A major housing project on the edge of Bridge of Earn could move one step closer to fruition when Perth and Kinross Council makes a call on the Oudenarde development.
Developers have been seeking approval for hundreds of homes at the former hospital site near the M90 motorway for years, only to be hit by a series of stumbling blocks.
Councillors are being advised to vote in favour of allowing 159 homes when they meet on Wednesday. The application comprises 22 bungalows to be built by GS Brown. The remainder would all be two storey houses ranging from two to five bedrooms and built by Taylor Wimpey.
As many as 1,600 properties could eventually be built at the eastern edge of Bridge of Earn, along with an industrial estate, commercial area and school.
Councillors had been expected to come to a verdict on the blueprints in January 2018, having already approved plans in principle but a late Transport Scotland objection kiboshed the developers hopes of starting building work then.
The application was called in to be examined by the Scottish Government’s planning and environmental appeals division (DPEA), where reporters spent two and a half years scrutinising the plans.
The bid was pulled just two hours before councillors were due to vote, with GS Brown chairman Geoff Brown stating at the time that “he had never seen anything like it” in his property-developing career.
Traffic issues raised by Transport Scotland, focused mainly on the adjacent trunk road junction, have now been resolved and the two housebuilding firms could soon get to work building homes on the land between the A912 and the railway line connecting Perth and Edinburgh.
Fears had been raised about slip road safety, but a new traffic modelling plan concluded that signalised junctions on the A912, rather than previously considered roundabouts, would provide a safer, more effective and up-to-date design solution for the slip roads.
Council officers and Transport Scotland believe the signalised junctions will also assist with a safer footpath and cycling connection between the site and Bridge of Earn.
As of 2008, Perth and Kinross Council had approved two applications for a total of 150 houses to be built at Oudenarde, of which 112 have been constructed so far.
