A proposal for a holiday park in the Mearns has been revised to address concerns raised by objectors.
In May a planning application for a holiday park at a former piggery at Dowrieburn in Luthermuir was submitted by one of the men behind the unauthorised St Cyrus Travellers’ site.
The Monarch Leisure and Park Homes application has now been reduced from 57 to 49 chalets after the scale of the proposed development “was noted as excessive by some representees”.
A planning submission has now been made to Aberdeenshire Council “to address all outstanding matters” after a number of issues were raised through the consultation process.
It stated: “Whilst this may seem like a small reduction, there will remain two chalets for staff, two for small retail units, a bistro and a reception, leaving 43 for holiday use.
“This is the absolute minimum that can be developed to allow for the viable remediation works to the site – given the results of the phase 2 environmental risk report.”
An associated application for a riverside park has also been submitted, incorporating drainage proposals for the holiday park.
Former storage of dismantled and damaged asbestos to the north of the site has led to the contamination of soils with asbestos fibres which will require remediation.
Because much of this area is within an active flood plain, capping the affected areas is not possible as it would constitute land raising.
The submission continued: “It is therefore going to be necessary to dispose of some material off-site to a suitable landfill facility.
“This will unfortunately come at a considerable cost to the developer, but will be a considerable benefit to the area over the status quo.
“Whilst not a reason to allow the development of the site, it is most certainly a material consideration that the refusal of planning permission would deny a viable opportunity to address an existing contaminant from the soil that could affect persons in the immediate vicinity.”
Chalets within the park will be offered as private holiday homes.
A key concern of objectors has been traffic impact as the site is served by narrow local roads.
The planning submission however predicts the scale of traffic the site will generate “is expected to be quite limited, and within the capacity of the road network”.
Additional passing places are proposed on the surrounding network to address the impact.
Sepa previously objected on the grounds of “a lack of information on flood risk, waste water drainage, surface water drainage and works adjacent to the water environment”.
Mearns Community Council also lodged an objection as it did not consider the application to be “beneficial to the community”.
As part of the submission of the revised package of information, Monarch Leisure has formally written to the community council to address the concerns raised by them.
Monarch Leisure director William McDonald – who also runs a luxury holiday park in Montrose – is associated with the Travellers’ site at North Esk Park in St Cyrus which was refused planning permission by Scottish Ministers last week after a lengthy legal battle.