Eco-friendly retirement home given green light

A DREAM retirement home in a historic Angus forest has been given the go-ahead, despite fears it will open the floodgates to development there.

Angus Council development standards committee overwhelmingly backed an official approval recommendation for the site opposite Pathhead Cottages on Carnoustie’s Panmure Estate, where an old stone joinery building will be incorporated into an eco-friendly three-bedroom home with a sedum roof.

Council planning officials said they considered the house to comply with relevant policies but the bid attracted a number of objections from estate neighbours who said the site had only emerged as a result of a previous owner’s failure to comply with the terms of a felling licence.

Conditions attached to the approval will see more than 400 trees replanted as a result of discussions with the Forestry Commission, which the committee was told would have been the number involved in full compliance with the previous licence.

Near-neighbour Gordon Tosh told councillors: “I’ve lived on Panmure Estate for many years, safe in the knowledge that the woodland would not be removed, but that is not the case any more.

“If this application is approved, you will very soon receive applications from very persistent developers wanting the same.

“Nobody wants to see the woodland destroyed and approval would set that precedent.”

Gary Adams, speaking on behalf of the applicants, said his environmentally-conscious clients wanted to create an attractive retirement home and had the reinstatement of the woodland “at the very heart” of their idea.

Arbroath SNP councillor Alex King described the proposed house as a “very exciting design”, backing approval. The committee voted 10-2 in favour.

The site of the development.