Item9AppealDecision20210168DETGlenClova

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 9 11/11/2022

AGENDA ITEM 9

FOR INFORM­A­TION

APPEAL DECISION FOR 2021/0168/DET (Plan­ning Appeal PPA-001‑2025)

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Plan­ning and Envir­on­ment­al Appeals Divi­sion Had­ri­an House, Cal­l­en­dar Busi­ness Park, Falkirk, FK1 1XR E: [email protected] T: 0300 244 6668

Appeal Decision Notice

Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment Riaghaltas na h‑Alba gov.scot

Decision by Chris Nor­man, a Report­er appoin­ted by the Scot­tish Ministers

• Plan­ning appeal ref­er­ence: PPA-001‑2025
• Site address: Land north-west of Glen Clova Hotel, Glen Clova, Angus DD8 4QS
• Appeal by Mr. Hugh Niven against the decision by Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority
• Applic­a­tion for plan­ning per­mis­sion 2021/0168/DET dated 12 May 2021 refused by notice dated 30 March 2022
• The devel­op­ment pro­posed: Erec­tion of 8 hol­i­day lodges and plant/​storage build­ing, form­a­tion of vehicu­lar access, park­ing and turn­ing areas, install­a­tion of sewage treat­ment plant and sur­face water soakaways
• Date of site vis­it by Report­er: 23 August 2022

Date of appeal decision: 20 Septem­ber 2022

Decision

I dis­miss the appeal and refuse plan­ning permission.

Pre­lim­in­ary Matter

The scale and nature of this pro­posed devel­op­ment is such that it is con­sist­ent with­in the descrip­tion of devel­op­ment set out in Class 12© ​‘Tour­ism and leis­ure’ of Sched­ule 2 of the Town and Coun­try Plan­ning (Envir­on­ment­al Impact Assess­ment) (Scot­land) Reg­u­la­tions 2017. On 21 June 2021 it was the sub­ject of a screen­ing opin­ion by the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity (CNPA) to the effect that envir­on­ment­al impact assess­ment (EIA) was not required. I agree with the CNPA’s decision that, based on the char­ac­ter­ist­ics and loc­a­tion of the pro­posed devel­op­ment, togeth­er with the poten­tial impacts, the pro­pos­al was not a devel­op­ment that required an EIA.

Reas­on­ing

1. I am required to determ­ine this appeal in accord­ance with the devel­op­ment plan unless mater­i­al con­sid­er­a­tions indic­ate oth­er­wise. The devel­op­ment plan com­prises the adop­ted Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 (the loc­al devel­op­ment plan).

2. Hav­ing regard to the pro­vi­sions of the devel­op­ment plan the main issues in this appeal are, firstly, wheth­er the pro­pos­al is of an appro­pri­ate design and lay­out com­pat­ible with the loc­a­tion, visu­al amen­ity, land­scape char­ac­ter and spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies of this part of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park, and wheth­er it is sym­path­et­ic to the tra­di­tion­al pat­tern and char­ac­ter of its sur­round­ings. Secondly it is neces­sary to assess wheth­er the eco­nom­ic bene­fits that the pro­pos­al may gen­er­ate would con­trib­ute to the loc­al eco­nomy and out­weigh any impact that the pro­pos­al could have on the land­scape char­ac­ter and visu­al amen­ity of this part of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. Thirdly, I require to assess whether

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the pro­pos­al would have an adverse impact on the nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age of the area in terms of its effect on pro­tec­ted spe­cies, breed­ing birds, the River South Esk Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion, and any archae­olo­gic­al remains with­in the site.

The appeal proposal

1. The appeal seeks full plan­ning per­mis­sion for eight tim­ber lodges on some 4,160 square metres of upland grass­land, inter­spersed with large boulders and occa­sion­al rocky out­crops. The lodges would offer ancil­lary accom­mod­a­tion to the nearby Glen Clova Hotel and its exist­ing lodges to the east. The lin­ear site gently rises north-west of the hotel and would be accessed from the B995 which leads south to Kirriemuir, around 24 kilo­metres dis­tant. The site is bisec­ted by, and accessed from, an unmetalled track to the north of the pro­posed lodges. From the B995 the access firstly passes a farm yard and build­ings and the appellant’s prop­erty at Arntib­ber Cot­tage and then leads towards the ver­nacu­lar designed and secluded Park­head Cot­tage. A rem­nant stone wall is to the south of the site bey­ond which are some sev­er­al mature broadleaved trees that when in leaf, to an extent, fil­ter views to the site from the B995.

