By Liz Fowler

PROTESTERS AGAINST a caravan sales business operating without planning permission were furious to discover the local authority intends taking no action.

Castle Continental Caravans has been in business on a site adjacent to the A90 Dundee to Aberdeen road for several years.

According to Aberdeenshire Council, owner William McDonald was reminded several months ago he was trading in breach of regulations.

A council spokesman said, “We are aware that a business has been trading on this site, and discussed the matter with the proprietors a number of months ago.”

However, he intimated that there may be repercussions, and when the planning application does come before councillors at the beginning of December it would be noted the business had been in operation without permission.

The site at 14 Holdings, Scotston, was previously operated by Alan Gammie as a garden machinery retail centre, then leased as an engineering unit.

“I don’t understand what the problem is,” said Mr McDonald.

“The site was for years a retail unit for garden machinery.

“The only difference is we are selling caravans.

“We are creating employment— we are not causing pollution.

“We have gone through the proper procedures. My application for planning permission was submitted about 18 months ago.

“Since then I have heard nothing from the council, but when you are a business you can’t wait forever.

“I know there are other businesses in this area operating without planning permission.”

Residents in the Mearns say the access to the A90 from the site is totally unsuitable for caravans, and claim there have already been a number of near accidents.

“Southbound vehicles pulling out of the site have to use the central reservation,” said one woman motorist who was recently involved in a near collision with the tail end of a caravan.

She said, “The problem is there is no room in the central reservation for a vehicle towing a caravan.

“If the road isn’t clear in both directions and they have to stop in the central reservation, that means the tail end of the caravan is blocking the fast lane of the northbound carriageway.

“I had to slam on the brakes to avoid a collision.”

Another local resident added, “I find it absolutely staggering the council has allowed this situation.

“The site sits immediately adjacent to a busy dual carriageway, and has been extended and the caravans and kit mobile homes for sale are covering an area of three to four acres of land that would have been classified agricultural.”

Local councillor Tom Fleming said he had received no complaints about the site.

However, he had been mystified by the operation of the business when no discussion of the planning application had ever taken place at a meeting of the Kincardine and Mearns area committee.

He admitted it was all the more baffling when an application for a site just yards away—to convert an old implement shed as a house— had been blocked with vehicular access to the A90 being a major issue.

“We are creating no more traffic than the garden machinery sales centre, or the bigger lorries using the access when the site was used for engineering.” said Mr McDonald.

“There are still other big agricultural vehicles using the access.

“What’s the difference with caravans?

“It’s only every month or so that we will have articulated lorries here.”

A spokeswoman for Transport Scotland said, “Transport Scotland understands that Aberdeenshire Council will consider this particular planning application on 4 December, and we have made the recommendation that it is rejected on road safety grounds.

“Until the council hears the planning application, we are unable to make any further comment about the possible outcome.”