Angus villagers have claimed a victory in their fight against a biomass briquette operation.
Councillors threw out Roderick Hill’s retrospective bid for a production plant at Douglastown, between Forfar and Glamis, which campaigners said had made their lives hell over the past year.
The builder’s yard site adjacent to the A94 Forfar-Perth road was at the centre of an unauthorised development controversy some years ago, and the overwhelming rejection of the scheme may now signal swift enforcement action.
The part-retrospective bid had been aimed at regularising the operation, which involves shredding and drying machinery, with officials recommending a series of stringent conditions they said would protect the amenity of residents.
Those included a ban on both machines working together, working hours restrictions and a two-month window for set noise levels to be met.
The conditions failed to satisfy objectors. Councillors Ronnie Proctor and Iain Gaul led the opposition to Mr Hill’s proposal.
Mr Gaul said: “This company knows they have to get permission, they know the rules, so why are they not following them.”
The bid drew almost 40 letters of representation from 20 households, and objector Peter Anderson said the operation of the facility for the past months had been “like living with an open sawmill at the bottom of your garden”.
He told the committee: “This has taken over our small village when no planning permission has been sought or granted.
“It’s an industrial, grinding, incessant noise that goes on all day,” said Mr Anderson, describing a stone crusher on the site as sounding like “a washing machine full of bricks”.
“This isn’t the case of a new developer making an honest mistake. The residents of Douglastown and Jericho beg you to refuse this application in its entirety.”
Mr Hill’s agent told councillors the builder’s yard had suffered as a result of the recession and the biomass production plant was a diversification that had grown to the point where planning permission was now being sought.
He gave members an assurance that the applicant would comply with the stringent conditions and the completed proposal, once fully implemented, would result in a completely different operation in terms of environmental impact.
Committee convener Rob Murray, moving approval of the application, said: “It’s unfortunate that a planning application was not sought.
“However, what we are being asked to approve is not what currently exists I would certainly be against that.”
The bid failed when Mr Murray failed to find a seconder, and councillor Bob Spink urged officials to bring an enforcement report forward as soon as possible.
“I take a very dim view of retrospective applications, but here we have an operation that’s been running for 10 months and there are complaints about noise and dust.”
Councillor Bill Bowles said: “The flaunting of the planning process is not something we should be rewarding with planning permission.
“The applicant has been totally negligent in the way he has gone about this.”