PLAN­NING PER­FORM­ANCE FRAMEWORK

2020 — 2021

CON­TENTS

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Plan­ning Per­form­ance Frame­work 2020 — 2021

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………………..3

Part 1: Qual­it­at­ive Nar­rat­ive & Case Studies

• Qual­ity of outcomes……………………………………………………………………………………….4
• Qual­ity of ser­vice and engagement……………………………………………………………………5
• Governance…………………………………………………………………………………………………..6
• Cul­ture of con­tinu­ous improvement…………………………………………………………………..7
• Case Studies………………………………………………………………………………………………….8

Part 2: Sup­port­ing Evid­ence………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………19

Part 3: Ser­vice Improvements

• CNPA ser­vice improve­ment actions 2021 – 22……………………………………………………21
• Deliv­ery of CNPA ser­vice improve­ment actions in 2020 – 21…………………………………22

Part 4: Nation­al Head­line Indic­at­ors (NHIs)

• Key Outcomes…………………………………………………………………………………………………23
• Con­text Statement………………………………………………………………………………………….25

Part 5: Offi­cial Statistics

• A: Decision-mak­ing timescales……………………………………………………………………………29
• B: Decision mak­ing: loc­al reviews and appeals……………………………………………………30
• C: Enforce­ment activity…………………………………………………………………………………….30
• D: Context……………………………………………………………………………………………………..30

Part 6: Work­force Inform­a­tion…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..31

Part 7: Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Inform­a­tion……………………………………………………………………………………………………..32

2020/2021 PER­FORM­ANCE HEADLINES

Devel­op­ment plan­ning and land supply

• Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan adop­ted March 2021
• 354 new houses built over last 5 yrs
• 8.1 yrs of effect­ive hous­ing land
• 29.51 ha mar­ket­able employ­ment land available

Enforce­ment

• 37 enforce­ment cases taken up
• 30 breaches resolved

Devel­op­ment man­age­ment and decision making

• 95.5% of applic­a­tions approved
• Pre-applic­a­tion advice giv­en on 12% of applications
• 0 leg­acy applic­a­tions remain­ing at end of year
• Pro­cessing agree­ments for 95.7% of all applications
• 13 wks on aver­age to determ­ine plan­ning applic­a­tions for loc­al developments

Intro­duc­tion

The Plan­ning Per­form­ance Frame­work (PPF) was developed by Heads of Plan­ning Scot­land in con­junc­tion with the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment. The frame­work involves a mix of qual­it­at­ive and quant­it­at­ive meas­ures to provide a toolkit to report on and improve per­form­ance. All plan­ning author­it­ies pre­pare PPF reports annually.

This is the tenth annu­al Plan­ning Per­form­ance Frame­work report for the CNPA Plan­ning Ser­vice. Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment feed­back about our last report for ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀ was gen­er­ally very pos­it­ive and is avail­able online. This report includes a sum­mary of how we have per­formed in ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁ and looks ahead to ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₂, high­light­ing the key areas where we want to improve our practice.

In the Cairngorms Nation­al Park, more than in any oth­er part of Scot­land, there is a part­ner­ship approach to plan­ning – the Nation­al Park Author­ity and the five rel­ev­ant loc­al author­it­ies all play a key role in mak­ing the plan­ning sys­tem work effi­ciently. The CNPA sets the plan­ning policy for the Nation­al Park through the devel­op­ment of the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP) and the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (LDP). All plan­ning applic­a­tions in the Nation­al Park are determ­ined with ref­er­ence to this policy back­ground. CNPA ​“calls in” and determ­ines the most sig­ni­fic­ant plan­ning applic­a­tions, gen­er­ally around 7% of all applic­a­tions, leav­ing the five loc­al author­it­ies to determ­ine the remainder.

Part 1: Qual­it­at­ive Nar­rat­ive & Case Studies

Qual­ity of outcomes

The CNPA has:

1. Under­taken the final mon­it­or­ing of the deliv­ery of the pre­vi­ous Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (LDP) and the asso­ci­ated suite of stat­utory and non-stat­utory Plan­ning Guid­ance. Have car­ried out mon­it­or­ing of the plan’s imple­ment­a­tion, pro­du­cing annu­al reports and report­ing them to Plan­ning Com­mit­tee (Mon­it­or­ing Report 2019 – 20).This has helped build our under­stand­ing of how plan­ning policies are being applied in prac­tice. This, in turn, helps to ensure our new LDP and asso­ci­ated plan­ning guid­ance is provid­ing the policy frame­work and clar­ity neces­sary to secure high qual­ity devel­op­ment on the ground.The mon­it­or­ing work has been used to inform pro­posed policy changes incor­por­ated in the newly adop­ted LDP.
2. Adop­ted the new LDP 2021 with the pro­vi­sion for 45% afford­able hous­ing in selec­ted set­tle­ments to meet the increased need for afford­able homes in those localities.
3. Suc­cess­fully delivered an engage­ment pro­ject with the Cairngorms Youth Action Group to edu­cate and engage young people in the plan­ning pro­cess, and the spe­cial envir­on­ment of the Nation­al Park. The exer­cise util­ized the pop­u­lar game Mine­craft using a map of the Nation­al Park on which par­ti­cipants were set a series of tasks to cre­ate and man­age the devel­op­ment of a hypo­thet­ic­al settlement.
4. Enabled the plan­ning team to con­tin­ue their work remotely, sup­port­ing them with increased tech­nic­al assist­ance, util­ising online shar­ing and vir­tu­al meet­ing plat­forms and sup­port­ing one to one walk­ing out­side meet­ings to pro­mote well­being when reg­u­la­tions allowed.
5. Con­tin­ued to sup­port the deliv­ery of a range of high-qual­ity devel­op­ments through the plan­ning pro­cess. Selec­ted high­lights are iden­ti­fied with­in the Pro­ject Focus sec­tion of this report.

