Concern as Prestwick Airport is dropped from list of important national developments

dailyrecord.co.uk:

A councillor says any future plans to develop Prestwick Airport have been put in jeopardy by the Scottish Government.Councillor Bob Pollock has described the dropping of Prestwick Airport from a draft national policy as “shocking”.He hit out after the Scottish Government had omitted the Ayrshire airport from the National Planning Framework.And a former leader of the council, Hugh Hunter, blasted the government for failing to giving an explanation for omitting the airport from the national framework plans.The framework brings together major developments and projects across Scotland.But Mr Pollock is furious that a draft of the latest version misses out the airport.And it has emerged that Ayrshire has been grouped with Glasgow, Edinburgh and Lanarkshire as a single ‘Central Belt region’ as opposed to being aligned with the South of Scotland.It means the likes of Girvan will be lumped in with Edinburgh and Motherwell as a single ‘Central Belt’ region rather than with Dumfries or Stranraer which it has road links with.South Ayrshire Council considered its response to the proposed framework on Thursday.There was significant criticism over the lack of reference to local infrastructure, the removal of Prestwick Airport, grouping with dissimilar towns, and an overt focus on Glasgow in relation to the Ayrshire Growth Deal.Conservative Councillor Pollock said: “It is an absolutely shocking plan, it has come out from the Scottish Government with barely a reference to Ayrshire, jeopardising the plans to develop the airport.”The policy, once finalised, would be used alongside the council’s Local Development Plan (LDP) to determine planning applications.Councillors heard that the the National Planning Framework would ‘outweigh the