PLANNING CHIEFS MAY HAVE COST CRIEFF £100M INVESTMENT

Leckie insists failure to overturn expansion plan KO could force him to do business elsewhere

Hotel boss Stephen Leckie has warned that Crieff Hydro could end up investing up to £100million elsewhere in Scotland after a failed bid to overturn a decision to deny expansion plans. Perth and Kinross Council planning bosses rejected an ‘in principle’ application to create 200 new holiday lodges as well as a 100-bed care home and accommodation for a further 100 people at a site west of Gilmerton earlier this year.

The application, which had been under consideration for three years before local authority planners unexpectedly decided to reject it back in July blaming a “lack of information”, was considered again by the region’s Local Review Body this week

following an appeal. But the convener of the committee, Councillor Murray Lyle, said even though the board had now received additional information on the proposal he had decided after “informal discussions” prior to the meeting that he was going to uphold the previous decision.

He went on: “I do not accept the appellant ’ s assertion that all [the] issues have been resolved.”

Councillor Lyle did say, however, that the council would be prepared to accept a fresh application for the Crieff Hydro East proposal, adding that it would be “helpful” if any new application included all of the “relevant information”.

He conceded the information received on the 2013 application had been dealt with in a “piecemeal” fashion and that it had been under consideration for a “considerable” length of time before it was rejected by the council.

But he stressed that only by submitting a fresh application was Crieff Hydro likely to get the permission it needs to go ahead with the project.

“I am hopeful this will give the appellants the opportunity to submit all the information at the one time,” he said.

Speaking after the meeting, Mr Leckie said he understood councillors had to follow proper processes but summed up his struggle to get planning permission as “frustrating”.

He went on to speculate that the cost of reapplying and resubmitting all the information to back up the proposal a second time might actually force him to look elsewhere in Scotland to invest.

“It depends on the cost,” he said, adding: “How much trouble is it going to be to resubmit all of this?

“We have got to figure out the commerciality of it. If it’s easier to do business elsewhere, then we’ll do that.”