Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

Plan­ning Per­form­ance Framework

2022 – 2023

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Plan­ning Per­form­ance Frame­work 2022 – 2023

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Con­tents

Our com­mit­ment 3

Key per­form­ance mark­ers 4

Intro­duc­tion 5

Part 1: Qual­it­at­ive Nar­rat­ive 7

Part 1: Case stud­ies 10

Part 2: Sup­port­ing evid­ence 30

Part 3: Ser­vice improve­ments 32

Part 4: Nation­al head­line indic­at­ors 35

Part 5: Offi­cial stat­ist­ics 41

Part 6: Work­force inform­a­tion 44

Part 7: Plan­ning com­mit­tee 46

Appendix 1: Per­form­ance mark­er evid­ence 47

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Our com­mit­ment

Our Plan­ning Ser­vice is a key part of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity and is com­mit­ted to the Vis­ion, Mis­sion and Val­ues as set out in the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2022. The Plan­ning Ser­vice plays a key part in cre­at­ing the Nation­al Park we all want by get­ting the right devel­op­ment in the right place, by pro­mot­ing invest­ment, by pro­tect­ing and enhan­cing the natural/​cultural envir­on­ment and by cre­at­ing places that we will value and enjoy. Fur­ther inform­a­tion in our Plan­ning Ser­vice Charter at www​.cairngorms​.co​.uk/​p​l​a​n​ning- development

The Vis­ion for Cairngorms Nation­al Park is:

“An out­stand­ing Nation­al Park, enjoyed and val­ued by every­one, where nature and people thrive together.”

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Key per­form­ance markers

Devel­op­ment plan­ning and land supply

• Devel­op­ment Plan 2 years old.
• 412 new houses built over last 5 years.
• 8.5 years of effect­ive hous­ing land.
• 29.5ha Mar­ket­able employ­ment land available.

Devel­op­ment man­age­ment and decision making

• 100% of applic­a­tions were approved.
• Pre-applic­a­tion advice on 7.1% of applications.
• 0 Leg­acy applic­a­tions remain­ing at the end of the year.
• Pro­cessing agree­ments on 92.9% of all applications.
• 7.6 weeks on aver­age to determ­ine plan­ning applications.

Enforce­ment

• 54 enforce­ment cases taken up.
• 43 breaches resolved.

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Intro­duc­tion

Back­ground

The Plan­ning Per­form­ance Frame­work 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 Plan­ning Per­form­ance Frame­work reports annually.

Fig­ure 1 Stra­tegic dia­gram from the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2022. Con­tains OS data © Crown copy­right and data­base right 2023.

This is the twelfth annu­al Plan­ning Per­form­ance Frame­work report for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Plan­ning Ser­vice. Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment feed­back about our last report for 2021 / 2022 was very pos­it­ive with the Park Author­ity receiv­ing a green rat­ing for all per­form­ance mark­ers. The report is avail­able online. This report includes a sum­mary of how we have per­formed in 2022 / 2023 and looks ahead to 2023 / 2024, high­light­ing the key areas where we want to improve our prac­tice. We use the Plan­ning Per­form­ance Frame­work report to feed back to Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment and to sig­ni­fic­ant stakeholders

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includ­ing our Developers For­um and Plan­ning Rep­res­ent­at­ives Net­work (Com­munity Coun­cils and Associations).

Part­ner­ship approach

In the Cairngorms Nation­al Park, argu­ably more than in any oth­er part of Scot­land, we adopt an almost entirely part­ner­ship approach to plan­ning. The Park Author­ity and the five loc­al author­it­ies that cov­er its area – Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil, Angus Coun­cil, Moray Coun­cil, Perth and Kinross Coun­cil and The High­land Coun­cil – all play a key role in mak­ing the plan­ning sys­tem work effectively.

Fig­ure 2 Loc­al Author­it­ies cov­er­ing the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. Con­tains OS data © Crown copy­right and data­base right 2023.

The Park Author­ity sets the plan­ning policy frame­work for the Nation­al Park. This is achieved through the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan and the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan. All plan­ning applic­a­tions in the Nation­al Park are determ­ined in line with this policy framework.

How­ever, plan­ning applic­a­tions are sub­mit­ted in the first instance to the rel­ev­ant loc­al author­ity. The Park Author­ity then ​‘calls in’ and determ­ines the most sig­ni­fic­ant plan­ning applic­a­tions for the Nation­al Park (gen­er­ally around 10% of all applic­a­tions), leav­ing the remainder to be determ­ined by the loc­al authorities¹.

