PROPOSALS to erect two houses on “safeguarded open space” in Tillicoultry will be able to go ahead after councillors overturned a decision by planning officers.

Elected members on Clackmannanshire Council's Local Review Body last Thursday, January 21, overturned a previous decision by planning officers to refuse the application.

It means that two houses with detached garages on land to the north of Cemetery Lodge and Dollar Road will be able allowed to be built, subject to conditions.

At the meeting, councillors heard that plans to build a care facility at the site by Clayton Care had previously been approved.

However, the care company has been unable to deliver the facility “for a variety of business and operational reasons”, explained documents tabled on the day.

Consequently, the applicant has been seeking to alter the development from a care facility to residential use – a different class of development.

Agents putting forward the case argued that the previous consent for the care facility “is a major material consideration in this review”.

The original reasons for refusal said the development for two houses would “have an unacceptable adverse impact on the function and value of the area of open space”.

The development will also have an impact on four tees protected by a preservation order and 18 other trees.

And while a woodland management plan was submitted to mitigate the impacts, officers believed this “could not be reasonably justified or delivered through the planning application process”.

A number of other issues were also raised and councillors wondered why the care facility would have been allowed to go ahead, considering both developments had to address the same problems.

Explaining the difference in decision making, a planning officer said that the originally proposed care home facility would have brought community benefits with it to offset the loss of open space.

He added: “Whereas by contrast, the proposal for the two houses didn't offer community benefit and therefore didn't justify the loss of safeguarded open space.”

When it came to making a decision on the review, many elected members admitted it was a difficult case.

Councillor George Matchett said: “This has been a very difficult process.

“We have an approval for a care home in 2019, and while each and every application has to be examined on its own merits, it's unavoidable to recognise the fact that a planning application is live and exists at that particular site and does involve building.”

Cllrs Dixon, Matchett, Earle and Coyne were all in favour of overturning the original refusal.

Vice chair Cllr Jane McTaggart was hoping to uphold the decision, however.

She said: “I think there's a lot of dubiety [over the change] from the care homes to the houses.

“I'm not saying I'm being unnecessarily suspicious, however, I'd really need more clarity on the reasons behind that before I could support this.”