Residents fight plan for six-storey block overlooking homes

RESIDENTS are fighting plans for a six-storey block of flats just metres from their homes.

Householders in Dalry's Caledonian Crescent claim the 26-flat development will starve them of natural sunlight, add to congestion and rob them of privacy as the new owners will be able to peer into their living rooms.

They are now pleading with councillors not to give planning permission for the development opposite their 150-year-old tenement.

Sylvia Taylor, 56, a resident of 35 years, said: "This is about our lives and how much this would affect them. These are our homes and it's simply not fair."

Social housing group Dunedin Canmore wants to build the flats, with balconies, on a strip of grassed land at the back of Caledonian Crescent, adjacent to Morrison Crescent and parallel to the West Approach Road.

The development – 18.5 metres from the tenement – would overlook the current communal gardens – where half of residents look out of their one or two-bedroom properties.

Nearly 100 objections have reached the council over the plans, which are to be discussed for a final time next Wednesday.

Complaints focus on privacy issues, loss of sunlight, shortages of green space, noise and the potential for crime to increase as the tenement's communal stairway and garden is seen as a short-cut to the new development.

Anke Stahl, 41, who has lived in her Caledonian Crescent flat with her partner and two children for 12 years, said she was angry that another development is planned at all for the area.

She said: "It's so greedy. Councillors don't seem to care because they don't live here. So much is being stripped from the area. This is our lives they are dealing with.

"Children use this grassed area – it's the only place they can play. Where will they go now?"

Residents believe with 26 flats overlooking their properties they will no longer be able to make full use of their communal garden.

Resident Amanda Hutcheson, 31, added: "People will be able to look into our garden and homes and we'll get very little sunlight.

"Our garden is our only green space. There is nowhere else for us to go."

Although council officers insist studies show the tenements will still meet required levels of average daylight, residents say they have been advised they will have to rely on electric lights in winter. Mrs Taylor added: "I have been told that I probably will have problems selling my house if I want to. But this really isn't about money, it's about standards of living."

Councillors will visit the site on Thursday, ahead of next week's planning committee. The development is recommended for approval by officials.