Item9Appendix3GeneralComment20190286DET

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 9 Appendix 3 15/11/2019

AGENDA ITEM 9

APPENDIX 3

2019/0286/DET

GEN­ER­AL COMMENT

Com­ments for Plan­ning Applic­a­tion 2019/0286/DET

Applic­a­tion Sum­mary Applic­a­tion Num­ber: 2019/0286/DET Address: Phoines Lodge New­ton­more High­land PH20 1BE Pro­pos­al: Works to Cor­rie Cuaich track (ret­ro­spect­ive) Case Officer: Edward Swales

Cus­tom­er Details Name: Mr George Allan Address: 7 Both­well Ter­race Pit­med­den Ellon

Com­ment Details Com­menter Type: Mem­ber of Pub­lic Stance: Cus­tom­er made com­ments neither object­ing to or sup­port­ing the Plan­ning Applic­a­tion Com­ment Reas­ons: Comment:I am writ­ing on behalf of the North East Moun­tain Trust (NEMT), a Scot­tish Char­ity (SCIO 008783) based in the Grampi­an area, which rep­res­ents the interests of hill-goers and those who enjoy vis­it­ing wild land. NEMT mem­ber­ship, com­pris­ing twelve hill­walk­ing and climb­ing clubs along with indi­vidu­al mem­bers, totals over 900 people. While NEMT has a par­tic­u­lar focus on the wider Grampi­an area, it acts in the interests of its mem­bers in respect of issues affect­ing hill coun­try, coastal and remoter areas across the whole of Scotland.

NEMT com­mends the Park on requir­ing this applic­a­tion to be sub­mit­ted and then call­ing it in. This sends the mes­sage to all estates that the law on hill tracks and asso­ci­ated Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment guid­ance is clear and must be fol­lowed. The guid­ance states that any­thing bey­ond routine track sur­face main­ten­ance and drain clear­ance requires a Pri­or Noti­fic­a­tion or full applic­a­tion to be submitted.

NEMT is dis­ap­poin­ted that the applic­a­tion states that the track is for agri­cul­tur­al pur­poses when the sup­port­ing state­ment notes that it is used for muir­burn and ver­min con­trol, amongst oth­er things. In addi­tion, OS maps show that the track passes close to a num­ber of butts. It is also of con­cern that the applic­a­tion does not men­tion that the track is in a Wild Land Area.

The work under­taken was on a pre­vi­ously exist­ing track and NEMT sup­ports exist­ing tracks being well main­tained but work on these should fol­low best prac­tice. Des­pite what is said in the applic­a­tion, the photo provided shows a highly intrus­ive scar in a WLA. NEMT thinks that the unsightly nature of the track would be sig­ni­fic­antly reduced if the fol­low­ing were to be made con­di­tions of consent:

• A veget­a­tion strip should be cre­ated down the centre for the entire length.
• The cross sec­tion dia­gram notes that the ​‘typ­ic­al width’ is 3 to 3.2 m. SNH guid­ance states that

4×4 tracks should be 2.5 to 3m. The track should be nar­rowed and the verges reseeded.