An Aberdeenshire Council committee has voted to move plans for a luxury resort and housing development in Deeside forward – despite hearing concerns that the hotel at the centre of the plans could never be built.
The decision by the Marr Area Committee was split down the middle, and it fell to chairman John Latham to cast the deciding vote and refer the proposals to the Infrastructure Services Committee (ISC).
They will then decide whether the plans for the development – located at Inchmarlo, near Banchory – will be approved.
The split vote reflects an application which has drawn both criticism from the local community and support from council planners, even as the aspects under consideration at the moment represent only a small part of a proposal that has already been approved.
‘A carrot before our noses’
Planning consent for the hotel, lodges and homes was given in two stages, in 2011 and 2015, and the current application would add ten additional affordable homes to those plans and remove the condition that the hotel must be built before the housing development.
Developers Kirkwood Homes and Inchmarlo Farms Ltd have said the plan is to build the houses first, and use the money generated to deliver the rest of the resort.
However, at this morning’s committee meeting Mary Lennox of Banchory Community Council expressed fears that the £30million Lucullan hotel, spa and lodges development may never materialise.
She said: “Our concern is that despite all the fine words, this is at its core a housing development.
“It feels like the putative hotel is a carrot before our noses which is likely to be snatched away if the condition that the hotel is built first is not renewed.
“We really do feel there is still a strong risk that this could be a housing development without a hotel, and we would like to have some real hard evidence that there is the possibility of financial benefit to the community.”
However, Allan Rae of Kirkwood Homes told the committee: “In terms of economic benefit, the project when fully delivered will provide a gross value add of £3.3million to the local economy annually, with annual job creation of around 125 full time equivalent posts.
“In addition, there is a one-off gross value added benefit of £18million to the local economy as well as sustaining around 300 construction jobs over the period of the project.”
Councillor concerns
Several councillors expressed inhibitions about moving the plans forward, with Eileen Durno saying she would probably not have approved the development if she had been in office in 2015.
Paul Gibb, meanwhile, said the community concern over the application “makes it difficult to just say, ‘Yes, we can continue as was previously agreed in 2015′”.
Others, including Gwyneth Petrie, Robbie Withey and Aberdeenshire Council co-leader Peter Argyle, emphasised that a decision was only being made on the application to add more housing and alter the timeline conditions, and no changes could be made to the plans as approved six years ago.
Following the vote to move the application forward, Mr Rae said: “We welcomed the robust debate at Area Committee today and appreciate the support of the Committee as the application progresses towards the Infrastructure Services Committee for final determination.”
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