WE have to accept that, in strictly legal terms, the Court of Session decision in the Jordanhill housing development appeal was probably correct (“Campaigners issue warning after judge gives green light for 400 flats”, The Herald, February 15 & Letters, February 16).
But there is surely something far wrong with our local planning rules when a large property developer can snap up a recently vacated prime site in an already well-populated area and build 400 houses and flats without even having to consider the impact of the resultant population influx on local schooling and community amenities, let alone having a legal requirement to provide such facilities at their own cost as part of their investment?
Some 400 extra families on the former Jordanhill College complex will almost certainly include at least 800 children of school age. But all three of the nearest primary and secondary schools are already at full capacity, and west end fee-paying schools are also unable to accommodate such a large influx, even if the parents were willing to pay the fees.
Yet there is no legal requirement on the developer to even think about that, far less be required to provide at least some basic suitable buildings on the site at its expense.
Other essential community facilities such as shopping centres are barely within walking distance and most of the newcomers will probably travel to these by car.
Yet the site has only one main vehicle exit down a winding drive onto an already busy commuting route that no longer has any public bus service.
The only other egress leads into an already built-up private housing estate, and there is no obvious route for a third site exit to be created. Surely the planning rules should require that such basic matters are taken into account by potential developers from the start, and that they be required to provide at their own expense at least some of such basic amenities any purchaser might expect in return for an investment of several hundred thousand pounds.
Why should the cash-strapped local authority always be left with these problems, and the existing local community have to suffer the added congestion within their area, while the developer has a healthy profit and no responsibility for the disruption?
Is it not time the rules were updated to take some account of reality in such local issues?
Iain AD Mann, 7 Kelvin Court,
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