wilsywilsy

Super - I'm glad we agree that it's not an industrial area.

I suspect the planners didn't find that very convincing: "We asked the minister for his land, he said thou shalt not. So we looked at a wee ground switcheroo for some allotments with the church land and the minister said thou shalt not. Tulloch were already milking the arse out of the other land around the GSP and we.... sorry they.... said the land was unavailable..... so what else could we do except choose Fairways".

I'm not familiar with the Drakies development - that sounds like a crap outcome. But councillors need to feel the heat from residents when these issues surface. For context, the Kart Raceway building is an indoor leisure facility that covers circa 0.2 hectares - this project is 1.7 hectares populated with 52 huge industrial containers and related transformers and control units.

Other than the mahoosive housing estate you reference, the planners and council have also rejected at least one other planning application for small scale housing and chalet developments at this site for the same reasons. I think you are missing the scale of this thing. 1.7 hectares is a big chunk of land being turned to heavy industrial use in a predominantly residential area.

As the planners said today, it has to be "the right development in the right place" and they challenged the applicants to prove they considered, and ruled out, other sites first. I bet they didn't - they have probably just tried to use this land because David Cameron already owns it.

It's protected green space as per the well published Inner Moray Firth Development Plan, that, ya know..... folk considered as intelligent land investors might be aware of. That means it is protected from development and why all attempts to build houses here has always been rejected. I don't see it as "Neanderthalic" for the planners to point this out - they are doing their job.

The councillors certainly sounded like they had been buttered up. I noticed the burning eyes of the ICT board sitting in the gallery punching their palms to apply some final pressure on them to relent. Amongst other things, the planners rightly pointed to the proposed category of usage being industrial (not compatible with surroundings) and the site being designated green open space as part of IMLDP2. The councillors were fishing for the category to be "softened" for this case and for a site visit to see the impact on the green space in-situ. One councillor was hilariously trying to describe the aesthetics as looking like a golf course maintenance shed - I have never seen a golf course with 3m high sheds and a footprint of a modern football stadium.

Just because a lot of effort has gone into it, and some mitigations have been added belatedly, does not mean the council should approve it - even on appeal. They have been trying to whore off bits of the golf course for years and have always failed. This latest attempt is not a routine planning application. I find it staggering that the club, and others, seem surprised they have met understandable resistance.