Planning Committee meeting - Item 7: committee report Aucherteang forest track Muckrach - 14 November 2025

Cairngorms Item 7 Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Nation­al Park Author­ity 14 Novem­ber 2025 Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 1 of 16

Com­mit­tee report

Devel­op­ment pro­posed: Upgrade of track for forestry (in ret­ro­spect) at Land 940M NE of Auch­er­teang, Carrbridge

Ref­er­ence: 2025/0091/DET

Applic­ant: Muck­rach Estate

Date called-in: 21 April 2025

Recom­mend­a­tion: Approve sub­ject to conditions

Case officer: Katie Crerar, Plan­ning Officer

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Map image

This map has been pro­duced to aid in the stat­utory pro­cess of deal­ing with plan­ning applic­a­tions. The map is to help identi­fy the site and its sur­round­ings and to aid Plan­ning Officers, Com­mit­tee Mem­bers and the Pub­lic in the determ­in­a­tion of the pro­pos­al. Maps shown in the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Report can only be used for the pur­poses of the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee. Any oth­er use risks infringing Crown Copy­right and may lead to pro­sec­u­tion or civil pro­ceed­ings. Maps pro­duced with­in this Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Report can only be repro­duced with the express per­mis­sion of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity and oth­er Copy­right hold­ers. This per­mis­sion must be gran­ted in advance.

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Site descrip­tion, pro­pos­al and history

Site descrip­tion

1. This applic­a­tion relates to a sec­tion of exist­ing track loc­ated with­in an area of wood­land at Auchter­teang, approx­im­ately 2.5km north of Duthil on Muck­rach Estate.

2. The applic­a­tion site com­prises a gently slop­ing sec­tion of track extend­ing to approx­im­ately 250 metres with an exist­ing link to the B9007 at its south­west­ern end and a turn­ing area to the east which is sur­roun­ded by nat­ive wood­land which forms part of Muck­rach Forest – a land­scape-scale pro­ject com­pris­ing 619 hec­tares of nat­ive wood­land planting.

3. The upgrad­ing works have almost been com­pleted. The track is 3.5 metres wide (on aver­age) and has been sur­faced in graded loc­al mater­i­als. The sides have been graded and are largely reve­get­ated. Approx­im­ately 90 metres up the track from the B9007 is the fenced enclos­ure for the wood­land. There is a vehicu­lar access gate cross­ing the track and a ped­es­tri­an access to the side.

Pro­pos­al

1. The draw­ings and doc­u­ments asso­ci­ated with this applic­a­tion are lis­ted below and are avail­able on the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity web­site unless noted otherwise:

http://​www​.eplan​ningcnpa​.co​.uk/​o​n​line- applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=S2H06USIO CP00

Title	Draw­ing num­ber	Date on plan*	Date received
Loc­a­tion Plan	707373 PL04	21/03/2025	17/04/2025
Site Plan & Details	707373 PL05	01/02/2025	24/07/2025
Muck­rach Wood­land Cre­ation Plan	N/A	09/12/2022	24/07/2025
Visu­al Information	707373 PL06	01/02/2025	17/04/2025

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| Upgrade of Track Sup­port­ing State­ment | N/A | 01/07/2025 | 24/07/2025 |

*Where no spe­cif­ic day of month has been provided on the plan, the sys­tem defaults to the first of the month.

1. This pro­pos­al seeks par­tial ret­ro­spect­ive plan­ning per­mis­sion for upgrad­ing works along a 250 metre sec­tion of exist­ing track.

2. Pri­or to 2021, the track was used by off-road vehicles to access grouse shoot­ing and for moor­land man­age­ment pur­poses. In 2022, Scot­tish Forestry approved the cre­ation of Muck­rach Forest a land­scape-scale wood­land plant­ing pro­ject com­pris­ing 619 hec­tares of nat­ive wood­land. This track provides access into the south­w­est corner of the west­ern enclosure.