2. The appel­lant ini­tially pro­posed eight one and two bed­roomed single-storey lodges, con­tained with­in two groups ada­ja­cent to the access track. Revised pro­pos­als that are the sub­ject of this appeal seek to address con­cerns expressed by the CNPA in order to reduce the development’s land­scape impact. It is now pro­posed that, to reflect the land­scape con­text of the site, the lodges would be built in two dis­tinct clusters com­pris­ing groups of four units each, giv­ing rise to a great­er sep­ar­a­tion between the build­ings. Sev­er­al addi­tion­al field trees, pro­tec­ted by stock shel­ters, would be planted south of the build­ings. Each lodge would incor­por­ate what the appel­lant describes as ​“exem­plar” low energy tech­no­logy and incor­por­ate a sus­tain­able design approach. The ori­gin­al and sep­ar­ate plant room would be attached to the east­ern most group. The track, to be widened in places, leads from the assemblage of build­ings adja­cent to the hotel and bey­ond the cur­til­age of Arntib­ber Cot­tage, which is largely screened by the wood­land adjoin­ing the hotel. Each lodge would have bal­conies pro­ject­ing south­wards. The extent of under­build­ing has been reduced and grassed bank­ing would be formed to ease the assim­il­a­tion of the build­ings into the sur­round­ing land. Dry-stone walls around the park­ing areas would seek to min­im­ise any poten­tial light pol­lu­tion and the spe­cific­a­tion for bal­cony light­ing could also reduce light pollution.

3. With­in the nation­al park and north-west­wards from the group of build­ings at Milton of Clova the unspoilt upper part of Glen Clova is sub­stan­tially unin­hab­ited apart from very few isol­ated and tra­di­tion­ally designed houses such as Brae­downie, Mains of Glen Clova and Park­head Cot­tage. The flat val­ley floor of upper Glen Clova is char­ac­ter­ised by steep side slopes, cor­ries and rocky out­crops. It draws the eye to the unspoilt moun­tain mas­sif of the inner Cairngorm Moun­tains in the cent­ral part of the nation­al park. In and sur­round­ing the glen recent and extens­ive tim­ber extrac­tion has brought about land­scape change in con­trast to the broadleaved wood­land both between Park­head Cot­tage and Milton of Clova, and that north-east of the hotel which serves to assist in screen­ing the cluster of tim­ber chalets. Des­pite the recent com­mer­cial tim­ber extrac­tion I find upper Glen Clova to be an excep­tion­ally attract­ive moun­tain landscape.

4. The devel­op­ment plan Both the appel­lant and the plan­ning author­ity refer to six policies with­in the adop­ted Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021. I find that the fol­low­ing policies are key to my con­sid­er­a­tion of the appeal.

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1. Policy 2: ​‘Sup­port­ing Eco­nom­ic Growth’, amongst oth­er things, is sup­port­ive of devel­op­ment which enhances tour­ism and leis­ure-based busi­ness and which makes a pos­it­ive con­tri­bu­tion to a year-round eco­nomy, provided there are no adverse envir­on­ment­al or amen­ity impacts. Policy 3: ​‘Design and Place­mak­ing’ requires all devel­op­ment to meet the six tests set out in Scot­tish Plan­ning Policy (SPP). Addi­tion­ally twelve indi­vidu­al tests must be met includ­ing the need for devel­op­ment to be sym­path­et­ic to the tra­di­tion­al pat­tern and char­ac­ter of the sur­round­ing area. Policy 4: ​‘Nat­ur­al Her­it­age’ sets out the pro­vi­sions to be taken into account where a pro­pos­al could affect an inter­na­tion­ally or nation­ally des­ig­nated site, wood­lands, pro­tec­ted spe­cies and biod­iversity. Policy 5: ​‘Land­scape’ provides that, sub­ject to two tests, there is a pre­sump­tion against any devel­op­ment that does not con­serve or enhance the land­scape char­ac­ter and spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park, includ­ing wild­ness and the set­ting of the pro­pos­al. Policy 9: ​‘Cul­tur­al Her­it­age’ provides the frame­work for assess­ing a pro­pos­al that could affect both des­ig­nated and non-des­ig­nated aspects of the cul­tur­al her­it­age. Finally Policy 10: ​‘Resources’ sets out the neces­sary mat­ters to be taken into to account such as the water envir­on­ment and waste man­age­ment. I set out in para­graph 22 those parts of the non-stat­utory guid­ance pub­lished by the CNPA in respect of policies 2, 3, 4, 5, 9 and 10 as mater­i­al con­sid­er­a­tions and I shall address each loc­al devel­op­ment plan policy in turn.

