DPEA reporter blocks plans for 1,800-home village near Perth on appeal

The reporter said in her decision notice (6-page / 135KB PDF) that it would be premature to grant planning permission in principle for the appeal proposal as the council is likely to start examination of its LDP in four months.

Developer Pilkington Trust submitted plans for the development in 2008. The project included redevelopment of a 160 acre site around Huntingtower and Ruthvenfield and would have created up to 1,800 new homes, a primary school, leisure, retail and office space as well as new pedestrian access, open space and landscaping. The Council refused the application in January 2012.

The council's proposed LDP has undergone public consultation and is expected to be submitted for examination in January 2013. The reporter said that the appeal proposal is contrary to the LDP, which does not identify the appeal site as housing land. She said she was not aware of any planned modifications to the LDP by the council and therefore could attach "significant weight" to its contents.

Although the LDP does not directly refer to the appeal site, it does identify west/north-west Perth, where the site is located, as a strategic development area (SDA). However, the council does not yet have a framework or masterplan for the SDA in place.

"If I were to approve the appeal proposal, this would predetermine where a large proportion of the 4,000 plus houses in west/north-west Perth would be located," the reporter said in her decision notice."This would have major implications for the spatial strategy of the emerging local development plan without the benefit of considering all of the potential sites in the area and their impacts on each other."

She said that she did not consider that the developer's wish to go ahead with the project now outweighed the importance of ensuring that development in the SDA was looked at as a whole through the LDP process. She added that it would not be unacceptable in this context for the developer to wait 1.5 years for confirmation on whether the development can go ahead.

The developers now have six weeks to consider an appeal to the Court of Session in Edinburgh.