A councillor has ruled out investigating the local authority’s planning department’s response to a number of reported planning breaches in Kinross despite rising anger over a developer’s actions.
The Kinross-shire Civic Trust (KCT) recently wrote to SNP councillor Grant Laing, the convener of the council’s scrutiny committee, asking him to consider ordering a probe into its planning department’s response to breaches at two development sites Persimmon Homes is currently working on in Kinross.
The local authority has accepted at least one condition attached to the company’s consent to build 91 new homes on the site of the town’s former High School has been breached – relating to its oldest building – and at least one condition which should have restricted working hours at the Lathro Meadows site has been breached too.
Local groups, including Kinross Community Council, had to point out to the local authority that contractors were working at Lathro Meadows on Sundays when they were not supposed to and that people were moving into new homes built at the old school site, now known locally as Weavers Loan, before its Edwardian building had been renovated as required.
But despite the council saying weeks ago it “can, and will” use planning enforcement powers “if necessary” to ensure such conditions are met it had still not taken any action against Persimmon Homes last week.
This led the Trust to write to Cllr Laing asking him to investigate whether the planning department has properly responded to the breaches or not.
It wrote: “The Trust believe[s] both developments have highlighted the failure of PKC to ensure the developments are progressed in accord with the development plan and the policies it contains.
“KCT also consider inadequate measures have been taken by PKC to ensure that a robust monitoring has been applied to ensure the developments have adhered to conditions agreed as part of planning consent.
“KCT requests that the scrutiny committee ensures that these matters are addressed and examined by investigation in the public forum which the committee can provide in order to ensure transparency and accountability in the public interest.”
But Cllr Laing has since responded to the Trust saying the scrutiny committee conducted a review of the council’s planning enforcement work last year and, in any case, it was up to the local authority’s interim head of planning and his team to deal with reported planning breaches.
He said: “The particular local issues you refer to at the two developments have been brought to the attention of officers both in the planning and legal departments.
“The primary objective of planning enforcement is to deal with any relevant planning breach and accordingly these issues are being dealt with by the interim head of planning and his team.
“In 2016 the scrutiny committee’s sixth scrutiny review undertook a review of the council’s planning enforcement work and made a number of recommendations which have been implemented.
“Therefore, in my view, the previous scrutiny committee has already undertaken work on this topic which was transparent and accountable to the public.”
A spokesperson for PKC added: “We can confirm that the council are actively monitoring the planning permissions being implemented at the former Kinross High School site and Lathro, Kinross.
“This monitoring has identified areas that require to be addressed and these have been communicated to the developer, Persimmon Homes, to rectify.
“The council can and will consider the use of planning enforcement powers if necessary to ensure compliance with the terms of the permissions.”
