New building at Gordons Sawmill – Council TECS dept gurn

Last Tuesday night River Community Council briefly discussed Gordons application for the erection of building to house new timber sorting line. No problem there, the watchdogs were quiet happy with the company’s plans. Not so Highland Council TECS department however, they state in their submission to the plan:

“It is clear from the submitted Transport Assessment that the proposed development will result in an appreciable increase in heavy vehicular movements on the local road network; a network that consists largely of relatively narrow roads with poor geometry and limited drainage. The length of Balblair Road fronting the sawmill site ( including adjoining footways and verges), has, in particular, suffered considerable damage through heavy traffic associated with existing sawmill operations. The road drainage system over this length has also been adversely affected by mud, debris and surface water emanating from the sawmill premises and bark and debris from the sawmill boundary embankment adjacent to the public road at the south west end of the sawmill. As a result of this road safety has been compromised, an additional maintenance burden has been placed on the Council as Roads Authority, local residents have suffered loss of amenity and the travelling public have been inconvenienced.”

They then go on to list a series of improvements to the roads and footpaths that they want to see before they can support the application. This observer was interested enough to have a look at the documentation provided by Gordons transport consultants but for some reason or other their detailed document appears upside-down on this observer’s machine.

A series of documents relevant to this application can be viewed here on the Highland Council’s e-planning pages.

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