Fuel plan is floated
Options being discussed
London and Scottish Developments has announced plans to include a new petrol station on the former Tesco site in Crieff – if it gets the goahead from council planners.
The firm has reportedly spent almost £ 2million buying and promoting the Broich Road land.
It wants to build two retail units on the footprint of what was once hoped to be a Tesco store – prior to the supermarket giant pulling out after undergoing a cost-cutting exercise – and this week revealed a desire to complement this with an unmanned filling station.
The announcement came on the same day as Aldi set out its stall ahead of its appeal against a decision by Perth and Kinross Council to refuse its bid for a two-pronged food store and retail development at nearby Duchlage Farm being heard on Tuesday next week.
Bryan Wilson, development director with London and Scottish Developments – a subsidiary of the wider London and Scottish Investments – said that talks regarding a potential petrol station were under way.
He said: “While the appeal by Aldi has stalled progress at our site, we have remained in discussion with retail occupiers and can confirm that we are now in discussion with a petrol filing station operator.
“This petrol station would be located at the southern end of our site and would be the subject of a further planning application to Perth and Kinross Council.
“We understand that the current provision in terms of petrol supply in Crieff is relatively poor and we believe that this additional element to our plans would be firmly welcomed in the town.
“Our problem is that Aldi’s application has created real market uncertainty about the trading environment it would create in Crieff if it was given the go-ahead.”
Mr Wilson added: “We are desperately keen to proceed with our development, and we have already offered to make a significant contribution to improving road safety in the town.
“We want to help tackle the most dangerous junction in Crieff by giving the council a plot of land we own, which they need to realign the King Street Broich Road junction where a pedestrian was severely injured.
“But that plot of land is a key element of our development plans for Crieff and we can only proceed if the council reject Aldi’s appeal and we know that we have a clear run to attract supermarket operators to the town.
“If Aldi is refused planning permission, we would love to welcome them to our site where one of the buildings we plan would be an ideal size and fit for them.
“We believe that opening up another development site would be counter-productive, as Crieff simply doesn’t have the capacity for two developments of the size and scale of ours and Aldi’s.”