SNP faces probe over Aviemore planning row

Published on Saturday 1 March 2008 18:37

ALEX Salmond is facing a second parliamentary inquiry into claims SNP ministers have interfered in Scotland's planning rules.

Labour is to call for Holyrood's Local Government Committee – already investigating the SNP over Donald Trump's plans for a golf complex in Aberdeenshire – to look into the government's role in a housing and retail project in Aviemore, planned by SNP donor Donald MacDonald.

It has emerged that Salmond and at least four other ministers intervened in the affair, prompting claims they handed McDonald unfair advantage. This is denied by the politicians.

Fresh information released last week revealed that MacDonald, who gave 30,000 to the SNP in 2007, wrote three times to Salmond last year about the problems he was having in the planning process. The Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) was objecting to the plans over fears it would cause flooding.

It has since emerged that ministers then intervened to ensure the process progressed quickly. Opponents claim that this amounted to pressure on SEPA to drop their objections.

Last night, the SNP was facing questions as new documents came to light. In a report written last November, and obtained under freedom of information legislation, Martin Boshoff, the senior hydrologist at SEPA's Dingwall office, discusses a letter from the Government.

"This letter instructed SEPA 'to deal with' the flood risk issue before close of play on Friday. Apparently, the financial benefactor of the projects threatened to pull out unless the flood risk issue is resolved asap," it declared.

In reply to Boshoff's report, SEPA manager Robert Brown urged him to remove all reference of MacDonald's threat.

"My only suggestion would be to delete the… sentence… as this sort of information should not form any written part of our reckoning and anything such as this may be subject to an FoI inquiry (yes, I'm getting paranoid!)"

Late last year, MacDonald told ministers that unless he got approval he would have to close his entire resort, which was losing 10,000 a day.

After contacting SNP ministers, the office of environment secretary Richard Lochhead urged SEPA in late November to give a quick verdict. The next week it gave conditional backing.

SEPA last night denied pressure from ministers. Asked why Brown ordered Boshoff's report to be changed, a spokeswoman said: "Flood risk assessment should be based on the technical merits of the submission."

But Labour finance spokesman Andy Kerr said: "It would appear that the only interest being directly served by ministerial intervention was the perceived commercial interest of the developer."

The SNP insists that Salmond did not see the letters from MacDonald and acted entirely within the rules.