Laundry boss fights order to clean area

ABlairgowrie businessman is contesting an order from Perth and Kinross Council to remove waste including “rotting cars”.

Stuart Coupar is appealing the council’s enforcement notice to shift material at the front of Blair’s Laundry on High Street, Rattray.

The council has ordered the business to get rid of tyres, car parts, scrap metal and vehicles from the parking area fronting the main road.

Councillors say they have an increasing number of complaints, with one claiming vehicles there “are just rotting with the tyres collapsed”.

However, Mr Coupar, who has been involved in running the laundry business for more than 20 years, believes that the council is guilty of “targeting” and “unreasonable behaviour”.

“The site is commercial, rated non-domestic and in continuous use as such for over a century,” he wrote in his appeal submission.

“Residential properties on each side and opposite have privacy fencing.

“Heras fencing is erected to the front of the workshop doors to screen and restrict access for safety.”

He continued: “We typically operate around eight delivery vehicles.

“We operate vehicles and equipment we can maintain.

“This does allow us to economically justify running older assets that have proven durable and reliable beyond the age at which a council or larger organisation with massive budgets may choose.

“The steps required by the planning authority are excessive.

“The items in the yard all have a purpose.”

Mr Coupar is also unhappy the enforcement notice was addressed jointly to himself, two other members of his family and the laundry as a whole.

“The notice is defective,” he wrote in his submission. “Failure to serve a notice properly can be construed as ‘targeting’ and is unreasonable behaviour.”

But the council’s notice has been backed by at least two members of the local authority.

Councillor Caroline Shiers wrote in her submission: “Increasingly, complaints have centred on the effect on the amenity of residents and environmental concerns.

“One vehicle is in a lower area of the site and almost subsumed by shrubbery.

“Many vehicles are just rotting with tyres collapsed on the hard standing.

“The footpath in front is a busy one and it is really sad that this historic part of old Rattray is allowed to fall into disrepair.”

Fellow Blairgowrie and The Glens councillor, Bob Brawn, wrote: “Whilst these vans may be sited on the owner’s curtilage, they are to the detriment of the amenity of the area.

“Over the years the number of these derelict vans has steadily increased, to the annoyance of all who live around the site.”

A planning reporter will decide whether to overturn the council’s enforcement notice.