Ross family wins eight-year planning battle for home
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A ROSS-SHIRE couple has won consent to build a family home on their croft after an eight-year battle with planners.
Ronnie and Laura Maclean from Dornie, who run bus services in Skye and Lochalsh, were overjoyed when Highland Council gave a seal of approval to the five-bedroom property - after years of knock-backs.
Planners always said the family had no chance of building behind 3 Mary Street at Bundalloch because it was against policy.
This week, Mr and Mrs Maclean took their four children, Eubha (11), Effie (9), Seona (8) and Hamish (5), to the council’s HQ in Inverness expecting their hopes to be dashed once again.
But councillors came down in their favour after ward member Isabelle Campbell pleaded with her fellow members to give the family a break.
She said: "Members, this application before you today is from a young local couple with four children who go to the local school. He operates the local bus company and provides work for six full-time and two part-time workers and he wants to build on his own croft. I beg you for your support for this local family today."
Dafydd Jones, the council’s area planning manager for the north, commended the way the house had been designed by Skye architect Donald MacSween, but said it regrettably went against planning policy.
He said the house, set back and elevated, would be "divorced from the others and removed from the established settlement pattern".
Councillor Campbell, ward member for Wester Ross, Strathpeffer and Localsh ward, insisted the house should be approved.
She told the north planning applications committee that concerns relating to road safety and flooding were proven to be invalid and a young family moving onto that side of the loch would invigorate the community.
Fellow ward councillor Audrey Sinclair also spoke in support of the house and members then unanimously agreed to approve the plan.
Speaking after the meeting, Mr Maclean (41) said his eight-year struggle had finally paid off - but only after he chose to ignore the advice of planning officials who repeatedly said the house would never get approval.
He said: "This time, I just put the application straight into the council hoping for the best. We couldn’t believe it when they said yes. I honestly didn’t expect that. If they’d said no we wouldn’t have appealed."
The couple, who were born and bred in the area, plan to sell their house at Sallachy and start planning for their new home across the loch.
"We want to thank people in the community for their support," said Mr Maclean. "And we really were humbled by some of the kind things the councillors said."
