New windows plan for Cairngorm Hotel could be wrecked
Plans to help keep customers cosy and draught free in bed at a popular Aviemore hotel are being recommended for rejection to preserve the character of the building.
The owners of the Cairngorm Hotel have applied to Highland Council to replace the existing single-glaze windows in the C listed building with double glazed windows with timber sash.
But council planners have recommended that the south planning applications committee refuse the application when it meets on Tuesday.
A previous application was lodged in April this year but was deferred, asking hoteliers WKW Partnership to prove the replacement was necessary but now officers have said there is not enough evidence to support the application.
A report for Tuesday’s committee states: "While energy efficiency is an important consideration there are other measures that could be employed to improve the windows without resorting to wholesale replacement.
"The energy efficiency argument is not considered to outweigh the statutory requirement to preserve the character of the listed building in this instance.
"The applicant has not demonstrated to the satisfaction to the satisfaction of the planning authority that damage which cannot be repaired is so extensive in so many of the existing windows that replacement as proposed is justified."
Scottish Historic Environment policy is that an application for consent to replace windows wholesale, as is proposed here, an applicant would be expected to have had a joiner specialising in the repair and refurbishment of windows carry out a detailed examination of the windows and produce a report listing the extent of work needed to repair the windows or showing why repairs were not feasible.
