As comander of The Black Watch in the desert heat of Iraq, Brigadier Michael Riddell-Webster is no stranger to bitter conflict.
But now he is fighting a battle much closer to home as he tries to prevent two new houses being built in his rural Perthshire hamlet.
He has turned to the Scottish Government for help after a developer appealed against a decision by Perth and Kinross Council to refuse permission for the houses at Lintrose, near Coupar Angus.
Writing as “a serviceman, a local and voter in the Kettins area” to the government reporter allocated the case, he sad that a previous similar application has already been rejected and appeals for consistency over the gap site, between a cottage and the minor road nearby.
Giving his address as the Ministry of Defence main building, Whitehall, where he serves as head of Capability Ground Manoeuvre, he stated the site is outwith housing boundaries, despite an artificial bund having been created recently.
Brig Riddell-Webster wrote, “The community council is clear in its opposition, concerned about future ribbon development and the apparently effortless ease with which decisions upheld at appeal by the Scottish executive can be overturned.
“Should local concerns be so easily ignored in favour of alien developers’ pockets?”
He added, “And what of precedent?
“Are we really living in an era when decisions taken by the council planning committee, upheld by the Scottish executive and intended to be binding, can be overturned by landowners who merely have to produce an artificial earth bund, upsetting an agricultural landscape that has been there since time immemorial, in order to produce a planning application in line with the housing in the countryside policy?
“Surely this is not what the policy had in mind.
“The policy is looking to protect the outstanding landscapes of the countryside hardly something achieved by the creation of artificial bounds to hem houses in.”
Perth applicant Scott Hunter maintained the site would “bring to a close the linear pattern of development” at the tiny hamlet, despite the council ruling it would be contrary to the local development plan.
The government directorate for planning and environment appeals hopes to settle the matter in August.
Brig Riddell-Webster was made representative colonel of The Black Watch Battalion last year and was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for his actions during the Operation Telic invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Under his command, The Black Watch battle group secured the town of Az Zubayr and laid the foundations for the eventual fall of Basra, a key moment in the war.
His family is well-known in Perthshire, with his father John a soldier and Military Cross recipient a long-time councillor.