Controversial plans for a halting site at a top north-east beauty spot will go before councillors next week – more than a year after travellers moved onto the site.
A group of families clubbed together to buy the land at North Esk Park, Northwater Bridge to make a permanent halting site for up to 10 caravans.
Work on the land, near St Cyrus National Reserve, began almost immediately after they arrived in September 2013, despite not having planning permission.
Aberdeenshire Council got a court order to halt the work, which prompted a lengthy legal battle after it was ignored.
In the meantime planning bosses began considering the applications for the site and, amid major concerns about flooding, recommended it for refusal. But before councillors could make an official decision, the plans were pulled at the 11th-hour.
Now the two retrospective applications – one for permanent halting site made up of eight pitches, a recycling point and roads; and the other for a temporary site of two pitches, toilet block, washroom, pumping station – have been resubmitted and are due to be considered by the Kincardine and Mearns area committee on Tuesday.
Although a final decision will be made by the full council, planning chiefs have again said they cannot support the plans despite the “proven and established need” for travellers sites in the region.
Director of infrastructure services Stephen Archer has told members that while the site may help meet the needs and rights of the travelling community – by giving them access to services such as education and health – and reduce the number of unauthorised camps, the site is an “urban development” in a rural landscape and poses too great a flood risk.
And said the site is not just unsuitable for a travellers’ site, but any development.
In a report, Mr Archer refers to concerns raised by Sepa, who claim just two of the 10 caravan stances would be above water if the site was to flood – which it has done in 2012 and 2013 – and that it would be it would be difficult for emergency vehicles to access it. The agency also claim that by the time a flood warning scheme upstream was triggered, the site would be under water.
Urging members to reject the scheme, Mr Archer states in his report: “While accepting that there is a social need for gypsy/traveller sites, the fact that the flood risk aspects relating to this location do not seem to have any prospect of being overcome means that the site cannot be considered to be an acceptable one for this form of development, or indeed any form of development.”