Aviemore's "Berlin Wall" is set to be knocked down
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THE infamous so-called Berlin Wall in Aviemore is set to be knocked down and a once popular thoroughfare will re-open after a make-over.
It will finally bring to an end a row spanning more than seven years which has even been heard in the highest civil court in the country.
Macdonald Aviemore Highland Resort Ltd has just applied to Highland Council’s planning service to improve and alter the existing footpath and roadway on land 40 metres South-west of Laurel Bank off Grampian Road.
A spokesman for the resort confirmed that the application was to upgrade the access at the top of Laurel Bank which has been closed off since 2004.
He said he did not want to comment further until the application had been determined by the relevant planning authority.
Mr John Grierson, Aviemore Community Council chairman, however, said: "It is encouraging to see that the resort is going ahead now and putting in place what they said they were going to do.
"But I will wait until the work is actually carried out until I rejoice."
Bosses at the resort pledged in July 2009 to open up the brae despite a ruling that they had a legal right to keep their fence there which blocks off the opening.
Sheriff Principal Sir Stephen Young quashed the notice served in January, a year earlier, by the Cairngorms National Park Authority requiring the resort to remove the section of the fence at the west end of the lane.
He upheld an appeal made by AHR at a civil court case in Inverness stating that the fence had been erected in 2004 before the Land Reform Act (Scotland) Act 2003 had come into effect and therefore no access right had existed.
Resort bosses said at the time their stance had been vindicated but added the two metre section of fencing would still be coming down and a new entrance would be created.
The row even reached the Court of Session in Edinburgh.
The lane had been a popular thoroughfare before the fence – dubbed the Berlin Wall by Aviemore Community Council – was erected.
It was often used as a short cut between the resort and the village centre, particuarly during the years that Colin Bain ran the popular go-karting attraction there.
During the row, AHR had made an offer to provide a gate with access during normal business hours but the entrance locked between 11pm and 7am.
This was rejected by the Cairngorms National Park Authority.
The application for the new access is being handled by G.H. Johnston Building Consultants Ltd, of Willow House, Stoneyfield Business Park, in Inverness.
The work includes a new pedestrian footpath and banks, with a bollard repositioned and overgrown shrubs either cutback or removed.
A spokesperson for the Cairngorms National Park Authority said yesterday (Tuesday): "We have been notified of the application by The Highland Council and the Cairngorms National Park Authority planning committee will have decided by this Friday whether to call in the application.
"There was a condition attached to the AHR master plan requiring that the route be re-opened and we hope this application will address this."
