I had written in my final report for Portlethen’s Clochandighter community magazine that the a planning application for more houses in Hillside was due to come back before the Kincardine and Mearns Area Committee meeting in June.

Well, I wrote that at the beginning of May, and things have changed!

Area manager Bruce Stewart wrote the following in a report for councillors:

“Update as of June 2022 –
The Head of Planning and Economy has advised that there are still a number of technical details to be agreed with the applicants andtherefore the planning application will not be reported to Area Committee until after the summer recess.”

This application is controversial because of the impact on the school roll at Hillside School. The application for 175 houses had originally been approved in 2019 subject to a resolution of concerns about capacity at the school.

At that time, it had been anticipated that children would be rezoned to Portlethen Primary or Fishermoss School. If the rezoning proposals were not accepted, then the application would have to come back to the committee. As Education Scotland (a Scottish Government body) objected to the rezoning – as well as local opposition – this is resulting in the application having to come back to the committee, following discussions between the Planning Service and the developer, Stewart Milne.

Aberdeenshire Council has all planning applications on its website: https://www.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/planning/public-access/… You will need the application reference, which is APP/2016/0934.

However as matters have not yet been finalised in this application, they are subject to change. All the relevant information will be included in the report to be presented to councillors later in the year, and these will be available on the council website about a week before the meeting at https://committees.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/committees.aspx?commid=8