3. Dur­ing the deliv­ery phase of the wood­land plant­ing pro­ject, the run­ning sur­face of the track was widened (to approx­im­ately 3.5 metres), the track edges were repro­filed and a turn­ing area was cre­ated at the east­ern end of the track. These works were under­taken to accom­mod­ate the machinery and vehicles asso­ci­ated with the con­struc­tion of deer fen­cing, ground pre­par­a­tion and tree plant­ing oper­a­tions for the wood­land plant­ing project.

4. Approx­im­ately 90 metres up the track from the B9007 is the fenced enclos­ure for the wood­land. There is a locked vehicu­lar access gate cross­ing the track and a ped­es­tri­an gate to the side (on the adja­cent fencing).

5. The verges next to the track appear to have been sens­it­ively repro­filed. Whilst they are reve­get­at­ing nat­ur­ally, they will be assessed in Spring 2026 and if required, addi­tion­al re-seed­ing of the verges will be under­taken using an appro­pri­ate seed mix recom­men­ded by the Nation­al Park Authority.

6. In addi­tion to the works already under­taken, two chan­nel drains will be installed through the track­side verges on the more slop­ing west­ern part of the track to man­age sur­face water flow. In addi­tion, the ped­es­tri­an gate will be relo­cated adja­cent to the main vehicu­lar gate to improve access­ib­il­ity for ped­es­tri­ans and cyc­lists. These upgrades have not yet been installed.

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His­tory

1. There is no recent plan­ning his­tory on the applic­a­tion site itself. How­ever, this applic­a­tion is one of three relat­ing to track upgrades on Muck­rach Estate. The first (2025/0077/DET) was approved at Com­mit­tee in August 2025. The oth­er applic­a­tion (2025/0090/DET) is also repor­ted for Com­mit­tee con­sid­er­a­tion at this meet­ing – see item 6 on the agenda.

Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Appraisal

1. It is not con­sidered that the pro­posed devel­op­ment is likely to have a sig­ni­fic­ant effect upon a des­ig­nated European site. As such a Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tion Apprais­al is not required in this case.

Devel­op­ment plan context

Policies

Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 (NPF4) Scot­land 2045
Policies rel­ev­ant to the assess­ment of this applic­a­tion are marked
Nation­al policy with a cross (x)

Policy 1	Tack­ling the cli­mate and nature crises	X
Policy 2	Cli­mate mit­ig­a­tion and adaptation	X
Policy 3	Biod­iversity	X
Policy 4	Nat­ur­al places	X
Policy 5	Soils
Policy 6	Forestry, wood­land and trees	X
Policy 7	His­tor­ic assets and places
Policy 8	Green belts
Policy 9	Brown­field, vacant and derel­ict land and empty buildings
Policy 10	Coastal devel­op­ment
Policy 11	Energy
Policy 12	Zero waste
Policy 13	Sus­tain­able transport
Policy 14	Design, qual­ity and place
Policy 15	Loc­al Liv­ing and 20-minute neighbourhoods
Policy 16	Qual­ity homes

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Policy 17	Rur­al homes
Policy 18	Infra­struc­ture first
Policy 19	Heat and cooling
Policy 20	Blue and green infrastructure
Policy 21	Play, recre­ation and sport
Policy 22	Flood risk and water management
Policy 23	Health and safety
Policy 24	Digit­al infrastructure
Policy 25	Com­munity wealth building
Policy 26	Busi­ness and industry
Policy 27	City, town, loc­al and com­mer­cial centres
Policy 28	Retail
Policy 29	Rur­al development
Policy 30	Tour­ism
Policy 31	Cul­ture and creativity
Policy 32	Aquacul­ture
Policy 33	Min­er­als

Stra­tegic policy	Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2022 – 2027
	Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (2021)
Loc­al plan policy	Policies rel­ev­ant to the assess­ment of this applic­a­tion are marked
	with a cross (x)

