Culter Courier PUBLISHED BY THE COMMUNITY COUNCIL
FEB 2007
CHAIR'S REPORT CHRISTMAS a n d N e w Year celebrations a r e well behind us; the cheerful Christmas L are now in storage: the winter bugs are taking their toll and the spring bulbs are barely showing green shoots. M y gloomy spirits were not raiseci one little bit I had a phone call from our Secretary and Editor's daughter. Marjory Skinner had been taken into hospital for a second time in three months with chest pains and palpitations. I am pleased to report that she is recovering well and is home. However she will require further tests a n d treatment to make sure her heartbeat stays stable. (Unfortunately she now has a severe throat infection!) It was heart-warming to find the other members of o u r community council rallying round to help out if and when they can. Anne Russell, in particular, who was visiting the advertisers along with Marjory, continued dealing with them. The rest of us will d o what we can under Marjory's instruction. but in future we will have to try to lighten the load without spoiling her enjoyment of what she does so well.
Public Local Inquiry (PLI) As I reported in the last Courier, the PLI w a s n e a r i n g its e n d . The last i t e m concerning Culter w a s the proposed business park o n Malcolm Road (see details under 'Planning'). We will now have t o wait for the Reporter's recommendations, see I Aberdeen City Council accepts or rejects them and to have the Local Plan 'signed off' by the Scottish Executive. This could take until the end of the year. Only when this is done can Aberdeen City Council enforce the developers to stick to the plan (e.g. force them to include affordable housing in their developments). New North East of Scotland Structure Plan N o sooner have w e finished with the
Local Plan than the Planners for Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire probably will consider starting on the Strategy for developments in the whole of the North East in the next ten years - nnci even further into the future. The sort of questions we are likely to have to consider is where development will have to take place in the future after the present Structure and Local Plans are out of date e.g. ':In Aberdeen City? * In the existing towns and villages across the shire? * Along the existing rail transport link between Inverurie and Stonehaven? * Along u re-opened old rvilway route e.g. Aberdeen - Peterhead or even Aberdeen - Ballater? * New settlements in Aberdeenshire? Or *- Some mixture of these'? Consultations with communities {nay S~LIIT in the spring.
illcrease of 1.000 car journeys ( 16.000 instead of 15.000) daily through. and from. Culter to and from the AWPR at commuting times. They also brought a video o f h o w the increasing traffic woulci flow in 2 0 years time ( 2 0 2 7 ) at the Milltimber BraelNorth Deeside Road Junction controlled by the Traffic Lights they propose to install. This video of their c o n i p ~ ~ tmodel er for traffic management (also shown at the Waterwheel and Ardoe House exhibitions) simulated in 5 m i n ~ ~ t e s the traffic movements in the 2 hours between 7um-9ani. When we asked them to slow down the video to show us the queue stretching back towards Culter in 'real time'. they said this could not he done. Neither could they answer the questions on the length of tlie queue or the time it would take from Joining the h traffic lights! queue to getting r h o ~ ~ gthe (1 did. however. manage to get these answers Srom a highways engineer from The Western Peripheral Route (AWPR) Jacob Babrie Consulting Engineers at the W~~terwheel Exliibirion. He said he had The members of C C C Roads sub-group. carefully measured tlie distance and even members of Cults, Bieldside & Milltimber in 2027 it would never be greater than 480 Community Council and City Councillors metres and thereSore would not stretch Pam MacDonald and Aileen Malone had a meeting with AWPR roads en,'(T~necrs hack into CuIter and that the longest time taken tu ger through the traffic lights Derick Murray and Graham Edmund on therefore would ne\,er be more than 10 9th January in Culter Village Hall. minutes) When I pointed out that the . se\ cral rat runs people could use to avoid They showed 11sthe 'latest' design f o ~the the traffic lights and to access the AWPR AWPRIMilltimber Brae Junction which roundabout behind Kippie Lodge through remained unchanged from that presented its junction with Culrer House Road and back in AugustISeptember 2006 and asked him how long he estimated it would explained how there would be a net
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