­al­isa­tions from 15 view­points have been provided with­in the applicant’s ElAR that demon­strate the level of vis­ib­il­ity that the wind farm will poten­tially have. Only one is with­in the Nation­al Park boundary:

• Fig­ure 7.51a‑c View­point 14 – Lad­der Hills Little Gheal Charn

1. All visu­al­isa­tions can be found (along with oth­er EIAR mater­i­al) on the ECDU web­site via Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment — Energy Con­sents Unit — Applic­a­tion Details It is recom­men­ded that Com­mit­tee mem­bers famil­i­ar­ise them­selves with the visualisation(s) pri­or to the Com­mit­tee meeting.

REL­EV­ANT PLAN­NING HISTORY

1. PRE/2017/0012 — May 2017 — CNPA respon­ded to a scop­ing request from ECDU for 16 tur­bines at 149.5 metres to tip on site adja­cent to the exist­ing Clashin­dar­roch wind farm in Aber­deen­shire. The response pre- dated the NatureScot/​CNPA land­scape case­work agree­ment that has been used to gain NatureScot advice to inform this report. The CNPA response provided detailed advice about poten­tial effects on the Park but con­cluded that “…it is unlikely that Clashin­dar­roch II will have sig­ni­fic­ant adverse effects on the land­scape set­ting of the Nation­al Park or upon the SLQs exper­i­enced in the Lad­der Hills”.

2. PRE/2017/012 (same ref­er­ence num­ber as pre­vi­ous case) — Octo­ber 2018 — CNPA respon­ded to a revised scop­ing request from ECDU for 14 tur­bines on the same site (Clashin­dar­roch II) adja­cent to the exist­ing Clashin­dar­roch wind farm in Aber­deen­shire. CNPA advised that

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 9 28/04/2023

“Points raised in our ori­gin­al scop­ing com­ments would remain wholly rel­ev­ant — in addi­tion impacts of avi­ation light­ing would pre­sum­ably form part of the any land­scape and visu­al assess­ment too to enable us to fully con­sider the impacts on the Nation­al Park”.

1. 2019/0305/PAC – 15 Janu­ary 2020 – CNPA raised no objec­tions to the applic­a­tion for Clashin­dar­roch Wind Farm II.

2. PRE/2020/0020 – 29 Septem­ber 2020- CNPA respon­ded to a scop­ing request for an exten­sion to Clashin­dar­roch 11. The response referred to the NatureScot/​CNPA case­work pro­tocol and advised that NatureScot would provide advice on the poten­tial effect on the SLQs giv­en the site was out­with the Park. CNPA offered no fur­ther com­ment and referred to NatureScot’s advice.

PLAN­NING POLICY CONTEXT

1. The pro­posed devel­op­ment is loc­ated out­side the Nation­al Park there­fore policies con­tained with­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021do not apply. How­ever, an assess­ment of the pro­pos­al must have regard to Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 (NPF4) and the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP).

Nation­al Policy

1. Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 [NPF4] sets out the 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 policies are a mater­i­al con­sid­er­a­tion in plan­ning decisions that car­ries sig­ni­fic­ant weight.

2. Policy 4c (Nat­ur­al Places) states that ​“devel­op­ment pro­pos­als that will affect a Nation­al Park, Nation­al Scen­ic Area, Site of Spe­cial Sci­entif­ic Interest, or a Nation­al Nature will only be sup­por­ted where:

a) The object­ives of the des­ig­na­tion and the over­all integ­rity of the areas 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.”

1. Of rel­ev­ance to the applic­a­tion is Policy 11: Energy of NPF4. The policy intent is to encour­age, pro­mote and facil­it­ate all forms of renew­able energy devel­op­ment onshore and off­shore. This includes energy

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 9 28/04/2023

gen­er­a­tion, stor­age, new and replace­ment trans­mis­sion and dis­tri­bu­tion infra­struc­ture and emer­ging low-car­bon and zero emis­sions tech­no­lo­gies includ­ing hydro­gen and car­bon cap­ture util­isa­tion and stor­age. Cri­terion 11(b) con­firms that devel­op­ment pro­pos­als for wind farms in Nation­al Parks and Nation­al Scen­ic Areas will not be sup­por­ted. Cri­terion 11(d) con­firms that devel­op­ment pro­pos­als that impact on inter­na­tion­al and nation­al des­ig­na­tions will be assessed in rela­tion to Policy 4. Cri­terion 11(e) required pro­ject design and mit­ig­a­tion to demon­strate how the impacts on road traffic and on adja­cent trunk roads, includ­ing dur­ing con­struc­tion and how the impacts on pub­lic access, includ­ing impact on long dis­tance walk­ing and cyc­ling routes and scen­ic routes have been addressed by the pro­pos­al development.

1. As per Policy 4, the impact of any wind farm devel­op­ment out­with the Nation­al Park, must there­fore be determ­ined against the four aims of the Nation­al Park as set out in the Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000.

Stra­tegic Policy

1. The Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan [NPPP] 2022 – 2027 is required under sec­tion 11 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 A4 and C2a.

3. Policy A4 seeks to con­serve and enhance the Spe­cial Land­scape Qual­it­ies [SLQs]. Policy C2a 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 land­scape qual­it­ies of the Nation­al Park. They are inap­pro­pri­ate with­in the Nation­al Park

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 9 28/04/2023

or in areas out­side the Nation­al Park where they adversely affect its land­scape char­ac­ter or spe­cial land­scape qualities.”.

