Thankyou, councillors

Dear Editor,

I am glad that Stirling Council is standing by their decision of December, 2015, when they refused planning permission for the Park of Keir development.

Their decision has not been respected by the Scottish Ministers, who think they know better. We all know that housing on greenbelt would not have been passed if it were not for the lobbying and media campaign by Judy Murray. Being dazzled by celebrity seems to cause politicians to lose their critical faculties.

Anyone who bothers to read the details can see that there are major flaws in the proposed development’s business case: that it is not viable, it is unsustainable, in the wrong place, that it requires as yet unapproved public funding, whilst gifting the house builder a similar amount of potential profit.

The claim that it can only be built with subsidy from the housing is a nonsense when the builder will make profits which are NOT being put back into the project.

Neither the developer nor the Murrays are putting any of their own money into this project. It is a brazen attempt to get money out of taxpayers, hidden behind a smokescreen of “national importance”.

Thank you to those Stirling councillors who are standing up to the Scottish Ministers, and standing up for local democracy.