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Park board makes planning blueprint a leading priority
Strathspey and Badenoch Herald October 23rd 2003
ONE of the most pressing tasks facing the new Cairngorms National Park authority is formulating a Local Plan as quickly as possible.
Board members agreed at their latest meeting in Tomintoul that a single blueprint for the whole area was the best way forward.
It will form the basis for future planning decisions in the Cairngorms area and locally replace Highland Council’s Badenoch and Strathspey Local Plan which, although adopted in 1997 by the council after the
shake-up in local government, actually dates back to the early 1990s.
Updating the Local Plan for Badenoch and Strathspey was postponed by the council when it became apparent that the Cairngorms were to become incorporated into a national park. Local Plans usually have a lifespan
of five years.
Board members have also agreed to look at ways of introducing the blueprint more quickly by examining a pilot fast-track process being developed for the Wester Ross Local Plan.
A bid is to be made to the European Leader+ fund for aid to employ a community worker and enable the public to have a great say in the plan.
The four local authorities within the park area – Highland Council, Moray Council, Aberdeenshire and Angus – each have their own Local Plans, which means that applications can be assessed differently.
Park planning officials have said there is a lack of consistency in major areas such as new housing in the countryside, hill vehicle tracks, telecom developments and affordable housing, as well as in more
detailed matters.
For example, Aberdeenshire Council does not allow extensions to be built onto steadings, byers and similar outbuildings when they are being converted.
The park Local Plan will pull together the planning guidelines for the whole of the Cairngorms and, in theory at least, make decision-making easier on planning applications.
Mr Norman Brockie, Cairngorms National Park planning officer, said: “Badenoch and Strathspey is the most problematic plan covering as it does over two-thirds of the park’s population but being severely
out-of-date; although adopted in 1997 it was actually begun in the early 1990s.
“It is imperative that the Cairngorms National Park Local Plan process be inititated as soon as possible to address the inconsistency of policy across the park, and to replace the out-of-date plans, while
addressing the four aims of the park.”
Park planners hope to avert many of the conflicts which have blown up in the Cairngorms in the past by getting the public on board.
One of the key aims of the fast-tack approach being used in Wester Ross is maximising public participation at the early stages, and the park authority also wants to appoint a community worker to help draw up the
plan.
Mr Brockie said: “An issue for the park authority is the amount of public and statutory consultation that will be required to formulate various plans and policies over the next few years.
“One way to optimise the consultation process is to have a dedictated community worker employed specifically to fulfil that role.
“The key to a successful planning consultation is to maximise the public’s involvement in, and ultimately ownership of, the resultant plan.”
Most board members agreed at the meeting that the way ahead was the introduction of a single plan.
Mr David Green said: “We have to go for one park-wide Local Plan but we have to be careful that by doing so we do not lose the local dimension. We need to build up the bricks of a lot of smaller Local Plans to
one large over-arching plan.”
Mr Peter Argyll stressed that it was vital they clarified with Ministers if the Cairngorms National Park Local Plan would take precedence over the existing, longer term local authority Structure Plans, which in
the case of Aberdeenshire, he said, still had many years to run.
Otherwise, he warned, the park could find itself defending many appeals from developers who had been knocked back for planning permissions favoured in the Structure Plan.
The Badenoch and Strathspey Conservation Group has welcomed the urgency being given to drawing up the Cairngorms National Park Local Plan.
Spokesman Dr Gus Jones said: “As was acknowledged all round at the latest park board meeting, Badenoch and Strathspey faces major problems in planning and has a Local Plan that is more out of date than its 1997
date suggests.
“Because of this even national and European priority habitat and species are insufficiently protected. This undermines national policies on protection of native woodland and restoration of habitats.”
He said the board’s agreement to consider adopting already formulated plans, including that for the Rothiemurchus and Glenmore corridor as part of the new park plan, was worrying.
Dr Jones added: “On the whole, the Cairngorm Rothiemurchus and Glenmore Group has demonstrated little sensitivity towards conservation and has tended to emphasise traditional, short-term development rather than
developments specially suited to a national park that would be in the best interests of local communities in the long run.”
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