Councillors told to address festival explosion threat

Feb 15 2011 by Greg Christison, Perthshire Advertiser Tuesday

COUNCILLORS will tomorrow discuss safety concerns at the T in the Park site, following government intervention on a previous decision.

Scottish Ministers have asked members of the authority’s development control committee to reconsider a decision taken previously to approve an alteration to the use of the land at Balado Park.

The ground, which is owned by Douglas Alexander, has been used for leisure activities for several years through temporary planning approvals.

If the proposal is green-lighted, it will allow events such as motorsports, microlight flying and fun fairs to be run on the site all year round.

Councillors agreed on December 8 to approve a permanent change of use despite an objection from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

But two months on, the Scottish Government has returned the application and provided direction that the committee should consider making any consent temporary and the concerns of HSE should be addressed.

HSE chiefs had originally informed the committee that a pressurised BP pipeline, running about two-and-a-half-feet under the site, posed a “major hazard” and had the potential to kill “a significant number” of people in the event of a malfunction.

The committee will be asked to approve the paper with the revised terms, which include limiting consent for large scale events to one year at a time, introducing a plan showing how numbers on the site relate to the distance from the pipeline and controlling the amount of people allowed within the vicinity of the pipeline.

Following the council’s previous decision, Tory councillor Ian Campbell branded the probability of such a pipeline explosion as “infinitesimal”, with Geoff Ellis, the boss of T in the Park organisers DF Concerts, claiming “common sense had prevailed”.

The committee’s decision will again require referral back to Scottish Ministers before being given a final grant of consent.