UPROAR OVER WILDLIFE LOSS

PKC slammed after meadow dug up

Angry residents have hit out at Perth and Kinross Council accusing the local authority of flouting its legal responsibility to protect nature following the destruction of nests and wildlife at the site of the Westpark development in Blairgowrie. Heavy plant machinery moved on to the site on

Thursday last week, cutting the grass, felling trees and digging-up the ground as part of the first phase of the controversial development of the land.

The Westpark Partnership received planning permission from the council to build two large retail outlets on the site opposite the cemetery on the A93 approach road to Blairgowrie – part of the popular Snow Roads – in January last year.

Plans for a ‘neighbourhood centre’ consisting of a parade of smaller business units were also included in the application.

A drive-through food outlet, family restaurant and hotel are also part of the proposals which form the first part of a wider development that could see hundreds of new houses, a potential new school and a care home phased in over a number of years on the 74-acre site off the town’s Perth Road, stretching from Ardblair to Newton Castle.

Approval of the wider plans in principle was given by the local authority in 2018.

Since then, retail giants Lidl and Home Bargains have reportedly signed-up to open premises in the town.

But, as work got under way last week, outraged residents have contacted Police Scotland claiming that PKC is “ignoring its legal obligations by failing to set planning conditions to ensure the developers carry out breeding bird surveys prior to undertaking ground work”.

They also say that PKC is “in violation of the Nature Conservation (Scotland) Act (2004), whereby all public bodies in Scotland are required to further the conservation of biodiversity when carrying out their responsibilities, by ignoring requests by residents to ensure the developers implement compensatory mitigation measures to compensate for the unprecedented and unmitigated destruction of nature and local green space in Blairgowrie”.

Swallows and swifts, nesting yellowhammer, willow warblers and black caps, butterflies and other insects, toads and newts and wildflowers were all affected by the work.

One angry resident told the Blairie: “By the end of the first day, all sign of wildlife was destroyed and the meadow decimated.

“Local people are angry and upset, we walked over a scene of devastation, finding bird nests gone, dead toads, newts, butterflies and moths.

“PKC should be implementing robust mitigation measures on this and other large-scale destructive developments, particularly as we are in the midst of a dual climate and ecological emergency, which threatens our way of life in what the UN has stated is a ‘suicidal war on nature’.

“Everyone is in uproar about this. “People are realising just what they have lost to this monstrosity of a development and are regretting not speaking out at the time.”

PKC was asked to respond to the claims but had not done so by the time the Blairie went to press.