Two major developments proposed for the outskirts of Stonehaven were roundly rejected by Aberdeenshire councillors yesterday.
Barratt East Scotland and the Drum Property Group had tabled proposals which included 1,500 homes, a supermarket and community facilities at the Mill of Forest site, Kirktown, Fetteresso.
FM Ury also applied for a supermarket, petrol station and 50-bedroom hotel on the Ury Estate, where the company is already building 230 homes and a championship golf course.
Both applications were refused after being debated at a meeting of the full council at Woodhill House yesterday.
More than 140 letters of objection had been lodged with the authority about the Mill of Forest proposal.
Council planners recommended refusal, saying the site was not included in the local development plan, would result in a loss of prime agricultural land and would have a negative impact on the landscape of the area.
Robert Gray, the council’s head of planning, said the application, along with four other similar proposals, had been scrutinised in detail by the Kincardine and Mearns area committee and that the preference for a supermarket site was at the Chapelton of Elsick “new town” development further north, near Newtonhill.
An independent assessment of the impact of the Mill of Forest scheme found it would have an “adverse” effect on the “vitality and viability” of Stonehaven town-centre.
Speaking on behalf of the applicants, Ian Fraser, from Aberdeen-based architects Halliday Fraser Munro, told councillors the development “addressed the need for expansion” in Stonehaven.
He took issue with concerns from planners that the scheme would be detrimental to the town-centre, and argued that the Morrisons supermarket on the edge of Inverurie was a good example of a new development on the periphery of a town centre that had worked well.
Councillors overwhelmingly backed the recommendations of officials and the local area committee, voting by 52-7 to refuse planning permission in principle.
Consideration of the Ury Estate plans prompted a continuation of the debate about out-of-town supermarket developments and the potential impact on the centre of Stonehaven.
Local members Graeme Clark and Peter Bellarby both argued that the estate was the wrong site for this type of development.
Councillors voted by 52-2 to reject the application.