Planning Permission in Principle was granted for the development of a new town near Aviemore in the middle of the Cairngorm National Park. This project is about to go through the final phase of planning this week, with the National Park’s planning committee scheduled to discuss the application on Friday the 18th August.
This brand new town development will deliver 1,500 new homes as well as the necessary infrastructure to sustain the site, business and community facilities. This new development is planned for east of the town of Aviemore and is expected to go ahead, with the Cairngorm National Park Planning Department recommending that the application be approved.
Since the project was first given Planning Permission in Principle, there has been only one alteration suggested by the developers. That alteration is a slight change to one of the conditions in the plans. Due to the size of the proposed project Condition 1 of the permission states that a review of the development’s impact must take place when any more than 630 homes have been developed. This review is to monitor the impact of the work on the environment, the ecology and the landscape of the National park nearby. Looking for a more project wide review process, the developers have requested this be changed to a Site-wide Phasing Plan.
The Planning Department of the National Park Authority has said that this is an acceptable alteration, if other measures and conditions are put in to collect information about the impacts of more people living in European Protected Sites as well as a range of conditions to protect the site. As a part of the approval it is expected that the developer will have to prove that there will be no negative impact on capercaillie, focusing on Badenoch and Strathspey as a result of the proposals being granted before the work on the site can start.
