A FORMER Helensburgh and Lomond councillor has asked the Scottish Government to overturn the local refusal of his controversial plans to build a house near the Coulport armaments depot.
Robert MacIntyre’s outline planning application for a site at Shore Road, Peaton, around half a mile south of the MoD site, was turned down by Argyll and Bute Council officials in November. after the plans attracted 24 objections from the public.
The local authority’s planning department said the proposed house, on the shore side of the B833 opposite an existing property called Ruanda, was not suitable because it would constitute development ‘outside an existing settlement zone’.
Council officials also said that Mr MacIntyre’s application for ‘planning permission in principle’ had “not demonstrated that there would be sufficient land for the required amenity space, including garden, parking and turning area”, and added: “This proposed site is a natural foreshore, where there is a presumption against development unless there is a specific operational need.”
Planners also raised concern that the proposal would “result in the loss of ground flora and fauna and individual mature trees in an established native woodland”, and said there was potential for the house to have an impact on protected species.
The development site is part of Mamore farm, which is owned by Mr MacIntyre, who represented the Lomond North ward as an independent councillor from 2012 until 2017.
Mr MacIntyre’s agent, Dumbarton-based architect Gordon Harrison, has now asked the Scottish Government’s planning and environmental appeals directorate (DPEA) to overturn the council’s refusal.
Mr Harrison says the site, while “an attractive woodland”, is also “in very poor condition”, and includes some trees that are dead or sick and some invasive species.
The application sparked 24 objections from members of the public – but in his ‘statement of grounds for appeal’, Mr Harrison claims that the objections “later proved to be orchestrated by one individual which created a misleading local and community council response”.
The appeal statement adds: “This practice wasn’t given the opportunity to show that this site could produce a high quality development nestled carefully into, respecting and living in harmony with its natural setting and habitat.
“It was immediately dismissed as if we were proposing to clear the site of all vegetation and erect a clumsy, unsightly kit house.
“This was never the intention. We propose a small dwelling of appropriate scale and fit for the size of the site and settlement, which would not even be visible from the road or surrounding area.”
Mr Harrison says the site in question is within the settlement boundary of the local development plan, apart from the access driveway.
The appeal statement adds: “If there are precedents of this type of new development, and it matches the development pattern of the entire west coast of the Rosneath peninsula and the original development pattern of this precise area, how can the council possibly refuse?”
The same document also claims that there is “current unsanctioned misuse of the site by neighbours”, citing the parking of vehicles, dumping of garden refuse, building of camp fires and even mentioning the “siting of an unauthorised railway carriage”.
Objectors to the original application raised concern about the impact on wildlife, the amenity of neighbouring properties and the suitability of the site for development.
The appeal was registered with the DPEA on Tuesday, February 13 and the department has asked Argyll and Bute Council for its response.
Members of the public have until March 8 to respond to the appeal.
To view the appeal documents and all other publicly-available paperwork relating to the appeal, go to dpea.scotland.gov.uk and search for the reference code PPA-130-2088.
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