With thanks to Martin Ford.
East Garioch councillor Martin Ford has called on Aberdeenshire Council to see if it can get work resumed on the unfinished Bett Homes development at Kingseat.
The councillor’s plea is made in a letter to Robert Gray, Aberdeenshire’s head of planning and building standards.
“If it can, the Council now really needs to step in and help the residents of Kingseat,” said Cllr Ford.
The planning permission for the mixed use development based on the former hospital site at Kingseat was granted on 9 December 2004. The first new homes at Kingseat were completed on 21 February 2006 – so some residents have now been living in an unfinished development for nearly ten years.
Cllr Martin Ford said:
“The normal position is that once a development is started, how long the work takes is a matter for the developer and will depend, for example, on market conditions or the developer’s other priorities.
“If the Council gives consent for a development, it’s permission to build it, not an instruction.
“For many years in the North-east, planning permissions for housing have generally been implemented in full reflecting the demand for new homes. Kingseat has not followed this pattern, however. With most of the former hospital buildings converted, work then stopped.
“It is completely unfair to Kingseat residents for the developer to leave the site unfinished on an on-going basis. If the Council can do anything to get the developer to resume work, it certainly should.”
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