Borders planners got this one wrong!

by OUR LOCAL GOVERNMENT STAFF

A business development recommended for approval by planning officials but subsequently rejected by Borders councillors has been firmly kicked out by a Scottish Government appeals reporter who described the proposals as materially harmful to neighbouring residents.

As we reported earlier this month, the elected members on Scottish Borders Council's planning committee dismissed proposals (by five votes to two) for the formation of storage space for agricultural machinery and equipment, and for up to 2,500 tonnes of potatoes on a field at Mounthooly Farm, near Jedburgh.

The committee's refusal flew in the face of a recommendation for approval by senior planner Ian Aikman. In his report, Mr Aikman stated: ""The proposed use would not be incompatible with the existing land use pattern or the residential amenity of neighbouring properties.

"The choice of site, layout, and scale of proposals will not result in further adverse impacts. The development will accord with the relevant provisions of the statutory Development Plan and there are no material considerations that would justify a departure from these provisions".

Following an appeal to the Scottish Government's Planning and Environmental Appeals Division [DPEA] by Andrew Ramsay, of Kelso-based Ramsay Mounthooly Ltd., the council found itself asking planning reporter Sarah Foster to reject that appeal. And in a decision notice just issued she has done just that.

Commenting on the impact Mr Ramsay's plans might have on the character of the area, Ms Foster says: "The proposed storage yard would be ancillary to an established employment site that has developed incrementally in a former agricultural steading in the countryside. What is now a small industrial estate is currently set back from the road, well hidden from the public realm by portal framed buildings originally constructed for agricultural purposes. 

"Views of the estate are also interrupted by an attractive range of traditional agricultural buildings not in the ownership of the appellants. As a consequence, the industrial use is not immediately obvious when viewed from outside the steading and it does not significantly affect the character of the area."

The reporter adds that she could see at the site visit there was limited external storage space left within the steading as land previously used for storage has been developed with more industrial units.

"I saw external storage largely limited to the north eastern corner of the site where large, wooden crates were being stacked in piles up to approximately six metres high. This suggests that there may very well be a need for the proposed storage yard ancillary to an established employment use as allowed for under LDP [Local Development Plan] Policy ED7." 

The storage yard could not reasonably be established on land within a Development Boundary given that the established use was located within the countryside. 

However, the development of a storage yard within the field, as proposed, would inevitably bring the activity currently confined within the steading further south, beyond its existing limits, into a much more prominent position, clearly visible from the road. 

"The storage yard would thereby completely change the character of the site and, when seen from public vantage points, the field would lose its agricultural appearance regardless of the proposed boundary planting. It would instead take on an industrial character that would detract from both the site itself and from surrounding properties, including the traditional stone barns to the west, which I consider to be significant in terms of the historic environment of the area.

Commenting on the impact on residential amenity, Ms Foster writes: "It is my opinion that the increased activity, including intensified vehicular movements, would inevitably generate noise and disturbance of a level that would be materially harmful to the residential amenity of surrounding dwellings.. 

"The potential for items to be stacked on the yard would have an adverse and overbearing visual impact considering the very short separation distance that exists between the boundary of the proposed yard and the boundary of these properties. I feel that any conditions that could be added to make this potential impact acceptable would be so limiting to the operations as to render the storage yard itself unusable. 

"It is my opinion that the storage yard use would not be compatible with surrounding uses. I therefore conclude, for the reasons set out above, that the proposed development does not accord overall with the relevant provisions of the development plan and that there are no material considerations which would still justify granting planning permission.