The Scottish Government has backed West Lothian Council’s rejection of the latest controversial plans to build a park and ride car park in Kirknewton, saying it posed a risk to pedestrian safety.
Stirling Developments had appealed the refusal of its proposal to build a fifty space car park on what is open farmland on the edge of the village close to the war memorial.
But a Reporter assigned by Holyrood Division of Planning and Environmental Appeals (DPEA) agreed with councillors that the footpath leading up to the station could not be made safer for pedestrians, no matter what remedial engineering was put in place.
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The decision makes the building of a park and ride car park in the village a near impossibility unless a new site can be identified.
Issuing her decision the Reporter, Rosie Leven said: “Even at existing traffic levels I have observed vehicles moving very close to the edge of the pavement.
"I consider that there is an underestimation in the appellant’s transport assessment of the expected traffic ... and consequently that there would be an increased risk to pedestrian safety from additional vehicles turning left from Station Road onto the B7031.
“I agree with the council that two large vehicles passing each other could result in a clash of vehicles or could force the vehicles to swing closer to or onto the pavement, endangering pedestrians, particularly if the vehicles had low wing mirrors.”
The Reporter said that on her visit to the site just north of the station and on a wide road junction she had witnessed “a number of heavy goods vehicles, either meeting each other or meeting a double decker bus on the road on the section of road between the proposed pedestrian access and the station, causing both vehicles to slow and, in one case, causing one to move onto the southern verge of the road.”
Mrs Leven said that the addition of safety barriers would reduce the width of the pavement “to an unacceptable level”.
Stirling has made four attempts to produce viable park and ride plans, but all have either been rejected by councillors or failed to make it off the drawing board.
The park and ride was included as a condition of the original development plan for the huge Calderwood housing estate on the eastern edge of East Calder around just over two miles south. The development will eventually see 2,300 new homes.
This latest plan for fifty spaces was much reduced from an original concept of a 300 space car park.
The potential for future demand had fuelled councillor’s anxieties when considering the fifty space plan. Neighbours of the site, as well as the village community council, had objected citing road dangers in the area which lies just north of a dangerous level crossing alongside the Victorian built Kirknewton station.
The A71 into Edinburgh is already heavily congested with commuter traffic. Many of the new home owners already living in Calderwood have come from Edinburgh and commute into the city, and there were letters of support for the park and ride from Calderwood.
Villagers in Kirknewton claimed that newsletters circulated by the developers suggested that the future build-out of Calderwood would not be viable if the Kirknewton facility did not go ahead. Stirling rejected this when addressing the committee.
Stirling had been running a bus service from Calderwood up to the station for commuters. The firm has been contacted by the Local Democracy Reporting Service for a comment.
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