Tiny village bids to make Scottish legal history once more

Villagers want to win better protection for rural communities

A tiny Kinross-shire community will attempt to make Scottish legal history for a second time to protect itself from industrialisation.

Blairingone fought for years to persuade the government to introduce tighter controls on the spreading of sewage sludge and industrial waste on fields.

Now residents are considering gearing up for a new campaign that would see them seek to change planning laws and secure greater protections for rural communities.

The move has been prompted by the rejection of a 114-signature petition, submitted to the parliamentary petitions committee, which called for help to prevent development in the area.

The committee concluded the issue was not of “national importance” but locals hope to change that by raising wider issues that affect rural communities across the country.

Mid Scotland Fife Conservative MSP Alexander Stewart has said he will raise the issue in the chamber at Holyrood.

“I very much sympathise with the plight of the residents of Blairingone,” he said.

“Time and again, local people have been made promises that have not always been kept.”

Blairingone was once primarily known for the opencast 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, but while the mine closed in the mid-1990s the pledges were never fulfilled.

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

Campaigner John Anderson delivered the petition alongside Conservative councillor Callum Purves.

He said: “We join the plight of Blairingone on to a change of planning enforcement law, with regard to stiffer penalties for habitual abusers, or we could submit a completely new petition highlighting the plight of communities left with the debris of opencast mining, where despite grandiose restoration plans, sites are left in disarray because of insufficient funding.”

Time and again, local people have been made promises that have not always been kept. MSP ALEXANDER STEWART