Policy 1	New hous­ing development
Policy 2	Sup­port­ing eco­nom­ic growth
Policy 3	Design and placemaking	X
Policy 4	Nat­ur­al heritage	X
Policy 5	Land­scape	X
Policy 6	The sit­ing and design of digit­al com­mu­nic­a­tions equipment
Policy 7	Renew­able energy
Policy 8	Open space, sport and recreation
Policy 9	Cul­tur­al heritage
Policy 10	Resources
Policy 11	Developer oblig­a­tions

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1. All new devel­op­ment pro­pos­als require to be assessed in rela­tion to policies con­tained in the adop­ted Devel­op­ment Plan which com­prises Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 (NPF4) and the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 (LDP). The full word­ing of policies can be found at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/national-planning-framework‑4/documents/ and at: https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​w​p​-​c​o​n​t​e​n​t​/​u​p​l​o​a​d​s​/​2​0​2​1​/​0​3​/​C​N​P​A​-​L​D​P​-​2​0​2​1​-​w​e​b.pdf

Plan­ning guidance

1. Sup­ple­ment­ary guid­ance also sup­ports the LDP and provides more details about how to com­ply with the policies. Guid­ance that is rel­ev­ant to this applic­a­tion is marked with a cross (x).

Policy 1	Hous­ing sup­ple­ment­ary guidance
Policy 2	Sup­port­ing eco­nom­ic growth non-stat­utory guidance
Policy 3	Design and place­mak­ing non-stat­utory guidance	X
Policy 4	Nat­ur­al her­it­age non-stat­utory guidance	X
Policy 5	Land­scape non-stat­utory guidance	X
Policy 7	Renew­able energy non-stat­utory guidance
Policy 8	Open space, sport and recre­ation non-stat­utory guidance
Policy 9	Cul­tur­al her­it­age non-stat­utory guidance
Policy 10	Resources non-stat­utory guidance
Policy 11	Developer oblig­a­tions sup­ple­ment­ary guidance

Con­sulta­tions

1. A sum­mary of the main issues raised by con­sul­tees now follows:

2. Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority’s Out­door Access Officer high­lights that the installed ped­es­tri­an gate – which is at 90° to the main gate and up a bank – is poorly loc­ated and dif­fi­cult to access, espe­cially for cycles or horses. There is a tree adja­cent to this gate and a drop on the oth­er side which would also impinge on access.

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1. Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority’s Eco­lo­gic­al Advice Officer raises no objec­tions to the pro­pos­al and acknow­ledges that it sup­ports the expan­sion of nat­ive wood­land hab­it­at, improv­ing hab­it­at con­nectiv­ity between exist­ing blocks of wood­land and deliv­er­ing sig­ni­fic­ant biod­iversity benefits.

2. They make ref­er­ence to a related applic­a­tion which was approved at Plan­ning Com­mit­tee in August 2025 (2025/0077/DET), in which the applic­ant stated that the upgrad­ing works were under­taken out­with the bird breed­ing sea­son. They note that if that was also the case here, it would have avoided impacts on ground nest­ing birds. They advise that any fur­ther pro­posed track and gate remedi­ation works should avoid the main bird breed­ing sea­son (March to mid-August).

3. Fol­low­ing remedi­ation works, the verge veget­a­tion should be left to re-veget­ate nat­ur­ally but it is reques­ted that if bare patches remain in May 2026, these should be sown with an upland acid heath­land wild­flower mix, such as Sco­tia Seeds’ High­land Grass­land mix which con­tains dwarf ericaceous shrubs (includ­ing com­mon and bell heath­er) and a range of upland wild­flowers and grasses. This will help facil­it­ate faster reve­get­a­tion and enhance flor­al diversity along the track for pollinators.

4. Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority’s Land­scape Advisor high­lights that the track is made more prom­in­ent by its pale col­our against the sur­round­ing heath­er and wood­land, how­ever due to its loc­a­tion with­in estab­lished wood­land / forestry, it has little vis­ib­il­ity from the road and no vis­ib­il­ity from any well-used hill paths or hills. They state that: ​‘Although the track is just vis­ible, it affects a small part of views close to the road. The part of the track that is vis­ible was pre­vi­ously also the entrance to an access track. It poses accept­able visu­al impacts, affect­ing road users loc­ally. It has been repro­filed sens­it­ively with suf­fi­cient peat loc­ated with­in the edge areas to reve­get­ate and it does not pose an obvi­ous erosion risk’.

