Embattled village folk seek Government aid

blairingone: Residents hope for protection from proposed development

Embattled residents of the Kinross-shire village of Blairingone are turning to the Scottish Government for protection.

They have written to ministers and launched a petition in the hope of halting “unsuitable development”.

Locals fear their community is at risk of industrialisation as they bemoan the unfulfilled promises that have led to so much heartache.

The latest plan would see a storage and distribution centre created at Lambhill, bringing with it regular movements from heavy goods vehicles.

Blairingone was once primarily known for the open cast coal mine operated by Scottish Coal.

Its owners had offered assurances that once the rich seam of coal had been extracted the land would be returned to agriculture and local amenity use.

The mine closed in the mid-’90s but the pledges were never fulfilled.

In 2003, Independent MSP Dorothy Grace Elder stood in the Scottish Parliament to tell colleagues: “If ever a village has been raided and pillaged repeatedly it is Blairingone. Industry has hauled benefits out of it and put nothing back in return. Scotland owes a debt to Blairingone.”

Since then they have battled against the establishment of a wood-chipping plant – now defunct – a biomass plant and other industrial uses.

The latest plan, submitted by Barnhill Estates, calls for permission to change the use of an agricultural shed to allow “general storage and distribution”.

Locals’ concern comes from the fact that the site would then operate between the hours of 7am and 11pm Monday to Saturday and from 7am until 10pm on Sundays, adding as many as 700 weekly HGV visits to the community’s roads.

Resident John Anderson has marshalled 114 members of the community on whose behalf he has written to the Scottish Government to ask for them to intervene.

He said: “The residents of Blairingone have had enough. There has been nothing but grief from this site and no benefits to the village whatsoever.

“There have been broken promises and we have been through the “fields of filth and rivers of blood” episode, together with excessive dust from composting, fighting of an incinerator and then a noisy wood-chipping plant.

“Now we are faced with an application for a storage and distribution centre with an HGV projected to pass through the village every six minutes and no mention of what is to be stored there.

“Is there no ethos of due care for the quality of life in our community?”

The residents of Blairingone have had enough. There has been nothing but grief from this site and no benefits to the village whatsoever. RESIDENT JOHN ANDERSON