New housing plan for eyesore site in Beauly after Springfield Properties lodges plans with Highland Council

AN eye-sore building site at the northern end of Beauly may finally be transformed into a housing estate after new plans for dozens of properties were submitted.

Springfield Properties has lodged proposals for 53 homes on more than five acres of land to the north and west of the village's fire station at East End.

The site is part of a wider area which has long been earmarked for housing under the Inner Moray Firth Local Development Plan, and work was carried out in the past to build roads for a future housing estate.

But the access road was halted midway through and Springfield Properties has acknowledged, in a statement supporting its new application, that the site has been fenced off and left "in an unsightly state" ever since.

The new proposals, which are split into two separate applications – one for 42 properties and another for 11 – replace an earlier single application for housing on the same site.

In a supporting design statement lodged with Highland Council, the developer said: "The land benefits from planning permission in perpetuity and in the recent past the site has been scraped and work started to form the roads. However, no further work has taken place for an extended period and the site is currently fenced off and in an unsightly state."

It added: "Although the previous proposals on this site were at an advanced stage, we have gone back a step and developed the adjacent constraints plan to inform the proposals and to ensure that the approach can be relied upon as the proposals come forward."

The planning statement also said: "The proposed development is intended to reflect the extant planning permission for the site, reinterpreting the layout that was approved on July 29, 2014."

Under the proposals there would be 21 detached and six semi-detached homes and bungalows, as well as 26 flats. Four of the homes would be affordable properties.

Springfield Properties added that the four affordable homes would be in addition to 12 affordable properties "which already benefit from planning permission in the south east portion of the site [and] are under construction."

The site is part of the local development plan's "BE1 Beauly East allocation", which has been earmarked for up to 238 homes in the future. A neighbouring site, dubbed BE2, is also flagged up for a potential mix of 185 homes, businesses and community space.

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