Scrutiny Board

BISHOPTON ACTION GROUP

c/o "Kilallan"

Sachelcourt Avenue

Bishopton

PA7 5AA

294th March 2006

To the Clerk: Renfrewshire Council Scrutiny Board.

Planning Process - Bishopton ROF

I understand that one of the remits of the Scrutiny Board in Renfrewshire Council is to review decisions that have been taken by the Policy boards to ensure that they are implementing Council policy and, where appropriate, to submit recommendations to the Leadership Board and/or Council where they believe that anomalies to accepted procedures have occurred.

I wish to submit the following information regarding the planning process that is being used regarding the ROF development in Bishopton.

1) The Local Plan when published for public consultation (October 2002) made no mention of the nature and scale of the ROF development and the people of Bishopton were unaware of the proposals by BAE/Redrow to build 2500 houses.

It was only AFTER the BAE Systems exhibition in February 2005 that the 2500 houses were known to the public. Therefore Bishopton residents had no opportunity to make their objections known to the Public Inquiry in December 2003. (NB This out-of-date Local Plan was adopted in March 2006.)

2) The Planning & Development Policy Board (August 2005) in its response to the Structure Plan agreed to designate Bishopton as being suitable "in principle" as an urban expansion area (as per Structure Plan) BEFORE any investigation as to whether site was suitable for large scale development, BEFORE any assessment of infrastructure requirements and BEFORE any risk assessment to health and safety of existing residents or future residents was carried out. Please note the proposed site is no ordinary site. It is a former munitions factory site and is the largest contaminated site in the UK. The exact scale and extent of contamination is completely unknown.

3) The Director of Planning continued to recommended that the Planning Board approve the designation of Bishopton as an Urban Expansion / Community Growth area in the Alteration to the Structure Plan, despite vigorous local opposition to that designation. Over 4700 letters of objection were received regarding Bishopton. We believe that the Director of Planning has not properly addressed the objections made. In fact in the first round of consultation he failed to mention in his report to the Planning Board (Aug 2005) that almost 2500 letters of objections had been received.

4) In the Alteration to the Structure Plan there are two areas in Renfrewshire designated as Urban Expansion/Community Growth areas; Johnstone and Bishopton. However the Director of Planning proposes to process each of these in a different way. Johnstone will be dealt with through the Local Plan; Bishopton will be processed through an Outline Planning Application and the Local Plan will be altered retrospectively. Johnstone residents will be able to participate in the planning process and have their suggestions incorporated into the plan. Johnstone will also be allowed a public inquiry. Contrast this with the case of Bishopton where all that Bishopton residents can do is object to BAE/Redrow's plans and there will be no public inquiry i.e. no independent scrutiny. The Outline Planning application approach favours the developer as they have a right of appeal. However the public (your rate-payers) will have no right of appeal if Outline Planning permission is granted. It seems that the Outline Planning application is being used to by-pass the Local Plan process and deny Bishopton residents the same rights as Johnstone residents.

5) The Structure Plan will now be submitted in April to the Scottish Executive and there will be a period of up to 40 weeks before it is decided upon.

During this period, the Planning Department intend to process planning applications with regard to the Bishopton ROF site, presupposing that the Executive will grant approval. This is by no means certain.

6) In light of the council seeking savings of £11.5M and the Council Taxes going up by 5% next year, it is wasteful to commit staff resources, time, consultants fees etc prior to that Executive decision.

In summary Bishopton Action Group has a number of concerns. We believe that:

it was an unsafe decision to designate Bishopton as an area of Urban Expansion/Community Growth when no facts were known about the site;
Bishopton residents should be given the same rights and opportunities as Johnstone residents. The Local Plan process should also be used for Bishopton;
it is not in the best interests of Renfrewshire Council’s rate-payers to use its limited resources processing planning applications where the principle of development has not been approved by the Scottish Executive
Renfrewshire Council should not be putting the interests of the developers before those of the local residents, rate-payers and electorate.

I would ask that the Scrutiny Board examine the planning process that has been adopted for the ROF development. We believe it to be flawed and does not reflect the views of the residents of Bishopton.

I look forward to hearing from you,

Yours Sincerely,

Stewart Ferguson

Chairman

Bishopton Action Group

C.C. Councillor Iain Langlands

Councillors of Renfrewshire Council Scrutiny Board:

Provost Burns

T Kelly (Convenor)

N Macgregor

J Hood

S Mullin

MSPs:

Annabel Goldie

Bruce McFee

Ross Finnie

Trish Godman

Tom McCabe

Joanne Lamont

Hugh Henry