Part 1: Qual­it­at­ive Nar­rat­ive & Case Studies

Qual­ity of ser­vice and engagement

The CNPA has:

1. Fol­low­ing the first nation­al lock­down in March 2020, the CNPA quickly moved its Plan­ning Com­mit­tee meet­ings online by April 2020. Over the fol­low­ing three months we improved that ser­vice to allow the meet­ing to be streamed in pub­lic and to allow applic­ants and those mak­ing rep­res­ent­a­tions to attend and par­ti­cip­ate in the vir­tu­al meet­ings in almost the same way as our phys­ic­al meetings.
2. Reviewed and con­tin­ued to pro­mote our Plan­ning Ser­vice Charter to out­line the over­all pur­pose of the plan­ning ser­vice and our com­mit­ments to the stand­ards that cus­tom­ers can expect.
3. Con­tin­ued to main­tain our good work­ing rela­tion­ships and shared under­stand­ing of dif­fer­ent customer’s exper­i­ences of the plan­ning ser­vice through our Developer’s Forum.
4. Pro­duced and dis­trib­uted the CNPA news­let­ter updat­ing the pub­lic and stake­hold­ers on the pro­gress of the adop­ted LDP, a review of the Cov­id-19 ser­vice deliv­ery and updates on major pro­jects. It repor­ted that in 2020 (since restric­tions began) over­all attend­ance at online com­mit­tee meet­ings by mem­bers was 97%.
5. Offered pro­cessing agree­ments on all applic­a­tions that are ​“called in” by CNPA and con­tin­ued to pro­mote the avail­ab­il­ity of this ser­vice via the CNPA web­site. Uptake of pro­cessing agree­ments has remained high and improved in ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁, with 95.7% of the plan­ning applic­a­tions determ­ined by CNPA dur­ing the report­ing peri­od hav­ing a pro­cessing agree­ment (this com­pares with the pre­vi­ous high of 73% dur­ing ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀).
6. Revised the suite of non-stat­utory guid­ance that sup­ports LDP policies, to ensure they reflect the policies of the newly adop­ted LDP. This included pub­lic con­sulta­tion on the draft versions.
7. Con­tin­ued to main­tain and review our suite of Plan­ning Advice Notes which explain the way the plan­ning sys­tem oper­ates with­in the Nation­al Park and provide easy to read advice on mat­ters that cus­tom­ers fre­quently ask about.
8. Began the pre­par­a­tion of the next Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme (DPS), to out­line the timetable for pro­du­cing the next LDP and set out our com­mit­ments for enga­ging the pub­lic and oth­er stake­hold­ers with­in its pro­duc­tion. The DPS includes an over­view of the pro­ject plan for the next LDP and demon­strates that robust pro­ject plan­ning and man­age­ment struc­tures are in place to ensure the deliv­ery of the new LDP.This edi­tion will also out­line the changes to the LDP pro­cess and the import­ance the NPPP will have as a poten­tial Region­al Spa­tial Strategy (RSS).
9. Updated the (then) pro­posed LDP with the Report­ers Recom­mend­a­tions fol­low­ing the exam­in­a­tion and form­ally adop­ted the LDP in March 2021.The exam­in­a­tion was delayed due to Cov­id-19 how­ever was com­pleted suc­cess­fully with only minor changes required before adoption.

Part 1: Qual­it­at­ive Nar­rat­ive & Case Studies

Gov­ernance

The CNPA has:

1. Con­tin­ued to apply the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Plan­ning Ser­vice Pro­tocol — the vol­un­tary agree­ment between the CNPA and the five Loc­al Author­it­ies who all work togeth­er in the exer­cise of plan­ning func­tions with­in and affect­ing the Nation­al Park.
2. Con­tin­ued to imple­ment our pro­ced­ure for review­ing applic­a­tions post-determ­in­a­tion where out­stand­ing s75 leg­al agree­ments have delayed the issue of decision notices.
3. Post­poned mem­ber train­ing ses­sions dur­ing 2020/2021 as the move to only online meet­ings for our Plan­ning Com­mit­tee reduced the time avail­able for mem­ber training.
4. Elec­ted a new Plan­ning Com­mit­tee con­vener, with Gaen­er Rodger tak­ing over from the long-stand­ing con­vener, Elean­or Mackintosh.
5. Main­tained a pat­tern of issu­ing swift decision notices fol­low­ing plan­ning com­mit­tee meet­ings (where there are no require­ments for s75 leg­al agree­ments to be con­cluded). The major­ity of decision notices were issued with­in 7 days of com­mit­tee determ­in­a­tion, com­par­ing favour­ably to the pre­vi­ous year.