1 You can find more inform­a­tion about how the plan­ning pro­cess works in the Nation­al Park in our Plan­ning Ser­vice Charter and our Plan­ning Ser­vice Pro­tocol at www​.cairngorms​.co​.uk

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Part 1: Qual­it­at­ive narrative

Qual­ity of outcomes

The Park Author­ity has:

1. Adop­ted the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship 2022. The Part­ner­ship Plan sets out the vis­ion and over-arch­ing strategy for man­aging the Nation­al Park, as well as identi­fy­ing pri­or­it­ies for action and an over­all stra­tegic policy frame­work. Fur­ther­more, the Part­ner­ship Plan acts as the Region­al Spa­tial Strategy for the Nation­al Park, which is inten­ded to address stra­tegic devel­op­ment and issues.

2. Adop­ted the final two pieces of sup­ple­ment­ary guid­ance that will sup­port the deliv­ery of the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 — Developer oblig­a­tions and Housing.

3. Held online and hybrid online and in-per­son Plan­ning Com­mit­tee meet­ings, streamed videos of meet­ings and ensured the oppor­tun­ity for pub­lic rep­res­ent­a­tion by video link meet­ings. This has ensured the plan­ning pro­cess con­tin­ues in an effect­ive and pub­licly access­ible manner.

4. Improved the abil­ity of the plan­ning team to under­take their work remotely, sup­port­ing them with increased tech­nic­al assist­ance, util­ising online shar­ing and vir­tu­al meet­ing plat­forms and star­ted a trans­ition to increased office working.

5. Con­tin­ued to sup­port the deliv­ery of a range of high-qual­ity devel­op­ments through the plan­ning pro­cess. Selec­ted high­lights are iden­ti­fied with­in the case study sec­tion of this report.

Qual­ity of ser­vice and engagement

The Park Author­ity has:

1. Con­tin­ued to deliv­er Plan­ning Com­mit­tee meet­ings in a hybrid approach and have con­tin­ued to allow pub­lic rep­res­ent­a­tion by video link. We have con­tin­ued to live stream our pub­lic meet­ings on our website.

2. The pro­cess of review­ing our Plan­ning Ser­vice Charter is under­way. The doc­u­ment sets out clearly the over­all pur­pose of the plan­ning ser­vice, how

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3. 4. 5. 6.

the Park Author­ity plan­ning pro­cess dif­fers from oth­er Loc­al Author­it­ies and our com­mit­ments to cus­tom­ers engaged in the pro­cess. Con­tin­ued to main­tain our good work­ing rela­tion­ships and shared under­stand­ing of dif­fer­ent customer’s exper­i­ences of the plan­ning ser­vice through our Developer’s For­um. Offered pro­cessing agree­ments on all applic­a­tions that are ​“called in” by Park and con­tin­ued to pro­mote the avail­ab­il­ity of this ser­vice via the park Author­ity web­site. Uptake of pro­cessing agree­ments has remained high in 2022 / 2023, with 92.9% of the plan­ning applic­a­tions determ­ined by Park dur­ing the report­ing peri­od hav­ing a pro­cessing agree­ment (this com­pares with the pre­vi­ous high of 95.7% dur­ing 2020 / 2021). 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. Updates have con­tin­ued to be made to reflect the chan­ging prac­tices sur­round­ing the Pub­lic Meet­ings and attend­ing Plan­ning Com­mit­tees. Pub­lished Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme set­ting out the indic­at­ive times­cales and par­ti­cip­a­tion meth­ods for the next Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan. This edi­tion will be reviewed and updated fol­low­ing the adop­tion of Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work 4 and The Town and Coun­try Plan­ning (Devel­op­ment Plan­ning) (Scot­land) Reg­u­la­tions 2023 com­ing into effect.

Gov­ernance

The Park Author­ity has:

1. Con­tin­ued to apply the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Plan­ning Ser­vice Pro­tocol – the vol­un­tary agree­ment between the Park Author­ity 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 Sec­tion 75 leg­al agree­ments have delayed the issue of decision notices.

3. Main­tained a pat­tern of issu­ing swift decision notices fol­low­ing plan­ning com­mit­tee meet­ings (where there are no require­ments for Sec­tion 75 leg­al agree­ments to be con­cluded). The major­ity of decision notices were issued with­in 7 days of com­mit­tee determination.

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Fig­ure 3 Per­cent­age of Decision Notices for Loc­al Devel­op­ments issued with­in sev­en days.

Cul­ture of con­tinu­ous improvement

The Park Author­ity has:

1. Used six-monthly per­form­ance updates to mon­it­or per­form­ance bar­ri­ers our Man­age­ment Team and repor­ted to 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, 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.

