Housing plan rejected over ‘cramming’ fears

Developers have been sent away to rethink a plan for housing along Forfar’s historical Rosie Roadie after criticism of trying to fit too many homes into the rolling site.

Angus Council’s development standards committee unanimously backed the official refusal recommendation for the 81-home bid lodged by Stirling-based Ogilvie Homes.

The Arbroath site is allocated for around 60 homes in the Angus local plan.

The Rosie Roadie is a core path running between the Arbroath and Montrose roads to the east of Forfar, splitting the undulating six hectare site.

Planning officer Murray Agnew told yesterday’s meeting the department didn’t support the idea of garden fences backing onto the Rosie Roadie.

“It would not result in a safe or pleasant place to walk if rear boundary treatments were to be put along its length,” he said.

“It would be a very boundary-dominated layout with walls and fences at virtually every turn.”

Officials were also critical of an acoustic barrier more than four metres high on the east side of the site to screen homes from the adjacent concrete plant.

Mr Agnew added: “Deploying fairly extreme acoustic barriers is potentially indicative of the fact that the proposal is for too many houses for the site.”

The council’s

environmental health department objected to the plan over public health concerns around the potential impact on existing private drainage infrastructure within the application site.

Brechin and Edzell councillor Bob Myles said: “I think the officers have got it spot on.

“It’s too big a development and there’s not enough being done to mitigate the problems for drainage and screening requirements.”

Arbroath councillor Brenda Durno said: “It’s unfortunate that when we have housing targets to meet that we are finding people are trying to squeeze too many houses into plots like this.”

Arbroath colleague Alex King added: “I usually support housing but I was appalled when I heard the original application was 108 and we are still substantially over with this number.

“This is a developer just trying to cram them in. I just don’t find that acceptable.”

Brechin and Edzell councillor Kenny Braes added: “This is for 35% more houses than was deemed appropriate under the local development plan.

“It’s quite a difficult site to develop and it looks like the developer has just tried to get as many houses as possible to mitigate that.

“But they’ll have learned a bit today about what might be acceptable.”

Rosie Roadie was targeted for an 81-home development.