Friday April 5th 2019
The proposed development plans with the Borders Railway at the bottom and Eskbank station car park and Edinburgh College on the right
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Marie Sharp
Plans to build houses on green belt land alongside a new retail park have been lodged with Midlothian Council.
The proposal off Dalhousie Road, Dalkeith, covers over 2 hectares of land.
The majority of the site would be used to create retail units and car parking on land which has been allocated for business use in the local authority’s Local Development Plan.
But it also includes plans to build a cul-de-sac of housing north of Hardengreen House on a former steading site which is designated green belt.
The plans, lodged by Hardengreen Estates Ltd, would see the vacant land, which lies south of the Eskbank Station park and ride and solar panel farm, transformed.
Entrance to the retail park would come by expanding to road to the park and ride while a new road for the housing would be created.
The applicants said they held a public consultation on their proposals 18 months ago and only five people turned up.
Submitting plans to Midlothian Council’s planners this week they said the lack of attendance at the event in October 2017 in their experience “could be due to the lack of neighbours and the uncontroversial nature of the proposal on land zoned for development on a site which is clearly in need of regeneration and development.”
They added that three comment forms were filled in – two in favour and one describing it as “poor” – however given the lack of interest in the public consultation they said “it is not considered that those attending and the views expressed could be considered to be representative of the wider community”.
The application for planning in principle does not set down the number of houses or retail units on the site. It will now be considered by council planners.
The planning can be viewed on the council planning portal HERE.
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