Councillors have overruled planning officers to grant businesswoman Ann Gloag permission to build another holiday home in the Highlands.
Highland Council officials ruled last summer that the proposed three-bedroom lodge, planned for letting on the Beaufort Castle Estate near Kiltarlity, would breach the region-wide local development plan because her agents had failed to demonstrate a “requirement” for the house.
Councillors’ legal advice was that in order to comply with the local authority’s own policy, housing is “essential in association with an existing or new rural business.”
Mrs Gloag’s planning team had argued that a new-build holiday cottage was “essential to respond to changing market conditions, operational costs and investment plans impacting on the growth” of her lodges business.
The application site is a quarter of an acre, comprising garden at the entrance to four existing country homes known as Beaufort Farm Cottages.
Welcoming the plan, committee member Biz Campbell suggested Highland had become a victim of its own success as a tourist destination.
“I know that in Skye last year – and the whole of the west coast – you couldn’t get anywhere to stay,” she said. “People were staying in village halls.
“The council should be doing everything possible to encourage such rural businesses. The design is right and the siting is right.”
Debate persisted about the “essential” aspect of building the house and chairwoman Audrey Sinclair was unconvinced, but councillors meeting in Inverness, yesterday voted five-two to approve it.
Speaking afterwards, a spokesman for Beaufort Estate Lodges said: “We’ve greatly appreciated the thorough and rigorous assessment of the planning application.
“We’re delighted the notice of review was upheld and that we can continue to invest in the Highland economy.”
He said the construction work would begin as soon as possible.
