Campaign seeks ruling on national park homes

Cairngorms National Park Authority has approved plans for 2,750 homes. It has earmarked sites for 950 homes in the next five years and 1,800 in the future, with a target that 25 to 40 per cent should be affordable housing.

But the Scottish Campaign for National Parks believes all the homes should be affordable.

Bill McDermott, chairman of the SCNP, said: ‘National parks are designated for their outstanding natural and cultural heritage.

‘Their primary aim is to conserve that heritage. National park authorities have no business allowing house building which is unrelated to local needs. Since most of these local needs involve affordable housing for new entrants, it follows that policies should be directed to that end.’

The organisation submitted an objection to the local plan, saying it would create an enclave for second homes.

But the planning committee for the Cairngorms National Park Authority rejected this and will proceed with the local plan as drafted.

Karen Major, development plan officer at the authority, said developers would not be interested if the requirement for affordable housing was higher.

‘What the policy says is, if an application comes in for 100 per cent affordable housing, we will approve it,’ she said.

‘But developers have to make a profit on affordable. If it’s just affordable, who is going to pay for it?’

She added: ‘We can’t control the open market but we try to use different mechanisms to sell open market housing to local people.’

She said the authority will require the homes to be advertised locally first. But she also said: ‘You can’t necessarily stop someone buying it as a second home.’

Mr McDermott is now writing to the chief planner at the Scottish Government in the hope they will intervene.

The local plan stipulates a maximum of 950 homes to be built during its life-time of five years, of which 176 have already been built.

The authority has also planned for a new village at An Camus Mor with 1,500 new homes and 300 in Kingussie over the next 25 years.

A Scottish Government inquiry into the plans last year also raised concerns about how it was going to meet affordable housing needs.

The inquiry report concluded: ‘The only practical method of meeting the critical need for an increase in the provision of affordable housing is through an increase in market housing and the associated land supply for that. We have significant reservations about this approach.’

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