CAMPAIGNERS have lost a legal challenge against a planning blueprint that allows a new community of up to 1500 houses to be built in the Cairngorms National Park over the next 20 years.

The proposal also includes 117 new homes at Carrbridge, 300 at Kingussie and 40 at Nethy Bridge.

Now opponents are warning the park's founding principles will be undermined by the in-appropriate housing, including more holiday homes, that will be "unleashed" by the court ruling.

Landowner Rothiemurchus Estate has proposed a development of eco-friendly houses in a forest setting An Camas Mor, on the east bank of the River Spey, near Aviemore.

The Cairngorms Campaign, the Scottish Campaign for National Parks and the Badenoch and Strathspey Conservation Group, backed by the Mountaineering Council of Scotland, went to the Court of Session to challenge the national park authority's inclusion of the proposal and other housing developments in its planning strategy.

They claimed the Cairngorms National Park Authority was ignoring the founding legislation that set the park's primary aims as being to safeguard natural and cultural heritage.

They also highlighted the findings of Scottish Government reporters who told a public inquiry: "The housing land requirement is overly generous in any context, let alone that set by the aims of the National Park," and concluded the "rationale for the calculation of the housing requirement is unconvincing".

The objectors claimed the development would put the international reputation of the park at risk by allowing the interests of the Cairngorms to be hijacked by housing developers.

However, Lord Glennie rejected all of their challenges.

Duncan Bryden, convener of the Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA), welcomed the ruling "This decision will provide clarification of the law in relation to Scottish national parks, which will help the park authority and all stakeholders in the park to deliver the four aims of the park for the benefit of people and nature."

Johnnie Grant of Rothiemurchus Estate said: "We believe we can now realise the com-munity's long-held vision of a balanced and sustainable new community sensitive to its setting in this outstandingly beautiful and very precious part of the world.

"Our aim is to create a wonderful place to live, which, through careful planning, will offer the opportunity for healthier, more active and environmental friendly living and will meet the aspirations of the people who choose to live and work in this area."

The Cairngorms Campaign issued a statement saying the construction of An Camus Mor alone would steadily and greatly increase pressures on the core zone of the park and lead to further conflicts.

It continued: "The decision unleashes large-scale housing development in the national park far beyond the needs of the local and incoming population."

It said this was being done partly to provide affordable housing for local people who need it, but there was no evidence it would succeed.

However, it added that "the steady growth of holiday homes under the Park Authority's current housing policies are setting tourism development in the Park along a route that research and experience in the Alps and elsewhere has shown to be highly socially and economically damaging to local communities and to the environment."