Planning officer’s appeal granted by body

A planning adviser had his planning appeal granted by the Perth and Kinross Council group he normally advises.

Planning adviser David Harrison usually presents appeal cases to the local review body for its consideration.

But on Tuesday, February 3, a special meeting was held when Mr Harrison himself and his wife appealed a planning condition set by PKC’s planning team.

As planning adviser Mr Harrison does not sit on the council’s planning team and has no previous involvement with cases when he presents both perspectives of a case to councillors for their consideration.

Unable to present his own case, it was presented by PKC’s legal adviser Colin Elliott.

Mr Elliott told councillors:“This application is your own planning adviser and his wife’s application. He therefore has a conflict and cannot present the application to you today. I would also add I haven’t discussed the review with the review applicants.”

The planning appeal was to review a planning condition relating to the size of an access to Dalguise Wood.

The access to the wood was required for what was described in the meeting as“non-commercial woodland management.”

In February 2020 PKC requested visibility splays be two metres by 160 metres. However, in 2008 a road engineer - who was able to visit the site for a pre-application enquiry - said the appropriate standard would be two metres by 100 metres to the south.

In their appeal David and Linda Harrison pointed to other local accesses which do not meet a two metre by 160 metre visibility standard.

Convener Lewis Simpson said he had driven up and down the road the previous day and noted“most of the entrances are either similar or in some cases worse”.

He and Cllr Ian James said they did not consider the Dalguise road as one where people would be likely to speed or even achieve the 60mph speed limit.

Cllr James - who represents the Strathtay ward - said while after the access there was a bend in the road to the right, the road then bends back to the left and“you can actually see quite a bit down the road anyway”.

He added:“Given the fact that this entrance is not being used three times a day every day of the year, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask for 100 metres rather than 160 metres.

“We would lose too much vegetation and earth moving to create that extra 60 metres is I don’t think a reasonable thing to do.”

Cllr Willie Wilson agreed. The local review body unanimously agreed to change the wording on the condition of the planning consent from 160 metres to 100 metres.