No road decision just yet
Critics of the proposed Cross Tay Link Road are having to reschedule a planned protest in Perth after it emerged this week city officials will not ask councillors to approve the scheme for at least another month.
A group of residents opposed to the £117 million project had arranged a protest at 2 High Street on Wednesday after hearing rumours a committee was going to be asked to approve the local authority’s latest planning application for the route that day.
But group members are now hastily revising their plans after learning members of the council’s planning and development management committee are not going to get a report on the application until April 8 at the earliest.
However, one protest organiser told the PA this week that whatever day the committee is eventually tasked to determine the application, a demonstration will still go ahead as some locals are still totally unconvinced less traffic will pass through Perth once the road is built.
She said:“We’ve told a lot of groups and a lot of individuals [about it] so we’re hoping we will get a good turnout.
“This idea that has taken hold that the CTLR will reduce the amount of traffic coming into town is a complete myth.”
Another organiser the PA spoke to this week remarked:“The whole thing is just ridiculous. Lorries are still going to trundle through Bridgend [when the CTLR is built]. None of us can understand it.”
A webpage the group has specially created to attract further support for the planned protest currently states: “The CTLR is a new road proposed from near Inveralmond roundabout, over the Tay, through countryside, a wood, a proposed housing estate in north Scone and past the proposed site of a school.
“It will harm wildlife, sever core paths, cut people off from countryside ... and slowly damage those [who choose to live] in the 700 households [being built in Scone].
“It will not solve the congestion in Perth and the road will instead generate traffic as it is known new roads do. Traffic will increase in Bridgend from the Scone housing, at Inveralmond roundabout from the CTLR and Bertha Park and there will be a knock-on effect at Broxden Roundabout.
“Some at the protest will be ... protesting about air pollution and greenhouse gases; some about other sustainability issues, some about countryside access; some will want the CTLR route changed away from housing.
“We are all united ... in wanting to Perth and Kinross to take the climate catastrophe more seriously.
“Faced with that, building roads is the very opposite of what [Perth and Kinross Council] should be doing.”
A PKC spokesperson said this week: “The council can confirm that the CTLR planning application will be considered for determination at the April 2020 meeting of the planning and development management committee.”