Locals want to put freeze on ice plan

May 29 2009 by Andrew Welsh, Perthshire Advertiser Friday

FURIOUS residents yesterday pledged to stand firm against controversial plans to bulldoze a Perthshire ice rink.

Officials at Perth and Kinross Council have been inundated with letters of objection from dozens of campaigners in Pitlochry following a planning bid by Upland Developments, seeking permission to create 29 affordable flats over three storeys at the disused Atholl centre.

Locals and Pitlochry and Moulin Community Council insist the Victorian-era Lower Oakfield area, which lies just beyond the boundary of a designated conservation area, is unfit to cope with an intensive housing development.

Pitlochry resident Ian Hendry hit out at the proposed scheme, accusing the ice rink’s shareholders of “lack of foresight” for allowing it to close last August in the wake of cash-flow difficulties.

“Upland’s plan will potentially add 116 more residents, but only 29 car parking spaces, which is never enough these days,” he seethed.

“There is only seasonal work in Pitlochry now and people are travelling to Perth every day.

“To make matters worse, there are absolutely no pavements in Lower Oakfield, making high-density housing unsuitable.

“This part of town has upwards of 50 bed spaces for the sole industry we have left in Pitlochry, i.e. tourism.

“The shareholders should have developed the building properly years ago, then Pitlochry would have had curling and ice skating all year round.

“But because they didn’t do things the right way, all they now want in their twilight years is to take the money.”

Last month, the ice rink plan was slated by double world junior ladies’ curling champion Eve Muirhead.

The Blair Atholl resident, who first sampled the winter sport at the Atholl centre, claimed that the distance to the Dewars Centre in Perth and the new national curling academy in Kinross would put off many would-be Highland Perthshire competitors.

An appraisal of Upland’s proposals by senior roads technicians criticises a route layout submitted by the applicants, asserting it fails to comply with the principles of “suitable urban design”, or to provide a satisfactory public access to the flats.

Recommending that the existing bid be refused for pedestrian and traffic safety reasons, the council experts have called on the developer to submit modified designs.

The Aviemore-based firm’s application is due to be considered at next month’s meeting of the local authority’s development control committee, and campaigners intend to draw up battle plans at a public meeting on the issue being held on Tuesday.

Concerns about the plan, and separate, yet-to-be-finalised retail proposals from Upland focusing on Bank House near Pitlochry’s centre, a former bakery site and a property in Bonnethill Road, will be aired at the town hall at 6pm.