Part 1: Qual­it­at­ive Nar­rat­ive & Case Studies

Cul­ture of con­tinu­ous improvement

The CNPA has:

1. Con­tin­ued to under­take per­form­ance mon­it­or­ing, with six monthly updates for Plan­ning Committee.
2. Con­tin­ued to par­ti­cip­ate in the Heads of Plan­ning Scotland’s Devel­op­ment Plan­ning and Devel­op­ment Man­age­ment Sub-Committees.
3. Con­tin­ued to par­ti­cip­ate in the North of Scot­land Devel­op­ment Plans For­um (NSDPF), which allows the shar­ing of exper­i­ences, best prac­tice, skills and know­ledge amongst peers.
4. Officers con­tin­ue to be act­ive par­ti­cipants with­in the Roy­al Town Plan­ning Insti­tute North of Scot­land chapter, includ­ing assist­ing High­land Coun­cil RTPI in the pro­vi­sion of an online CPD event dur­ing ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁.
5. Reg­u­larly review and mon­it­or the effect­ive­ness of the Cov­id-19 work­ing prac­tices to ensure the widest pos­sible engage­ment and effect­ive­ness in deliv­er­ing the plan­ning ser­vice in line with nation­al restrictions.
6. Review of the work­ing know­ledge of the com­mit­tee mem­bers to identi­fy gaps in know­ledge and deliv­er appro­pri­ate train­ing to improve the plan­ning com­mit­tee pro­cess, although deliv­ery of train­ing ses­sions was not pos­sible dur­ing ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁.

Part 1: Qual­it­at­ive Nar­rat­ive & Case Studies

Case Study I Glen­shee ski centre zip wire safari

Loc­a­tion and Dates:

Glen­shee, Perth­shire / Octo­ber 2020 – Feb­ru­ary 2021

Ele­ments of a High Qual­ity Plan­ning Ser­vice this study relates to:

• Qual­ity of outcomes

Key Mark­ers:

• 2 Pro­ject man­age­ment: offer of pro­cessing agree­ments (or oth­er agreed pro­ject plan) made to pro­spect­ive applic­ants in advance of all major applic­a­tions and avail­ab­il­ity pub­li­cised on plan­ning author­ity website
• 3 Early col­lab­or­a­tion with applic­ants and con­sul­tees on plan­ning applications:
  • Avail­ab­il­ity and pro­mo­tion of pre-applic­a­tion dis­cus­sions for all pro­spect­ive applications
  • Clear and pro­por­tion­ate requests for sup­port­ing information

Areas of Work:

• Eco­nom­ic Development

Stake­hold­ers Involved:

• Loc­al Developers
• Plan­ning Committee

Over­view

Glen­shee has a long his­tory of snowsports related devel­op­ment, with the first ski tow buit in 1957 by Dun­dee Ski Club. Sub­sequent devel­op­ments have evolved into the present day ski centre, with a net­work of pistes, tows, fen­cing and asso­ci­ated build­ings, as well as more recent oper­a­tion of the chair lift for moun­tain bikers and hill walk­ers out­side the winter snowsports sea­son. Due to increas­ingly unre­li­able winter con­di­tions, and a desire to move to year round income gen­er­a­tion, an applic­a­tion for a series of zip wires was called in by CNPA in Octo­ber 2020. The zip wires would add to oth­er activ­it­ies offered by the ski centre dur­ing the months without snow, increas­ing the appeal of the loc­a­tion as a year round destination.

Part 1: Qual­it­at­ive Nar­rat­ive & Case Studies

Goals

The pro­posed devel­op­ment was con­sidered to sup­port the ongo­ing viab­il­ity and oper­a­tion of the ski centre as a year round tour­ist site, as well as offer­ing an oppor­tun­ity to bring more vis­it­ors to the loc­al area. This is turn should sup­port loc­al busi­nesses provid­ing tour­ism related ser­vices in the vicin­ity, build­ing the oppor­tun­it­ies for employ­ment and sup­port­ing the sus­tain­ab­il­ity of the wider ski centre busi­ness. It should also bene­fit oth­er com­munit­ies along the Snow Roads pro­moted tour­ist route, encour­aging vis­it­ors to stop and spend time (and money) in the area rather than just passing through.

Out­comes

The CNPA Plan­ning Com­mit­tee approved the applic­a­tion in Feb­ru­ary 2021, recog­nising the socio-eco­nom­ic bene­fit of the pro­pos­al as part of a wider tour­ist offer­ing in the area. One com­mit­tee mem­ber summed up their sup­port for the devel­op­ment as ​“The pro­ject is a great fit with what the busi­ness is already offer­ing and would cer­tainly attract more vis­it­ors, sup­port­ing the loc­al economy.”

Key officer: Stephanie Wade, Plan­ning Officer – Devel­op­ment Management

Part 1: Qual­it­at­ive Nar­rat­ive & Case Studies

Case Study 2: Devel­op­ment Management

Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al (HRA) process

Loc­a­tion and Dates: CNPA, ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁ and ongoing

Areas of Work:

• Devel­op­ment Man­age­ment Processes
• Inter­dis­cip­lin­ary Working

Stake­hold­ers Involved:

• Author­ity Plan­ning Staff
• Author­ity Oth­er Staff

Ele­ments of a High Qual­ity Plan­ning Ser­vice this study relates to:

• Qual­ity of outcomes
• Qual­ity of ser­vice and engagement
• Gov­ernance
• Cul­ture of con­tinu­ous improvement

Key Mark­ers:

