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Information from Blair Drummond and Thornhill Community Council

On 13 January 2023 the Scottish Government Reporter asked for more information to assist her in writing her report regarding the Inverdunning/JCC proposed development. This is in addition to the extra information sought in November. The reason for this latest request is the publication of a planning decision for an application in Bridge of Allan (see below). TBDCC will be responding to this latest request.

The deadline for our response is 27 January, after which we expect a report and recommendation to be published within a number of weeks.  This report goes to Scottish Ministers for a final decision. How long this decision will take remains unknown, but in the Bridge of Allan case it was 9 months from the report being published to the final decision being published.  

We will keep you updated as matters progress.

Bridge of Allan – Graham’s Dairy proposed development. As in the Thornhill case, the developer sought to rely on a shortfall of land for housing development to outweigh several factors in which their proposal ran contrary to the Local Development Plan. The Reporter identified difficulty in accurately gauging the shortfall of housing land. Having taken a pragmatic view of the land supply, he recommended refusal of the development application. Scottish Ministers took a different view, and considered the “worst case scenario” of land supply, therefore basing their decision on the potential for a significant shortfall of housing land. However, even in this “worst case scenario”, their assessment was that the shortfall was not enough to tip the balance in favour of development on a greenfield site, so their decision was to refuse the application. 

We would caution that whilst there are parallels between the Bridge of Allan proposal and the Thornhill proposal, there is no guarantee of the outcome of the Reporter’s recommendation, nor of the Ministers’ decision.