5. Con­tin­ues to mon­it­or and review of the work­ing know­ledge of the com­mit­tee mem­bers to identi­fy gaps in know­ledge and deliv­er appro­pri­ate train­ing to improve the plan­ning com­mit­tee process.

6. Appoin­ted Plan­ning Eco­lo­gic­al Advice Officer to provide a ded­ic­ated resource in the plan­ning team to eval­u­ate the envir­on­ment­al impacts of applications.

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Part 1: Case studies

Case study 1: Cairn Distillery

Loc­a­tion and timescale

Grant­own on Spey June 2019 — June 2023

Ele­ments of high-qual­ity plan­ning ser­vice this study relates to

• Qual­ity of outcomes
• Qual­ity of ser­vice and engagement

Key mark­ers

1: Decision mak­ing: author­it­ies demon­strat­ing con­tinu­ous evid­ence of redu­cing aver­age times­cales for all devel­op­ment types

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.

Key areas of work

Eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment Plan­ning applications

Stake­hold­ers involved

• Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority
• Gor­don MacPhail

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Over­view

Gor­don & MacPhail are a long-estab­lished loc­al com­pany based in Moray. Pri­or to sub­mit­ting their applic­a­tion for the Cairn Dis­til­lery, they already owned and ran an exist­ing dis­til­lery & vis­it­or facil­ity in nearby Forres, while retail­ing a vari­ety of Malt Whiskies with a strong per­form­ance in export mar­kets. 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 – a rel­at­ively large set­tle­ment in the area how­ever one without an exist­ing dis­til­lery, des­pite being close to the Spey­side whisky trail.

Cairn Dis­til­lery © John Paul Pho­to­graphy, 2023.

The Cairngorm Nation­al Parks Part­ner­ship Plan 2022 provides an over-arch­ing frame­work for devel­op­ment with­in the park and includes the policy aim of ​‘encour­aging growth of busi­ness sec­tors that draw on the spe­cial qual­it­ies of the Nation­al Park, such as sus­tain­able tour­ism, eco­lo­gic­al res­tor­a­tion and food and drink.’. Whisky dis­tilling is a sec­tor where we have sig­ni­fic­ant loc­al expert­ise, a strong brand aware­ness & sub­stan­tial exports. The devel­op­ment of a new dis­til­lery with asso­ci­ated café appears there­fore to offer a num­ber of pos­it­ives, includ­ing the cre­ation of long-term employ­ment, which would deliv­er on

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eco­nom­ic policy object­ives. The prin­ciple of the devel­op­ment was there­fore sup­por­ted by the plan­ning team, sub­ject to align­ment with oth­er policy.

Pre applic­a­tion engage­ment with the applic­ants took place dur­ing late 2018, with a planned pre-applic­a­tion con­sulta­tion post­poned to make adjust­ments regard­ing ini­tial feed­back. Oth­er pro­posed devel­op­ments near the inten­ded site include com­munity act­ive travel links, trunk road upgrad­ing & exten­sion of the Strath­spey Steam Rail­way – key people on these pro­jects were brought togeth­er in early 2019 as part of fur­ther stake­hold­er engage­ment. Pre applic­a­tion con­sulta­tion took place in Feb­ru­ary 2019 – the asso­ci­ated report indic­ated that there was strong sup­port for the proposal.

The final pro­pos­al was for a new dis­til­lery with asso­ci­ated café & vis­it­or facil­it­ies, extens­ive land­scap­ing & a new access onto the A95 Trunk Road.

F Cairn Dis­til­lery © John Paul Pho­to­graphy, 2023.

The plan­ning applic­a­tion required a sub­stan­tial list of con­sul­tees, attrac­ted sig­ni­fic­ant loc­al interest & was faced with a num­ber of crit­ic­al con­sid­er­a­tions. How­ever act­ive engage­ment by the applic­ant and Plan­ning Author­ity staff ensured that this appar­ently pos­it­ive, high qual­ity Major devel­op­ment was approved by Plan­ning Com­mit­tee with­in 3 months of being called in and with no objec­tions registered.

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Devel­op­ment took place between sum­mer 2020 and winter 2022 with the dis­til­lery offi­cially open­ing in June 2023. Over that peri­od the Park Author­ity mon­itored the development’s pro­gress, find­ing no breaches of condition.

The out­stand­ing land­scapes & nat­ur­al her­it­age of the Cairngorms is an import­ant factor in attract­ing vis­it­ors, whilst tour­ism is the most sig­ni­fic­ant eco­nom­ic sec­tor with­in the Nation­al Park – the stat­utory aims of Nation­al Parks reflect these pri­or­it­ies. Giv­en the vis­ib­il­ity of the site on the main approach to Grant­own, a high qual­ity & sens­it­ive design was critical.

