Council belt tightened after ruling

Contributions are affected

New rules have forced Stirling Council to waive £830,000 expected to be ploughed into education and also refuse a housing development which could have seen them hit them with a £700,000 school extension bill.

Changes to how education contributions from housing developers are calculated are starting to hit, with council planners having already admitted they don’t yet know the full wider implications.

Two separate proposed housing developments have already been impacted by the council’s new guidelines, which it was forced to make because of a court ruling against another authority.

At a recent meeting of the council’s planning panel, members rejected plans by Allanwater Homes to develop 38 new houses in Cambusbarron after hearing the proposal, when added to a separate development at Four Sisters in the village, would have put further pressure on the council to add a three-classroom extension to Cambusbarron Primary School.

The costs of extending the school would amount to £821,000 - only £126,000 of which would be put in by the developers, with the council having to finance the rest.

Council officers said they had to revalue the cost of education based on a legal decision in Aberdeen, adding: “We have had to tighten our methodologies and legalities regarding decisions.”

Councillors Neil Benny, Alistair Berrill, Douglas Dodds, Graham Houston, Graham Lambie and Jeremy McDonald all voted to refuse planning permission with only convener Councillor Alasdair MacPherson and fellow Councillor Jim Thomson voting to approve the application.

At the same meeting, the panel approved a revised education contribution from Ogilvie Homes Ltd for a 185-house development they plan for the greenfield site next to Newpark Farmhouse, off Coxithill Road.

The panel had unanimously approved the original planning application in April, 2017, subject to conditions and a legal agreement securing contributions for education, waste, transport and affordable housing.

Of the total 185 units – including bungalows, cottages, terraced, semidetached and detached – 139 will be for private sale and 46 for affordable housing.

In 2017, officials said the developer’s contribution would be £1,426,282 but could have been £1,747,460 if the affordable housing units had been included in the calculation.

Now, however, the amount has had to be reduced to just £467,127 because contributions were no longer assessed on the basis of the need to upgrade schools in the council’s whole core area but only the site’s catchment schools.

In this case, it means there is no longer a need to make a financial contribution relating to Stirling High School, although the developer will still have to pay £467,127 towards the £917,451 costs of a twoclassroom extension for Borestone Primary School.

The panel had already delayed a decision on the revised amount until approval of the council’s new draft guidelines on how education contributions were calculated.

Stirling Council’s head of planning Christina Cox said previously: “There is a considerable legal context to this, including a recent decision in Aberdeenshire that assesses it as illegal to obtain contributions in the way the policy was framed.

“We would be in a very weak position [if the Newpark Farm proposal reduced contribution was refused] as we know the previous policy has been undermined by the Supreme Court.”

And planner Peter McKechnie said: “It is acknowledged that this is a substantial reduction in the monies sought for education, but we cannot seek to gain contribution where there is no clear identified impact requiring mitigation.”

Planners have admitted they don’t yet know exactly what wider impact the changes may have, or the implications for other proposed housing developments.

There is considerable legal context to this