News from the Chapelton liaison committee meeting at St Ternan’s Church near Muchalls. Here are some points which caught my attention.

– It will be summertime before the bus stops are removed from the A90 at the Newtonhill flyover with services transferring to the new park and choose. No fixed date yet. Between now and then parking spaces will be provided. There will also be a shuttle bus into the new community.

– Work on an extension to Portlethen medical centre should start within a year, with the funding evenly split between the practice and NHS Grampian.

Good news for some Portlethen bus passengers this afternoon. From 20 April southbound Route 7 buses are to travel along Muirend Road (past Whinpark Circle and Broomfield Road) and Bruntland Road to rejoin the A90, rather than heading straight on to the A90 after Asda. Stagecoach managing director Steve Walker gave the news to residents and local councillors at a meeting in Woodhill House this afternoon. This means more people can access the buses more easily.

I had put the idea to Steve Walker some weeks ago when I met him at the bus station in Aberdeen. The suggestion had come from my wife, who uses the buses regularly and chats to fellow passengers.

Today Aberdeenshire councillors set the budget for the coming financial year. Here are the key points:

• Council tax frozen, for an eighth year. If the tax were to be increased the Scottish Government would penalise the council by £3.5m.
• Council rents to go up by 4.5% from 6 April. That takes the average weekly rent to £65.73, an increase of £2.83. All the money raised from rents is reinvested in the housing stock. A national independent survey showed that 79% of Aberdeenshire tenants said that their rents represent good or very good value. Aberdeenshire has about 13,000 homes; some 8000 were sold over the years; and some 14,000 are on the waiting list.
• £50 million of savings may need to be made by 2019/20. That’s roughly 10% of our budget.
  We will maintain teacher numbers, but the challenge is to recruit teachers. Currently there are about 185 full-time equivalent vacancies.
• Some £27 million will be spent in total on our roads (we have the equivalent mileage of roads to go from here to Damascus). The council will continue its programme of converting street lights to LED.
• The capital spend was also agreed, which totals nearly £1 billion over the next 15 years. This includes £11,066,000 for Hillside Primary School and £65 million on the Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route.

You can find out more at http://www.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/

Quite a few topics of interest today at a very long Kincardine and Mearns Area Committee meeting:

• Grants were awarded to Maryculter Hall Users Committee (£600 to transfer a defibrillator to Corbie Hall); Newtonhill Village Association (£930 for a small marquee, two gazebos and four large bins for the Skateraw Fair); Maryculter Woodland Trust (£1000 towards the promotional costs of purchasing the wood from the Forestry Commission); Bettridge Centre (£1092 towards a dishwasher); and Safespace (£1000 towards the cost of resources at Portlethen Academy for the new group).
• The former toilet block in Portlethen is to be transferred to the Men’s Shed for a rent of £100 a year, for 15 years.
• Portlethen Academy acting head teacher Lorraine Scott told councillors about how pupils are doing. Results are in line with, or slightly ahead of, similar schools. She said that various initiatives are under way to improve matters. These include more succinct information being presented to children and parents, and making assertive mentoring available to pupils in S4, S5 and S6.
• The school roll at Portlethen Primary School is likely to be capped at 415, with effect from August 2015. Officers already know how many children will be starting at the school this August, and the school will be within the 415 ceiling. Siblings will still be accepted. The impact will be that out-of-zone requests will be turned down. These youngsters can be accommodated at Banchory Devenick, Fishermoss or Newtonhill. This is an interim measure until a rezoning exercise is completed and Hillside Primary school opens in August 2016. The education committee will make the final decision.

The meeting also heard that there is an ambition to expand the nursery provision at Fishermoss.

• Planning permission was granted for the erection of two houses at Stripeside, Netherley, replacing two redundant farm buildings.
• Permission was granted for change of use for an agricultural shed at Mains of Portlethen Farm for storage and distribution. An extra condition was added – that passing places be provided.
• Much time was also devoted to the latest refinement of the Aberdeenshire Local Development Plan 2016. No changes of note were made to the proposals which have already been made public. This is part of a process which will see the public invited to make comment in due course.

