June 29 2023

A housing developer has voiced frustration at the slow pace of planning officials to progress 3,000 homes at Durieshill, a process which has been bogged down in bureaucracy for six years.

A last-minute decision to pull a Section 75 agreement on developer contributions from today's planning agenda proved the last straw for Springfield Properties chairman Sandy Adam, who stood outside council HQ to stage a one-man protest with a fibreglass snail in tow.

Adam said: “Springfield brought the solution to Stirling Council in 2016, and councillors instructed their officials to move forward with this development in 2019 when permission was granted. Since then, significant time and effort have been put into bringing this development to life, and yet five years later we have not been able to proceed.

“It is embarrassing for Stirling Council that we are in this position, unable to move forward because of the inaction of officers who have given no reasonable justification for these delays.”

The sticking point agreement relates to Springfield's financial contributions to the council to support infrastructure improvements that will make development possible but has proven to be a tortuous negotiating process.

4 Comments

#1 Posted by Whispering Andy on 29 Jun 2023 at 14:56 PM

Whisper it.......but this gent has my full backing. About time Council's were taken to task in their inefficient working practices. They should all be back in the office for a start - more chance of getting Lord Lucan on the phone than a planning or building control officer!

#2 Posted by TheFakeArchitect on 30 Jun 2023 at 09:00 AM

This is rather amusing but fair play to Mr Adam. Of course people will point out that he has his own and Springfield's interest to look after, however the amount of time lost because of local authority performance/incompetence is a disgrace and only seems to be getting worse. Why do a large majority (not all..) of council officials think they are above everyone else and have the given right not to respond to correspondence? I cant think of an e-mail that sits in my inbox for longer than 1/2 days before some form of response, yet Planner's and BCO's seem to think it acceptable to simply ignore for weeks/months? There's a deep rooted problem in a lot of these local authorities and hopefully things like a giant snail brings more attention to it.

#3 Posted by Shatner's Bassoon on 30 Jun 2023 at 09:22 AM

I think the Dargavel saga demonstrates the problems with rushing something like this.

I personally hope it stalls indefinitely as greenfield release is problematic and NPF4 should have taken a tougher stance.

#4 Posted by Mark C on 30 Jun 2023 at 10:29 AM

#3, you're correct, but BAE Systems have been working with a team of consultants on the ROF Bishopton masterplan for over a decade, so Renfrewshire Council should have had ample time to figure out what was required in terms of school capacity at Dargavel.

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