Newsletter Report - August 2006

The Council is currently concerned with three major planning issues, the first is the Borrow Pit at Rait Village, which supplies sand and gravel to the road interchange at Glendoik. There were a number of options for this Borrow Pit but Planning Permission was given to the one at Rait, this permission was given by the Planning Officers and did not go before Perth & Kinross Councillors for approval, despite the large scale of the works and the fact that there were some 16 objections. We still await the final reinstatement of the site and have requested that it is done sympathetically.

The second planning issue is the extension to the Muir Homes development at Inchture. Outline Planning permission was given a number of years ago and more recently Muir Homes made a detailed application for some 170 additional houses and the Community Council commented on these plans. No more was heard of this application and the Council organised a meeting with Muir Homes, after discussions Muir Homes agreed to provide a multipurpose sports area, additional parking for the Church and School, various landscape alterations and an agreement that they would fund an extension to the School if required. On hearing this the Planners leapt into action saying that the Council had failed to get any meaningful Community benefits from the development despite the fact that up to that date they had obtained none at all. This matter is still ongoing.

The third planning issue is the traffic flow through Main Street Inchture. With the future extension to the Muir Homes site the Council feels that an alternative route to and from not just Muir Homes but also Taypack is necessary, the options are the reopening of the Moncur access for Taypack staff and transport or a ring road to the South of the village, connecting to the Station Road, for the housing developments and Taypack. These options are dependent on funding the Moncur access being the cheaper.

The next meeting of the Community Council will be at Abernyte School on 7th September 2006 at 7.30pm. all are welcome.