Inverness airport business park gets go ahead

11 Responses to “Inverness airport business park gets go ahead”

1. Cathy on January 21st, 2010 2:41 pm

   Brian

   I will forward you the information that I personally sent to the councillors.

   The issues here are complex, I grant you, but the adopted Inverness Local Plan had clearly set aside specific areas of land at the airport for its economic development initiative.

   Site specific land allocations had been made under the auspices of a Reporter, further to careful consideration of all the representations that had been made on the issue at a Public Local Inquiry. A early feasibilty study, produced by the current applicants of the IABP, had provided information to the Inquiry process and they themselves made representations regarding how much land they thought was necessary and what areas should be built on.

   The specifc land allocations on adoption of the plan for the whole of the site at the airport were for around 71 hectares. The adopted Inverness Plan covers the time period to 2011.

   Only approx 55 ish hectares of local plan site allocation is encompassed by the current application’s site boudary. The applicant’s site boundary does coincide with a greater area which could be used for future development. The current application proposes development in 4 phases to the time periods 2011, 2021, 2041 and 2061. Only 71,344 sq metres of building can be developed before another transport assessment is required. This is the amount of development that the applicants have requested for phase 1 to 2011.

   As far as I know land allocations are made through the development plan process, a process in which we are all encouraged to participate; there is currently one being undertaken in Highland. This application sought to bring forward development on at least 200 hectares over a 50 year period. Why could’nt iste specific land allocations in excess of those agreed in the adopted plan and beyond the timescale of that plan have been done through the Highland-wide development plan in tandem with other projects coming through in the corridor?

   The A96 Corridor is supposed to be an area for ‘coordinated action’,with respect to delivery, between the council and agencies such as Scottish Water, Transport Scotland, SNH and SEPA. How will the fact that the airport plan now has permission effect the other development proposals?

   All community councils are merely conduits for community views, views can be wide ranging but the system should allow for views to be presented and considered; whether we consider each other’s views to be bizarrre or not we need to feel that we have a system that gives us all an equal opportunity to state our case and to influence the decision making process.

   I make no apology for looking at the small print and considering the implications of decisions carefully; does that make me a nerd or a busybody, or just someone that is really trying to understand the system, what makes it work well, what gives people confidence and what makes us feel connected to the communities we live in and the people that live in them?

   Quite frankly I am getting very tired and wondering why I bother to take such an interest in trying to understand what is done and whether or not it is in the public interest. Perhaps we should all just have a bit of a gossip every now and again and then let the developers and the councillors and the Government get on with it, after all we live in a representative democracy.

   It is a pity I cannot shake the feeling that with a little more direct democracy, which what the much heralded reforms in the planning system were supposed to be about,we could work together to create some decent places.

   Hope I have expressed myself clearly enough and haven’t made too many typos adn spelling mistakes

   Happy reading when I send the stuff through. All the councillors had it to look over before they made their decision.

2. Brian Turner on January 21st, 2010 4:04 pm

   Cathy, thanks for the email – have read through the documents, but it seems two key points of your objection are:

   1. Departure from Local Plan
   2. Is dependent on other potential developments.

   In terms of departing from local plans – we can already see from the dereliction in Nairn centre what happens when Local Plan’s are adhered to without consideration for common sense. This is especially the case when a Local Plan is already woefully out of date, yet is adhered to for the sake of bureaucratic satisfaction.

   As for holding the development of the airport business park subject to approval of Tornagrain new town – I’m not sure what the details are here, but it would seem quite bizarre that the development of a business park in a designated economic zone should be dependent on potential residential development which isn’t really connected to it – certainly the airport business park shouldn’t be dependent on any developments at Tornagrain.

   Frankly, I think the whole planning process has become badly convoluted precisely because of the Scottish Government’s insistence on Local Plans and Development Plans – which as Nairn by example shows, can leave us with out dated planning regulations which constrict need and work against common sense, and prevent a necessary fluidity in planning.

   Added to this, we have public bodies who are unnecessarily over bureaucratic, civil servants who often do not understand the very problems they are paid to address, and locals who seem to object to anything on the grounds that the world should not move forward in the Highlands.

   Indeed, I agree that the Highlands are beautiful, planning needs to be more transparent, but altogether there needs to be far more of a common sense approach to development in general.

   As a business owner, I am struggling to employ in Nairn because there is a serious lack of commercial property in or near the town, leaving us pushed towards Inverness.