The dis­til­lery build­ing is there­fore roun­ded in form with roofline slop­ing from West to East – allow­ing the build­ing to blend in with the roun­ded loc­al hills & also avoid­ing the present­a­tion of an indus­tri­al style rear elev­a­tion to the Trunk Road & entrance. The slope of the site down towards the River Spey also reduces the impact of the building.

Cairn Dis­til­lery © John Paul Pho­to­graphy, 2023.

The build­ing boasts extens­ive glaz­ing to allow the icon­ic dis­til­lery equip­ment to be viewed from out­side & fur­ther break­ing up the mass­ing. The café has views over enhanced water fea­tures & the River Spey towards the Cairngorms Mas­sif, while the distillery’s ware­house has a low pro­file & turf roof, enabling it to blend in with the land­scape. The site’s design and lay­out there­fore suc­ceeds in being con­tem­por­ary & icon­ic whilst also sym­path­et­ic to the sur­round­ing landscape.

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A new act­ive travel link to the nearby set­tle­ments of Grant­own on Spey & Dul­nain Bridge was also cre­ated by the devel­op­ment. At the time of the applic­a­tion, Gor­don & MacPhail did not con­trol the neces­sary land to deliv­er this how­ever, due to the vis­it­or appeal of the site and the need to encour­age act­ive travel, a com­muted sum towards deliv­er­ing the infra­struc­ture was achieved. This money was used to devel­op a long planned for pro­pos­al to link the set­tle­ments, incor­por­at­ing access to the dis­til­lery and con­trib­ut­ing to the Part­ner­ship Plan’s object­ive to pro­mote a mod­al shift towards sus­tain­able and act­ive travel in the way vis­it­ors and com­muters get to, and every­one moves around, the Nation­al Park.

Goals

The pro­pos­al aimed to deliver:

1. Eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment by an estab­lished loc­al com­pany, in a key busi­ness sec­tor for the area.
2. Increase exports in a high value sec­tor that bene­fits from loc­al char­ac­ter­ist­ics long term employ­ment oppor­tun­it­ies & addi­tion­al vis­it­or facilities.
3. The pro­tec­tion and enhance­ment of land­scape & nat­ur­al her­it­age as

Out­comes

The com­ple­tion of a major eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment pro­pos­al in a key busi­ness sec­tor, hav­ing been approved with­in 3 months of being called in with no objections.

Key officers

Kath­er­ine Don­nach­ie (Plan­ning Officer); Stephanie Wade (Plan­ning Officer)

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Case study 2: Gran­ish busi­ness units

Loc­a­tion and timescale

Aviemore Feb­ru­ary 2022 — March 2023

Ele­ments of high-qual­ity plan­ning ser­vice this study relates to

• Qual­ity of outcomes
• Qual­ity of ser­vice and engagement

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.

Key areas of work

Eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment Plan­ning applications

Stake­hold­ers involved

• Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority
• Gran­ish Farm Partnership

Over­view

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On 14 March 2023, the Park Author­ity gran­ted Gran­ish Farm Part­ner­ship plan­ning per­mis­sion for the erec­tion of 20 com­mer­cial let­ting units on land imme­di­ately north of Aviemore. The brown­field site, alloc­ated for busi­ness use with the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan, is between a waste water treat­ment works, a land­fill site and waste trans­fer sta­tion, a civic amen­ity site and a go-cart track.

Land­scape plan @ Ecos Design

The pro­pos­al will cre­ate 20 com­mer­cial let­ting units with­in tim­ber clad sheds with peri­pher­al tree plant­ing to soften the devel­op­ment with­in the con­text of

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neigh­bour­ing wood­land. The devel­op­ment was ori­ented to min­im­ise its visu­al impact towards Aviemore to the south, from where it will be most vis­ible. The devel­op­ment is loc­ated close to exist­ing bus routes and will extend an exist­ing foot­path from Aviemore allow­ing people using the units to walk or cycle from Aviemore with a few minutes.

3D visu­al­isa­tion of units © Ecos Design.

