THE guardians of Scotland’s heritage sites have said they do not object to revived plans for a holiday park to be built at Culloden.
The plans seek to convert the equestrian centre at Faiebue into a holiday park with 13 lodges and a 100-seat restaurant – and Historic Environment Scotland (HES) says the site in question was on the path of the British Army as it advanced to the battle.
However HES added the specific area was “not central to events” on April 16, 1746, and that it felt the plans were not raising “historic environment issues of national significance”.
The area in question is located about a mile away from the NTS-owned part of the battlefield, but it is within the boundary of where the battle took place.
The proposals were rejected by Highland Council last year, and NTS said it would formally object to the revived plans.
HES responded: “The application has been accompanied by a report detailing the results of an archaeological walkover survey and metal-detecting.
“This did not recover any artefacts likely to be related to the battle which confirms that the area was not central to the events of the battle itself and primarily provides landscape context around the battlefield.”
It added: “Our view is that the proposals do not raise historic environment issues of national significance and therefore we do not object. However, our decision not to object should not be taken as our support for the proposals.”
The body said that because the area is surrounded by woodland it will not be visible from the “core of the battlefield”. It also said such a development would not be widely visible or influence the setting of the “particularly sensitive parts” of the battlefield.
NTS rejected the original proposals for a number of reasons, including “development creep” of changing land use. General manager for the Highlands and Islands, Clea Warner, said: “I can see nothing especially ‘new’ about this new submission. Nothing in this fresh application alleviates any of these concerns.”
The body owns a third of the battlefield and the rest is in private hands – meaning it open for development proposals such as these.
Dr David Learmonth, of the Group to Stop Culloden Development, added that the holiday park plan posed a “profound, irreversible physical damage to the battlefield and associated archaeology”.
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