5. They request a con­di­tion to require sub­mis­sion of a verge treat­ment and main­ten­ance plan which includes meas­ures to main­tain the track and verges and remedi­ate any future erosion.

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1. The High­land Council’s Road Team raised no objec­tion to the pro­pos­al fol­low­ing the applicant’s sub­mis­sion of fur­ther inform­a­tion to cla­ri­fy the pro­posed future use of the track.

2. The High­land Council’s Envir­on­ment Team demon­strated though aer­i­al pho­to­graphy that some of the pine trees on the north side of track have been removed to accom­mod­ate the track widen­ing. They have no objec­tion to the applic­a­tion, although they request that a con­di­tion is attached to any per­mis­sion to require sub­mis­sion of a detailed tree plant­ing plan and main­ten­ance programme.

3. The High­land Council’s His­tor­ic Envir­on­ment (Archae­ology) Team state that there are no archae­olo­gic­al issues and no (remedi­al) mit­ig­a­tion is required in this instance.

4. Car­rbridge Com­munity Coun­cil respon­ded that they did not have any com­ments to make on the applic­a­tion but stated that they gen­er­ally sup­port plan­ning applic­a­tions being made in advance of work being car­ried out.

Rep­res­ent­a­tions

1. There were no rep­res­ent­a­tions to this application.

Apprais­al

1. Sec­tion 25 of the 1997 Act as amended requires applic­a­tions to be determ­ined in accord­ance with the Devel­op­ment Plan. This com­prises the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 (LDP), and the Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 (NPF4). Where there is con­flict between policies, NPF4 policies will be used.

2. The main plan­ning con­sid­er­a­tions in this case are the prin­ciple of devel­op­ment, design, eco­lo­gic­al impacts, impact upon land­scape, and access. These are con­sidered in detail below.

Prin­ciple of development

1. Not­with­stand­ing the fact that the works were under­taken without the requis­ite grant of plan­ning per­mis­sion, the pro­pos­al is to upgrade a sec­tion of pre-exist­ing track fol­low­ing a route used by estate vehicles to access remoter parts of the

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estate and recently planted wood­land. All the works will be seen with­in the con­text of a large nat­ive wood­land plant­ing scheme, and sub­ject to detailed con­sid­er­a­tion of design and pro­posed mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures, the prin­ciple of a track is con­sidered acceptable.

Design

1. NPF4 Policy 14: Design, qual­ity and place seeks to sup­port devel­op­ments that improve the qual­ity of an area regard­less of scale and that are con­sist­ent with the six qual­it­ies of suc­cess­ful places, namely: healthy; pleas­ant; con­nec­ted; dis­tinct­ive; sus­tain­able; and adaptable.

2. LDP Policy 3: Design and place­mak­ing sim­il­arly seeks to ensure that devel­op­ment meets the six qual­it­ies of suc­cess­ful places.

3. This ret­ro­spect­ive plan­ning applic­a­tion seeks to author­ise main­ten­ance oper­a­tions already under­taken on this sec­tion of track. These have included widen­ing the run­ning sur­face of the track to an aver­age of 3.5 metres, re-pro­fil­ing the track edges and the cre­ation of a turn­ing area at the east­ern end of the track.

4. The track edges appear to be reve­get­at­ing nat­ur­ally. How­ever, the extent of reve­get­a­tion will be assessed in Spring 2026, and should any bare patches remain, fur­ther re-seed­ing (using an upland acid heath­land wild­flower mix and a range of upland wild­flowers and grasses) will be required. This will be under­taken as detailed in a verge treat­ment and main­ten­ance plan, which will be secured via a con­di­tion. This will help to fur­ther integ­rate the track into its sur­round­ings and ensure its vis­ib­il­ity is minimised.