Once built, the devel­op­ment will make an import­ant con­tri­bu­tion to the eco­nom­ic vital­ity of Aviemore and Badenoch and Strath­spey. Aviemore plays an import­ant role as a ser­vice centre and employ­ment centre with­in Badenoch and Strath­spey, with exist­ing busi­ness land being close to capa­city and strong demand for busi­ness premises from small and medi­um sized busi­nesses as lar­ger busi­ness chains have real­ised the mar­ket oppor­tun­it­ies that exist in the area and opened premises. This devel­op­ment will provide units at the size that matches loc­al busi­ness demand and allows for busi­ness devel­op­ment in site that is well- ser­viced but unsuit­able for res­id­en­tial or retail uses.

The plan­ning applic­a­tion was made in Feb­ru­ary 2022 and a pro­cessing agree­ment was used through­out the life of applic­a­tion. The prin­ciple of the devel­op­ment was estab­lished through the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan, but the detail of intern­al roads lay­out, road con­nec­tion to the B9152 con­nect­ing road to Aviemore and the detail of ped­es­tri­an access were the sub­ject of extens­ive modi­fic­a­tion and cla­ri­fic­a­tion to address con­sul­tee concerns.

Goals

The pro­pos­al aimed to deliver:

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1. Eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment by an estab­lished loc­al com­pany, cre­at­ing oppor­tun­it­ies for new or diver­si­fied businesses.

Out­comes

Con­sent for busi­ness units on an alloc­ated site in an area of high demand for busi­ness premises.

Key officers

Stephanie Wade (Plan­ning Officer)

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Case study 3: Cairn­view Road afford­able homes

Loc­a­tion and timescale

Aviemore 2018 – 2023

Ele­ments of high-qual­ity plan­ning ser­vice this study relates to

• Qual­ity of outcomes
• Qual­ity of ser­vice and engagement

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.

Key areas of work

Afford­able Col­lab­or­at­ive hous­ing working

Stake­hold­ers involved

• Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority
• Cairngorms Busi­ness Partnership
• High­land Council
• High­land Hous­ing Partnership

Over­view

Aviemore is the largest set­tle­ment in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park and one of the most under pres­sure in terms of the need for afford­able hous­ing. This is recog­nised in the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 which sets out a require­ment for

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at least 45% of all new hous­ing to be of an afford­able ten­ure. Aviemore is also phys­ic­ally con­strained, with steep topo­graphy and the A9 to its west and the River Spey and its flood­plain to the east. The effect­ive use of land is there­fore vitally import­ant in deliv­er­ing bene­fi­cial outcomes.

Cairn­view Road afford­able homes.

The Cairn­view Road site is loc­ated on a mix­ture undeveloped and pre­vi­ously developed land which was alloc­ated for eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment in the centre of Aviemore, con­strained on either side by the High­land main line and the Strath­pey Her­it­age Rail­way. The land had formerly been occu­pied by the Cairngorm Tech­no­logy Park, but had been vacant for some time, des­pite attempts to mar­ket it. By 2019 most of the alloc­a­tion had been gran­ted con­sent, with the Badenoch and Strath­spey com­munity hos­pit­al tak­ing up most of the south­ern por­tion of the site.

The remainder of the site was occu­pied by the former call centre known as Spey House and an area of undeveloped land to its east. The call centre had been empty for sev­er­al years and while it had pre­vi­ously been mar­keted for eco­nom­ic uses, it had failed to attract any com­mer­cial interest. There­fore, hav­ing demon­strated com­pli­ance with the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan, in August 2018 an applic­a­tion to con­vert it to 23 afford­able homes was approved. 20 of these would be for social rent, 2 for mid-mar­ket rent and 4 made avail­able as shared equity pur­chases. The site’s use for afford­able hous­ing was con­sidered par­tic­u­larly bene­fi­cial due to its close prox­im­ity, not only to exist­ing ser­vices such as shops and the primary school, but also to the new com­munity hos­pit­al, which was being delivered at the time. The con­ver­sion was com­pleted in early 2020.

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In Septem­ber 2019 an applic­a­tion was sub­mit­ted for the remain­ing 0.4ha of the alloc­a­tion, with a pro­pos­al to build 14 addi­tion­al afford­able homes, com­pris­ing of 6 ter­raced houses, 4 bun­ga­lows and 4 cot­tage flats. 10 of these were to be for social rent, 2 for mid-mar­ket rent and 2 for low cost home own­er­ship. Like the pre­vi­ous phase, the bene­fits of the pro­pos­al was con­sidered to out­weigh the poten­tial eco­nom­ic use of the land. There­fore, the applic­a­tion was approved in April 2021 and com­pleted in early 2023.

Cairn­view Road afford­able homes.