Here are some of the more interesting points from today’s Kincardine and Mearns Area Committee.

• More than £15,000 is being given in grants to six organisations including the Maggie Law Maritime Museum in Gourdon, Luthermuir Hall and Park Committee, Friends of Stonehaven Open Air Swimming Pool and Laurencekirk War Memorial Window. None of the applicants were from the Portlethen and Newtonhill area. The area committee still has some £8000 to be allocated by the end of the financial year. If you know of a good local cause, get in touch. It must however be spent by April.
• Chief Superintendent Mark McLaren told us about the Police Scotland plans to merge the Aberdeen division with the Aberdeenshire & Moray division. He said it would save some senior staff costs and cut out some duplication. I cheekily asked if the new division would be called Grampian. Err, no, North East is the front runner.
• The current consultation about the rezoning of the catchment areas for the five local primaries – Portlethen, Hillside, Fishermoss, Newtonhill and Banchory Devenick – came under scrutiny. It is likely that Portlethen will remain over capacity after Hillside opens in August 2016, but only because existing pupils from the Hillside area will be able to continue their education there, if they wish. The total will drop in due course. The new Chapelton primary school was also mentioned. It could open as early as 2018. It depends on how quickly houses sell, as it will be required when just under 500 houses are occupied.
• Full planning permission was granted for two single storey houses at Downies. This was a controversial site, but the principle had already been established by Scottish Ministers. Today councillors had to decide whether the design of the new houses was appropriate.

A fascinating meeting of the Chapelton liaison committee tonight in Muchalls Village Hall. So, in no particular order, here is a flavour of what we heard: 

– More than 1000 families or couples have visited the showhouse which opened earlier this month. The next open opens shortly and the third one in the New Year. By the spring there should be about 30 families living there. 

– The houses are provided with satellite TV from a central point. 

– It will be some time in 2016 when the central reservation at Bruntland Road in closed. 

– The work to put sewage pipes under the A90 at Bourtreebush is almost complete. This will take the foul water from Chapelton to the main sewer which runs from Stonehaven to Nigg. It is large enough to accommodate the extra load for the early stages of the new town. As it expands it is possible that a second sewer will be needed in years to come. 

– A meeting is being held in January to progress the building of a joint place of worship for local church members. 

– The car park for the park-and-choose at the Newtonhill flyover should be ready for the occupation of the 50th house at Chapelton, which is likely to be this summer. Aberdeenshire Council is to approach Stagecoach regarding the timing of the removal of the bus stops for the express services on the A90 to the park-and-choose, as required by Transport Scotland. 

– The provision of medical services was also discussed. It appears that a way forward may be on the cards for Portlethen health centre to cater for the extra number of patients, but further discussions have to be held first. 

– Education was also discussed, with it being confirmed that the primary pupils will go to Newtonhill. 

– The three affected community councils (Newtonhill, Portlethen and North Kincardine Rural) are being asked to confirm who their representatives for the committee for 2015 will be. Newtonhill and Portlethen were both represented by two community councillors each, but there was no-one present from North Kincardine Rural. Also present were three residents from the new town area, and three ward councillors (Nelson, Evison and me).

A long day at Kincardine and Mearns Area Committee today. Here is a snapshot:

–          A grant of £37,333 was agreed for the new Kincardineshire Development Partnership. It should be a key partner in developing our local economy, steering community capacity building (i.e. helping people help themselves), and community planning. There is an increasing need for such partnerships as council face heavy demands on the public purse.

–          The community asset transfer of the Bourtree Bowling Club building in Portlethen from the council was finally agreed.

–          Councillors discussed the outcome of Stewart Milne’s appeal against the refusal of planning permission for a further 190 to 260 houses at Hillside. The firm’s appeal to the Scottish Government was turned down, though the council have to pay a contribution towards the appeal costs. Councillors had been very concerned about the impact on local schools.

