New homes on land at Stornoway Airport are given the go-ahead by the council

The land which was granted approval for new homes.

The development, by Stornoway-based Calmax Construction Ltd., will be located on the site of the former RAF base to the west of the Branahuie to Stornoway Airport road, and will share a boundary with the Stornoway Airport site.

Planning documents confirm that the estate will have 17 semi-detached blocks of houses all of which will be single storey. The development will take its access from the existing Branahuie to Stornoway Airport road.

The development will mean that the semi-derelict buildings on the site that were part of the former RAF base will now be demolished as contractors move onto the site to commence foundation works.

At a meeting of the Comhairle’s Planning Applications Board on Thursday, (February 25) members of the Board raised some concerns over the equipping of play areas for the site, along with the provision for grit and litter binsin addition to the provision for a shelter suitable for the location to be included as part of the development’s bus stop proposal.

In granting planning permission, members agreed to authorise the Comhairle’s Head of Economic Development and Planning to revise the conditions as part of the planning approval with regard to the amenity areas within the curtilege of the development to ‘reflect the views of the board’ and ‘to investigate the inclusion of a condition in relation to the provision of bins’ on the site.

In February 2020 Highlands and Islands Airports Ltd (HIAL) won a legal dispute with Melbost and Branahuie crofters over a section of land at Stornoway Airport that ended in the Court of Session in Edinburgh.

The crofters claimed they had grazing rights on the land that HIAL wanted to sell for housing development, but a ruling by the Court of Session found that crofters had already been compensated for the loss of any crofting rights when the land was acquired by the Air Ministry in 1941.

Last November, Highlands and Islands Airports Limited confirmed that it had sold a 5.5 hectare site for housing developing to Calmax Construction Ltd.