Objectors are demanding that details of a legal agreement over the controversial Park of Keir development be revealed before going before Stirling councillors for consideration.
Park of Keir Partners, who include Judy Murray, want to build 19 luxury homes on the land near Bridge of Allan along with a tennis centre and Sir Andy Murray Museum.
Last week Stirling Council confirmed the developers had signed a Section 75 legal agreement and announced that the process for securing required community benefits from the development was “nearing conclusion”.
The Section 75 covers a range of requirements the developer is legally obliged to deliver as part of the revised proposal and will be reported to the August 3 meeting of the council’s planning panel for final scrutiny.
However, there have been calls this week for the content of the agreement to be made public ahead of the panel outcome.
Inga Bullen, spokesperson for campaign group RAGE, said residents would “fight on to preserve this valuable area of greenbelt” despite the signing of the agreement.
She added: “Our elected councillors passed a motion in March 2018 that called for transparency on the conditions laid down by the [planning] minister to ensure the sports facility would be, as promised, of national importance. Where is the transparency? Is the revised plan of national importance? If not, there is no justification for the ‘enabling’ housing and the whole application should be thrown out.
“Are the ‘community benefits’ meeting the ‘affordability and accessibility’ conditions the minister made?
“The minister also set a condition to prevent the houses being built before the sports facility to address the risk of the developer deciding they do not want to build the sports facility after building the houses. This must be clear and unambiguous.
“Stirling Council cannot sign an agreement on a planning application that has significantly altered from the original. It should be submitted as a new application.”
Dunblane Community Council have called on Stirling Council to make the terms of the agreement public and for the planning panel to be open to the public.
Chair David Prescott said: “We are concerned that the Park of Keir Partnership’s original message of a sports facility which is ‘affordable and accessible’, and which was used to justify the project’s supposed national importance, has become ‘community access’. This is a meaningless term.
“It is clear that this reduced facility no longer meets the ‘national importance’ criterion.
“It is contrary to the rules of natural justice that the community cannot see exactly what has been agreed and what the Park of Keir Partnership are now proposing.”
Dunblane and Bridge of Allan ward councillor Alasdair Tollemache (Greens) added: “This agreement has come about after an extraordinary length of time, nearly four years . Scrutiny of the agreement now is crucial especially at the planning panel and this should not take place until it is open to the members of the public to attend.
“I call upon both the developers and the council to agree that the terms of the agreement are immediately released into the public domain. It is vital for this to happen now to show that the conditions set by the minister in 2017 have not been diminished and are achievable.”
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The initial application for the Park of Keir Development, which included a proposed tennis, golf, recreational and housing development near Dunblane, was rejected by Stirling’s councillors in 2015 after the blueprint attracted more than 1000 objections.
Following an appeal and subsequent public local inquiry, Scottish ministers issued a Notice of Intention to approve the development in 2017, pending agreement between the applicant and the council to secure: affordable housing; education contributions; community access to the tennis facilities; and an agreement that no further residential development takes place on the site.
A Stirling Council spokesperson said: “While the council understands the widespread community desire for detail on the Section 75 agreement for Park of Keir, Stirling Council must ensure it complies with its legal responsibilities in relation to disclosure of this agreement.
“In the meantime, officers are preparing a report for the planning and regulation panel on August 3, which will be made available to the public in advance of its presentation to the panel.
The meeting of the panel will be held remotely via Microsoft Teams in line with current protocol for all council meetings held during the Covid-19 Pandemic. A recording of the non-exempt elements of proceedings will be made publicly available immediately after.”
