Kinross-shire Civic Trust (KCT) has criticised a local authority official for discouraging councillors from scouting a site before deciding to let it be redeveloped.
The council’s planning and development management committee approved an application to convert the town’s former Kirklands Garage into homes as well as build a block of flats behind in October despite objections from residents as well as the trust.
But Kinross-shire councillor Mike Barnacle said at the time he was unhappy with the design of the development considering it will lie within the town’s conservation area.
He asked if all the other committee members could go and take a look at the site before deciding whether to approve or reject the proposal.
However the council’s interim development quality manager Anne Condliffe discouraged councillors from considering this option. That was despite not offering any resistance to another councillor’s move earlier in the meeting to defer two applications relating to the old Murray Royal Hospital site in Perth for the same reason.
She told the committee: “There is concern about members going [on] site visits. It’s always been made very clear that members should be looking to visit sites prior to [coming to] committee.
“On the first application at Murray Royal it was a different story ... but I’d be concerned if we were going to be coming to every committee and looking for a site visit.”
Now Ken Miles of the KCT has claimed Ms Condliffe’s views on site visits are “questionable”, writing in the Kinross Community Council Newsletter: “Kirklands Garage is a site which all would likely agree could benefit from development.
“However, statements such as ‘anything would be an improvement’ have resulted in PKC approving a planning application.
“Councillors prompted by this base evaluation have failed to take account of the fact that ‘anything’ is not appropriate in a conservation area.
“Planning policies require that development in a conservation area should ‘preserve and enhance’ such an area.
“When such development opportunities arise, they should be undertaken with a careful and sympathetic approach.”
He added: “A suggestion was made that councillors should defer a decision until after a site visit in order to aid their understanding of the issues raised.
“This suggestion was not supported by the development quality manager, who countered that formal site visits should not be routine and it was up to councillors to visit if they were so inclined.
“This direction was significant and questionable as an officer should not be instructing councillors but instead providing accurate and unbiased information on request.
“Any meaningful determination of the site requires access beyond the security fencing, meaning a formal visit would have been appropriate.
“Most significant and inconsistent was that two separate Perth-based projects on the agenda immediately before the discussion of Kirklands Garage were deferred to give the opportunity to councillors to make a site visit.”
PKC was asked to respond to Mr Miles’s criticism but the PA had not received a statement before going to press yesterday.