Sup­port­ing eco­nom­ic growth

1. Policy 2 ​‘Sup­port­ing Eco­nom­ic Growth’ aims to enable and encour­age appro­pri­ate eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment with­in the nation­al park and sup­ports, amongst oth­er things, devel­op­ment which enhances tour­ism and leis­ure-based busi­ness activ­it­ies that have no adverse envir­on­ment­al or amen­ity impacts on the site. How­ever, all such pro­pos­als must be appro­pri­ate and com­pat­ible with their sur­round­ings and con­trib­ute to the sus­tain­able growth of the nation­al park’s economy.

2. As acknow­ledged by CNPA the appellant’s Glen Clova Hotel and estate are pop­u­lar year-round vis­it­or des­tin­a­tions. The hotel cur­rently employs some 19 per­man­ent mem­bers of staff and an unspe­cified num­ber of tem­por­ary staff. The appel­lant sub­mits that exist­ing accom­mod­a­tion is ​“con­sist­ently” occu­pied to capa­city and the appeal pro­pos­al would com­ple­ment the hotel and it would sup­port these exist­ing jobs and ​“poten­tially” give rise to addi­tion­al employ­ment. As such it is argued that the wider eco­nomy could bene­fit from the pro­pos­al, in accord­ance with Scotland’s Tour­ism Strategy 2020. The pro­pos­al would be well-placed for vis­it­ors to access a range or tour­ist des­tin­a­tions else­where in Angus and the wide range of out­door activ­it­ies avail­able loc­ally. The CNPA con­cludes that the prin­ciple of the devel­op­ment is ​“likely to accord” with Policy 2, but sub­ject to com­pli­ance with oth­er rel­ev­ant loc­al devel­op­ment plan policies that sat­is­fact­or­ily address oth­er envir­on­ment­al or amen­ity impacts in detail.

3. The appellant’s evid­ence advises that there is a ​“press­ing need” for lodge accom­mod­a­tion in Glen Clova and con­cludes that there would be a ​“poten­tial” increase in employ­ment if the devel­op­ment were to pro­ceed, par­tic­u­larly with some tem­por­ary employ­ment dur­ing its con­struc­tion peri­od and ser­vi­cing jobs there­after. How­ever there would be no social or eco­nom­ic bene­fits of nation­al import­ance and I did not observe any oth­er com­mer­cial vis­it­or facil­it­ies between Kirriemuir and Glen Clova which could oth­er­wise bene­fit from rev­en­ue res­ult­ing from the occu­pa­tion of the chalets. In con­clu­sion, I have noted the con­tri­bu­tion that would be forth­com­ing to the exist­ing hotel busi­ness, and the wider bene­fits to the range of vis­it­or accom­mod­a­tion avail­able or to the loc­al eco­nomy. How­ever, as I describe below, I judge that those more focussed bene­fits do not outweigh

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the sig­ni­fic­ant adverse effects on the land­scape char­ac­ter, visu­al amen­ity and the spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. I there­fore con­clude that the pro­pos­al is con­trary to Policy 2 of the loc­al devel­op­ment plan.

