The owner of land near the M74 has been ordered to clear vehicles from part of his site after a complaint over an “unsightly dump”.
Colin Peters appealed to the Scottish Government after Glasgow City Council said he had to remove the vehicles, and other materials, as they were “adversely affecting the visual amenity”.
Initially the enforcement notice “erroneously” included the whole site in front of The Sheddings at the junction of Hamilton Road and Roundknowe Road, Broomhouse. However, a revised plan was then submitted which revealed the order applied only to a fenced area to the east of the land.
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Council officials said the site is split into two, both used for the storage of vehicles, but one half is “immune from enforcement action due to time lapsed”.
An independent reporter, appointed by the Scottish Government, dismissed Mr Peters’ appeal as she concluded the items have a negative visual impact and she had been “advised that there is no planning consent currently in place” for storage.
The notice was served by the council following a complaint, with Uddingston Pride, a conservation group, claiming residents had expressed concern over “the unsightly vehicle dump at the entrance to our village”.
Alison Cameron, who chairs the group, told the council: “What started out as an emergency breakdown area for maintenance vehicles while the roadworks on the motorway were underway appears to also now function as a dumping ground for vehicles in various states of disrepair; a number are clearly not roadworthy."
Mr Peters, in his response to the initial plan for the whole site, argued there had been no adverse impact on the visual amenity and said the council’s order was excessive and the use of the land was lawful. He said the site had been used during construction of the M74 by contractors for storage of vehicles and materials as well as a work area.
Since construction of the motorway, the site has been used for “the storage of vehicles, caravans and containers, when they are not in use on construction contracts elsewhere”. Mr Peters is a director of Strang Recovery Ltd, a company involved in the supply, retrieval and storage of materials related to construction projects, which is based on the site.
His appeal argued the current use of the land is “consistent with the use which has been made of the site for many years, without complaint”.
Mr Peters claimed the notice was effectively a response to the council’s “own failure to procure the clearing and tidying of the land once construction of the M74 motorway was complete” and “now they require a private individual to do so”. “This is a fundamental unfairness and an unnecessary imposition,” he said.
Following the complaint to the council, officials decided there had been a breach of planning rules as the siting of vehicles and other materials was “adversely affecting the visual amenity of the land and the surrounding area”. They ordered the removal of the vehicles by April this year unless an appeal was lodged.
“The appellant states the site has been an industrial use for many years, irrespective of the previous use, the current siting of vehicles is clearly detrimental to visual amenity," officials stated in a submission to the reporter.
The reporter, Sinead Lynch, visited the site in June this year and found many items are “visible from the A721 which runs to the south of the appeal site, both from the road and from the footpath”.
“I note that the presence of trees along the boundary and within the site does obscure the items stored to an extent, but I find that overall, the appearance of the site adversely affects the amenity of the locality," she added.
Ms Lynch said the negative visual impact is due to “the neglected state of the items stored onsite, and the haphazard storage of those items”. She concluded that “regardless of who has left the items on site” the order to remove them is “reasonably necessary”.
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