The Planning Committee at South Lanarkshire Council has deferred an application for a housing development in Carluke due to uncertainty over safe walking routes for children.
The development would see 26 bungalows and 99 two-storey dwellings being built on Lanark Road in Braidwood.
Planning permission for this site was granted by the planning committee in April 2016 but a new application has been made to change the original house types.
The development has received two letters of objection from residents.
Objections include the loss of privacy to existing homes, the lack of safe walking routes for children to access the local primary school and the disruption the development could have to existing wildlife.
Objectors to the development also questioned whether children should be driven to school by bus due to the unsafe conditions they’d have to walk in.
The lack of clarity over safe pathways for school children was a key concern for councillors due to the nature of Lanark Road.
Councillor Martin Grant Hose said: “It’s on the busy Lanark Road.
"There are pavements on either side, but crossing that road is very difficult, there is no pedestrian crossing, so even as an adult crossing there is very difficult.
“It is not suitable for children in any shape or form.”
He added: “And you can’t bus people, it's only down the road, that’s going against all of our environmental plans.
"You can’t bus people a distance that would take children around five minutes to walk
“My point is, there needs to be a substantial pedestrian crossing in that area to allow children to cross.”
Councillor Maureen Devlin suggested making it compulsory to have a system in place to ensure children are safe.
She added: “Can we put in the conditions that there is a controlled crossing so that the children do have access
“We are trying to encourage children to walk to school or cycle to school.”
Councillor Alex Allison agreed, saying: “If we are wanting them to be able to walk, we need to ensure that there is a safe walking distance from the development site to the primary school, not just the crossing that needs to be addressed.”
The decision for this development has been pushed back to the committee’s December meeting due to a lack of information and details on which school children would have to walk to and their access via foot to the school.
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