Value was added to the devel­op­ment through an innov­at­ive part­ner­ship between High­land Coun­cil, High­land Hous­ing Alli­ance and Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship. Designed and led by High­land Hous­ing Alli­ance and the Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship respect­ively, in 2021 loc­al busi­nesses came togeth­er to form the Cairngorms Hous­ing Part­ner­ship. Mem­bers of the part­ner­ship pay a small fee that allows their employ­ees to take pri­or­ity for avail­able mid-mar­ket rent­al prop­er­ties sub­ject to meet­ing rel­ev­ant cri­ter­ia, in a bid to ensure there is sub­stan­tial hous­ing stock for the loc­al work­force. The Cairn­view devel­op­ment was used to pilot this pro­ject with four prop­er­ties delivered through the scheme, all of which were occu­pied by June 2022. The Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship, with sup­port from High­lands and Islands Enter­prise, is now invest­ig­at­ing how the pilot can be rolled out across oth­er loc­al author­ity areas in the Nation­al Park.

Goals

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To deliv­er high qual­ity afford­able hous­ing across a range of ten­ures on a pre­vi­ously devel­op­ment site in Aviemore.

Out­comes

The deliv­ery of 38 afford­able homes of vari­ous ten­ures that sup­port the Aviemore com­munity and the needs of loc­al businesses.

Key officers

Kath­er­ine Don­nach­ie (Plan­ning Officer); Stephanie Wade (Plan­ning Officer)

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Case study 4: Stru­an Hotel

Loc­a­tion and timescale

Car­rbridge Janu­ary 2021 — ongoing

Ele­ments of high-qual­ity plan­ning ser­vice this study relates to

• Qual­ity of outcomes

Key mark­ers

14: Stalled sites / leg­acy cases: con­clu­sion / with­draw­al of plan­ning applic­a­tions more than one-year-old

Key areas of work

Afford­able housing

Stake­hold­ers involved

• Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority
• The High­land Council

Over­view

The Stru­an Hotel in Car­rbridge was once a pion­eer­ing ski hotel. Open­ing in 1954, the hotel was estab­lished by Aus­tri­an Olympic-class ski­er Karl Fuchs and his wife, Eileen, it was the first of its kind in Scot­land. The hotel and its own­ers played a huge part in the early days of mak­ing the Cairngorms a winter sports des­tin­a­tion and in its hey­day was at the heart of vil­lage life. How­ever, in 2006, hav­ing gone through sev­er­al dif­fer­ent own­ers, the hotel closed its doors for the

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last time and in the fol­low­ing years stead­ily fell into a state of dis­repair, becom­ing derel­ict and a tar­get for vandalism.

In 2008, plan­ning per­mis­sion was gran­ted by the Park Author­ity for the ​“con­ver­sion of, and alter­a­tions and exten­sion to, hotel to form 5 dwell­ing­houses”. How­ever, this was nev­er imple­men­ted and by 2021 the build­ing had become a sig­ni­fic­ant eye­sore on one of Carrbridge’s busiest thor­ough­fares and, nick­named ​‘The Ruin’ by some of the village’s res­id­ents, a source of frus­tra­tion for the loc­al community.

Stru­an Hotel in July 2022 © Google Street View.

The prop­erty was placed on the mar­ket sev­er­al times; how­ever a sale was nev­er agreed des­pite numer­ous offers being made. There­fore, in early 2021 the High­land Coun­cil used its com­puls­ory pur­chase powers to acquire the hotel with the aim of using the land it occu­pied to deliv­er afford­able hous­ing for the bene­fit of the community.

Due to the dilap­id­ated con­di­tion of the build­ing, its future use was now impossible. There­fore, in Septem­ber 2021 a plan­ning applic­a­tion to demol­ish the hotel and erect 10 afford­able flats was received by the Park Authority.

The hotel gone, the pro­pos­al would see three ter­raced blocks of flat­ted, res­id­en­tial accom­mod­a­tion com­pris­ing ten units and asso­ci­ated ser­vices developed on the foot­print of the ori­gin­al build­ing. Two of these units would be designed spe­cific­ally for wheel­chair users. This would deliv­er much needed afford­able homes in a com­munity where there is high demand for housing.

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Elev­a­tion to main road (B9153) © NORR Con­sult­ants Limited.

The loss of the ori­gin­al build­ing allowed the Coun­cil to max­im­ise the use of the site, achiev­ing a high­er num­ber of units while also cre­at­ing a new act­ive front­age on the vil­lage streets­cape, bring­ing bene­fits to the vil­lage in terms of improved aesthetics.

The applic­a­tion was approved by the Park Authority’s plan­ning com­mit­tee in April 2022 and in Novem­ber work on demol­ish­ing the hotel was com­pleted. Com­ple­tion of the afford­able homes Is expec­ted in 2023 / 2024.

