The local review body has upheld a decision made by local planning officers for Perth College UHI to erect a noise barrier at its development of all-weather pitches.
In December 2021 the council approved plans for all-weather sports pitches, an access road and floodlights.
This week Perth College UHI appealed for one of the planning conditions to be removed saying the “hugely significant” sums needed to erect an acoustic fence made the project unviable.
The development is on land behind the Academy of Sport and Wellbeing at Perth College UHI’s Crieff Road campus.
The five-a-side, netball and multi-activity 3G sports pitches will only be available to those who are members of a club, a member of the Academy of Sport and Wellbeing or attending an event.
In the report of handling officers explained the proposal was advertised as a “Bad Neighbour” development due to noise and light disturbance.
Despite the proximity to housing and 26 neighbouring households being notified there were no objections.
Environmental health approved the application with five conditions. One was for use of the pitch and floodlights to be restricted to 0900 to 2200 Monday to Friday, 0900 to 1800 on a Saturday and 0900 to 2100 on a Sunday.
Another - which Perth College UHI this week appealed - was for an acoustic fence to be erected to prevent noise disturbing nearby houses. The condition stated it go up either prior to completion or prior to the facility being used - whichever is sooner.
In an appeal submitted by Sports Labs Limited on behalf of Perth College UHI they cited concern the fencing costs would make the project unviable and the barriers might encourage anti-social behaviour.
The appeal statement - put before Perth and Kinross Council’s local review body this week - said: “We fear this would encourage anti-social behaviour and create a larger problem for the college and the nearby residents.
“Based on the length and height of the fencing conditioned, the project would incur an additional £55,550.00 (excluding VAT). This is a hugely significant sum and unfortunately makes the project unviable from a cost perspective.”
Perth College UHI said it had received a rise in booking requests for five-a-side due to the re-development of Bell’s Sports Centre but would be unable to meet them.
When the local review body met virtually on Tuesday, April 5 to review the appeal all three councillors were in unanimous agreement the noise barrier was needed.
Cllr Ian James said: “You’re going to get a lot of activity going on to 9pm and 10pm - that’s quite late in terms of light and noise pollution.
“We’re always told with planning cost isn’t a planning consideration and it seems that this request is based on cost so I’ll uphold the officers’ decision on this one.”
Cllr Willie Wilson said it was “essential to protect the amenity of the houses roundabout and the college will need to find some way of finding the resources to come up with another solution”.
Convener Lewis Simpson said there was a need for the barrier not just for the volume of the noise but for “the nature of the noise” with “the degree of foul language that seems to accompany particularly football”.
He added: “I would have thought this is something anyone involved with synthetic pitches should know. One would have thought Perth College - who is involved from an academic point of view - would know perfectly well neighbourhood nuisance and noise is an issue with these types of synthetic pitches.
“It’s a little late to come along now with not quite the violin play to us but to expect us to allow them not to have any mitigation measures at all as a money-saving exercise.”
After the meeting a Perth College UHI spokesperson said “Despite there being no objections to our original planning application, we were disappointed to hear the outcome of our planning appeal.
“The construction of an acoustic fence will add significant cost to our proposed five-a-side football pitches project. We will now review our options to determine the viability in taking this investment into our campus and our local community forward.”