• 12 Cor­por­ate work­ing across ser­vices to improve out­puts and ser­vices for cus­tom­er bene­fit (eg pro­to­cols; joined-up ser­vices; single con­tact; joint pre-applic­a­tion advice)

Over­view

Dur­ing 2020, the CNPA worked with NatureScot and Loch Lomond and the Trossachs Nation­al Park Author­ity to update our case­work agree­ment that sets out the roles and respons­ib­il­it­ies between the Nation­al Park Author­it­ies and NatureScot when deal­ing with case­work. (https://www.nature.scot/doc/ agree­ment-roles-advis­ory-case­work-between-naturescot-and-scot­tish-na- tional-park-authorities)

As part of this updat­ing to improve the effi­ciency of work­ing between both Nation­al Park Author­it­ies and NatureScot, the CNPA revised some of its intern­al pro­ced­ures to improve it’s own effi­ciency and make use of staff expert­ise in under­tak­ing Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­als (HRAs) for devel­op­ment affect­ing European sites.

The revised intern­al pro­ced­ures include an inter­dis­cip­lin­ary case­work meet­ing soon after an applic­a­tion has been called in, ensur­ing the plan­ning case officer fully under­stands the rel­ev­ant issues in rela­tion to eco­logy, pro­tec­ted sites and land­scape at the out­set of the pro­cess. This improves their abil­ity to man­age the case and explain issues or implic­a­tions to an applic­ant. It also allows the case officer to query the advice and the team to col­lect­ively con­sider poten­tial solu­tions to address the issues, act­ively seek­ing res­ol­u­tion of issues.

Part 1: Qual­it­at­ive Nar­rat­ive & Case Studies

Goals

The revised approach

• Upskills the case officers so that they are bet­ter able to identi­fy poten­tial European site issues at earli­er stages in the plan­ning process.
• Frees up time in spe­cial­ist advice teams so that they can focus on sig­ni­fic­ant eco­lo­gic­al issues for each case and oth­er pro­ject work.
• Makes use of exist­ing skill sets and exper­i­ence to deliv­er a more effect­ive and focussed service.
• Makes more effect­ive use of key agency time, redu­cing the time NatureScot would oth­er­wise spend on draft HRAs.

Out­comes

This is an ongo­ing pro­cess of upskilling, so the bene­fits to case officers of learn­ing a new skill set are yet to be fully real­ised, but plan­ning case officers have already demon­strated a great­er under­stand­ing of the HRA pro­cess as a res­ult of their dir­ect involve­ment in it.

CNPA teams and cus­tom­ers are bene­fit­ing from early inter­dis­cip­lin­ary work­ing: issues are being iden­ti­fied earli­er in the determ­in­a­tion pro­cess so that applic­ants can be asked for rel­ev­ant inform­a­tion or sur­vey work earli­er, res­ult­ing in few­er unex­pec­ted delays in the determ­in­a­tion pro­cess. NatureScot staff are spend­ing less time writ­ing HRAs and can now review HRA’s pre­pared by the CNPA as the com­pet­ent authority.

Key officer: Nina Caudrey, Plan­ning Officer — Devel­op­ment Planning

Part 1: Qual­it­at­ive Nar­rat­ive & Case Studies

Case Study 3: Con­ver­sion of Bal­later Old School

to afford­able housing

Loc­a­tion and Dates:

Bal­later Old School, Abergel­die Road, Bal­later, Novem­ber 2020 and ongoing

Areas of Work:

• Regen­er­a­tion
• Hous­ing Supply

Stake­hold­ers Involved:

• Loc­al Developers
• Author­ity Plan­ning Staff

Ele­ments of a High Qual­ity Plan­ning Ser­vice this study relates to:

• Qual­ity of outcomes

Key Mark­ers:

• 3 Early col­lab­or­a­tion with applic­ants and con­sul­tees on plan­ning applications:
  • avail­ab­il­ity and pro­mo­tion of pre-applic­a­tion dis­cus­sions for all pro­spect­ive applications
  • clear and pro­por­tion­ate requests for sup­port­ing information

Over­view

Applic­a­tions for plan­ning per­mis­sion and lis­ted build­ing con­sent for the res­tor­a­tion and new build hous­ing devel­op­ment at the site of the old school in Bal­later were gran­ted con­sent by the CNPA Plan­ning Com­mit­tee in May

1. Works star­ted in 2020.

Goals & Outcomes

The Bal­later Old School closed in the 1960s and was then used as an out­door edu­ca­tion centre until the 1990s. It is loc­ated close to the centre of Bal­later and since the lis­ted build­ings have been vacant they had fallen into dis­repair, with the school being lis­ted on the Build­ings at Risk Register. Bring­ing the site back into use was a pri­or­ity in the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan, with the site alloc­ated for uses that benefited the com­munity, includ­ing afford­able housing.

All the 23 units cre­ated will be afford­able hous­ing provided by Grampi­an Hous­ing Asso­ci­ation and the devel­op­ment makes use of a redund­ant brown­field site, bring­ing build­ings of archi­tec­tur­al and his­tor­ic­al import­ance to the set­tle­ment back into use and great­er value to the community.

