Ardentinny residents who have asked the Park Authority to be kept up to date regarding Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park’s Local Plan will probably have received a ‘Local Plan Delivery Update – July 2012‘. This includes information on Draft Supplementary Planning Guidance Consultations (consultation date 20 August – 1 October) of which two refer to Callander and the third deals with Housing Development (including Affordable Housing).

In the Park’s ‘Draft Supplementary Planning Guidance Housing Development’ Document (Draft Housing Development in the Park SPG) 5.1 Policy HOUS1: New Housing Development in Settlements, Table 1 sets out the requirements for each settlement with the affordable housing requirement for Ardentinny being listed as 25%.

In order to try and clarify what this means we spoke to Stuart Mearns, Forward Planning Officer for the Park, and posed the following questions:

First we asked what the 25% referred to. Stuart explained that this is the target figure of affordable housing to be included in any housing development exceeding 4 units. He also said that this concurs with the Scottish Government’s benchmark for affordable housing within developments.

We then asked how the percentages of affordable housing requirement for each settlement were arrived at and were told that results of the Argyll and Bute Local Housing Strategy Consultation fed into these decisions.

Finally we asked if any developer has recently applied to build in Ardentinny and Stuart said he was not aware of any applications at the moment other than the Planning Application regarding the refurbishment of Ardentinny Hotel. He added that all submitted applications appear on their website.

If you have any further questions you would like answered, you can contact the Forward Planning team at the National Park Headquarters, Carrochan, Carrochan Road, Balloch, G83 8EG. Telephone 01389 722600, Email: localplan@lochlomond-trossachs.org.