The old saying about waiting for a bus then two come along could ring true for supermarkets in an island village.
Rival proposals for two new supermarkets just a few hundred yards apart have been lodged for consideration by councillors next week.
The two sites are on the northern outskirts of Portree on Skye.
But council planning officials have made very different recommendations for the proposals, which both include a filling station.
While a plan by Rubicon Land Ltd and Lochalsh and Skye Housing Association is recommended for approval, councillors are being asked to reject Oatridge Ltd’s proposals for a slightly larger supermarket.
The housing association is selling land at its Home Farm housing development to Rubicon, which wants to build a near 36,000sqft store.
Access would be taken from an existing roundabout on Home Farm Road.
The Oatridge development would be slightly more than 36,000sqft, with access from a separate roundabout on Home Farm Road.
Planners say that the application should be refused because the store “fails to integrate” with the village, and that there is “insufficient information” about drainage proposals and the quantity of peat to be removed as part of the development.
However, in a report to go before the north planning applications committee, area planning manager Dafydd Jones said that if councillors were minded to approve both applications, further information on the cumulative impact of the developments would be needed.
Mr Jones said that it would be necessary to look at the effects on other stores in Portree, as well as those in Broadford and Kyle.
He said: “A decision to approve both applications in the absence of this information would render both applications vulnerable to legal challenge as the decisions would not be based on appropriate appraisal of their cumulative impact in policy terms.”
No one from Oatridge was available for comment.
Lachie MacDonald, the chief executive of Lochalsh and Skye Housing Association, said that it was hoped that the Scottish Government would allow proceeds from the sale of the land to be used to build more affordable housing locally.