News Release

Aberdeenshire Council publishes options for future land use to inform public debate

8th January 2009

All of the alternative proposals for development put forward for consideration in Aberdeenshire’s next local plan have been made public.

In an unprecedented step, Aberdeenshire Council has published the details of hundreds of proposals made to its planning policy team on its website.

The submissions have not yet been evaluated professionally by the team, but are being published in order to promote discussion and debate among the wider community.

More than 700 development proposals were received by Aberdeenshire Council, ranging in size from new settlements of 6,000 new homes to sites for single houses.

Each of these will be assessed and a recommendation published in an options paper, the “Main Issues Report”, expected to be available in May 2009. But even at this stage decisions will not be made on the new Local Development Plan. 

Representations received to the Main Issues Report will inform the Proposed Local Development Plan, which will probably be published in December 2009.

It will only be at this point that the variety of options put forward at the current stage will be whittled down to a firm set of final proposals by the council.

Thereafter a Local Plan Inquiry will be held to resolve any objections to the plan.

Development interests and landowners were invited in September 2008 to submit proposals they want to see included in the new Development Plan.

Community councils have also been asked to identify land they would like to see included in the options to be considered for the plan.

But Aberdeenshire Council is not seeking comments from the general public on the proposals received at the moment.

Planning officers are now assessing all the proposals submitted to try to identify sites suitable for development and which sites can be brought together into a “settlement strategy” to achieve the best outcomes for Aberdeenshire.

Planning Policy team leader, Piers Blaxter, urged conversation between Aberdeenshire’s communities and potential developers.

“The discussion needs to take place between developers and communities and at this stage the planning service can only act as a middleman in that conversation,” he said.

“It is much better to encourage a clear dialogue between the parties most affected by proposals.”

Chairman of the council’s Infrastructure Services Committee, Peter Argyle, said: “Over the course of the next year we need to make some hard decisions about where development for the next 15 years will be located.

“We feel that by publishing this information early we can have an informed debate about the options available to us.

“In the past communities have been asked to comment on sites without any indication of what the developers’ vision for the site may be, or without the community having an opportunity to feed back.

“By publishing this information and promoting debate, we hope to arrive at a land use plan that has a high degree of consensus.”

For more information on the proposals please visit: www.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/planning/localplan/ldpproposals.asp

Details of some of the development proposals by area:

Kincardine and Mearns

139 development proposals received. Bids range in size from a single dwelling house to mixed use developments of over 1,000 houses.

There are a large number of options put forward for consideration, presenting the planning authority with a good choice of possible scenarios for future development. 

The proposals are mainly concentrated to the north of the area, down the west of the A90 corridor from Portlethen to Stonehaven. In this area to the north are two proposals for new settlements.

Banchory Leggart proposes 3,000 houses, a business park and country park immediately South West of Aberdeen. Elsick is a proposal for 6,000 homes in a mixed use community to the North West of Newtonhill.

The main settlements have received significant proposals: 

Portlethen has received large proposals to the north and south, Stonehaven has received substantial proposals to the north, west and south. 

Generally to the south of the area, a large number of smaller proposals have been received. However, Laurencekirk has seen proposals to substantially increase the settlement.

Formartine 
 
More than 150 development proposal bids, ranging from single dwellings to large mixed-use developments which include housing, business, education and leisure facilities.

There is a high proportion of ‘bids’ in the corridor located between Blackdog and Ellon, to the north of Aberdeen City.

The area to the north of the Aberdeen City boundary, including Blackdog, Potterton and Balmedie, has proven to be very popular, due to its close location to Aberdeen city and the attraction of housing development in this location.

Many of the bids in this area are of a mixed-use nature and include employment and business opportunities.

Much of the land surrounding Ellon has also been proposed as potential development land, and this includes some very large mixed-used developments. 

Away from the Strategic Growth Areas, Turriff received a substantial number of bids and again these include a range of land uses, but predominantly proposals have been put forward for new housing development.

Garioch

166 proposals have been received.  These are largely centred around the area’s main settlements. 

With so many proposals received, it provides many options to choose from to meet the development targets in the Draft Structure Plan, and at the same time achieve sustainable economic development objectives.

In Inverurie there are a wide range of options with an area totalling 457 hectares. 

There are proposals to extend Thainstone Business Centre and develop more employment land north of Thainstone. In Inverurie itself, there is a proposal to extend the town centre northwards and increase the retail offer in the town.  

In Insch there are also a wide range of options, including a Scotia Homes mixed use proposal that has involved extensive public consultation.

There have been proposals for a large development in Kintore including a mix of housing and employment development.

There are a number of proposals in Blackburn including development of housing and employment to the south of the A96. 

There has been one proposal for a new town at Clinterty, which is on the Aberdeen City and Shire boundary. The proposal includes a mix of uses and all other necessary services. 

Banff and Buchan

In the Banff and Buchan area 64 development bids have been received from landowners and developers wishing to see their proposals included in the Main Issues Report.
 
A wide variety of proposals intended to meet Banff and Buchan’s land use needs in areas such as housing, employment, retail, commercial, leisure have been made to Aberdeenshire Council. 

As expected, the vast majority of proposals are for housing development and focus on expanding existing settlements, especially Banff/Macduff and Fraserburgh. 

The total number of housing and employment proposals comfortably exceeds the Draft Structure Plan’s required allocations, so in the coming months, communities and other stakeholders will have plenty of choices to make when considering which proposals will work best for the sustainable development and regeneration of the area over the next 12-15 years.

Buchan

Around 90 proposals have been received within Buchan, the majority on greenfield land. Submissions have been received for most of the settlements, from Cruden Bay to St Combs. 

Most of the proposals are concentrated along the A90(T) transport corridor and between Peterhead, Mintlaw and New Deer. Proposals range from dwellings in the countryside to large scale mixed use developments within existing settlements.  

The largest have been received in Peterhead and Mintlaw, where there are proposals for between 500 and 1,000 dwellings and other mixed uses.
 
Most proposals are for dwellings, but proposals for large-scale employment uses have been received in Hatton and Peterhead, taking advantage of the A90(T) and links to Ellon and Aberdeen.

The scale of some proposals could see the existing settlement almost doubling in size, such as in Crimmond, Mintlaw and Boddam.

Marr

108 development bids received for Marr, although this figure will probably be amended as detailed examination of the proposals will suggest that some bids should be combined, with others separated into two or more components where the proposed development envisages more than one use of the site.

Furthermore, a single party may bid for sites at several different locations, so less significance may be attached to this figure than might be supposed.   

Initially seven settlements can be identified as having the majority of proposals. Most proposals were received for Huntly and Banchory, while other settlements such as Aboyne, Alford Lumsden, Rhynie and Torphins have also seen developer interest. 

For the most part, the bids lie on the periphery of the settlements, although some may be several hundred metres beyond the settlement envelope, and some would be out of sight of it altogether.  

Larger bids tend to be more consistent with the current development pattern and the need to build on existing fabric and infrastructure, in the main.

Smaller bids tend to be found in the countryside where infrastructure may be a major inhibitor.

 

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