Warning over extended hours for construction sites in Fife

In Tay Bridgehead, residents in Guardbridge and Wormit may be affected, and across Fife a number of other applications have been submitted.

The Scottish Government minister and chief planning officer issued a letter on May 29 advising of new temporary legislative measures to support planning departments and developers through the Covid-19 crisis.

One measure concerned the hours of operations of construction sites.

In cases where local residents might be impacted by the scale of work on a given development the local planning committees may impose restrictions on work days and hours to prevent anti-social hours.

Planning authorities were asked to be supportive of reasonable requests for extended working hours. The need for the extended hours is cited as being to facilitate different ways of working that may be required, for example shift patterns, to permit appropriate social distancing for example.

Cllr Jonny Tepp said: “A number of permissions have been sought already across Fife and local residents in our ward have expressed their concerns to us over the impact of long hours and seven days a week working on their daily lives.

“We asked the planning department if residents could express their concerns on the planning applications, but there is no facility for residents to do this on the planning portal.”

The councillor added: “Instead, therefore, we are encouraging residents to set out their concerns over how extended working hours could impact on them by writing to the generic email [email protected] referring to the planning application that is impacting them, and also to copy their concerns to their local community councils so that they in turn have an opportunity to express any concerns they have.”

Cllr Brett added: “We recognise that businesses need to get back to work and that there may be a need for some changes to conditions that have been attached to various developments.”

The Tay Bridgehead councillor added: “However, we are urging that the planners and environmental health team should listen to public concerns too.”