The site fol­low­ing the demoli­tion of the Stru­an Hotel, March 2023 © Google Street View.

The devel­op­ment will help deliv­er the aims of the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2022, Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 and the High­land Council’s Stra­tegic Hous­ing Plan 2021, all of which seek to increase the sup­ply of afford­able hous­ing in Badenoch and Strathspey.

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Goals

To deliv­er high qual­ity devel­op­ment on a site that has been in a state of derel­ic­tion for over 15 years and to help meet the Nation­al Park and High­land Council’s aims to deliv­er afford­able housing.

Out­comes

Con­sent for a devel­op­ment that will improve the qual­ity of the built envir­on­ment in Car­rbridge while deliv­er­ing much needed afford­able housing.

Key officers

Stephanie Wade (Plan­ning Officer)

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Case study 5: Bat­tery storage

Loc­a­tion and timescale

Boat of Garten 2021 – Septem­ber 2022

Ele­ments of high-qual­ity plan­ning ser­vice this study relates to

• Qual­ity of outcomes
• Qual­ity of ser­vice and engagement

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.

Key areas of work

Cli­mate change

Stake­hold­ers involved

• Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority
• High­land Council
• The Energy Workshop

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Over­view

On 27 Septem­ber 2022, the Park Author­ity approved a major plan­ning applic­a­tion for a 49.9 Mega­watt bat­tery stor­age facil­ity near Boat of Garten. The pro­cessing of the applic­a­tion was man­aged through a pro­cessing agree­ment and fol­low­ing ini­tial dis­cus­sions with the CNPA in 2021, the applic­ant gained pre- applic­a­tion advice via High­land Council’s major pre-applic­a­tion advice ser­vice to inform the pro­duc­tion of a plan­ning applic­a­tion made in Feb­ru­ary 2022.

Visu­al­isa­tion of devel­op­ment in land­scape © The Energy Workshop.

The loc­a­tion of the pro­pos­als was sig­ni­fic­antly informed by the site of an exist­ing elec­tri­city sub-sta­tion, but the use of pre-applic­a­tion advice refined details of the pro­pos­al and ensured that a com­pre­hens­ive plan­ning applic­a­tion was made that addressed most issues raised by con­sul­tees. The prox­im­ity of the devel­op­ment to the River Spey Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion meant that detailed con­struc­tion envir­on­ment­al man­age­ment meas­ures and details of drain­age from the site required to be cla­ri­fied in order be cer­tain that there would be no effect on the integ­rity of the River Spey SAC.

Visu­al­isa­tion of devel­op­ment in land­scape The Energy Workshop.

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The loc­a­tion of the pro­pos­al also meant that, while it would be a rel­at­ively crude indus­tri­al com­pound, it would not be viewed by many people from close to the site, would often be screened from sur­round­ing view­points by topo­graphy and veget­a­tion, or would be viewed in the con­text of the elec­tri­city sub­sta­tion occupy­ing high­er ground. This meant that the poten­tial impacts of the devel­op­ment on the spe­cial land­scape qual­it­ies of the Nation­al Park were minimised.

Goals

To sup­port the effi­ciency and resi­li­ence of the elec­tri­city grid.

Out­comes

Con­sent for a energy generation/​storage facil­ity in the Nation­al Park, sup­port­ing the effi­ciency and resi­li­ence of the elec­tri­city grid.

Key officers

Katie Crerar (Plan­ning Officer), Alan Atkins (Plan­ning Officer)

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Part 2: Sup­port­ing evidence

This report was com­piled draw­ing on evid­ence from the fol­low­ing sources:

• Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2022: https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​w​o​r​k​i​n​g​-​t​o​g​e​t​h​e​r​/​p​a​r​t​n​e​r​s​h​i​p​plan/

• Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 and sup­port­ing guid­ance: 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 Nation­al Park Author­ity 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​/​t​h​e​-​p​l​a​n​ning- ser­vice/view­ing-and-mak­ing-com­ments-on-applic­a­tion­s/­plan­ning-advice- notes

• Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity 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 Enforce­ment Charter: https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/wp- content/uploads/2021/10/Item9Appendix1PlanningEnforcementCharter.pd f

• Cairngorms Plan­ning Enforce­ment Register: https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/wp- content/uploads/2021/11/211112EnforcementRegistertextversion.pdf

• Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 7 11/10/2019: https://​www​.eplan​ningcnpa​.co​.uk/​o​n​line- applications/​files/​B613E70F585E5C8A7DC08DE88B3D8D0D/​pdf/​2019_​0 209_DET-COMMITTEE_REPORT-100157753.pdf

• Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 8 10/03/2023: https://​www​.eplan​ningcnpa​.co​.uk/​o​n​line- applications/​files/​EBBA02C1D118A7EAC90C45B77FFF2986/​pdf/​2022_​00 57_DET-COMMITTEE_REPORT-100188042.pdf

• Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 6 24/01/2020: https://​www​.eplan​ningcnpa​.co​.uk/​o​n​line- applications/​files/​327CEC47AFB16257F063A94C9F5A7D65/​pdf/​2019_​02 98_DET-COMMITTEE_REPORT-100160846.pdf

• Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 17/08/2018: https://​www​.eplan​ningcnpa​.co​.uk/​o​n​line- applications/​files/​E0D2B9160A8E68EC4D41E2A53FC6B53B/​pdf/​2018_​00 27_DET-COMMITTEE_REPORT_FINAL-100148893.pdf

• Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Item 5 22/04/2022: https://​www​.eplan​ningcnpa​.co​.uk/​o​n​line-

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applications/​files/​2E6163F46D812AE81FC0F995E80248AF/​pdf/​2021_​030 5_DET-COMMITTEE_REPORT-100180858.pdf

Case Study Top­ics	Issue covered by case study (page no.)	Case Study Top­ics	Issue covered by case study (page no.)
Design		Inter­dis­cip­lin­ary Working
Cli­mate change	27	Col­lab­or­at­ive Working	19
Con­ser­va­tion		Com­munity Engagement
Biod­iversity		Place­mak­ing
Regen­er­a­tion		Design Work­shops / Charrettes
Envir­on­ment		Place Stand­ard
Green­space		Per­form­ance Monitoring
Town Centres		Pro­cess Improvement
Mas­ter­plan­ning		Pro­ject Management
Loc­al Devel­op Plan & Sup­ple­ment­ary Guidance		Skills Shar­ing
Hous­ing Supply		Staff Train­ing
Afford­able Housing	19, 23	Online Sys­tems
Eco­nom­ic Development	10, 15	Data and Information
Enforce­ment		Digit­al Practice
Devel­op­ment Man­age­ment Processes		Trans­port
Plan­ning Applications	10, 15

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Part 3: Ser­vice improvements

Park Author­ity ser­vice improve­ments 2023 — 2024

In the com­ing year the Park Author­ity will:

1. Review and improve approach to con­duct­ing Equal­ity Impact Assess­ments to improve out­comes for people with pro­tec­ted char­ac­ter­ist­ics through the plan­ning system.
2. Improve approach to early com­munity and stake­hold­er engage­ment on the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan to ensure that the Evid­ence Report bene­fits from a broad range of views.
3. Increase the involve­ment of plan­ners in the Com­munity Action Plan­ning pro­cess to help com­munit­ies cre­ate plans that are more spa­tially focused and may lead to the pre­par­a­tion of Loc­al Place Plans.
4. Work jointly with the loc­al author­it­ies that cov­er the Nation­al Park area on open space and play suf­fi­ciency assess­ments to help inform the next Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan and help deliv­er the loc­al author­it­ies’ Open Space Strategies.
5. Deliv­er car­bon lit­er­acy train­ing to all plan­ners to help embed aware­ness of the car­bon costs and impacts of devel­op­ment in the decision mak­ing pro­cess and help the Nation­al Park con­trib­ute towards reach­ing net zero.
6. Deliv­er ongo­ing spe­cial­ist train­ing to com­mit­tee mem­bers on land­scape in rela­tion to wind farm devel­op­ments – and with con­tin­ued reviews to mon­it­or gaps in mem­bers know­ledge to deliv­er suit­able addi­tion­al train­ing as required.

The iden­ti­fied ser­vice improve­ments aim to respond to feed­back received from stake­hold­ers, includ­ing through the Nation­al Park’s Plan­ning Rep­res­ent­at­ives Net­work and the Developers For­um. The pri­or­it­ies will build upon pro­gress that has been made in pre­vi­ous years.

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Table 1 provides the Park Authority’s assess­ment of how we con­sider we have delivered on our ser­vice Improve­ments and actions iden­ti­fied in Plan­ning Per­form­ance Frame­work 2021 — 2023.

Table 1 Sum­mary of ser­vice improve­ments and actions 2022 — 2023.

Com­mit­ted improve­ments and actions	Com­plete
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 2023⁄24 we will con­tin­ue work on com­plet­ing a mon­it­or­ing pro­ject using aer­i­al photography.	Yes — work ongoing.
Adopt the next Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (2022−2027) which will act