Key officer: Stephanie Wade, Plan­ning Officer – Devel­op­ment Management

Part 1: Qual­it­at­ive Nar­rat­ive & Case Studies

Case Study 4: New road bridge on the A939 at Gairnshiel

Loc­a­tion and Dates:

Gairn­shiel bridge on the A939 between Bal­later (Aber­deen­shire) and Tomin­toul (Moray) April 2020 to ongoing

Areas of Work:

• Envir­on­ment
• Trans­port

Stake­hold­ers Involved:

• Author­ity Plan­ning Staff
• Oth­er ‑Loc­al Authority
• Struc­tures dept.

Ele­ments of a High Qual­ity Plan­ning Ser­vice this study relates to:

• Qual­ity of outcomes
• Qual­ity of ser­vice and engagement

Key Mark­ers:

• 3 Early col­lab­or­a­tion with applic­ants and con­sul­tees on plan­ning applications:
  • avail­ab­il­ity and pro­mo­tion of pre-applic­a­tion dis­cus­sions for all pro­spect­ive applications
  • clear and pro­por­tion­ate requests for sup­port­ing information
• 12 Cor­por­ate work­ing across ser­vices to improve out­puts and ser­vices for cus­tom­er bene­fit (e.g. pro­to­cols; joined-up ser­vices; single con­tact; joint pre-applic­a­tion advice)

Over­view

The exist­ing, single car­riage­way, Cat­egory A lis­ted Gairn­shiel bridge was built around 1749 for foot traffic, horses and car­riages. Since then, the volume, speed and weight of traffic has increased sub­stan­tially. The hump back shape of the bridge, nar­row width, lack of ped­es­tri­an space and sharp approach/​exit on the north side of the bridge cre­ates dif­fi­culty for many drivers, res­ult­ing in reg­u­lar vehicu­lar dam­age to the bridge caus­ing struc­tur­al issues. An 18 tonne weight restric­tion was put in place in 2018 to try and alle­vi­ate some of these issues, how­ever the col­li­sion issues remain. The weight lim­it has also impacted on tour­ism along the route, as many coaches are now unable to use the road between Bal­later and Tomintoul.

As a res­ult, a replace­ment bridge down­stream of the exist­ing bridge was pro­posed, with asso­ci­ated road realign­ment and cre­ation for access. The site and sur­round­ing area is of cul­tur­al, his­tor­ic and land­scape sig­ni­fic­ance, with the Cat­egory A lis­ted Gairn­shiel Bridge approx­im­ately 165m upstream and the Cat­egory B lis­ted Dal­phu­il res­id­ence found in the vicin­ity of the devel­op­ment. The replace­ment bridge would also cross the River Dee Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion des­ig­nated for Atlantic sal­mon, fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sel and otter, all spe­cies highly sens­it­ive to pol­lu­tion and disturbance.

Part 1: Qual­it­at­ive Nar­rat­ive & Case Studies

Due to the sens­it­iv­ity of the loc­a­tion, pre-applic­a­tion advice was giv­en to the applic­ant by CNPA and Aber­deen­shire trans­port plan­ning teams, to ensure all the rel­ev­ant issues were addressed dur­ing options apprais­al. The approach taken to the pre-applic­a­tion advice by the applic­ant was an options apprais­al. This meant that while a wider poten­tial devel­op­ment zone was assessed at a high level for all the poten­tial options.

Goals

The main aim was to ensure that an appro­pri­ate scheme was developed (and plan­ning applic­a­tion sub­mit­ted), which took account of the sens­it­iv­it­ies of the loc­a­tion while meet­ing the needs of road users (both vehicu­lar and ped­es­tri­an) and affected land owners/​managers whose land the new road sec­tion would cross. If per­mit­ted, the new bridge would sup­port the socio-eco­nom­ic needs of com­munit­ies along the A939 between Bal­later and Tomin­toul, by enabling tour­ist coach use of the A939. It would also avoid com­munit­ies and oth­er users of the road being incon­veni­enced each time the road has to be closed for repairs to the exist­ing bridge.

Out­comes

An appro­pri­ate design was sub­mit­ted that took account of the sens­it­iv­it­ies of the loc­a­tion and was approved by the CNPA Plan­ning Com­mit­tee in Decem­ber 2020.While the site spe­cif­ic detail was lack­ing for some issues, con­sul­tees and plan­ning com­mit­tee mem­bers were sat­is­fied that the prin­ciple of the design and loc­a­tion of the bridge were appro­pri­ate, and that full site spe­cif­ic detail on mat­ters such as flood risk and con­struc­tion meth­ods could be approved by con­di­tion post-permission.

Key officer: Stephanie Wade, Plan­ning Officer – Devel­op­ment Management

Part 1: Qual­it­at­ive Nar­rat­ive & Case Studies

Case Study 6: Mine­craft Engagement

Loc­a­tion and Dates:

Delivered Vir­tu­ally, Janu­ary – March 2021

Ele­ments of a High Qual­ity Plan­ning Ser­vice this study relates to:

• Qual­ity of ser­vice and engagement

Key Mark­ers:

• 6 Con­tinu­ous improvements:
  • pro­gress ambi­tious and rel­ev­ant ser­vice improve­ment com­mit­ments iden­ti­fied through PPF report

Areas of Work:

• Place­mak­ing
• Oth­er — Youth engage­ment and training

Stake­hold­ers Involved:

• Author­ity Plan­ning Staff
• Hard to reach groups (engage­ment in plan­ning process)

Video cour­tesy of STV : https://youtu.be/9ya11H\_zlts

Over­view

The Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity has a plan­ning ser­vice improve­ment pri­or­ity focused on enga­ging young people in the plan­ning system:

“Devel­op and deliv­er a youth engage­ment / involve­ment pro­gramme – Roll out a pro­gram of work to engage young people, includ­ing the involve­ment of the Cairngorms Youth Action Group, in the plan­ning system.”