Design and Placemaking

1. Policy 3: ​‘Design and Place­mak­ing’ requires that all devel­op­ments must be accessed safely and designed to be sym­path­et­ic to the tra­di­tion­al pat­tern and char­ac­ter of the sur­round­ing area, loc­al ver­nacu­lar, and loc­al dis­tinct­ive­ness, whilst encour­aging innov­a­tion in design and use of mater­i­als. Policy 3 also aims at ensur­ing that all devel­op­ment in the nation­al park deliv­ers high stand­ards of design and place­mak­ing and con­trib­utes to the nation­al park’s spe­cial sense of place. The policy pro­motes the highest stand­ards of sit­ing and design.

2. To address the require­ments of Policy 3 the appel­lant refers to what is described as the sup­port in prin­ciple for devel­op­ment at the hotel as expressed by the CNPA plan­ning com­mit­tee when determ­in­ing the plan­ning applic­a­tion. To rein­force this view it is con­ten­ded that the site com­prises ​“brown­field land” and the pro­pos­al is ​“infill devel­op­ment” between Arntib­ber Cot­tage and Park­head Cot­tage. Fur­ther­more the revised lin­ear form fits with­in the site’s con­tours without the need for excav­a­tion. A plan­ning con­di­tion requir­ing the approv­al of all fin­ish­ing mater­i­als and addi­tion­al tree plant­ing to aug­ment cur­rent screen­ing would be accept­able. Over­all the appel­lant con­tends that the pro­pos­al would not res­ult in a sig­ni­fic­ant adverse effect on land­scape char­ac­ter, visu­al amen­ity, and the spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies of the nation­al park and that there is no evid­ence to sup­port the refus­al of the proposal.

3. In con­trast the CNPA describes the site as being char­ac­ter­ised by the open­ness between the wood­land sur­round­ing the Clova Hotel and a mixed wood­land to the west. The sit­ing and the form of the chalets would be out of char­ac­ter with the tra­di­tion­al pat­tern of devel­op­ment and with the sur­round­ing open land­scape. The build­ings would be tan­tamount to dis­cord­ant rib­bon devel­op­ment. Sim­il­arly, the design of the lodges would be incon­gru­ous and would con­trast with loc­al ver­nacu­lar archi­tec­ture due to the chosen design. The pro­posed extern­al fin­ishes of col­oured hori­zont­al cement fibre clad­ding and the intro­duc­tion of the covered bal­conies and bal­us­trades would be out of keep­ing with the char­ac­ter and form of devel­op­ment which is oth­er­wise loc­al to Glen Clova.

4. Draw­ing these strands togeth­er, I have noted that there are pos­it­ive attrib­utes in the appear­ance of the lodges, which would dis­play bene­fi­cial ele­ments of sus­tain­able design includ­ing energy effi­ciency, and they could help to fin­an­cially sup­port the adja­cent hotel. Over­all they may not look out of place in oth­er less sens­it­ive loc­a­tions. How­ever I have described in para­graph 5 my find­ings on the over­all spa­tial char­ac­ter­ist­ics of that part of upper Glen Clova with­in the nation­al park bound­ary. Con­trary to the appellant’s con­ten­tion I have no evid­ence that the appeal site has pre­vi­ously been developed and con­sequently I do not con­sider it to be ​‘brown­field land’, as so defined in the gloss­ary to the loc­al devel­op­ment plan and as oth­er­wise con­ten­ded by the appel­lant. Nor can it be clas­si­fied as ​‘infill devel­op­ment’ giv­en the extens­ive dis­tance between Park­head Cot­tage and Arntib­ber Cottage.

5. In my judge­ment the archi­tec­ture, design, and the lin­ear group­ing of the pro­posed build­ings would be a vis­ible ali­en fea­ture in the con­text of the pat­tern of devel­op­ment else­where in that part of upper Glen Clova with­in the nation­al park. Their pres­ence would extend built devel­op­ment into the oth­er­wise unspoilt coun­tryside north-west of the hotel that is punc­tu­ated in its vicin­ity by only a very few ver­nacu­lar designed houses. The other

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cluster of build­ings at Milton of Clova is oth­er­wise well con­tained south of Arntib­ber Cot­tage by the two sub­stan­tial mod­ern agri­cul­tur­al build­ings and the hard sur­faced agri­cul­tur­al yard and stor­age area. In this very sens­it­ive loc­a­tion I con­clude that the pro­pos­al would not be of an appro­pri­ate high stand­ard of design nor place­mak­ing and it would not con­trib­ute to the nation­al park’s spe­cial sense of place, con­trary to Policy 3 of the loc­al devel­op­ment plan.

