Plans for a three-storey student accommodation block in Fort William have been rejected by councillors.
Councillor Andrew Baxter for Fort William and Ardnamurchan put forward a motion at the South Planning Applications Committee yesterday to reject plans for the 40-room accommodation block at Fassifern Road in the Lochaber town.
His objection was based on the grounds that the buildings scale, mass and proximity would have a detrimental impact on neighbouring properties.
Mr Baxter said: “The developers say the height is appropriate because it is in the town centre. Up until now it has been an empty playground and I fail to understand why they hadn’t flipped the development round having less of an impact on the neighbouring houses. I am sure it is not to scale and having been around that area for the election campaign they do not prove adequate.”
As well as issues surrounding the size of the project, Mr Baxter also felt parking was lacking claiming developers had misjudged the ratio of students driving to and from campus.
He added: “I was in two minds at the last council meeting whether to have a site visit but having been on site I am glad I did. I have made this recommended concern of our approach to car parking in the town centre. What we have here are car parking and recommended assertions that students do not have cars. We are talking about students travelling to West Highland College. It’s hard to get to on public transport.
“Students coming to and from West College will have their own cars. The status of students coming to study are outside people. They are not local people just popping into town. I consider the level of car ownership will be much higher than anticipated. We need to revisit our parking standards when we are considering this development as they are inadequate.”
However, fellow Lochaber councillor Ben Thomson disagreed, saying: “Councillor Baxter brought up two issues of parking and size. I disagree with parking. Parking in that area of Fort William town centre is not largely dominated by car parking. I don’t want to see a town with slabs dominated by concrete.”
