Plan­ning Ser­vice Newsletter

#7 Janu­ary 2021

Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Convener

On the 11^th Decem­ber, Elean­or Mack­in­tosh, our long­stand­ing Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Con­vener, stepped down from that role but con­tin­ues to be a Board mem­ber and mem­ber of the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee. Elean­or has been a dir­ectly elec­ted CNPA board mem­ber since the cre­ation of the Nation­al Park in 2003 and has been the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Con­vener since 2012. Xan­der McDade, CNPA Board Con­vener, made the fol­low­ing comments;

“She is hugely respec­ted by her fel­low board mem­bers and the staff here at the Park Author­ity. As Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Chair, Elean­or was ground break­ing in a num­ber of respects – both as the first woman elec­ted to a seni­or Board pos­i­tion and as the first dir­ectly elec­ted Board Mem­ber to speak on behalf of the Author­ity at a pub­lic inquiry.”

The New Con­vener will be Dr Gaen­er Rodger who has a strong back­ground in aca­dem­ic research, busi­ness devel­op­ment, pro­fes­sion­al train­ing and work­ing with young people. She is a Mem­ber of the NHS High­land Board and is also the Chair of the High­land Children’s Forum.

As an act­ive out­doors per­son, she is inter­ested in con­serving our wild places; pro­mot­ing oppor­tun­it­ies to enhance the men­tal and phys­ic­al well­being of our pop­u­la­tion and empower­ing young people to be the future cus­todi­ans of the Park.

Plan­ning Team Staff Updates

In July, Nas­im Mehr­abi joined us as our new Gradu­ate Plan­ner. In Decem­ber, Rob­bie Cal­vert, Devel­op­ment Man­age­ment officer, left the CNPA to work for the Roy­al Town Plan­ning Insti­tute in Scot­land and Andrew Teece, Devel­op­ment Plan­ning Officer, depar­ted at the end of a mater­nity cov­er con­tract. The CNPA will be recruit­ing a replace­ment Devel­op­ment Man­age­ment Officer in Janu­ary 2021.

Cov­id-19 Ser­vice Delivery

The Cov­id-19 pan­dem­ic meant that the entire CNPA staff team had to work from their homes from March 2020 and changed the way the CNPA oper­ates. The deliv­ery of the plan­ning ser­vice has con­tin­ued with little change, but Plan­ning Com­mit­tee meet­ings and meet­ings with staff are now all done online. Our Plan­ning Com­mit­tees have moved online and we are pleased to report over­all we have had 97% attend­ance by our mem­bers. 28 applic­a­tions were determ­ined, which included con­sents for an addi­tion­al 142 dwell­ings towards meet­ing the hous­ing need in the park.

We all hope the imme­di­ate impacts of Cov­id-19 will become less severe dur­ing 2021, but the plan­ning ser­vice is ready to oper­ate effect­ively no mat­ter what restric­tions are necessary.

Pro­ject Updates

The New Spey­side Dis­til­lery is tak­ing shape in the land­scape (image: top right). Gor­don & MacPhail are a long estab­lished loc­al com­pany based in Moray. Fol­low­ing the suc­cess of the dis­til­lery oper­a­tions at Forres, the com­pany developed a pro­ject to open a new dis­til­lery and vis­it­or facil­it­ies near Grant­own-on-Spey. The devel­op­ment of a new dis­til­lery with asso­ci­ated café will deliv­er a range of bene­fits to the loc­al eco­nomy includ­ing the cre­ation of long-term employ­ment oppor­tun­it­ies for loc­al people. Fol­low­ing the Plan­ning Committee’s decision to approve the dis­til­lery in Octo­ber 2019, the Decision Notice was issued in June 2020 fol­low­ing the con­clu­sion of a leg­al agree­ment that secures fund­ing for an improved foot­path link to Grant­own-on-Spey and will help provide a safe link for walk­ers and cyc­lists between Dul­nain Bridge and Grantown-on-Spey.

The New Badenoch and Strath­spey Com­munity Hos­pit­al and Health Care Facil­ity in Aviemore was gran­ted con­sent in 2019. The Hos­pit­al was designed and is being built by Hub North Scot­land Ltd set up by the Scot­tish Futures Trust. Work on the pro­ject has con­tin­ued des­pite COV­ID as per­mit­ted under gov­ern­ment guidelines.

The new hos­pit­al is on track to be com­pleted in March 2021. Balfour Beatty have been praised on their com­mit­ment to the pro­ject under dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances by NHS High­land. Vir­tu­al tour: https://​www​.you​tube​.com/​w​a​t​c​h​?​v​=​Z​S​_​k​y​G​8​g​P​f​l​&​l​i​s​t​=​P​L​3​O​f​E​-​b​X​W​Z​N​5​b​m​m​T​3​o​v​g​z​-​y​O​N​I​s​7​-​2​z​g​r​E​&​i​n​dex=1

Find out more about the pro­gress click the link : https://​www​.you​tube​.com/​w​a​t​c​h​?​v​=​0​F​s​O​f​z​OMmXQ

Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan Update

2020 saw big steps being made with the deliv­ery of the next Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (LDP). The year began with the exam­in­a­tion of the LDP by Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment Report­ers. This pro­cess was con­cluded in August res­ult­ing in Report­ers recom­mend­ing nearly 150 changes in total. Most of the changes were minor, set­ting out lim­ited alter­a­tions to policy word­ing and sup­port­ing text which, for the most part, helps cla­ri­fy the inten­sions of the Plan.

The Author­ity are pleased that Report­ers were sup­port­ive of the LDP’s approach to deliv­er­ing hous­ing, espe­cially afford­able hous­ing. Con­sequently, the level of afford­able hous­ing required on sites in Aviemore, Bal­later, Brae­mar and Blair Atholl will be increased from 25% to 45% once the new plan is adopted.

The LDP is cur­rently with Scot­tish Min­is­ters and it is expec­ted that it will be adop­ted in Feb­ru­ary 2021.

Find out more: https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​p​l​a​n​n​i​n​g​-​d​e​v​e​l​o​p​m​e​n​t​/​l​o​c​a​l​-​d​e​v​e​l​o​p​m​e​n​t​-​p​l​a​n​-​2​0​2​0​/​i​n​t​e​n​t​i​o​n​-​a​d​o​p​t​-​I​d​p​-​2020/

Plan­ning Performance

The Author­ity con­tin­ued to make improve­ments to ser­vice deliv­ery, and received very pos­it­ive feed­back from the Scot­tish Government.

Developers For­um

The next meet­ing of the Developers For­um will be on Wed­nes­day 31^st March 2021 at 3pm.

Com­munity Coun­cil Plan­ning Training

The CNPA will be offer­ing online train­ing on how Com­munity Coun­cils can par­ti­cip­ate effect­ively in the plan­ning sys­tem. We will con­tact Com­munity Coun­cils dir­ectly to arrange dates.

Con­tact Us

The CNPA’s plan­ning team can be con­tac­ted at:

Plan­ning Team Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity 14 The Square Grant­own-on-Spey PH26 3HG

Tel: 01479 873535 Fax: 01479 873527 Email: planning@​cairngorms.​co.​uk