Plea to reject plans for futuristic Glen Coe home
Mountaineering Scotland is urging Highland Council to reject plans to demolish and rebuild the roadside cottage at Allt na Reigh, in Glen Coe, the former home of mountaineering legend Hamish MacInnes.
The outdoors organisation said the proposed modern design of the new property for Fife-based entrepreneur Harris Aslam was ‘not appropriate' for one of Scotland's most iconic landscape areas.
The cottage, which was also once owned by the disgraced DJ Jimmy Savile, is situated prominently on a bend of the road and features in one of the most famous views of Scotland - the view of the Three Sisters of Glencoe from the A82 heading west.
The property, which has been plagued by vandalism in recent years, was bought by Mr Aslam, director of Fife-based Scottish convenience store operator Eros Retail, together with his cousin and business partner Raza Rehman, plus other family members, for a sum reported to be £335,000.
Near to the cottage is the workshop where late mountaineering legend Dr MacInnes perfected the first all-metal ice axe, the MacInnes Massey, and later the Terrordactyl, as well as the revolutionary MacInnes stretcher, the lightweight folding alloy stretcher used in mountain rescue.
In an online public consultation session in September, Mr Aslam explained that he was keen to see some kind of tribute or memorial to Dr MacInnes as part of the redevelopment plans.
Mountaineering Scotland's CEO Stuart Younie actually attended September's online community consultation session, which had concluded there was no problem with renovation of the cottage on the existing development footprint or the principle of demolishing the existing cottage to enable it to be replaced with a new build.
However, the lodging of the detailed planning application has now triggered objections and as well as Mountaineering Scotland, the National Trust for Scotland (NTS) has also lodged a protest with planners.
Mountaineering Scotland said the concept of rebuilding a cottage at this location was fine, as there had been a cottage here for many years.
But it is questioning the design – by Dundee-based architect Jon Frullani – which it said seems to impose the building on the landscape.
In addition, Mountaineering
Both Mountaineering Scotland and the National Trust for Scotland are objecting to the design of the proposed new house in Glen Coe, left.
Scotland claims the planning application fails to consider how the renovated dwelling and outbuilding would look from the popular hill paths and crags lying south of the A82, especially the descent into the Glen from Coire Gabhail, and Buachaille Etive Beag.
This, says the organisation, is in a National Scenic Area, a designation that acknowledges that the landscape here is ‘up there with the best that Scotland has to offer'.
In a statement on its website, Mountaineering Scotland said: ‘It is disappointing that the architect's plans for converting the outbuilding into habitable accommodation look little like the existing outbuilding, making it difficult to see how the claim of reinforcing the heritage of Hamish MacInnes is substantiated.
‘The matter now lies with the Highland Council's planning department and we urge the Highland Council to refuse planning permission on grounds that the siting and design of this particular development at this specific location is inappropriate and would detract from the quality and character of the landscape in Glen Coe.'
NTS stated that it was objecting on the grounds that the proposed new building's ‘substantially enlarged scale' and contemporary design did not reflect Glen Coe's long-established, distinct built heritage and would ‘insensitively dominate' the landscape in this highly visible location.