Road safety’s major factor in decision

Plans for 500 houses in Plean, which could have doubled the village population and seen primary-age children split in two school buildings on opposite sides of the main Stirling-Falkirk road, have been rejected.

Stirling Council’s planning panel yesterday (Tuesday) unanimously refused the application by Persimmon Homes for land east of Plean around Cushenquarter Farm.

The panel later rejected the house builder’s second application seeking permission for 198 homes.

The first application sought permission principle to build 500 homes, create an access off the A9 Main Street and build a primary school, while the second sought full planning permission for 198 homes with a new access off the A9 and open space.

The site had already been identified for housing on the Local Development Plan. The developers had acknowledged that the current school, East Plean Primary, would not have the capacity to take the expected increase in numbers and accepted the need for another school.

The panel heard that while East Plean Primary School could have accommodated an extension for the additional children if another 198 homes were built, any more than that would require another school building. Educational consultants for the developer said during the planning process that a preferred option would be to build an additional school building 250 metres away on the opposite side of the main road within phase two of the Cushenquarter site, The current school would have catered for nursery and P1-3 and the new building P4-7.

And yesterday, representatives from Persimmon suggested the council’s planning guidelines for developers had been changed in the middle of the process resulting in a change in the goalposts and their expected contributions towards education alone having doubled to around £5million, which they felt was “neither fair nor reasonable”.

They added that in other developments developers paid the contributions “into a pot” which the council then distributed but they were now being expected to fund the whole school.

But they said they hoped the panel would agree that the issues involved were not insurmountable.

Council planners said, however, an area which would have to be used to create a secondary access to the site near Bruce Street had not been included by the developer in the application boundary, and roads officials had advised that the primary access off the A9 was only capable of serving up to 300 of the proposed homes.

Although the developers argued there was scope to negotiate given the council owned the land required for the access and they would be happy with a condition requiring the secondary access issue be resolved before more than 300 of the homes were built, they failed to convince the panel.

Panel chair Councillor Alasdair Macpherson said: “As national housebuilders I find it utterly incredible that the secondary access not being shown within the red line boundary is an oversight.”

Following the hearing, he added: “Stirling Council has sought to ensure that there would be sufficient school capacity and healthcare facilities to accommodate these developments.

“The matter of road safety was also not addressed by the applicant.

“It is, in part, due to the lack of commitment from the developer to secure such capacity that these applications have been refused.”