Pond row could sink £15M Aviemore store plan
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PLANS for a badly needed £15 million plus new Tesco store in Aviemore creating 150 new jobs could be sunk because of a row over a pond on the development site, the "Strathy" can reveal.
The retail giant and the Cairngorms National Park Authority planners are understood to be at loggerheads over the future of the damselfly that have made their home at the lochan.
Tesco want planning consent for the store at the rear of their site at Myrtlefield which would involve filling in the lochan – once part of the long gone Santa Claus Land at the Aviemore Centre – to create part of the car park.
But Cairngorms National Park planners are insisting that the pond and the Northern Damselfly – which are fairly common in the strath but not so elsewhere – must be protected.
The application for full planning permission for the 45,000 square feet (4,185 square metres) store which will be three times larger than the existing supermarket in the village centre was lodged in early June.
Tesco and the park authority have been in discussion since then but it is understood that the application would be recommended for refusal as things stand and planners want the company to reconsider their position.
According to sources, that would mean Tesco would have to re-start the planning process and public consultation which could delay the opening date by another 18 months to two years.
Community leaders angered by the delay have pointed out that as well as the Northern Damselfly, there is also an old shopping trolley and fire extinguisher inhabiting the lochan at present.
Watchdog vice-chairman Bill Lobban said: "I think it’s disgraceful.
"This is going to cost the village a £15 million development and 150 new jobs. This project is far more valuable to Aviemore than it is to Tesco."
Commenting on the park’s preferred plan, he said: "It would be ludicrous to build the store jammed up 14 metres up against the streetscape of Grampian Road.
"For some reason the national park want this big tin building parked up on the street – no matter how you describe it, it is going to be a tin building even if it is clad in timber."
Mr Fergus Ewing, (SNP) Inverness and Nairn MSP, said most people recognise the current store is "bursting at the seams" and that the car park is too small.
"I gather that the lochan is a cesspit – perhaps the national park authority argue that it is a fine example of a cesspit," he said.
FOR MORE REACTION AND THE CAIRNGORMS NATIONAL PARK AUTHORITY'S RESPONSE SEE TODAY'S STRATHY AND LET US KNOW WHAT YOU THINK!
