CAMPAIGNERS against the change of use of a historic Donside pub to a house have stepped up their fight after the pub's owners lodged an appeal against the refusal of planning permission.
The Piper reported in November how the pub's owners David Cooper and Debi Begg had been refused permission to change the pub into a five-bedroom house, complete with bar.
They had applied to Aberdeenshire Council for permission and the applicatio
n for change of use was heard by members of the Garioch Area Committee at their meeting in November, but refused by seven votes to six.
Following the refusal of permission, the Piper reported how, according to Margot Kennedy, co-ordinator of the Friends of Midmar Inn Community Company, Mr Cooper had said he would apply again or appeal.
The group was established with the aim of trying to re-establish the pub as an important community hub and to provide an organisation and formal body through which the community could make an application to re-establish the rural facility.
This also allowed the community to apply for the Community Right to Buy as the amenity and rurally-dispersed community qualified under the rules laid down in the Scottish Parliament for this initiative, which was successful.
Margot Kennedy said: "The owners of the inn have submitted 85 pages of typescript and architect's plans to the Directorate of Planning and Environmental Appeals.
"Whilst the appeal is against the decision taken by the Garioch Area Committee not to grant change of use from a public house to a private house, everybody who contacted Garioch Area Committee about the decision last November (148 members of the public wrote letters of objection, there were only seven in support) should by now have been contacted and given the opportunity to comment on the 85-page document.
"The timescale is short. The appeals system only allows 14 days for these responses, so the Friends of Midmar Inn Action Group has been working flat out to contest many of the statements made in the appeal.
"Given the length of the document, this has been very time consuming. Nevertheless, many of us have also found time to submit our own personal responses and I am very hopeful that the Reporter, who takes the final decision, will reject the appeal."
She said the community would continue fighting hard to get their pub reopened and said they were putting together "a very robust response."
The Piper reported in November how planning officers had recommended councillors refuse planning permission because, according to their report: "It has not been demonstrated that the public house has been sufficiently and properly marketed as a business or as a site for employment use. The permanent loss of this employment use and community facility and associated loss of amenity that would be caused by the proposed change of use has not been sufficiently justified."
Mr Cooper and Ms Begg were unavailable for comment when we went to press.