   I’d love to employ locally – that would allow for walking or cycling to work, developing real community connections, as well as identify the business as a part of an interesting town. There are other reasons of course, but I just feel very strongly about working from Nairn, not Inverness.

   But it’s very difficult to set up business in Nairn – there is no dedicated office space to move into. It’s a real gap that only works against local interests if people are forced to commute out to Inverness and add to the general traffic problem that is the A96.

   The airport business park is a common sense development opportunity – I have no idea if I’ll be able to move into offices there, but it’s nice to know there may be a potential option for my own and other businesses in future, and keep decent-paid employment nearer the town.

   I can appreciate and understand your concerns, but I really think you’re playing into the nasty bureaucratic game that we need to get past in the first place.

   The bottom line is that the Highlands area, not least Inverness as its capital, is severely deficient in employment and education facilities, with the public sector remaining the major employer. This results in the leakage of young talent and limited opportunities for additional funding for service provision.

   The business park at the airport is a good idea – it is a common sense idea. What I’d love to see are common-sense objections to it’s approval, based not on correlating documents x,y, and z with documents a,b and c, but simply as to whether it would have a negative impact on the area.

   So far as I can see, there are no objections claiming the business park is indeed going to cause a negative impact anywhere.

   In which case, the common sense approach is to move forward with it, rather than leave it mired in a convoluted planning bureaucracy that it has already spent years entangled in.

   2c.

3. Cathy on January 21st, 2010 8:03 pm

   Hi Brian

   Not sure what you mean about holding on for Tornagrain. I was objecting to the reliance on the mentioning the A96 protocal rather than it being considered as an appication in its own right – so we are not different there.

   I do not make the rules but we are expected to abide by them and all the parties in the upcoming appeal for the Deveron application will be playing the nasty little bureaucratice game.

4. Brian Turner on January 21st, 2010 8:35 pm

   Apologies if I misunderstood the Tornagain and A96 corridor reference – I think the main point that stood out from what you said is that the HC have a number of documents that are not fully referencing one another.

   However, is that really grounds for objecting to the whole park development??

   With Sandown with have clear and easy to understand objections:

   - housing density far in excess of what was allowed for when outline planning was originally granted,

   - which is expected to cause havoc with local services and infrastructure, not least the sewerage system,

   - inadequate road access

   - high storey buildings very much out of character with the town (and as we’ve seen at Lochloy, just means these “affordable flats” are sold as “luxury apartments with seaviews”.

   Those are clear to understand objections, but I’m afraid when I read your objections it’s so legalese.

   I appreciate it’s takes a special strength of character to learn how to speak the council’s own overly-bureaucratic language and then stand up to them with it – it’s just that without clear and easy to understand objections in layman’s terms (cf. Sandown above), it’s hard to understand why inadequate document referencing is a real reason to delay the development of a key economic centre for Nairn and Inverness.

   Simply 2c.

5. Brian Turner on January 21st, 2010 8:42 pm

   As a slight aside, what would be more interesting to know about the business park is what stages are set for development over what time period.

   Looking at the picture from their masterplan at the top of this post, the section highlighted doesn’t look like much development at all – the sort of thing it would only take a few years from start to finish in England.

   So what else is missing from the satellite mock-up that means 50 years is required? Or – is it the case the 50 year period is a fail safe to protect a perimeter around the airport from other third-party developments that may otherwise constrict commercial growth around the airport?

6. Mal Function on January 21st, 2010 8:52 pm

   This discussion is becoming as convoluted as the planning process about which it complains. But the issues are important, and serious.

   Brian Turner’s complaint about bureaucracy, and his plea for common sense, will strike a popular chord. But it is hard to reconcile his repeated refrain about the lack of commercial space in Nairn with the clear evidence of empty premises in town which – as far as one can see – are available for rent if he needs an office. Just walk the High Street and look up to first-floor level, or take a stroll around Balmakeith!

   The widespread disquiet (not just in Croy and Culloden) about ambitious new local development projects is that these are NOT driven by need or by shortage. As Brian himself recently pointed out in a separate blog-post, there are many vacant retail and business properties in Inverness – kept vacant by greedy landlords asking unrealistically elevated rents. There are units available in Balmakeith too: encouraged by planners, subsidised by HIE, but then sold off to buyers who hold them empty (against the speculative prospect of future profit?).

   The new Airport Business Park proposal is driven more by the desire of the landowners and developers (Moray Estates, HIAL, etc) to realise the profit that derives from change-of-use and planning gain, than by an unsatisfied demand for more business premises. It’s not surprising that the public are sceptical.