The COV­ID-19 restric­tions of the last twelve months and uncer­tainty around future social dis­tan­cing meas­ures have made engage­ment dif­fi­cult, par­tic­u­larly with young people. In spring 2020 officers iden­ti­fied a need to explore options that did not rely on meet­ing face to face but would be enga­ging activ­it­ies in their own right.

Mine­craft was chosen as a poten­tial mech­an­ism for engage­ment as it is a pop­u­lar game for many ages of play­er, and is recog­nised as a poten­tial learn­ing plat­form as well as being fun. It was hoped that if it could be tailored to the Cairngorms Nation­al Park, Mine­craft could be used to engage young people in the Park’s envir­on­ment and built form and give them an intro­duc­tion into the world of plan and policy making.

Part 1: Qual­it­at­ive Nar­rat­ive & Case Studies

A map of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park for Mine­craft was cre­ated as an inter­act­ive tool to encour­age people to think about place, the plan­ning sys­tem and the dif­fer­ent parties involved. Mem­bers of the Cairngorms Youth Action Team were ​‘dropped’ into the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Mine­craft envir­on­ment and asked to work as a team to col­lab­or­at­ively cre­ate a com­munity that rep­res­ents the sort of place they would like to live in. They were sup­por­ted by CNPA plan­ning staff and held reg­u­lar dis­cus­sions to con­sider their choices and what they had learnt from their experiences.

At the end of the pro­ject the youth group presen­ted their exper­i­ences to the CNPA Plan­ning Com­mit­tee, set­ting out their decisions with­in the Nation­al Park policy frame­work and giv­ing the com­mit­tee mem­bers an insight to their les­sons learned as would-be plan­ners devel­op­ing a space in the Nation­al Park.

Goals

• To get the group to think about the rela­tion­ship between the Nation­al Park’s land­scape / envir­on­ment, devel­op­ment and land use.
• To raise aware­ness and under­stand­ing of how plan­ning policy is made and imple­men­ted by cre­at­ing devel­op­ment themselves.
• To learn about how actions affect oth­ers and, how some­times devel­op­ment can cause con­flict amongst dif­fer­ent indi­vidu­als and interest groups.

Out­comes

The pro­ject was fun and enga­ging for the par­ti­cipants from the Cairngorms Youth Action Team and made them con­sider real issues of resource use and impacts of devel­op­ment in a vir­tu­al envir­on­ment. The mine­craft map of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park cap­tured their ima­gin­a­tion and that of many oth­er young and older people who heard about it.

Although the pro­ject was designed to focus the par­ti­cipants on plan­ning-related issues, the map itself could be used to engage people in many oth­er man­age­ment decisions related the Nation­al Park as place or its unique char­ac­ter­ist­ics. The team mem­bers also gained insight into the work­ing of the plan­ning sys­tem and the real choices for plan­ning com­mit­tee mem­bers through attend­ing a plan­ning committee.

The map is now avail­able for the pub­lic to down­load (https://cairngorms. co​.uk/​c​a​r​i​n​g​-​f​u​t​u​r​e​/​e​d​u​c​a​t​i​o​n​/​l​e​a​r​n​i​n​g​/​m​i​n​e​c​raft/) so any­one can explore the Nation­al Park or cre­ate engage­ment pro­jects based on it.

Key officer: Dan Har­ris, Plan­ning Man­ager – For­ward Planning

Part 1: Qual­it­at­ive Nar­rat­ive & Case Studies

Case Study 7: Sav­ing Wild­cats Breed­ing Pro­gramme Compound

Loc­a­tion and Dates: High­land Wild­life Park, Kin­craig, July — Septem­ber 2020

Areas of Work:

• Con­ser­va­tion
• Plan­ning Applications

Stake­hold­ers Involved:

• Plan­ning Committee
• Oth­er (High­land Wild­life Park / RZSS)

Ele­ments of a High Qual­ity Plan­ning Ser­vice this study relates to:

• Qual­ity of outcomes

Key Mark­ers:

• 2 Pro­ject man­age­ment: offer of pro­cessing agree­ments (or oth­er agreed pro­ject plan) made to pro­spect­ive applic­ants in advance of all major applic­a­tions and avail­ab­il­ity pub­li­cised on plan­ning author­ity website

Over­view

An applic­a­tion for the con­struc­tion of a Scot­tish wild­cat breed­ing com­pound at the High­land Wild­life Park near Kin­craig was approved by the CNPA Plan­ning Com­mit­tee in Septem­ber 2020, fol­low­ing call-in in July 2020.The com­pound was required to estab­lish a breed­ing pro­gramme (The Sav­ing Wild­cats Pro­ject) to pre­vent the extinc­tion of the crit­ic­ally endangered spe­cies by breed­ing and releas­ing Scot­tish wild­cats into the wild.

The tim­ing of the applic­a­tion was crit­ic­al in ensur­ing the breed­ing com­pound could be con­struc­ted in time to enable kit­tens reared in 2020 to enter the breed­ing pro­gramme at the Wild­life Park in the winter of 2020 and sup­port the deliv­ery of the Sav­ing Wild­cats pro­ject as quickly as possible.