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. They advise that there will be no sig­ni­fic­ant adverse effects on the land­scape char­ac­ter of the Nation­al Park.

3. In rela­tion to the SLQs, NatureScot advise that there would be sig­ni­fic­ant in com­bin­a­tion and cumu­lat­ive effects for the dark skies spe­cial land­scape qual­ity of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. The assess­ment under­taken by the applic­ant con­siders the poten­tial effects on the fol­low­ing SLQs:

1) a land­scape of lay­ers, from inhab­ited straths to remote unin­hab­ited upland/​layers of reced­ing ridgelines; 2) the sur­round­ing hills; 3) grand pan­or­a­mas and framed views; and 4) dark skies.

1. There were no effects iden­ti­fied in rela­tion to SLQ1, with mod­er­ate effects on SLQ2 and minor effects for SLQ3. In terms of SLQ4, there would be mod­er­ate, but not sig­ni­fic­ant effects. The LVIA iden­ti­fies both in com­bin­a­tion and sequen­tial sig­ni­fic­ant cumu­lat­ive effects for SLQ4 and notes that these ​“would occur with­in the same tract of the land­scape to the north of the CNP and would not under­mine the over­all integ­rity of the SLQ to such an extent that it would no longer be able to be perceived.”

2. The pro­posed meas­ures to mit­ig­ate the effects of the avi­ation light­ing rep­res­ent an optim­al suite of light­ing mit­ig­a­tion which is cur­rently available.

3. It is con­cluded that the addi­tion of the Clashin­dar­roch wind farm exten­sion along with con­sen­ted or under con­struc­tion, would not res­ult in any sig­ni­fic­ant cumu­lat­ive effects bey­ond those arising from the devel­op­ment itself. Tak­ing account of those wind­farms con­sen­ted or

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 9 28/04/2023

under con­struc­tion and includ­ing those in plan­ning would how­ever intro­duce sig­ni­fic­ant cumu­lat­ive effects.

1. NatureScot there­fore con­sider that the sig­ni­fic­ance of the effects the pro­posed wind farm exten­sion will have on the SLQ are not to a degree that it would dam­age the integ­rity and object­ives of the Nation­al Park.

APPRAIS­AL

1. In the policy con­text of the NPPP and NPF4, con­sid­er­a­tion is required to be giv­en to 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. Policy C2a 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 Nation­al Park where they ​‘sig­ni­fic­antly adversely affect its land­scape char­ac­ter or spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies’. If a pro­pos­al fails policy C2.a, it will also con­flict with policy A4, which seeks to con­serve and enhance the SLQS.

3. Policy 11 of NPF4 seeks to encour­age, pro­mote and facil­it­ate all forms of renew­able energy devel­op­ment on shore and off shore. In assess­ing such pro­pos­als, Policy 4 – Nat­ur­al Places, seeks to pro­tect, restore and enhance nat­ur­al assets mak­ing best use of nature based solu­tions. Para­graph c) states that devel­op­ment pro­pos­als that will affect a Nation­al Park will only be sup­por­ted where the object­ives of des­ig­na­tion and the over­all integ­rity of the areas will not be compromised.

4. Only one SLQ would be mod­er­ately affected by the intro­duc­tion of avi­ation light­ing and the effect on the dark skies. The site, how­ever, is in an area which bene­fits from sig­ni­fic­ant weath­er obscur­a­tion where the lights will be reg­u­larly obscured by cloud. The lights will only be required to oper­ate at 10% lumin­ous intens­ity 94% of the time sig­ni­fic­antly redu­cing effects. A series of addi­tion­al mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures has also been pro­posed includ­ing dim­ming, dir­ec­tion­al intens­ity and should reg­u­lat­ory pro­cess allow, the vis­ible medi­um intens­ity tur­bine lights will be switched off for the major­ity of the time and only activ­ated on those rare occa­sions in this loc­a­tion when air­craft activ­ates the sys­tem. The applic­ants have also agreed to a suit­ably worded con­di­tion to enable future light­ing effects to be mit­ig­ated to the extent of becom­ing almost non-existent.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 9 28/04/2023

1. The nature and sig­ni­fic­ance of the effects are such that the pro­pos­al is there­fore con­sidered to com­ply with Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan policy C2.a. Giv­en the pro­pos­al is con­sidered to com­ply with policy C2.a it is also con­sidered to com­ply with policy A4.

2. When con­sid­er­ing the lim­ited nature and sig­ni­fic­ance of the effects, in an area already affected by oth­er wind farm devel­op­ments, the revised pro­pos­al is not con­sidered to com­prom­ise the object­ives or the integ­rity of the Nation­al Park. The pro­pos­al is there­fore also con­sidered to be in accord­ance with NPF4 policies 11 and 4.

3. There are a num­ber of exist­ing and con­sen­ted wind farms in the area sur­round­ing the pro­posed wind farm. The addi­tion of the Clashin­dar­roch wind farm exten­sion to this baseline would not sig­ni­fic­antly add to the exist­ing level of effects, either alone or in com­bin­a­tion with oth­er exist­ing or con­sen­ted wind farms.

4. For these reas­ons, it is recom­men­ded that CNPA should not object to the revised pro­posed wind farm development.

RECOM­MEND­A­TION That Mem­bers of the Com­mit­tee con­firm that CNPA does not object to the applic­a­tion for the pro­posed Clashin­dar­roch wind farm extension.

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