5. In addi­tion, two chan­nel drains will be installed through the track­side verges on the slope on the south­west­ern sec­tion of the track to man­age sur­face water flow, and the ped­es­tri­an gate will be re-posi­tioned to improve access­ib­il­ity for ped­es­tri­ans and cyclists.

6. Over­all, the track upgrades are of a func­tion­al design and the mater­i­als used reflect this. The nat­ur­ally reve­get­at­ing verges and any fur­ther re-seed­ing will

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fur­ther min­im­ise the already lim­ited visu­al impact of the pro­pos­al and fur­ther integ­rate it with­in its setting.

1. The design of the pro­pos­al is of a scale and nature that is com­pat­ible with its set­ting and the mater­i­als pro­posed are appro­pri­ate and loc­ally sourced. This ensures that in terms of design the pro­pos­al com­plies with the above policies.

Eco­logy

1. NPF4 Policy 1: Tack­ling the cli­mate and nature crises and NPF4 Policy 2: Cli­mate mit­ig­a­tion and adap­tion require all devel­op­ment pro­pos­als to give sig­ni­fic­ant weight to the cli­mate and nature crises and adapt to the cur­rent and future impacts of cli­mate change.

2. NPF4 Policy 3: Biod­iversity seeks to ensure that devel­op­ment pro­pos­als pro­tect biod­iversity, reverse biod­iversity loss, deliv­er pos­it­ive effects from devel­op­ment and strengthen nature net­works. Devel­op­ment pro­pos­als must include appro­pri­ate meas­ures to con­serve, restore and enhance biod­iversity, in accord­ance with nation­al and loc­al guidance.

3. NPF4 Policy 4: Nat­ur­al places seeks to ensure that devel­op­ment pro­pos­als pro­tect, restore and enhance nat­ur­al assets mak­ing best use of nature-based solu­tions. Devel­op­ment that has sig­ni­fic­ant adverse impacts on des­ig­nated sites, after mit­ig­a­tion, will not be supported.

4. NPF4 Policy 6: Forestry, wood­land and trees seeks to pro­tect and expand forests, wood­land and trees. Pro­pos­als involving wood­land remov­al will only be sup­por­ted where they are in accord­ance with rel­ev­ant Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment policy on wood­land removal.

5. LDP Policy 4: Nat­ur­al her­it­age seeks to ensure that there are no adverse effects on European Pro­tec­ted Spe­cies and oth­er biod­iversity interests. Wood­land remov­al is only per­mit­ted where it com­plies with Scot­tish Government’s Policy on the Con­trol of Wood­land Removal.

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1. The Park Authority’s Eco­lo­gic­al Advice Officer raises no objec­tions to the pro­pos­al, sub­ject to advising that in Spring 2026 any remain­ing bare patches on the track verges should be sown with an upland heath­land wild­flower mix of Scot­tish proven­ance to facil­it­ate faster reve­get­a­tion and enhance flor­al diversity for pol­lin­at­ors. This will be secured by con­di­tion, as noted above. In addi­tion, a con­di­tion ensur­ing that the out­stand­ing works should avoid the bird breed­ing sea­son is also required.

2. The High­land Council’s Forestry Officer has high­lighted that as part of the widen­ing of the track, some pine trees on the north side of the track have been removed. They have reques­ted the inclu­sion of a con­di­tion requir­ing a Tree Plant­ing Plan and main­ten­ance pro­gramme to provide adequate replace­ment tree plant­ing in the vicin­ity of the track. Whilst it is acknow­ledged that the track will serve an extens­ive nat­ive wood­land plant­ing pro­ject, replant­ing the trees to the imme­di­ate north of the track will fur­ther mit­ig­ate any visu­al impacts and help to rein­state its ori­gin­al set­ting, and a con­di­tion will be imposed accordingly.

