Safety fears raised over forest track plan in west Perthshire

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Planning permission has been granted for a forestry road that locals feel could have a huge impact on Comrie residents. Those living along the Glascorrie road were shocked to discover that Perth and Kinross Council planners had approved the creation of a road to facilitate timber harvesting from Auchingarrich Forest on the Torlum Ridge.

Access to the track will be from the very narrow Glascorrie road – a route residents maintain is simply not suitable for the heavy volume of traffic that will be needed to transport the timber.It is understood that none of those that will be impacted by the work knew anything about the application because the location of the forest road is outwith the required 30-metre neighbour notification limit.Glascorrie residents took their concerns to a recent meeting of Comrie Community Council.Afterwards, Comrie CC’s Lindsay Brown explained: “There are potential issues with the proposed development, not least of which are there could be movement of up to 700 lorries down the Glascorrie road, along Strowan Road and onto Braco Road and over the Langside.“Some of these roads, particularly the Glascorrie, are just not suitable for that.“The other major issue for householders who live on Glascorrie is that all their water comes from springs on Torlum and there is grave concern that those springs will be contaminated.“Fundamentally, our biggest concern is that there was no consultation on this at all, not necessarily going in to the rights and wrongs of it, but the fact that nobody has been able to question how suitable this particular plan is.

And nobody from the council actually did any site visit before agreeing approval of the planning permission.“They only have to notify people within 30 metres