Neighbours of a former abattoir site in Bathgate have raised concerns that plans to develop more than 150 houses on the site will destroy their privacy.
Councillors on the Development Management Committee will consider plans next week to build 154 houses and 12 flats on a brownfield site in Whitburn Road on the edge of the town.
Planning officers have recommended detailed plans to go ahead, with conditions. The site is on the north side of Whitburn Road and is part brownfield, part greenfield. Screen planting in the form of conifers are situated on the site frontage with Whitburn Road.
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An area of woodland is located at the west of the site, with a smaller tree belt located at the east. The Standhill Industrial Estate is to the south, with housing at Birniehill Crescent to the east.
There are five objections, including one from the town’s community council. The area is planned for up to 180 homes in the current Local Development Plan and has been derelict for almost 20 years.
Most objectors live in Birniehill Crescent and say the plans there were initially shown have changed radically and the new proposal will see a tree belt which screens the area from their back gardens will disappear and the flats proposed along the edge of the site will look down into their gardens.
While most have no objection to the area being developed for housing the development of the flats up to their boundary fencing has angered them.
In papers to go before committee planners acknowledged the changes and said: “The layout has been substantially revised since the application was submitted and from the previously refused detailed application.
“The layout takes account of its context and built form by achieving a frontage to Whitburn Road that carries on from houses at the end of Birniehill Terrace. This necessitates the removal of predominantly Scots pine trees along the site frontage that acted as screening for the abattoir.”
The trees on Whitburn road and along the eastern edge will be felled under the new proposals from applicants Urban Life (Manchester) Ltd. However the firm says that 151 new trees will be planted as part of the development.
The planners added in their report on the loss of the Scots Pine: “These trees are of lesser value due to their species. Their loss, in order to achieve frontage development onto Whitburn Road is justified.
It added: “The layout takes cognisance of the woodland at the west of the site being within the Ancient Woodland Inventory and the proposed built development does not conflict with the root protection areas of these trees.”
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