3. Over­all, the envir­on­ment­al impacts of the pro­pos­al are con­sidered accept­able sub­ject to the pro­posed con­di­tions. In addi­tion, the pro­posed devel­op­ment con­sti­tutes part of a wider pro­ject to plant nat­ive wood­land. The Eco­lo­gic­al Advice Officer recog­nises that this ​‘would deliv­er improved hab­it­at con­nectiv­ity between exist­ing blocks of wood­land and should deliv­er sig­ni­fic­ant biod­iversity bene­fits’, and it can also be expec­ted to deliv­er longer term bene­fits for cli­mate change mit­ig­a­tion through enhanced car­bon cap­ture and stor­age. There­fore, the pro­pos­al com­plies with NPF4 Policy 1: Tack­ling the cli­mate and nature crises, NPF4 Policy 2: Cli­mate mit­ig­a­tion and adapt­a­tion, NPF4 Policy 3: Biod­iversity, NPF4 Policy 4: Nat­ur­al places, NPF4 Policy 6: Forestry, wood­land and trees and LDP Policy 4: Nat­ur­al heritage.

Land­scape and design

1. LDP Policy 5: Land­scape pre­sumes against devel­op­ment which does not con­serve and enhance the land­scape char­ac­ter and spe­cial qual­it­ies of the Nation­al Park, and par­tic­u­larly the set­ting of the pro­posed development.

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1. LDP Policy 5.2: Private roads and ways pre­sumes against private roads and ways in open moor­land unless it can be demon­strated that they are essen­tial for land man­age­ment pur­poses and they are designed to min­im­ise land­scape and envir­on­ment­al impacts, con­serving and enhan­cing spe­cial qualities.

2. The track has been sur­faced in graded loc­al mater­i­al, and the sides have been gently re-pro­filed and have par­tially revegetated.

3. The Park Authority’s Land­scape Advisor states that the track ​‘poses accept­able visu­al impacts, affect­ing road users loc­ally. It has been repro­filed sens­it­ively with suf­fi­cient peat loc­ated with­in the edge areas to reve­get­ate and it does not pose an obvi­ous erosion risk’. They request a con­di­tion to secure the re-seed­ing of the track sides if there is insuf­fi­cient nat­ur­al reve­get­a­tion by Sum­mer 2026. As noted pre­vi­ously, this will be fully detailed in a verge treat­ment and main­ten­ance plan, which will be secured via a condition.

4. Ini­tial con­cerns were raised in respect of the width of the track and wheth­er the turn­ing area at the east­ern end (with­in the wood­land enclos­ure) would be retained. The applic­ant explained that the run­ning sur­face of 3.5 metres (aver­age) is a stand­ard width require­ment to safely accom­mod­ate the vehicles used dur­ing the wood­land cre­ation. In addi­tion, these same vehicles will be required dur­ing the winter ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ and bey­ond to remove and replace deer fen­cing and approx­im­ately 126 hec­tares of wood­land des­troyed in the recent wild­fire, as well as for future main­ten­ance of the wood­land. The jus­ti­fic­a­tion for the width of the track and need to retain the turn­ing area is accepted.

5. The effects of this pro­pos­al on land­scape char­ac­ter are lim­ited giv­en its sit­ing on a pre­vi­ous track, the pres­ence of oth­er tracks in the wider area, and its prox­im­ity to the B9007. The track is largely con­tained with­in exist­ing wood­land and over­all would have very lim­ited visu­al impacts. Ensur­ing the verges are reve­get­ated will fur­ther improve its integ­ra­tion with­in its set­ting and this will be secured via a con­di­tion. As such, the pro­pos­al is con­sidered accept­able in terms of its impacts on land­scape and accords with LDP Policy 5: Landscape.

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Cairngorms Item 7 Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Nation­al Park Author­ity 14 Novem­ber 2025 Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 14 of 16

Access

1. LDP Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing requires devel­op­ment to main­tain and max­im­ise all oppor­tun­it­ies for respons­ible out­door access, includ­ing links into the exist­ing path network.