Land­scape

1. Policy 5: ​‘Land­scape’ pre­sumes against any devel­op­ment that does not con­serve or enhance the land­scape char­ac­ter and spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park includ­ing wild­ness and the set­ting of the pro­posed devel­op­ment. Devel­op­ment that does not com­ple­ment or enhance the land­scape char­ac­ter of the nation­al park nor its set­ting will be only per­mit­ted where any sig­ni­fic­ant adverse effects on the spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies of the nation­al park are clearly out­weighed by social or eco­nom­ic bene­fits of nation­al import­ance. Addi­tion­ally all the adverse effects on the set­ting of the pro­posed devel­op­ment are to be min­im­ised and mit­ig­ated through appro­pri­ate sit­ing, lay­out, scale, design and con­struc­tion to the sat­is­fac­tion of the CNPA.

2. The appel­lant acknow­ledges Glen Clova as hav­ing unique land­scape qual­it­ies and eco­lo­gic­al interest and the ​“key issue” in this appeal relates to the impact of the pro­pos­al on the land­scape char­ac­ter and visu­al amen­ity of the area. I have described above how the proposal’s design has been revised and seeks to min­im­ise the impact on the land­scape and its char­ac­ter and in order to address the CNPA’s ini­tial con­cerns. This revised sub­mis­sion illus­trates the lodges being set against a back­ground of extens­ive tree plant­ing which would change the back­drop to the devel­op­ment, in the medi­um to long term. How­ever this affor­est­a­tion does not form part of the appeal pro­pos­al. Although plan­ning per­mis­sion may not be required for the scheme, I have no cer­tainty that it would be imple­men­ted, and when.

3. The appeal site is not with­in an area of wild land, nor is it with­in a nation­al scen­ic area. Nev­er­the­less I have described its sig­ni­fic­ant land­scape attrib­utes in para­graph 5, and how the River South Esk meanders through the flat val­ley floor with­in the largely unspoilt, upper Glen Clova with its back­drop of rugged moun­tain scenery and its views to the more remote and high­er moun­tains to the north.

4. The appeal site is vis­ible in north-east­erly views as seen by south­bound drivers, cyc­lists and walk­ers leav­ing the glen on the B995. From here the lin­ear group­ing of lodges for the most part would be punc­tu­ated only to a lim­ited extent by the exist­ing trees, and only when they are in leaf. The small scale of the pro­posed new trees, and the shield­ing by exist­ing trees dur­ing the winter months, would give only lim­ited assist­ance in screen­ing the lodges and parked cars in views from the road towards the rising and wilder scenery bey­ond that is seen from this lower part of the Glen. From the north-east and from more elev­ated views else­where the pro­pos­al would be observed from nearby hills and moun­tains and, most notice­ably and fre­quently by walk­ers to and from Loch Brandy, a pop­u­lar core path pub­li­cised and sign­posted from Milton of Clova. Although not through­out, but from many lower parts of this core path, the lin­ear align­ment of the lodges, their access and vis­it­ors’ parked cars would be seen lead­ing west­wards from Arntib­ber Cot­tage, dis­rupt­ing views to the River Esk and the flat land below from where it rises to the steep slopes lead­ing of the Hill of Strone and the char­ac­ter­ist­ic cor­ries beyond.

