Statement on Judgement on Legal Challenge to the CNPA Local Plan

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Written by Gus Jones

Category: Debates

Published: 08 July 2013

Postponing meaningful environmental assessment to the end of the planning process is deeply unhelpful to protecting sensitive species and habitats. This practice flies in the face of responsible forward planning and the first aim of the national park.
We will continue to stand up against damaging and excessive development in the national park.
We thank everyone who has supported us to date.

Letter in P & J 5 July 2013: Housing in national park

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Written by Roy Turnbull

Category: Debates

Published: 18 July 2013

SIR, – Your report (July 4) on controversial housing in the Cairngorms National Park quoted park board member and former Rothiemurchus head ranger Willie McKenna claiming that there was a desperate need for more housing in the area.

Highland Council figures show that 3,524 houses were built in Badenoch and Strathspey from 1976 to 2010 – on average, 100 houses a year. There were 1,291 houses built in Aviemore, which Mr McKenna represents.

Moreover, Highland Council's old policy of 25% of open market houses being “affordable" is similar to the national park's.

This policy, while it has enriched large building companies and estates, has also caused unsympathetic cramming and expansion of settlements and considerable environmental damage in what is now a national park.

If, as Mr McKenna claims, this policy has not solved the “desperate need" for housing for local people, is it not time to change the policy?

Adopting residency criteria, whereby new-build housing is available only to those with national park connections, reduces environmental damage and provides local people with housing they can afford.

Other national parks have adopted residency criteria. Why not Cairngorms?

Roy Turnbull, Torniscar, Nethybridge.

P & J 4 July 2013: Fears for park wildlife as homes protest fails

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Written by Gus Jones

Category: Debates

Published: 04 July 2013

Illustrated Talk: Wonderful wood ants of the Cairngorms

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Written by Tessa Jones

Category: Meetings

Published: 03 July 2013

Open Public Meeting. 

Illustrated Talk by Hayley Wiswell.

Old Kirk, Nethybridge
By Castle Roy
Wednesday 10 July 8.00pm

All welcome
Free ~ donations welcome
Further informatin telephone: 01479 821491

Letter to P&J 29 June 2013 on Nethy Bridge Application

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Written by Roy Turnbull

Category: Debates

Published: 29 June 2013

Dear Sir,

In your report "Cairngorms homes 'will destroy woodland'", 27 June, you refer to the application to build 58 houses in School Wood, Nethy Bridge, which would destroy 12 acres of this ancient woodland in the Cairngorms National Park. You mention that Nethy Bridge Community Council "supports the application".

The constitution of the NB Community Council states that function of the Council shall be (inter alia) "to ascertain, co-ordinate and express" to the relevant authorities "the views of the community which it represents". This planning application is for the largest number of houses ever proposed in Nethy Bridge, yet the Community Council failed to convene a special public meeting whereby those community views could be ascertained. The Minutes of the May monthly meeting at which the Community Council decided "no objections" to this application, record "Members of the Public: None".

Moreover, during consultations over the National Park Local Plan in 2005, to which this application relates, the Community Council did convene a well-attended public meeting (12 January). That meeting voiced overwhelming opposition to large-scale housing developments in the village. Similarly, at a public meeting with the applicants in the presence of the National Park head of planning (5 April 2012), very considerable concerns were expressed over housing developments in School Wood. Notwithstanding those concerns, a community councillor then expressed "100 per cent support" for the proposal, apparently oblivious to the fact that his remit was to express the community view, not his private opinion.

I submit that the "support" provided by Nethy Bridge Community Council for this application merely reflects the private views of the half-dozen councillors involved. It is not a fair reflection of the views of the community that it is supposed to represent.

Yours sincerely,
Roy Turnbull
Nethy Bridge