Aberdeenshire Council’s roads service will be carrying out road repairs on Cookston Road, Portlethen, from the roundabout at Bruntland Road to The Square.
This will take place on two days – Thursday 15 June and the following day. The road will remain open however there may be delays, and parking will not be permitted.
The closure of the Causey Mounth (the C34K road) between Hillside and Causeyport has been postponed until later in the year, council officers tell me. The road was due to be closed on 6 June until 11 August for various works.
However this work cannot take place until work on the Duffshill road by Leiths (Scotland) is completed. They are carrying out work on new road accesses for the new Arnold Clark site at Duffshill, as well as the A&M Smith site. There would have been a four-day overlap where the road closures clashed. Both closures cannot take place together, as it would lock-in residents between the two closure points.
The U58K Duffshill roadworks should now be completed by Friday 9 June, and open to all traffic from Saturday 10 June.
The work on the C34K road adjacent to the new Hillside primary school will be undertaken in the not-too-distant future. This will include removing overhead Scottish & Southern Electricity power lines and carrying out major infrastructure roadworks.
Four planning applications for houses at Whitestripes and Stripeside (east of Lairhillock primary school) were approved in principle at today’s infrastructure services committee. The nine houses will be built on the site of former farm buildings.
Another local item of interest on the agenda was the plan for flooding prevention at Stonehaven. The £16.5m proposals were given the committee’s backing. The decision will now be advertised in local newspapers. Thereafter council officers will progress the tender process. Construction should begin later next year.
The Causey Mounth (the C34K) is to be closed for 67 days while Farrans Construction carry out road crossings, trenches for cables, drainage, services, kerbing and removal of overhead cables for the new Hillside School. Emergency and pedestrian access is to be maintained.
The work is to commence on Tuesday 6 June.
The contractor has been asked to carry out a letter drop to residents and businesses who will be affected. An advert will also be in the Evening Express on Monday.
Council officers have confirmed that the current closure on the Duffshill road (the U58K) will be lifted by Monday 5 June. They say that there will be no conflicts associated with the closure on the C34K.
I am also told that there will be no access for school transport whilst the closure is in place.
The Chapelton liaison meeting tonight heard that 150 houses are now on site, with a further 92 in the pipeline, waiting for the market to come back.
In an update on progress we heard that:
Talks with Aberdeenshire Council are proceeding well for the local authority to adopt the park and choose road, which should result in good street lighting.
All agreements are in place now to proceed with closing the gap in the central reservation at the Bruntland Road junction on the A90 at Portlethen. This would mean that right hand turns across the carriageways would no longer be possible. Some work at the Badentoy flyover would also take place first. It is expected that this will take place in late spring or early summer next year. Eventually an underpass will be built at the Bruntland Road junction. This will take place when there are 1740 houses at Chapelton.
The Chapelton developers are looking into the provision of a defibrillator in the new town.
A retirement village of 82 units is on the cards, being developed by Places for People, which was founded as a housing association and now also owns Zero C which is one of the builders at Chapelton. The retirement properties are apparently “flying like hot cakes”.
The next phases will include 15 allotments, two small parks, and commercials units. There has been interest from vets, a pharmacy, and micro brewery and others.
An emergency access is to be provided to the Cookney/Newtonhill road. It will not be available for general access.
We heard that the Causey Mounth is a private vehicular right of way.
The next meeting between the developers and community representatives will be in November. All three local community councils were present tonight.
Plans to extend and upgrade the Bettridge Centre in Newtonhill were unveiled tonight.
The most exciting aspect was the proposal to extend the garage area under the centre to turn it into a community gym with a dance/yoga studio, with views out to sea. The gym would be open when the centre is open.
Investigations are to take place to establish how feasible the project is. Structural checks are required as this area is beneath the main hall.
What has been ruled out is opening a community cafe. A similar public hall venture in Laurencekirk closed due to a lack of trade. Furthermore the Bettridge team do not want to tread on toes of current such ventures such as those in the Jubilee Hall in Portlethen and in Newtonhill Church.
The upgrade would also include knocking through a corridor from the original community hall to the newer part of the Bettridge Centre.
The plans also include surfacing the lower car park – a request is with the AWPR with a decision due early next month.
Consideration will be given to renewable energy options, and storage improvements.
The upgrades would be funded by grants from LEADER (an EU fund administered locally by Aberdeenshire Council), developer obligations, and other sources. It is hoped that funding will be heading the Bettridge’s way from the Tesco community funding (please use your token wisely!).
The 27 people at the meeting heard that the overall aim is to bring in extra revenue, increase footfall, and make the centre an even better asset for the community.
There was an appeal for volunteers to come forward to help drive the plans forward. Please spread the word.
The organisation’s annual general meeting followed the presentation, and we heard that last year the centre had an income of £104,000 and expenditure of £112,000.
Another beautiful day for the Banchory Devenick School fair this afternoon. As usual lovely home bakes!
The National Library of Scotland has created an online tool to allow people to see how an area looks in a recent satellite photo compared to a map published in 1896.
Using the blue slider button on the left hand side of the tool’s screen, you can look at the map, the photo or, best of all, a merged combination of both.
The link above will take you to the tool zoomed in on our area but you can of course use it to look elsewhere in Scotland.
Today’s Press and Journal and the latest edition of the Mearns Leader both feature the General Election campaign here in West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine. The four candidates have their say, so if you are not sure yet how to vote, buy a paper and have a look. Unfortunately I can’t find links on their websites to the articles.
My Facebook home page has just presented me with a Tory advert saying only they can beat the SNP here. Propaganda nonsense of course, as who knows who is going to win. The last time there was a Tory MP here was in 1997, and that was when the Conservatives lost the seat to the Liberal Democrat’s Robert Smith. He was our respected MP until two years ago, when the SNP landslide happened across Scotland (with the exception of three seats).
One thing is certain: it is so highly unlikely the Labour candidate will win here.
In reality the choice is between three contenders – SNP, Liberal Democrat, and Tory.
That’s my view anyway. It’s up to the voters.