Fate of Gillies Hill kicked up to Scottish Government

Because the Stirling Council has not yet decided the future of Gillies Hill, Patersons Quarries Ltd have taken the decision out of the Council's hands and gone to the Scottish government for a decision. What will happen is that a Reporter, appointed by the Scottish Ministers, will now be the decision maker taking over the determination of the application from the Council. The Reporter will look at the application from scratch, and can if required ask the applicant to provide more information. The Reporter will also decide on the mechanism for the determination, which will most likely be written representations only or a planning hearing (i.e. a round table discussion). Meanwhile Stirling Council Planning Panel will still need to decide what they would have done had the decision not been taken off them. This hearing will happen on 2 August 2016.