APRS wrote to the Minister for Public Finance, Ivan McKee, in August 2024 to ask that he consider calling in an application for a development at Invergordon that will impact an ancient woodland site, and is on land not allocated in the recently adopted Local Development Plan.

We also have concerns that this does not give sufficient certainty that the biodiversity mitigation and enhancement will be achieved over a reasonable timescale. The council have put in place planning conditions, to mitigate the impacts on the ancient woodland, which rely on the establishment of a community woodland group, which doesn’t currently exist, and is not planned. Our concern is that conditions reliant on a third party which doesn’t even exist cannot be enforced and are, in effect, meaningless.

The Letter

Minister for Public Finance, Scottish Government, St Andrew’s House, Regent Road, Edinburgh, EH1 3DG

13 August 2024

cc Chief Planner

Dear Minister

Re: Planning Application 23/05466/FUL House of Rosskeen, Ross-shire (Highland Council)

I am writing to alert you to concerns over the above planning application which we hope you will consider further.  The application was decided on 16 April 2024, with approval still subject to legal agreements being made. APRS was approached for advice by local people who were puzzled by the way the decision was made and also disappointed, due to the loss of accessible green space and the negative impact on biodiversity, including ancient woodland and veteran trees, that the proposed development would have. We have discussed the case with other NGOs, including Planning Democracy who have already contacted you, and a member of staff visited the area last week.

We feel aspects of the case merit further consideration as they raise issues of how National Policy, particularly Woodland and Biodiversity policy, is being interpreted and implemented. Our concerns include:

1. The plan-led system The site was partially allocated for housing in the previous Local Development Plan (2015) but not in the recently adopted plan (adopted 2024) which was finalised following NPF4’s adoption and, at the time of the decision, the proposed LDP had been through examination and was the ‘settled view’ of the Council.  The site had been removed from allocation because of the availability of other brownfield sites for housing. The Examination report of the proposed LDP considered the impact of the Green Freeport on housing in the area and did not see fit to modify the plan to re-allocate the site.  Members of the local community are mystified by the decision to approve the application which is contrary to the considered (and publicly consulted on) view of the Council set out in the new LDP, which was based on far more up to date information and policy (eg NPF4 policy favouring brownfield development and protecting ancient woodland) than the LDP from 2015. This seems to be a case where NPF4 being part of the relevant development plan has not had as much influence on the decision as the local community anticipated.

2. Biodiversity and Woodland policies in NPF4. NPF4 rightly puts more emphasis on the nature crisis and requires development to result in biodiversity enhancement.  There are concerns about the sufficiency of information used in the assessment (eg timing of surveys); the lack of weight given to NPF4 policies 1, 3, 6 and 9 in the decision; and the seeming reliance on future woodland management plans and assumed volunteer woodland management, to reach a postulated level of biodiversity enhancement in order to support approval of the application. We have concerns that this does not give sufficient certainty that the biodiversity mitigation and enhancement will be achieved over a reasonable timescale. We are concerned that a condition of development that relies on the establishment of a community woodland group, which doesn’t currently exist, cannot be enforced in future. Is this decision in line with the intended implementation of national planning policy affecting ancient woodland?

3. EIA procedures. Local people have asked whether it is reasonable to rely on a 2017 EIA screening report to rule out a requirement for an EIA, given the current proposal was submitted in 2023 and in the intervening period there have been other developments affecting, for instance, the watercourse. It seems reasonable to us that cumulative impacts of developments could be overlooked by using an old screening report in this way.

We hope you will give consideration to the above points, which we understand that Planning Democracy have also written to you about in greater detail.  

Yours sincerely,

Kat Jones

Director, APRS