Perth and Kinross Council has dismissed a campaigner’s latest claims its planners were wrong to recommend a company be granted permission to build hundreds of houses in Kinross.
Ken Whitcombe, who lives near the Lathro Farm site where Persimmon Homes were recently granted planning permission to build 300 new houses, reckons planners should have recommended permission be denied because of regular reports of flooding in the same area.
Pointing to policy presuming against planning permission being granted for developments where there is a “significant probability of flooding” he believes repeated warnings about the site’s suitability for development should have seen Persimmon’s planning application recommended for refusal.
In a lengthy list of complaints sent to the PA about PKC’s handling of Persimmon’s application, a version of which it is understood is scheduled to be published in the next Kinross Community Council newsletter as well, Mr Whitcombe also raises doubts over whether a proposed drainage scheme at the Lathro Farm site will be able to cope with a sudden deluge.
Speaking firstly about the existing flooding problems Mr Whitcombe says: “Regular flooding of the path and the adjacent grass area between Lathro Lane and the leisure centre results in the most direct pedestrian route between the Lathro estate and the leisure centre, children’s nursery, shop, bus stops, pedestrian crossing and entrance to the community campus frequently becoming impassable.
“Yet despite complaints to the council going back many years and recent meetings between concerned residents, our elected council members and officers from PKC’s flood management team, the council seems to have no solution to this long-standing problem.
“The flow of the North Queich was also recognised as being ‘flashy’ in several of the authoritative reports made to the council at the planning stage and it periodically bursts its banks, flooding the land on either side of its course through the development area.”
Mr Whitcombe then goes on to point out that the report recommending councillor’s approve Persimmon’s application for Lathro Farm referred to a policy which states there should be a general presumption against proposals for built development “where there is a significant probability of flooding from any source”.
“Yet the same report,” he continues, “recommended this development should be approved, despite the fact that official Scottish planning policy also counsels against planning permission being awarded for new developments in areas prone to flooding.”
Moving onto his concerns about the proposed drainage scheme Mr Whitcombe then says: “SEPA stipulates that all new greenfield development must be drained by sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS).
“However, the engineering guidelines for SUDS state that the groundwater level (the water table) should be at least one metre below the base of the SUDS system to ensure there is sufficient unsaturated ground to absorb any sudden deluge in order to prevent the system overflowing.
“Authoritative surveys of the development site at planning stage reported that groundwater was encountered between one and 1.5 metres over 75 per cent of the site and at much shallower levels over large areas, raising serious questions about how effective this SUDS system will be.”
Asked to respond to Mr Whitcombe’s latest complaints a PKC spokesperson failed to address his specific concerns about flooding and the proposed SUDS system whilst at the same time saying the points he had raised were “not new” and that the local authority had “responded to them previously.”
They went on: “PKC is satisfied that the relevant legislation has been complied with and that sufficient safeguards were put in place through ... specific conditions.”
