A planned industrial park which would have destroyed the last remaining open fields between Livingston and the village of Seafield has been rejected by councillors.
Hallam Land Management and Rosebery Estates sought planning permission in principle for a mixed-use development for business , industrial and storage and distribution units at Cousland Farm. The new industrial park proposed paving 61 acres of fields both north and south of the A705.
The land has been designated by West Lothian’s Local Development Plan (LDP) as for industrial/ commercial development - but despite this councillors voted to refuse the application after hearing from local residents who feared it would "ruin the rural atmosphere” of the village.
READ MORE: West Lothian farmers fight to develop houses on grazing fields
The open fields appear just past the Toll roundabout on the north western fringe of Livingston. Open land further north will soon be turned over to development when Glen Turner builds a further 20 maturation warehouses on a field next to its existing distillery.
Having attended a site visit earlier in the week, and seen ripening crops laying a carpet of colour on the land as it slopes to the green banks of the river Almond, some councillors, including the chair of the Development Management Committee Councillor Stuart Borrowman, backed the LDP designation with reluctance.
Though councillor Borrowman added: "I don't sense anyone's heart is in this today. "
A total of 38 objections were received. Chair of Seafield Community Council Damian Byrne said the development would “completely ruin the rural atmosphere” of the village and its views, from open fields to urban landscape. He described the creation of a “doughnut of dereliction” in Livingston with a centre or hollowed out brownfield sites and all new build on the edge of town.
He told the meeting the Local Development Plan was so full of ambiguities and contradictions: “You’d be forgiven for thinking it was Boris Johnson who wrote it.”
Mr Byrne said that the plan said brownfield sites should be considered before greenfield sites and added: “ This where you as a committee will be tested today”.
He pointed out that there are 353 acres of brownfield sites across West Lothian and in the areas of Livingston surrounding the site there are currently 128 empty industrial units.
If the new units were built and could find no occupants there would be the attendant problems of anti social behaviour that exist in other vacant industrial areas .
“There’s no real justification for this development. It is speculative why allow it when there’s so much available land," he said.
Stephen Egan, chair of neighbouring Eliburn Community Council also raised concerns about the plans around road changes and extra traffic.
Agents for the developers suggested that the figures of vacancy were out of date and that industrial space was at a premium. They also pointed to the age of industrial sites - many developed in the 1960s in Livingston. The new greenfield site would provide 21st century standards, they asserted.
Councillor Lawrence Fitzpatrick said he had great sympathy with the community councils, and concerns about the loss of wildlife corridors but pointed out that as elected councillors the committee had duty to endorse what had been agreed in the Local Plan which made it difficult to reject planning permission in principle.
Chair Councillor Borrowman said: "On the site visit I confess, looking south across the fields down to the Almond, it's beautiful. It seems a great shame that the best we can come with is that it should be for industrial development but, as Lawrence says, we are where we are."
Councillor Willie Boyle told the committee: “I have concerns about where we are with brownfield sites.” He listed several in Livingston which are lying empty or being redeveloped for housing.
“Why do we need this new development on the edge of development sites that are no longer being developed?
"It leaves this site as a standalone greenfield development. It is development in the countryside from I can see.
“The idea that we desperately need this development site in a greenfield site I have great difficulty with. The reality is there is vacant property, there’s vacant sites. We have no shortage of vacant sites that can be developed. Freeport [a disused retail ‘village’ at West Calder] is sitting there and sitting empty. I have serious concerns.”
In a vote the committee backed a motion from Councillor Boyle to reject permission .
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