–          Approval was given for 49 houses (including 12 affordable homes) just west of the A90 at Fetteresso, Stonehaven. A number of residents had objected to the houses, but the area is zoned for housing. It is just north of the garden centre there.

–          Planning permission in principle was granted for a park and ride north west of the Findon underpass on the A90 (opposite the Marywell caravan park). Aberdeenshire Council proposes building parking for 1000 cars, bikes and lorries, and a waiting room. There had been only one objection – from Stewart Milne – but it was later withdrawn.

–          An application for planning permission in principle for 44 serviced apartments and three retail units at Marywell was approved unanimously by councillors. The application was given a delegated grant, which means there are still some issues to be resolved.

Aberdeenshire Council is reviewing children’s play parks and parents and children are being asked for their views.

Public meetings are part of the nine-month consultation, which runs until the end of the month. The nearest local meeting will be at Viewmount, Arduthie Road, Stonehaven on Monday (20 October) at 7pm.

The review is aimed at providing the best quality play areas in the best locations with the money available. Currently there are 446 council play areas. Around £550,000 is spent annually on managing and maintaining the sites. Over half that sum is required to ensure the sites are adequately inspected and repaired. Typically the replacement, or addition, of a set of swings with required safety surfacing will cost around £5,000. To refurbish a medium-sized play park with around 10 items of equipment will be in the region of £75,000.

The review is looking at equity and location of provision, play value, condition, safety, funding models, partnership working and maintenance and replacement regimes.

Great news for broadband users on the Newtonhill exchange. We will be among more than 7,300 homes and business in Aberdeenshire to be next to benefit from the latest phase of the £410 million Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband programme.

Auchenblae, Aboyne, Alford, Banchory, Kildrummy, Newtonhill, Newmachar and Torphins are the next areas to be passed by the Digital Scotland deployment of high-speed fibre broadband,with the first premises expected to benefit during Spring 2015.

Digital Scotland says we will have access to fibre services at speeds of up to 80Mbps¹, thanks to the engineering rollout being delivered on the ground by BT’s local network business, Openreach. The new infrastructure will mean that multiple users in a home or business will be able to access the internet and download and share large files at the same time and more quickly than ever before, if they sign up to the service. 

All of the places announced today will receive high speed technology for the first time.

The Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband programme aims to provide fibre broadband infrastructure to areas not covered by commercial deployment. Combined with commercial roll-out plans, around 85% of premises in Scotland will have access to fibre broadband by the end of 2015/16 and 95% by the end of 2017/18.

Six members of the public – and a reporter from the Mearns Leader – were at tonight’s Portlethen Community Council meeting. Chairman Ron Sharp started the meeting by highlighting the success of the gala, run by community councillors with the help of a few others. However he went on to say there were not enough helper, leaving those in charge frazzled and stressed.

Bluntly, he said the community “needs to get off its backside” or there won’t be a gala next year … and maybe not even be a community council. The lack of participation is putting the nucleus of volunteers under too much pressure.

The gala itself was a great success, raising more than £3500 for the kitty for next year.

The meeting was also attended by Aberdeenshire Council’s area manager Willie Munro and local police inspector Stuart Ednie. They responded to various complaints and comments about road conditions and road safety. In particular community councillors raised points about the Portlethen Primary School area, Bruntland Road, Cookston Road, and the roundabout at the flyover. The police were urged to enforce traffic laws regarding parking and speeding.

Inspector Ednie gave a brief resume of crime figures in the area, emphasising that the number of stop-and-searches has dropped by a third in this area. He said officers were not under pressure to use this power – it will only be used when needed.

The meeting also heard about problems with the men’s shed planned next to the Porty Cabin. However offers of help were made which should help keep it on track. The council has agreed to make the premises available for a token rent.

This is just a flavour of what was discussed. If you want to find out more, come along to the next meeting on 28 October, in Portlethen Academy.