Expiry date for planning application 10/00406/FULL extended to 16/08/2010

Due to submission of a modified planning application (10/00406/FULL) on 26/07/2010 with an amendment to the Land Ownership Certificate, the overall expiry date of the application has been extended to 16 August 2010, with a target determination date now set at 25 September 2010. The original application was completed with Certificate A, claiming:

"no person other than *myself/the applicant was an owner (Note 2) of any part of the land to which the application relates, at the beginning of the period of 21 days ending with the date of this application..."

The modified application has been completed with Certificate B, stating:

"The applicant has served notice on every person other than the applicant who, at the beginning of the period of 21 days ending with the date of the accompanying application was owner (Note B) of any part of the land to which the application relates."

The persons to whom this notice was served are stated to be 'Foxmead Ltd'.

Why was the original application completed using Certificate A, which should be done

"...where the applicant is the only owner and the land is not an agricultural holding" (Note 1)?

Was this an administrative error?

Was it in response to public scrutiny using objections lodged based on our proforma letter?

Why did Dundee City Council claim to be "the only owner" of land it sold to the Al-Maktoum Foundation in 2004?

The details of the excambion of land are being withheld from the public, and the "urgent" council meeting held on 22 February 2010 excluded members of the public and the press. Isn't it about time that the full facts surrounding these negotiations were disclosed so that the public can be assured this is in the best interest of the public purse?

Proforma objection to the planning application 10/00406/FULL

We have drafted a proforma letter of objection for anyone wishing to use some or all of this information. If you wish to use this, you can download in Word or PDF format and submit to the Director of City Development by 15 July 2010. Remember to include your name, address and signature.


Proforma objection to planning application 10/00406/FULL

Electronic survey field test results for Logie site

The city council's planning application (10/00406/FULL) includes an Electronic Survey Document regarding field tests conducted by Scottish and Southern Energy (Report-285685.PDF), and which reports readings of 0 (zero) microtesla at various points on the Logie site.

We asked Alasdair Philips, from EMFields and Powerwatch, to comment on this report:

The "0" microtesla is a nonsense. There is no way it can be zero. It may well be low, but on a 0.00 resolution scale (the usual one measuring to 0.01 microtesla) I would expect between 0.01 to 0.10 at least. I suspect the site is fine for the school, but they should not get away with such a document.

Also, the 50 microtesla "natural fields" level statement is inexcusable - that is a static (permanent magnet) field and cannot be compared with a 50 Hz oscillating field. I thought the industry had got away from such stupid statements - apparently not Scottish and Southern. I will send this report to some senior electricity industry people for comment. The background ELF oscillating field is actually less than 0.0001 microtesla - compare that with 50!

The SSE report is presumed to be the council's response to the HMIe recommendation: "The council should also seek to reassure parents about the levels of contamination of soil at the proposed site and the level of danger from the nearby electricity sub-station", as quoted in section 6.2 of HMIE report dated November 2009.

Unfortunately, if the report is as inaccurate as suggested by Mr Philips' comments, it gives parents no such assurance.

Playtime at the new West End school?

We were wondering what playtime at the new West End school might be like, so we took one of the sketches from the council's planning application 10/00406/FULL, as viewed from the south-east corner, and added 400 children using the council's sketch of 4 children playing as a stamping tool.

Here's what we discovered, before and after modification. What do you think? What will the noise levels be for residents and nearby businesses? Will the children have enough space to play - or even move?