Agenda and minutes

There were no apologies for absence.

There were no declarations of interest.

The Chair, Councillor Amanda Hampsey, welcomed everyone to the meeting.  She explained that no person present would be entitled to speak other than the Members of the Local Review Body (LRB) and Mr Jackson, who would provide procedural advice if required.

 

Before proceeding further, the Chair invited Mr Jackson to address the matter of an email received from Mr Mark Knowles on 15 August 2023.

 

Mr Jackson referred to the previous meeting on 14 August 2023 when the Members of the LRB agreed that they had sufficient information before them and the meeting was continued until today, to allow time for the Members to seek advice from Officers on the preparation of a competent Motion to approve this proposal.

 

Mr Jackson advised that following the meeting on 14 August 2023, an email was received on 15 August 2023 and circulated by Mr Mark Knowles, Objector, to all Members of the LRB.  Mr Knowles had asked that the LRB take his comments into consideration.

 

Mr Jackson advised the Members of the LRB that if they wished to take these comments into the process the meeting would need to be adjourned to another day in order to give all interested parties the opportunity of commenting on the contents of this email.  He pointed out that there would be no opportunity for anyone to comment further on any comments received from the interested parties.  At the conclusion of this process arrangements would be made to hold a further meeting of the LRB.

 

Councillor Kain advised that he had sufficient information before him to proceed with determining the application today.  He advised that he had a Motion that he would like to put forward at the appropriate time.

 

Councillor Hardie also advised that he had sufficient information.  He referred to comments submitted by the Objector not raising any new information.  Councillor Hardie confirmed that he remained of the view that as long as Transport Scotland objected he was minded to reject this application.

 

Councillor Hampsey noted the comments from Councillors Kain and Hardie and agreed that she too had sufficient information to proceed to determine the case.  The Members of the LRB agreed to take the comments submitted by the Objector into consideration and Councillor Hampsey invited Councillor Kain to present his Motion.

 

Motion

 

Having considered all the information before me today and at the earlier callings of this LRB I would like to put the following motion forward to enable the granting of this application.

 

This particular planning application (20/01901/PPP) has been on the books since 20/10/2020 with a decision to refuse on 17/02/2023 a full two years and four months.

Transport Scotland has objected to this application on grounds of road safety in relation to access/egress onto/from the main road (A83) in particular, when travelling north, when vehicles may be waiting to right turn from the main carriageway. However, they did not object to the granting of the permission given for commercial works, forestry and extraction, for heavy slow vehicles without road/access improvements other than temporary signage.

 

I believe that there sufficient grounds to approve this application in this case through, SG LDP TRAN 4 New and Existing, Public Roads and Private Access Regimes; and there is clear, objective and substantive reasoning to overrule Transport Scotland’s objection in that a precedent was set where Transport Scotland did not object to permission being granted for heavy goods vehicles to use the access/egress to/from main road, albeit for a limited number of journeys.

 

That permission was also granted without the need for any upgrading of the access road up to the properties which I find surprising due to the type of vehicles that were to be used during that process, which would in my view have been likely to cause more damage to the road than vehicles that are likely to be going to a house. 

In Transport Scotland’s letter of 13th June it refers to an increase of 5 – 6 two way trips per day. This is a figure taken from the TRICS database but there is no context as to what type of development these figures apply. The applicant suggests 2 – 2.5 trips per day.

 

The objections from Transport Scotland suggest the proposed development would result in increased vehicle flows at junction and an intensification of waiting and right turning from the trunk road. However, the existing junction as configured already serves a settlement of 5 residential properties and has done so without incident.

Transport Scotland has also previously not objected to the use of the junction for large slow moving vehicles, citing that this only applied to 10 low-loader trips. However, the applicant’s agents Pell Frischmann points to the large number of supporting vehicles that would have additionally accessed the junction on a daily basis.

 

Most significant in relation to flows of traffic on A83, Pell Frischmann point out the nearest traffic count site (ATC08055), operated by Transport Scotland, is approximately 4 km north of the junction.

 

The most recent traffic data available is for 2019 (pre-Covid) and shows average daily traffic to be 2,817 two-way movements per day. They also state that, based on the Design Manual for Roads and Bridges (DMRB) Vol 15 part 5, the theoretical capacity for A83 is 43,200 two-way vehicle movements per day.

 

Based on above and while the likely daily additional number of movements at junction is disputed, even 6 extra movements per day in the context of this situation is not excessive and does not in my opinion pose significant extra risk to road safety at the access.

 

On balance therefore, I don’t think that there will be an intensification in the use of the junction which will have any impact on the safety of the road, at the location and as such there is no need for the requirement of the 215m visibility to the South of the junction being necessary and the current visibility is sufficient.

 

For the same reason, I also consider that the upgrading  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.