5. I judge that the sit­ing of the pro­posed lodges is not in keep­ing with the char­ac­ter of tra­di­tion­al cot­tages and out­build­ings that can be seen albeit rarely and sporad­ic­ally through­out the sur­round­ing land­scape. Nor does it com­pare with the built tour­ist accom­mod­a­tion to the east of the Glen Clova Hotel which, for the most part, is well

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screened in the adjoin­ing wood­land. Des­pite their now great­er sep­ar­a­tion the pro­posed eight lodges would intro­duce a rel­at­ively uni­form rib­bon devel­op­ment across the open slopes between two wooded areas, where oth­er­wise tour­ist devel­op­ment has been focussed to the east of the main group of build­ings sur­round­ing the hotel. In its cur­rent form, lay­out and design, the pro­posed devel­op­ment would res­ult in sig­ni­fic­ant adverse effect on the land­scape char­ac­ter, visu­al amen­ity, and spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. I have found that there would be no social or eco­nom­ic bene­fits of nation­al import­ance that off­set the proposal’s adverse land­scape impact. I there­fore con­clude that the appeal pro­pos­al is con­trary to Policy 5: ​‘Land­scape’ of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021. I describe in para­graph 24 key aspects of the CNPA’s non stat­utory guid­ance (NSG) on land­scape and which con­tains ref­er­ences to the land­scape char­ac­ter of the upper Angus Glens and Upper Glen Clova, and its spe­cial land­scape qualities.

Nat­ur­al Her­it­age, Cul­tur­al Her­it­age, and Resources

1. Policy 4: ​‘Nat­ur­al Her­it­age’ seeks to ensure that there is no adverse impact from the pro­pos­al upon des­ig­nated areas, pro­tec­ted spe­cies or biod­iversity. The appellant’s Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al (HRA) con­siders the effects of the pro­pos­al upon the con­ser­va­tion object­ives of the Cairngorms Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Area (SPA) and the South Esk Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion (SAC). The CNPA’s eco­logy officer and NatureScot have agreed with the con­clu­sions of the HRA and I am sat­is­fied that the pro­pos­al would not con­flict with Policy 4: ​‘Nat­ur­al Her­it­age’. Sim­il­arly Policy 9: ​‘Cul­tur­al Her­it­age’ seeks to con­serve and enhance fea­tures of his­tor­ic or archae­olo­gic­al sig­ni­fic­ance, or to avoid, min­im­ise or mit­ig­ate and adverse effects on them. Although there may be archae­olo­gic­al remains in and close to the site a sus­pens­ive con­di­tion requir­ing an approved scheme of archae­olo­gic­al invest­ig­a­tions would mean that the pro­pos­al could com­ply with Policy 9 ​‘Cul­tur­al Her­it­age’. Policy 10: ​‘Resources’ requires that sur­face water is dealt with accord­ingly, that all new devel­op­ment is free from flood risks and that there is no sig­ni­fic­ant adverse impact on exist­ing or private water sup­plies. I have no evid­ence to sug­gest that, sub­ject to plan­ning con­di­tions, the require­ments of Policy 10 could not be met.

Mater­i­al Considerations

Non-Stat­utory Guid­ance (NSG)

1. The suite of NSG recently pub­lished by the CNPA provides more details about com­pli­ance with the loc­al devel­op­ment plan’s policies but does not form part of the loc­al devel­op­ment plan. It is nev­er­the­less an import­ant mater­i­al con­sid­er­a­tion rel­ev­ant to my determ­in­a­tion. The NSG that is rel­ev­ant to this appeal relates to Policy 2 ​‘Sup­port­ing Eco­nom­ic Growth’, Policy 3 ​‘Design and Place­mak­ing’, Policy 4 ​‘Nature Con­ser­va­tion’, Policy 5 ​‘Land­scape’, Policy 9 ​‘Cul­tur­al Her­it­age’ and Policy 10 ​‘Resources’.

2. In par­tic­u­lar the NSG on design and place­mak­ing sets out detailed design and land­scape con­sid­er­a­tions to enable integ­ra­tion of new devel­op­ment with the nation­al park’s land­scape. In my dis­missal of the appeal it strengthens my applic­a­tion of Policy 3. Spe­cific­ally and con­trary to the appellant’s view it con­firms that the pro­pos­al could not be con­sidered as infill devel­op­ment. The NSG repeats the six qual­it­ies of suc­cess­ful places described in Scot­tish Plan­ning Policy and I find the appeal pro­pos­al to broadly reflect sev­er­al aspects of these cri­ter­ia. How­ever I have set out above how the pro­pos­al does not com­ple­ment loc­al fea­tures such as land­scapes and sky­lines, topo­graphy, spaces, and scales, build­ing form, mater­i­als and detail­ing. I con­clude that my dis­missal of the appeal is con­sist­ent with the NSG entitled ​‘Design and Place Making’.