2. The Park Authority’s Out­door Access Officer has high­lighted that the ped­es­tri­an gate on the track is dif­fi­cult to access due to its pos­i­tion on the fence, which is 90° to the main vehicu­lar gate and up a bank. The applic­ant pro­poses to address this by relo­cat­ing the ped­es­tri­an gate to the side of the vehicu­lar gate, which is dir­ectly on the track. This area will be lev­elled to aid access for ped­es­tri­ans and cyc­lists mak­ing it clear­er and much more access­ible. On this basis, the pro­pos­al com­plies with LDP Policy 3: Design and Place­mak­ing in respect of access.

Con­clu­sion

1. The pro­posed devel­op­ment con­sists of the widen­ing and re-pro­fil­ing of a pre- exist­ing track for which all works (apart from two drain­age chan­nels and the relo­ca­tion of the ped­es­tri­an gate) have been under­taken. As such, this applic­a­tion is ret­ro­spect­ive. Not­with­stand­ing, the track poses lim­ited loc­al­ised visu­al impacts. The track is of a func­tion­al design, has been re-pro­filed sens­it­ively util­ising loc­al mater­i­als and over­all is con­sidered accept­able sub­ject to the recom­men­ded conditions.

2. The pro­posed devel­op­ment com­plies with the rel­ev­ant policies of NPF4 and the LDP, and there are no mater­i­al con­sid­er­a­tions which out­weigh this conclusion.

Recom­mend­a­tion That mem­bers of the com­mit­tee sup­port a recom­mend­a­tion to APPROVE the applic­a­tion for the Upgrade of track for forestry (in ret­ro­spect) at Land 940M NE of Auch­er­teang, Car­rbridge, sub­ject to the fol­low­ing conditions:

Con­di­tions Those con­di­tions lis­ted below in bold text are sus­pens­ive con­di­tions, which require to be dis­charged pri­or to imple­ment­a­tion of the development.

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Cairngorms Item 7 Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Nation­al Park Author­ity 14 Novem­ber 2025 Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 15 of 16

1. No fur­ther works in con­nec­tion with the devel­op­ment hereby approved shall com­mence unless a verge treat­ment and main­ten­ance plan has been sub­mit­ted to and approved in writ­ing by the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity act­ing as plan­ning author­ity. This must be provided with­in three months from the date the per­mis­sion is gran­ted. The Plan should include:

a) Details of re-seed­ing to be under­taken in the event of nat­ur­al reve­get­a­tion of the track sides not estab­lish­ing. The verges should be sown with a heath­land-spe­cif­ic wild­flower seed mix­ture such as Sco­tia Seeds’ High­land Grass­land mix, which includes dwarf ericaceous shrubs (heath­er and bell heath­er), and a range of upland wild­flowers and grasses of Scot­tish provenance.

The devel­op­ment shall be com­pleted in accord­ance with the approved verge treat­ment and main­ten­ance plan before the end of the first full plant­ing sea­son. Any plant­ing which, with­in a peri­od of 18 months from the com­ple­tion of the devel­op­ment, is not reve­get­at­ing shall be re-seeded or replaced by plants of sim­il­ar size and spe­cies to those ori­gin­ally required.

Reas­on: To ensure the imple­ment­a­tion and man­age­ment of a sat­is­fact­ory plan for the land­scap­ing and verge treat­ment of the track in accord­ance with Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 Policy 3: Biod­iversity and Policy 4: Nat­ur­al her­it­age, and Policy 5: Land­scape of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021.

1. No works shall be under­taken dur­ing the breed­ing bird sea­son (Mid-March to August, inclus­ive). If this can­not be avoided, works should pro­ceed under super­vi­sion of an exper­i­enced eco­lo­gist, who will con­duct sur­veys to identi­fy all act­ive nests and pro­duce a spe­cies pro­tec­tion plan (SPP) for nest­ing spe­cies. The SPP should be sub­mit­ted to the Nation­al Park Author­ity for approv­al pri­or to works commencing.