Planning permission has been granted for a forestry road that locals feel could have a huge impact on Comrie residents.
Those living along the Glascorrie road were shocked to discover that Perth and Kinross Council planners had approved the creation of a road to facilitate timber harvesting from Auchingarrich Forest on the Torlum Ridge.
Access to the track will be from the very narrow Glascorrie road – a route residents maintain is simply not suitable for the heavy volume of traffic that will be needed to transport the timber.
It is understood that none of those that will be impacted by the work knew anything about the application because the location of the forest road is outwith the required 30-metre neighbour notification limit.
Glascorrie residents took their concerns to a recent meeting of Comrie Community Council.
Afterwards, Comrie CC’s Lindsay Brown explained: “There are potential issues with the proposed development, not least of which are there could be movement of up to 700 lorries down the Glascorrie road, along Strowan Road and onto Braco Road and over the Langside.
“Some of these roads, particularly the Glascorrie, are just not suitable for that.
“The other major issue for householders who live on Glascorrie is that all their water comes from springs on Torlum and there is grave concern that those springs will be contaminated.
“Fundamentally, our biggest concern is that there was no consultation on this at all, not necessarily going in to the rights and wrongs of it, but the fact that nobody has been able to question how suitable this particular plan is. And nobody from the council actually did any site visit before agreeing approval of the planning permission.
“They only have to notify people within 30 metres but obviously in a remote location such as this everyone is more than 30 metres away.”
Glascorrie residents have written to Perth and Kinross Council’s chief executive calling for the work to be halted until a proper consultation can be held with the community, and they have also lodged a planning appeal with the Scottish Government.
They are contesting the validity of the planning permission and highlighting the wider implications of the project for the area.
They have created their own report in relation to the issue, which states: “The residents fully recognise the rights of landowners to manage their lands and extract benefit and value from their holdings.
“However, the scale and volume of this particular extraction is totally inappropriate with potentially severe health and safety, livelihood, resident disruption and ecological consequences.
“It also appears nonsensical given the existing topography and infrastructure of the Torlum Ridge which suggest far less impactful and viable alternatives exist which would avoid the Glascorrie Road altogether and utilise far more suitable and appropriately designated routes.”
Local resident Steve Mallen compiled the dossier.
He said: “We are calling for this planning permission to be revoked on the grounds of incorrect process – a project of this scale should never have been delegated down to council officers, thereby bypassing councillors and proper consultation, leaving residents totally in the dark.”
Neighbour Murray Fleming said: “It seems like it’s more difficult to get approval for an extension to your garage than it is to have a full commercial logging lorry route that affects an entire community. The planning application implies they are just putting in another forest track but in fact this is a whole new haul route for large scale harvesting to bring the timber out a different way onto a narrow, fragile, unclassified road that is a tiny but essential route for many residents some of whom are vulnerable.
“It’s going to adversely affect all the residents of Glascorrie Road but we have had no say in this at all. PKC are refusing to provide sufficient passing places to allow us safe and reasonable access to our homes. We have been told we could have to reverse up to a kilometre around bends in the face of 44-tonne logging lorries.
“I think it’s definitely been underhand because they would have found it much more difficult had we all objected if we had known about it.
“Of course then it wouldn’t have gone to delegated powers so I think it’s been very deliberate the way it’s been done.”
Strathearn ward SNP councillor Stewart Donaldson has also written to PKC to express his concerns over the lack of consultation with local residents who will be impacted.
He is also querying whether any consideration was given to a hydrological survey being carried out as private water supplies for households in the area come from the Torlum Ridge.