   The priority should therefore not be the building of more business parks and industrial zones, but rather action to regenerate and free up for use properties that already exist and in many cases are standing empty.

7. Brian Turner on January 21st, 2010 9:02 pm

   Oh, quite agree – I’m currently exploring the possibility of moving into a flat on the high street and converting it to office use – I’ve also emailed the council again today suggesting making the derelict buildings available for commercial use, not least sooner rather than later.

   I’m very much focused on office space as that’s a personal need, but also an area I think offers a lot of potential in general for the town – Balmakeith has land available, but it’s in huge lots, and I personally wouldn’t need 40 acres.

   I also think there’s room for development of office space around Nairn which could provide positive employment prospects for the town – modern offices, especially in IT service industries – as opposed to having to relocate local offices to business parks at Inverness.

   You’re right, though – there are multiple issues relating to commercial property and employment in and around Nairn itself, and I remain optimisitc (perhaps naive) on the potential positive impact of these developments.

   I guess if Nairn can demonstrate itself to be a developing and significant economy in its own right, and self-supporting enough that there isn’t such a huge leakage through commuting to Inverness, then Nairn is better positioned to fight it’s own corner against Inverness planners who sometimes see the town as an effective suburb of that city!

8. Cathy on January 21st, 2010 9:07 pm

   Indeed, what else is missing? I appreciate that the whole thing is technical, so it is probably worth just looking over the summary that was written for councillors, particularly the question of ‘classes of use’.

   I do not know the answer to this but as there is now permission for some supporting retail and food outlets – not in original local plan – what if the consortium decided that the future was retail and leisure near the airport? What if what was proposed didn’t make sense for Inverness and Nairn?

9. Brian Turner on January 21st, 2010 9:15 pm

   You mean like Nairn’s harbour development all over again?!

   Definitely something to keep an eye on, then!

10. nairnbairn on January 21st, 2010 9:20 pm

    One of the earlier posts above says

    “I think the main point that stood out from what you [Cathy] said is that the HC have a number of documents that are not fully referencing one another.

    However, is that really grounds for objecting to the whole park development??”

    Not quite the point. Seems to me that Cathy’s concerns are well-founded. In essence the arguments are as follows:

    - the planning authorities are rightly obliged to consult fully and transparently about development-planning;

    - they do this via public scrutiny of Local Development Plans, the shape and content of which are subject to procedures set out in law;

    - the Inverness Airport Business Park is a major new project-proposal;

    - yet it is not compliant with previously-agreed planning provisions, and is scarcely mentioned in the key current and future planning framework, the Highland-wide Local Development Plan;

    - this omission is either incompetent or suspicious. Either way, it means that proper public consultation is minimised or evaded;

    - this isn’t the first such example (cf the A96 Corridor Plan, slipped through without due process and now invoked as the basis for eg the Sandown scheme);

    - such practices undermine public confidence in the planning process, generate mistrust of the Council planning authorities’ policies, and foster cynicism about the developers’ motives;

    - all of which is bad for democracy, bad for the community, and bad for the region’s prospects.

11. Cathy on January 22nd, 2010 10:02 am

    Speaking in general terms, what Brian has focused my mind on is just how much information should the councillors be expected to review and understand when making a decision on a planning application. If asked, could they explain fully their understanding of the planning process and the role of consultation within it? Could they demonstrate a full understanding of the issues surrounding any planning application, state what they considered to be material and reveal what weight that they had placed on each in order to reach their decision? Could any of us in that position? How much training do councillors have in order to participate effectively in the planning process? What guidance is there for councillors? What happens in other local authorities?

    The other stand out point is, in terms of the way that the IABP application was presented, could the councillors have asked for more realistic land use as per the provisions in the adopted local plan? As it was it seemed to be presented to them it was this large application or nothing.

    However the granting of this permission now appears to mean (and I would ask that you refer to the reporters comments in the documents ans statements that accompany the Inverness Local Plan and Inquiry process) that the developers now have the level land allocation and freedom to develop it that wasn’t achieved through the earlier development plan process.

    Surely the public deserve to get a good depth of understanding of these issues? Highland is now conducting consultations on the Inverness City Vision. How can any one of the members of the public in Nairn, Inverness or anywhere else in Highland maintain the stance that they are unhappy with the planning system when Highland are consulting away merrily? They are shining examples of good practice in all instances surely?

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