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1. The appel­lant agrees that land­scape impact is a ​“key con­sid­er­a­tion” in the appeal and I accord­ingly attach con­sid­er­able weight to the con­tents of the NSG on land­scape. The land­scape char­ac­ter type (LCT) that embraces the appeal site and its con­tri­bu­tion to the nation­al park’s spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies (SLQ’s) rel­at­ive to my determ­in­a­tion of the appeal are iden­ti­fied in the NSG entitled ​‘Landc­sape’. As such the appeal site lies with­in LCT ​‘Upper Glen Clova’ and its spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies embrace ​‘land­scapes both cul­tur­al and nat­ur­al’, ​‘broad farm straths’, ​‘a strong jux­ta­pos­i­tion of con­trast­ing land­scapes’ and a ​‘land­scape of lay­ers from inhab­ited strath to remote, unin­hab­ited upland’. I describe above that my dis­missal of the appeal on the basis of the stat­utory devel­op­ment plan is sup­por­ted by the asso­ci­ated NSG ​‘Land­scape’.

25 My decision to dis­miss the appeal is con­sist­ent with the NSG related to loc­al devel­op­ment plan policies Policy 2, Policy 3, Policy 4, Policy 5, Policy 9 and Policy 10.

1. The appel­lant sub­mits that Scot­tish Plan­ning Policy (SPP) and draft Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 (NPF4) sup­port the pro­pos­al. The appel­lant also refers to the Scot­tish Government’s Nation­al Strategy for Eco­nom­ic Trans­form­a­tion entitled ​“Deliv­er­ing Eco­nom­ic Prosper­ity”, pub­lished in March 2022 and which, amongst oth­er things, iden­ti­fies oppor­tun­it­ies for nature res­tor­a­tion, eco-tour­ism, and nature-based solu­tions to cli­mate change. To the appel­lant the pro­pos­al accords with this object­ive. I have noted those aspects of sup­port for the appeal pro­pos­al with­in these doc­u­ments, but they do not out­weigh the devel­op­ment plan con­sid­er­a­tions and the non-stat­utory guid­ance to which I have referred.

Rep­res­ent­a­tions and consultations

1. I note that no objec­tions to the pro­pos­al from Scot­tish Water nor Angus Council’s envir­on­ment­al health and roads teams. The North East Moun­tain Trust, in an objec­tion, are con­cerned about land­scape impacts and seek addi­tion­al tree plant­ing if the devel­op­ment was to pro­ceed. Angus Council’s roads team raise no objec­tions to the devel­op­ment in terms of road safety.

Con­clu­sion

1. Over­all I con­clude that the appeal pro­pos­al would res­ult in sig­ni­fic­ant adverse effects on the land­scape char­ac­ter, visu­al amen­ity, and spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. It would intro­duce a form of devel­op­ment whose scale and design would not be sym­path­et­ic to, nor com­ple­ment, the sur­round­ing land­scape which in turn would have an adverse impact on the char­ac­ter and set­ting of upper Glen Clova. The appeal pro­pos­al is not sup­por­ted by Policy 2: ​‘Sup­port­ing Eco­nom­ic Growth’, Policy 3: ​‘Design and Place­mak­ing’ nor Policy 5: ​‘Land­scape’ of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021. I there­fore con­clude, for the reas­ons set out above, that the pro­posed devel­op­ment does not accord over­all with the rel­ev­ant pro­vi­sions of the devel­op­ment plan and that there are no mater­i­al con­sid­er­a­tions which would still jus­ti­fy grant­ing plan­ning per­mis­sion. I have con­sidered all the oth­er mat­ters raised, but there are none which would lead me to alter my conclusions.

Chris Nor­man Reporter