Part 1: Qual­it­at­ive Nar­rat­ive & Case Studies

Goals

The Roy­al Zoolo­gic­al Soci­ety of Scotland’s High­land Wild­life Park is a recog­nised centre of excel­lence for nat­ive spe­cies breed­ing pro­grammes for con­ser­va­tion. The Sav­ing Wild­cats Pro­ject aims to pre­vent the extinc­tion of Scot­tish wild­cats in Scot­land and estab­lish Britain’s first large-scale ded­ic­ated con­ser­va­tion ​‘breed­ing for release’ centre for wild­cats. This would be done by ​‘bring­ing togeth­er wild­cat experts, a ded­ic­ated veter­in­ary unit and a spe­cial­ised pre-release train­ing pro­gramme to help devel­op the neces­sary life skills needed for life in the wild’. This devel­op­ment would play a crit­ic­al role in the pro­ject by provid­ing the breed­ing spaces.

Out­comes

The CNPA Plan­ning Com­mit­tee approved the plan­ning applic­a­tion in Septem­ber 2020 and the requis­ite con­di­tions were quickly dis­charged to allow work to begin on the first breed­ing units in Octo­ber 2020. The units were quickly com­pleted and occu­pied and are cur­rently home to 5 wild­cats, with fur­ther breed­ing and pre-release enclos­ures to be cre­ated in this year.

The swift pro­cessing of the plan­ning applic­a­tion and deliv­ery of the facil­ity on the ground has made a dir­ect con­tri­bu­tion to the con­ser­va­tion of this crit­ic­ally endangered spe­cies dur­ing ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁ that will be used for years to come.

Key officer: Katie Crerar, Plan­ning Officer

Part 2: Sup­port­ing Evidence

Part I of this report was com­piled draw­ing on evid­ence from the fol­low­ing sources:

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan, asso­ci­ated policy guid­ance doc­u­ments and Plan­ning Advice Notes

https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​p​l​a​n​n​i​n​g​-​d​e​v​e​l​o​p​m​e​n​t​/​l​d​p​-​2021/

Cairngorms Design Advice

http://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​p​a​r​k​-​a​u​t​h​o​r​i​t​y​/​p​l​a​n​n​i​n​g​/​g​o​o​d​-​d​e​sign/

Cairngorms Plan­ning Ser­vice Charter

http://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​r​e​s​o​u​r​c​e​/​d​o​c​s​/​p​u​b​l​i​c​a​t​i​o​n​s​/​3​0​0​4​2​0​1​5​/​C​N​P​A.Pa- per.1966.Planning%20Service%20Charter.pdf

Cairngorms Plan­ning Enforce­ment Charter

https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​w​p​-​c​o​n​t​e​n​t​/​u​p​l​o​a​d​s​/​2​0​1​8​/​0​7​/​1​8​0​6​2​9​P​l​a​n​n​i​ngEn- forcementCharter.pdf

Plan­ning Ser­vice Per­form­ance Update Reports to Plan­ning Committee

1. May 2017

http://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​r​e​s​o​u​r​c​e​/​d​o​c​s​/​b​o​a​r​d​p​a​p​e​r​s​/​2​6​0​5​2​0​1​7​/​I​t​e​m​7​Plan- ningServicePerfomance.pdf

1. Decem­ber 2017

http://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​r​e​s​o​u​r​c​e​/​d​o​c​s​/​b​o​a​r​d​p​a​p​e​r​s​/​1​5​1​2​2​0​1​7​/​I​t​e​m​9​Plan- ningServicePerformanceUpdateV1.0.pdf

1. May 2018

http://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​r​e​s​o​u​r​c​e​/​d​o​c​s​/​b​o​a​r​d​p​a​p​e​r​s​/​2​5​0​5​2​0​1​8​/​I​t​e​m​7​Plan- ningServicePerformanceUpdate.pdf

1. June 2019

https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​r​e​s​o​u​r​c​e​/​d​o​c​s​/​b​o​a​r​d​p​a​p​e​r​s​/​2​8​0​6​2​0​1​9​/​Item- 10PlanningServicePerformanceUpdate.pdf

1. Decem­ber 2020

https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​r​e​s​o​u​r​c​e​/​d​o​c​s​/​b​o​a​r​d​p​a​p​e​r​s​/​1​1​1​2​2​0​2​0​/​Item- 7PlanningServicePerformanceUpdate.pdf

Part 2: Checklist

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Plan­ning Per­form­ance Frame­work 2020 — 2021

Qual­it­at­ive Nar­rat­ive and Case Studies

CASE STUDY TOP­ICS	ISSUE COVERED IN PPF	CASE STUDY TOP­ICS	ISSUE COVERED IN PPF
Design		Inter­dis­cip­lin­ary Working	Y
Con­ser­va­tion	Y	Col­lab­or­at­ive Working
Regen­er­a­tion	Y	Com­munity Engagement
Envir­on­ment	Y	Place­mak­ing	Y
Green­space		Char­ettes
Town Centres		Place Stand­ard
Mas­ter­plan­ning		Per­form­ance Monitoring
LDP & Sup­ple­ment­ary Guidance		Pro­cess Improvement	Y
Hous­ing Supply	Y	Pro­ject Management
Afford­able Housing	Y	Skills Shar­ing	Y
Eco­nom­ic Development	Y	Staff Train­ing
Enforce­ment		Online Sys­tems
Devel­op­ment Man­age­ment Processes	Y	Trans­port	Y
Plan­ning Applications	Y	Act­ive Travel
Oth­er (Youth Engagement)			Y

