Cairn View John Maine Comment

The following comment was submitted to the Aberdeenshire Council website by John Maine RA, while on business in China, on 18 August 2015. John received an auto’ response on the same date from Aberdeenshire Council confirming his comment submissione. On 20 August 2015 (deadline for comments), Kemnay Community Council forwarded a copy of John’s submission to the Aberdeenshire Council Planning Officer dealing with the application because John’s comments had not appeared on the Council website. On 21 August, the Planning Officer replied to state:

Thank you for your message. This was received on 18 August, but we have had to advise Mr Maine that the points raised are not material planning considerations and the representation is therefore invalid; invalid representations do not appear online.

However, we would argue that the comment highlighted in red below is indeed a material consideration when considered alongside Policy Supplementary Guidance SG Landscape 1, which states:

We will approve development, subject to other policies, where:
2) the proposal will not have an adverse impact on: i) the key natural or historic features of the landscape character;

As a result of being notified by the Planning Officer that his comments were not material planning considerations, John requested that a supplementary paragraph should be added to his original submission, which is shown in blue below. Kemnay Community Council has contacted the Planning Officer requesting that John’s additional comments be added to his original submission, which is a reasonable request given the circumstances and the fact that it is only one day in excess of the deadline for comment.

Comment by John Maine

In 2007 Members of all sections of Kemnay Community met to celebrate the completion of Place of Origin with a grand opening by HRH the Duke of Kent. I felt honoured to have been one of the artists responsible for the creation of a new kind of landscape sculpture… this was not simply a remote work of art but something at the heart of the community and yet respected worldwide through articles lectures and word of mouth. we little believed then that the whole project would be jeapodised by commercial interests, especially as we were given to believe that inappropriate housing development close to the artwork had already been rejected by the council.

now we face another threat from an invasive housing scheme which takes little account of the value of Place of Origin. The essential balance between Place of Origin and the surrounding landscape would be disrupted. This is not simply an aesthetic matter, since the link between village and the granite industry which lay at it’s origins is also expressed by the work of art. I continue to visit Kemnay regularly and have seen the community woodland thrive. The vistas towards and from the cairn have been compromised a little by recent housing developments but this is as nothing by comparison with the destructive impact of these recent proposals .

I strongly object to this proposal

Yours sincerely

John Maine RA

Supplementary comment

The proposals are not in the Local Development Plan, partly on a Protected site and partly in Aberdeenshire Countryside and contrary to the following policies:

SG Rural Development 1, Housing In The Countryside

SG LSD 2 Layout Siting and Design of new development

SG LSD 5 Public Open Space

SG Landscape 1, Landscape Character

SG Landscape 1, Valued Views