Green light for Etive fish farms
Despite hundreds of objections from the Friends of Loch Etive campaign group, councillors unanimously granted Dawnfresh permission to enlarge its fish farm at Airds Bay, increasing its biomass by 60 per cent, and to store equipment on the shoreline at Inverawe.
Dawnfresh sought to replace 10 80-metre cages with 12 at its Etive 4 rainbow trout farm at Airds Bay, Loch Etive, allowing it to increase its biomass from 966 tonnes to 1,545 tonnes.
Argyll and Bute received 333 objections and five expressions of support, but planning officers said: ‘While the majority of the representations have been co-ordinated and submitted via the Friends of Loch Etive (FoLE) website, there remains a need to consider those individual representations lodged directly with the council, as these alone amount to a significant body of representation.
‘FoLE has pointed out that only seven of those individual objectors are not either FoLE members or those who requested FoLE to register their objections for them.
‘On the basis that consultees are now content with the proposal, and the organisation which has been the catalyst for the majority of the objection, acting on behalf of its membership, is content to see the application determined without the opportunity for representation at a hearing, it would be legitimate to proceed to determine the application.’
The officers concluded the site’s re-equipment and enlargement was acceptable, but it ‘poses a risk from the propagation of sea lice into surrounding waters and potential escapes of farmed fish’.
However, they argued ‘low salinity in Loch Etive, and the applicant’s intervention policy, mean the operating record of the site in terms of lice guidelines has been generally good. A requirement for an environment management plan would be a proportionate response’.
Dawnfresh also sought to use a part of the Loch Etive shoreline near Inverawe to store equipment, via a retrospective planning application submitted by the landowner Robert Campbell Preston.
Planning officers noted that, ‘233 objections have been forwarded via FoLE. Of [an] additional 54 received, all but one are objections to the proposed development. Mr Guy Linley Adams, acting for FoLE, wishes to inform members that FoLE would accept the officer recommendations.
‘If such changes are accepted, FoLE would be content to see the application determined in the first instance.’