Perthshire plant hire business Morris Leslie has been ordered to replant trees its workers are alleged to have removed from an area opposite Grange, near Errol, without proper permission.
Council officers have twice previously refused to grant the company part retrospective consent to form parking spaces for commercial vehicles at the site, understood to be known locally as Gourdiehill, where the trees have been removed.
One officer noted in a report of handling prepared over two years ago following a site inspection that “substantial tree felling and engineering works had been undertaken to form hardstanding and drainage infrastructure,” without authorisation.
The report said: “This loss of a structural landscape buffer means that an open storage use is not acceptable on this mixed use site due to the increase in visibility from the road and neighbouring residential properties.”
And one local complained to the council a year later after Morris Leslie reapplied for part retrospective consent for the development: “This planning application is in part retrospect and an area of protected open space has already been cleared by the applicant.
“No further development of this protected open space should be permitted. The applicant should be made to undo the work that was done prior to the planning application being submitted and required to take steps to mitigate for the loss of planting in the protected open space area.”
The local authority has now served an enforcement notice on the company requiring it to remove the hardstanding formed in the area as well as soil dumped within remaining woodland and plant new poplars “in a random planting arrangement across the site”.
The enforcement notice said: “The planning harm associated with the alleged breach of planning control is the removal of the woodland from a zoned area of open space and the formation of a hardstanding area is detrimental to the landscape character and visual impact of the area.
“The deposition of soil materials within an existing woodland is detrimental to the [remaining] trees, due to asphyxiation.
“Accordingly, the council considers that enforcement action requiring the removal of the soil materials from the woodland, the removal of hardstanding and the replanting of trees is both justified and necessary.”
However, a spokesperson for Morris Leslie told the Perthshire Advertiser this week: “The enforcement notice which has been issued has several inaccuracies and we will be responding directly through the appropriate channels regarding its contents.”
