Council planners act on CCTV pole
Enforcement notice for Sauchieburn landowner
A controversial landowner looks to be embroiled in fresh controversy after Stirling Council planners served an enforcement notice on him for putting up a CCTV camera pole without permission.
William Roddie hit the headlines in 2014 after issuing Riding for the Disabled with a notice to quit their long established base within the Sauchieburn estate. The base had previously been long supported by the estate’s late previous owner.
Now, however, council officials have served an enforcement notice on him, claiming attempts to engage with him over the need for a planning application for the camera pole had failed.
Planning enforcement officers said: “A pole complete with CCTV camera installed on the top has been sited within the curtilage of Sauchieburn Mansion House. It is situated close to the gated access.
“Under the provisions of the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997 the development is unauthorised. Officers have already served notice under Section 33A of the Act requiring submission of a planning application for development already carried out, however to date a planning application has not been forthcoming.
“In view of this it is considered necessary to initiate further enforcement proceedings.”
The latest controversy comes almost four years after RDA moved out of its base on the estate despite fierce campaigning, intervention of local politicians, public fundraising and numerous attempt to resolve the legal dispute with Mr Roddie.
RDA officials said the row with Mr Roddie over their lease, insurance and the deteriorating state of the heavily potholed access road made it difficult for many of the riders to reach the centre.
Mr Roddie meanwhile maintained there were problems with the charity’s lease as well as disagreement over road repairs.
Thanks to other RDA centres and commercial riding centres in Central Scotland, the organisation managed to continue with a number of activities and galvanise support. With a new board and a new name - Equi-Power Central Scotland RDA - now in place, work is underway towards choosing a preferred site for a new Stirling area centre.
In September 2016 the council appeared to have drawn battle lines with over Mr Roddie’s bid to divert a pathway that runs through his estate. Spectrum Properties, on behalf of Mr Roddie, wanted to remove a 470-metre stretch of a designated core path of the driveway to Sauchieburn House near Bannockburn and replace it with an alternative 510-metre path through woodland and grass to the side of the drive.
The company claimed people using the stretch of core path were at risk from vehicles using the driveway and that a new path had been constructed because failure to do so may have jeopardised their public liability insurance, adding there had been no response from council officials to an offer by Mr Roddie to discuss the move before they did so. They told council officials at that time that Mr Roddie believed he was “not being treated fairly”.
In early 2012 Mr Roddie had also claimed people had been driving on to the estate to have sex in their cars and on one occasion his daughter had been followed into the estate by a car late at night.
In September 2017 Mr Roddie, through Spectrum Properties, was awarded conditional planning permission for 12 chalets on his estate despite suggestions from objectors and some councillors on the council’s planning panel that the area had been run down in order to justify development.