Concerns raised over new link road by CC
A community council says it has still not seen hard evidence to support PKC’s assertion that shifting the Cross Tay Link Road from its proposed route through a planned development would not make much difference to locals.
Scone and District Community Council (SDCC) says it has asked the local authority four times to show members traffic modelling which supposedly proved that people who move into homes once they are built on both sides of the route, will not have to breathe worse air than if the road was moved much further north.
Officials said in a paper published back in June, a comparative assessment had shown shifting the start of the route further up the A94 would provide “no improved benefit when considered against the specific concerns regarding air quality and road safety and against all of the other assessment criteria”.
But SDCC has since noticed a planning application filed last week for the formation of the road shows PKC wants to put speed restrictions and two bus stops plus a roundabout and a pedestrian crossing along the route.
Members are now questioning how PKC arrived at that conclusion, as it is known slower moving traffic produces greater amounts of harmful emissions.
They say fewer hindrances would have been put in people’s way had PKC chosen to a route beyond Scone North.
Vice chair of the group Jill Belch told the PA: “SDCC was kindly shown the traffic modelling theory by PKC officers.
“However, SDCC had actually asked for the comparative traffic modelling between the two proposed routes above Scone, having been told that the one through houses, going from 50mph to 30mph to 20mph with two bus stops, a roundabout and a pedestrian crossing, gave better results compared to a straight more northerly road with 50mph speed along the full route.”
She added: “SDCC remains very concerned about the decision to inflict traffic noise, pollution and danger on the new inhabitants of [Scone North] when an alternative route is available.”
Elsewhere this week a doctor living in Scone proclaimed it was “puzzling” why PKC seems intent on progressing its preferred option of taking the route through Scone North “rather than avoiding safety, air quality and community impacts by taking a more northerly route”.
Criticising the above mentioned comparative assessment in the first official objection filed against the scheme, Dr David Gordon said it had made “no attempt to quantify the relative number of persons crossing the CTLR daily in its proposed location compared with the alternative northern alignment”.
He continued: “This is a crucial failure since it seems self-evident that there will be fewer crossings, and therefore less hazard, if all the housing is on one side of the CTLR rather than split by it.”
And he went on: “Why PKC is determined to press on with the southern route is puzzling. One is tempted to conclude that it is simply because it does not want to be seen to change its mind.
“It saves face for individuals in the short-term while accumulating institutional reputational damage in the long-term as poor planning decisions compound.
“PKC’s road and transport planning decisions for decades have been marred by a failure to think far enough ahead and anticipate future problems. Unless the route north of [Scone North] is adopted, the eastern end of the CTLR will be yet another example.”
The PA asked PKC to comment on what Ms Belch told us this week but we had not received one by our print deadline yesterday.