[Postscript – Good News!  An hour or so after this was published the CNPA Planning Committee rejected this Planning Application by two votes!  Well done them and what a contrast to the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority where Board Members rubber stamp whatever is recommended by officers.  What the CNPA now needs to tackle are the underlying issues pertaining to land ownership which are highlighted in the post].

The fine letter from Roy Turnbull (above) about the recommendation from Planning Staff to the Cairngorms National Park Authority Planning Committee today (see here item 5 Lettoch ) that they agree to destroy yet another piece of valuable woodland for housing is well worth reading.  While the piece of land is NOT on the ancient woodland inventory, it seems that it should have been:

“The Highland Council Forestry Officer objects to the scheme. The Officer notes that the woodland is listed in the Native Woodland Survey of Scotland as ‘pole stage immature native pinewood of very high nativeness and semi-naturalness’. Although the woodland is not included in the Ancient Woodland Inventory, the Officer considers that the site should be regarded as Ancient woodland 2(a):“semi-natural woodland from maps of 1860 and continuously wooded to the present day”.

(Extract from Committee report)

 

The importance of ancient woodland

Woodland such as this has a particularly important role in reducing further global warming and for providing a home for wildlife (biodiversity in the jargon).  Planting trees by itself can never compensate for the carbon released in the atmosphere by the continued burning of of fossil fuel, partly because per cubic metre trees contain far far less carbon than coal, but also because when trees die most of the carbon they contain is released back into the atmosphere.   Trees are thus a  temporary solution for locking up carbon compared to coal and oil which were, until capitalism developed, safely buried beneath the earth’s surface.

While the amount of carbon “locked up” in wood does increase over time as trees grow in size, much more importantly the fungi, bugs and beasties which feed on the trees convert a proportion of carbon contained in them to carbon contained in the soils.  (If you want to understand more about this I highly recommend Richard Fortey’s book “The Wood for the Trees” which is ostensibly about an ancient beech wood in the Chilterns but which has implications for woodland management across the British Isles).  These woodland soils are far more important in the medium term for storing carbon than the wood itself, though both of course are interdependent.  And the older the woodland and its soils, the more the biodiversity – a virtuous circle.   As proof of this in this case the Badenoch and Strathspey Conservation Group has provided some excellent evidence about the range of species on the Lettoch Road site in their response to the planning application (see here))

What’s shocking, given this importance of ancient woodland for life as we know it, is that it is under threat as never before.  Here is some recent evidence which gained some media coverage:

“Figures released today by the Woodland Trust show it is aware of 1,064 ancient woodlands at risk of damage or destruction [across the UK] – the highest number since it started compiling the data in 1999. But this may just be the tip of the iceberg as there may well be others it has not been notified of.

Of these cases 801 are live planning applications while the remaining 263 are included in various council site allocation plans – areas outlined for future development such as housing, business use or leisure facilities.”

Because the woodland affected by this particular planning application is NOT on the Ancient Woodland Inventory, its one of the woods below “the tip of the iceberg”.  There are lots other examples, however, from the last couple of years of the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority granting permission to developers to destroy ancient woodland sites including Balmaha (see here) and  Flamingo Land and Cameron House (see here).

If, as Roy Turnbull points out, our National Parks won’t protect ancient woodland, who will?

So what is going wrong?

Ostensibly both our National Park Authorities acknowledge the importance of woodland for tackling climate change and biodiversity.  There was a lot of guff about this in the LLTNPA’s Trees and Woodland Strategy launched by the Minister Mairi Gougeon last week (see here), and, yesterday, Grant Moir, CEO of the CNPA was even quoted in the Herald as claiming this about climate change:

“There is much good work already being done in the park from woodland expansion and peatland restoration to new infrastructure for active travel……………but this needs to be scaled up to tackle the climate emergency”.

So, why has Grant Moir, whom I believe is genuine in wanting to tackle climate change, allowed his officers to recommend a Planning Application that does the opposite?

The answer, in this and some other cases, is partly a matter of land ownership and who holds the power.

Rationally, one might think, there should be NO justification for developing the Lettoch Site for 7 houses, 5 of which will be affordable, when just over the road there is a much more suitable area which has been allocated for 20 new houses in the new Local Development Plan.  However, the CNPA Committee report argues that because “there is no certainty over its development”  this Planning Application, on woodland which was not included in the Local Development Plan and is outside the settlement boundary identified in that plan, can nevertheless be justified in housing terms.

If this is right, it seems to me there is no point in any Planning Authority having a Local Development Plan, as any development anywhere can be justified on the grounds that a developer somewhere else is sitting on land and not developing it.  We might as well stop pretending and abolish the entire planning system.

The alternative is that, in order to make Development Plans work,  sites which are allocated for development and NOT developed by a particular date should be compulsorily purchased.  In this case the Highland’s Small Communities Housing Trust could then get on in building the affordable houses that are needed in the Nethy Bridge area on land suitable for the purpose.  That, however, would require the CNPA to be willing to use its compulsory purchase powers and, more to the point, for the Scottish Government to agree to this and help fund it.

The second argument used by Park Planners to justify the destruction of this woodland is that unless the CNPA approves this development the landowner might allow the rest of the wood to go to pot:

“The applicant has indicated they would be willing to manage the wider woodland area of 13.7 Ha that they own to improve its ecological value over the longer term. This would involve the removal of non-native species throughout the woodland to allow native woodland regeneration and longer term woodland management to prevent the regrowth of those invasive non-native species. Without such management, the ecological value of both the wider woodland and the development site will decline in the longer term.”

By approving the application, the CNPA planners argue they can guarantee through planning conditions that the rest of the wood won’t be allowed to deteriorate.  This seems to me totally the wrong way to look at the issue and again demonstrates the power of the landowners who, it appears, are effectively holding the National Park to ransom.  The parallels with landowners and developers in our cities who allow fine listed buildings to fall apart in order to get new developments approved is obvious.  Both urban and woodland blight should be unacceptable.  Again, however, in this case there is a solution.  The CNPA could use its conservation byelaw to create regulations requiring landowners to manage woodland in a certain way – it just needs a bit of will and imagination.

What this Planning Application demonstrates is that one of the main reasons why our planners keep recommending approval of developments that destroy ancient woodland is that they – and the Scottish Government – are not prepared to tackle the power of landowners and the free market.  The approval of the housing application by the LLTNPA at Balmaha on a piece of ancient woodland, link above, when there were various suitable sites for housing in the vicinity, is another clear example of this.  With the Declaration of the Climate Emergency, we need to put the welfare of the population as a whole and other species  before the financial interests of landowners and developers.