Item9Appendix2SupportingStatement20190286DET

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 9 Appendix 2 15/11/2019

AGENDA ITEM 9

APPENDIX 2

2019/0286/DET

SUP­PORT­ING STATEMENT

Phoines Estate Ret­ro­spect­ive Plan­ning Applic­a­tion for Agri­cul­tur­al Track Maintenance

1. Works

Phoines Estate under­took some repair work to an agri­cul­tur­al track referred to as ​“Cor­rie Cuaich”, in June 2014. The track is loc­ated to the South East of Loch Cuaich. The length of track repaired was 3,225m. Six Fig­ure Grid Ref­er­ence: NN690869

1. Repair/​Upgrade

Phoines Estate believe that the repair works were being car­ried out under per­mit­ted devel­op­ment rights (Gen­er­al Per­mit­ted Devel­op­ment Order) (Scot­land) 1992). Pri­or to the work occur­ring, the track was in a state of dis­repair. The Estate there­fore felt that the work fell with­in the High­land Coun­cil Per­mit­ted Devel­op­ment Rights Guid­ance for Agri­cul­tur­al and Forestry Private Ways. The Estate did not con­sider that pri­or noti­fic­a­tion was required, as the main­ten­ance of this private way came under per­mit­ted development.

The Estate’s under­stand­ing at that time was that main­ten­ance could include resur­fa­cing, edge strength­en­ing and like for like replace­ment of exist­ing infra­struc­ture. It was assumed that this repair would not need pri­or approval.

The Estate was approached by Mr Ed Swales (Mon­it­or­ing and Enforce­ment Officer) of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity in respect of the work under­taken to this track. Mr Swales inspec­ted the track with the Estate on Tues­day 16^th April 2019 and there­after reques­ted an applic­a­tion be made to the High­land Council.

1. Rationale for the works The Estate’s require­ments for the track are as fol­lows: a. Land Management

The Estate’s abil­ity to access all parts of the hold­ing is vital for good land man­age­ment. Such land man­age­ment includes; live­stock man­age­ment, veget­a­tion cut­ting, moor­land res­tor­a­tion, Muir­burn, ver­min con­trol and health and safety of staff and vis­it­ors to the Estate. Poor access severely lim­its the abil­ity of site man­agers to carry out these, and oth­er, essen­tial tasks.

b. Fire Fighting

Wild­fires, which have recently been more numer­ous and severe in nature, pose a ser­i­ous threat to the hold­ing. Without the abil­ity to quickly travel to the scene of a fire, site man­agers and the

Fire Ser­vice would be very restric­ted in their abil­ity to con­trol this very dam­aging occur­rence. Access is there­fore con­sidered to be a key factor in the man­age­ment and con­trol of wildfires.

1. Meth­od­o­logy

In order to repair the track, the con­tract­or was required to scrape and then recon­struct the sur­face. Any track also requires a slight cam­ber so that it can shed water from its sur­face effectively.

The ditches either side of the track have been cleaned out, so that the track drains effect­ively. All mater­i­al removed from the ditches has been used to resur­face the exist­ing track. The route of the track was not altered in any way. No impor­ted stone has been bought onto the site.

1. Meas­ures to avoid Ecological/​Habitat Impacts

Dur­ing the con­struc­tion a basic mit­ig­a­tion strategy was fol­lowed which focused on the avoid­ance of bird dis­turb­ance and dam­age to soils/​vegetation.

1. Visu­al Impacts

The Estate believes that the repairs under­taken have not adversely altered the visu­al impacts of the track and sur­round­ing land­scape. It is clear that now there is veget­a­tion grow­ing on the track, which the pho­tos demon­strate, there is very little visu­al impact. In effect, the track is ​“green­ing up”. The track is also of lim­ited width, and con­struc­ted of a nat­ur­al material.

1. Con­clu­sion

The Estate believes that from a prac­tic­al level, the work to the track will allow quick­er access for day to day man­age­ment activ­it­ies to occur. The track will also provide more sus­tained access to cur­rently remote areas of the hold­ing. It is very import­ant to the Estate that such accesses remain useable, as they could be required for the res­cue and safe­guard­ing of staff, guests and mem­bers of the pub­lic in emer­gency situ­ations. It would also provide more suit­able access to wild­fires and provide a route for fire­fight­ing equip­ment and water to be delivered close to the scene of a fire.

JM Osborne & Co. May 2019