Welcome to Lenzie South Green Belt
Current Position
Council Statement in response to the Reporter's Statement on the Public Examination of Local Plan 2
The Sottish Government this week published details of its Reporters' Statement on the Public Examination of East Dunbartonshire Council's Local Plan 2.

The Council's Director of Development and Infrastructure Derek Cunningham said, "The Council has received a copy of the statement by Reporters on the examination of Local Plan 2.  The report runs to 350 pages and covers a large number of representations on 73 separate issues.

"Officers are thoroughly examining the detail of the report to understand what the Reporters have said and to determine what courses of action are now open to the Council.  The Council's external legal advisers will also provide their views on the Reporters statement to provide additional guidance to the Council.

"From a preliminary review of the report, we are pleased to confirm that the Reporters have taken on board and accepted a number of the Council's arguments and accept that there is no strategic requirement for more land for private housing.  They have also given generally strong support to the greenbelt and the Council's position of resisting development in the countryside."

Other headlines from the Reporters Statement include:

They have stated that wording should be included in the Local Plan 2 to reflect the Reporter's decision on the Kilmardinny application appeal.
They have confirmed that the Jellyhill urban brownfield site is suitable for limited housing development, stipulating no more than 35 units because of wildlife, flood risk and road safety constraints.
They have confirmed that The Greens retains its housing status but subject to a flood risk study
The Council has successfully defended 31 of 35 sites in the greenbelt against housing development.
Some greenbelt boundary changes have been determined across a number of local areas and officers are looking into the detail and implications of these changes.
A significant number of greenbelt sites, the subject of representations, have not been included for release from the greenbelt.
A large number of the Reporters changes simply help tighten up and clarify what the Local Plan 2 says.
 

Mr Cunningham continued, "Once officers and our external advisers have had an opportunity to fully review and understand this report, elected members will be briefed on the detail and the options open to the Council and public meetings will be scheduled.  In the meantime, the full report will be published to the Council and the DPEA websites followed up as soon as possible with a summary of the findings.


As you will know by now EDC have agreed (reluctantly) to adopt the changes that the Scottish Reporter have forced upon them. EDC are now in the process of rewriting the Local Plan 2 to reflect these changes. Once they have finished this it will be sent to the Scottish Government for agreement, at the same time EDC will publish a notice of their intent to adopt the changes. One month after that the changes will come into effect. At this point we will have lost both the Lenzie site to Brown Field and we can expect planning applications to be lodged soon after this.

There is still a chance to save both Lenzie sites as the Scottish Ministers have the final say on EDC adopting the Reporters decisions. LSGB suggests that everyone uses the Useful Contacts link where you will find the email addresses of the relevant MSP's and Ministers. LSGB already have emailed Gillian Renwick (constituency manager to Fiona McLeod MSP) copying in Keith Brown, Aileen Campbell, and the First Minister, to request that Fiona arranges a meeting between the relevant ministers, LSGB and the local community. We have not had an answer to this email but we have received a copy of a letter then she sent to Aileen Campbell where she has asked for a meeting (letter will be posted later).

The more emails the MSPs receive the better our chance of a meeting to keep our Green Belt status.

So everyone GET EMAILING NOW.

UPDATE
LSGB have now looked into certain areas of the Reporters Verdict and what the effects could be for the 2 Lenzie sites, please see below.

The Affordable housing as described in Scottish Planning Policy 3 (SPP 3)

91. Affordable housing is defined broadly as housing of a reasonable quality that is
affordable to people on modest incomes. In some places the market can meet all
or most affordable housing needs, but elsewhere it is necessary to make housing
available at a cost below market value to meet identified needs.

Affordable housing may be in the form of:

• Social rented accommodation;

• Mid-market rented accommodation;

• shared ownership;

• shared equity;

• Discounted low cost housing for sale, including plots for self-build;

• Housing without subsidy.

Our information is that only the first tenure description is being referred to when mention is made of affordable housing .
We have been informed that it is a 95% certainty that the proportion of affordable housing to be built at the two Lenzie sites will be social rented accommodation.


Last Nights Meeting
We would like to thank everyone who came along last night and participated in the meeting, it is good to see so many of the same faces at each meeting. I am sure everyone now has an understanding of the current situation and how we have got here. I would also like to thank East Dunbartonshire Council and Councillors who attended.

Although we did not achieve our end goal of the Green Belt being kept as discussed last night there is a small glimmer of hope of this happening if the Scottish Ministers decide that this should happen. To enable this to happen we have to put as much pressure on the MSP's as we can so please use the Useful Contact Page where you will find all the email addresses you will need. If there are any further contact emails you would like to see on this page please use the Contact Us page with the relevant information.

We can expect Fiona McLeod MSP to take this to the Ministers and we are hopeful that she will be able to arrange a meeting for us to allow us to state our requests. We also feel that not only should we keep this fight moving forward we should be looking to change the legislation so that our locally elected officials are able to take the decisions that affect the local area.

Again a big thanks to everyone who has been involved with this and please remember that even if the Scottish Ministers don't us out we will be able to fight the planning application.