Part 3: Ser­vice Improve­ments 2021 – 22

In the com­ing year the CNPA will:

• Con­tin­ue to sim­pli­fy mech­an­isms for secur­ing plan­ning oblig­a­tions and reduce the need for plan­ning agreements.
• Plan for the third Cairngorms Nation­al Park Design Awards.
• Con­tin­ue to make the plan­ning pro­cess more access­ible – enhan­cing our use of tech­no­logy to increase access­ib­il­ity and engage­ment in the plan­ning pro­cess. We will also be tri­al­ling the use of the new soft­ware (com­mon­place) to increase engage­ment in pub­lic con­sulta­tions by mak­ing the mater­i­al more access­ible to a wider audience.
• Con­tin­ue our mon­it­or­ing of hill tracks devel­op­ment and increase aware­ness of policy amongst estates and land man­agers — Our mon­it­or­ing and enforce­ment of unau­thor­ised hill tracks has increased in recent years. Dur­ing 2021/2022 we will con­tin­ue work on com­plet­ing a mon­it­or­ing pro­ject using aer­i­al pho­to­graphy and to provide fur­ther guid­ance for estates and land managers.
• Pre­pare the next Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan incor­por­at­ing the Region­al Spa­tial Strategy for the Nation­al Park.
• Deliv­er spe­cial­ist train­ing to com­mit­tee mem­bers on land­scape in rela­tion to wind farm devel­op­ments – and con­tin­ue to mon­it­or gaps in mem­bers know­ledge to deliv­er suit­able addi­tion­al train­ing as required.
• Con­sol­id­ate past improve­ments and pro­ced­ures – embed­ding changes and improvements.

The iden­ti­fied ser­vice improve­ments aim to respond to feed­back received from stake­hold­ers, includ­ing from Com­munity Coun­cils and Asso­ci­ations and from our Developers For­um. The pri­or­it­ies will build upon pro­gress that has been made in pre­vi­ous years.

Part 3: Deliv­ery of CNPA Ser­vice Improve­ment Actions in 2020 – 21

Com­mit­ted Improve­ments and Actions	Com­plete
Sim­pli­fy mech­an­isms for secur­ing plan­ning oblig­a­tions and reduce the need for plan­ning agree­ments – Estab­lish­ing sim­pler, cheap­er and faster ways of secur­ing neces­sary plan­ning obligations.	Par­tially — ongoing
Improve Mon­it­or­ing of Plan­ning Applic­a­tions — Improve data on exist­ing con­sents to aid with mon­it­or­ing and deliv­ery of LDP.	Yes
Devel­op and deliv­er a youth engage­ment / involve­ment pro­gramme – Roll out a pro­gram of work to engage young people, includ­ing the involve­ment of the Cairngorms Youth Action Group, in the plan­ning system.	Yes
Make the plan­ning pro­cess more access­ible – Use digit­al tech­no­logy to provide bet­ter access to plan­ning com­mit­tee enabling more people to engage with the decision mak­ing process.	Yes
Under­take a mon­it­or­ing scheme on hol­i­day and second home own­er­ship, changes of use from res­id­en­tial prop­erty and impacts on com­munit­ies – The devel­op­ment of the LDP has increased aware­ness of the changes in use of res­id­en­tial prop­erty to short term hol­i­day let­ting prop­erty. The data avail­able through coun­cil tax and non-domest­ic rates records requires some ground troth­ing for accur­acy and the CNPA will under­take some addi­tion­al mon­it­or­ing of newly com­pleted hous­ing devel­op­ments. We will also pub­lish a Plan­ning Advice Note to explain the rules on use and changes of use.	Par­tially
Increase our mon­it­or­ing of hill tracks devel­op­ment and aware­ness of policy amongst estates and land managers.	Yes
Con­sol­id­ate past improve­ments and pro­ced­ures – Over the past few years, the plan­ning team has set ambi­tious ser­vice improve­ment pri­or­it­ies. At a time when we have also recruited a num­ber of new staff, embed­ding changes requires con­sist­ent work and effort.	Yes

Part 4: Nation­al Head­line Indic­at­ors (NHI’s)

Key out­comes	2020 – 2021	2019 – 2020
Devel­op­ment Planning
• Age of loc­al devel­op­ment plan (years and months) at end of report­ing peri­od. Require­ment: less than 5 years	0yr 0m	4y 0m
• Will the local/​strategic devel­op­ment plan(s) be replaced by their 5th anniversary accord­ing to the cur­rent devel­op­ment plan scheme? (Y/N)	Y	N
• Has the expec­ted date of sub­mis­sion of the plan to Scot­tish Min­is­ters in the devel­op­ment plan scheme changed over the past year? (Y‑earlier/​Y‑later/​N)	N	N
• Were devel­op­ment plan scheme engagement/​consultation com­mit­ments met dur­ing the year? (Y/N)	Y	Y
Effect­ive Land Sup­ply and Deliv­ery of Outputs
• Estab­lished hous­ing land supply	2953 units	3180 units
• 5‑year effect­ive hous­ing land sup­ply programming	715 units	830 units