Two-phase plan for new homes
Application for former Killearn hospital site
Plans to transform the site of the former Killearn Hospital into a new residential community could end up being carried out in two phases.
Last year members of the council’s planning and regulation planel backed the plans by CALA Homes to build 89 new houses at the derelict rural site at a virtual meeting on Tuesday, subject to the conclusion of a Section 75 legal agreement.
The agreement is yet to be finalised, but on Tuesday the council’s planning panel will be asked to approve an application to vary conditions attached to the original consent.
Conditions attached last year required remediation work to be carried out on the entire site before the start of construction.
However, the developers are now asking to develop the site in two phases.
Council planners are recommending approval of the request saying there is an urgent need to improve the eyesore site.
In a report due before Tuesday’s panel, the planners said: “Whilst it is unfortunate that the entire site is now not proposed to be remediated by the developer prior to construction, the proposed splitting of the remediation works to two phases is technically acceptable.
“The derelict nature of the site is not an attractive feature within the countryside and the site is visually prominent from the A81. The proposed conditions will not fully resolve this issue as originally intended.
“However, it is concluded that due to the harm of the site in its current form, and that there has not been significant developer interest in the site, that the changes to the conditions are acceptable. This will allow development to progress on site one, which is the larger of the two sites, and allow for the most contaminated parts of the site to be brought back into use.
“There is a concern that should these conditions not be agreed that the entire site will continue in its derelict and contaminated form for an unspecified time.
“The conditions still require that prior to any works commencing on site two that the remediation is fully dealt with.
“The council’s environmental health team have reviewed the proposals, as has an independent consultant, and it is concluded that subject to alteration of the conditions that the proposal is acceptable in principle.”
A mix of house types consisting of bungalows, terraced, semidetached and detached properties, ranging from two-bedroom to fivebedroom, are expected to be built across the full site.
Among the designs are three new house types developed especially for the site, including bungalows to enable downsizers to remain in the local area and three-bedroomed terraced and semi-detached homes suitable for young families.
Planning in principle has also been granted for CALA to develop a care home, commercial buildings and retail units, which could follow at a later stage.
The brownfield site, one of the largest in the Stirling area and once used as a filming location for STV crime drama Taggart, has been considered an eyesore by many for decades.
Killearn Hospital, built during World War II to house bombing casualties and injured servicemen away from the bomb-targeted settlements of Glasgow and Clydebank, later catered for orthopaedic and neurosurgical treatments but was closed and abandoned in the 1970s.
Several schemes from various developers have been outlined for the site in the past, although none appear to have been deemed financially viable due to the prohibitive costs of clearing asbestos and contamination.
In 2017, however, potential for future housing on the site was left on the Local Development Plan by the Scottish Government’s planning reporter who said ideally it should be designated for around 70 residential units but that “a balance must be struck” given the cost of remediation.