Councillors have voiced their opposition to two separate plans to bring a supermarket to Stonehaven.
FM Ury want to build a supermarket, petrol station and 50-bedroom hotel on the Ury Estate, where they are already building 230 homes and a championship golf course.
Meanwhile, Barratt East Scotland and the Drum Property Group want to build 1,500 homes, a supermarket and community facilities as part of their Mill of Forest scheme, at Kirkton, Fetteresso.
Planning bosses at Aberdeenshire Council recommended both projects for refusal amid fears about the impact they would have on the vitality and viability of the town centre.
They also argued that both schemes went against planning policy, as neither are including in the existing, or emerging, local development plan.
Yesterday, members of the Kincardine and Mearns area committee unanimously agreed to support the planners’ recommendations.
Referring to the Mill of Forest project, councillor Peter Bellarby said there was “no justification” for 1,500 homes to be built in the Stonehaven area, particularly since a new 8,000-home town is being built at nearby Chapelton of Elsick.
The Stonehaven councillor said: “Yes, there’s been significant volume of opinion that there needs to be a supermarket somewhere but this is not the right place, and in present circumstances there is no need for 1,500 houses.
“The location of this proposed retail development could have a significant adverse impact on the town centre.”
Planning officer Neil Mair raised the issue of how easy it would be access the Ury supermarket without a car, and said it was not a “sustainable location”.
Local councillor Graham Clark said he had been approached by several residents urging him to go along with the proposals – but that he believed they would not want the supermarket once they saw the impact it would have on Ury House, which FM Ury is refurbishing and turning into a boutique hotel.
He said: “I don’t think the people of Stonehaven, will in future years, want to look across the A90 and see a shed – because that’s what supermarkets tend to look like – in front of Ury House. I don’t think it will blend in at all.”
Both applications will now be referred to next month’s full Aberdeenshire Council meeting for a final decision.