Controversial Cairngorms housing plans lodged
The battle lines are being drawn again over major housing plans for two more Strathspey villages.
Revised schemes have been proposed for Carrbridge and Nethy Bridge and both have now been called in by the Cairngorms National Park Authority earlier this week for determination.
Inverness-based Aviemore and Highland Developments want permission to build 96 houses, associated roads and footways at land bounded by Crannich Park, Rowan Park and Carr Road in Carrbridge.
At Nethy, Argyll Developments, also based in Inverness, want to construct a scheme of 58 homes with associated roads and footways on land at School Road and Craigmore Road.
Carrbridge community councillors are expected to discuss the latest housing plan for the village this evening (Thursday) but expectations are that a public meeting will be held.
One emphasis will be on the developers’ intention to use Carr Road as their access, the amended scheme dropping the plan for a new road from the south end of the village.
Carr Road is a one of the ‘safer routes to school’ walks and has no pavement and is already considered by many locals to be overused by vehicular traffic.
Badenoch and Strathspey Conservation Group convener Gus Jones is concerned by the impact on wildlife.
He said: "Yet again we are concerned to see astonishing deficiencies in the environmental surveys undertaken for the applicant to support this large development.
"We consider it fundamental that the Cairngorms National Park Authority as the competent authority requires surveys that reflect the high importance for wildlife conservation of this highly sensitive and remarkably rich area."
The outline plans for the Carrbridge site had been approved on appeal by Scottish Executive Reporters after being rejected by 4-3 votes by members of Highland Council’s Badenoch and Strathspey planning committee in June 2004.
The application for 117 homes bounded by Crannich Park, Rowan Park and Carr Road included plans for 24 affordable homes and had been opposed by the Cairngorms National Park Authority.
Developers said at the time they were "bending over backwards" to accommodate wildlife after invertebrate charity Buglife called for the scheme to be scrapped.
Buglife said that to go ahead would risk destroying a vital colony of narrow-headed wood ants in the area earmarked for development. The claim came hot on the heels of a survey which revealed at least 46 red squirrel dreys on the site.
The ant colony was one of only eight of its kind in the British Isles, and Buglife said that the loss of the population would be very likely if the development went ahead.
Developers Tulloch Homes later acquired the site with outline planning permission when they bought Aviemore and Highland Developments Ltd from local businessman Allan Munro and David Cameron.
The Inverness builders said at the time they were working to agree a solution which would enable the Carrbridge housing development to proceed while catering for environmental concerns.
The proposal had been dogged by controversy since the outset, with many residents claiming it would stretch local services to the limit whilst others cited the urgent need for housing for locals in Carrbridge.
There has also been similar controversy over plans for new housing in Nethy Bridge.
BSCG vice-convener Roy Turnbull said: "The original School Wood application in 2001 attracted the largest ever number of objections from people in Nethy Bridge of any planning application.
"However, those in favour of that original application were promised, in the words of the Highland Council report, that ‘there will be twenty plots - out of forty - available for self-build, ten of those guaranteed at lower cost for first time local buyers’.
"That permission has now lapsed, but are we now going to witness the developer reneging upon that promise? If so, it will not be the first time that big business has ridden roughshod over promises made to a small community, but it may well be the first where, at the same time, ancient woodland is allowed to be trashed within a national park."
