A CAMPAIGNING councillor is demanding an area of Lochwinnoch be removed from Renfrewshire’s proposed Local Development Plan (LDP) due to major concerns over flood risk.

Andy Doig has said he will be writing to planning minister Kevin Stewart after an independent reporter suggested the Burnfoot Road area of the village was appropriate for housing development.

Renfrewshire Council designated the greenbelt spot as a flood risk area in 2017 but the planning board agreed to include a field next to the road in the housing section of the new LDP before it was passed to a reporter for examination.

And despite concerns raised by residents about the area being prone to flooding, the reporter agreed with the council that residential development on the site would be deliverable.

Councillor Doig has branded the decision “astonishing” and is now calling on MSPs to join with him in requesting Mr Stewart bins the Burnfoot Road section of the blueprint.

“When Renfrewshire Council moved at the planning board to controversially include the Burnfoot Road area of Lochwinnoch in the housing envelope for its new LDP, I was the only local councillor for Lochwinnoch to oppose it,” he said.

“I did this fundamentally because I know the area has a high risk of flooding and, indeed, the council officially designated it a flood risk area in 2017.

“Over the last year, the proposed LDP has now gone to the reporter in Edinburgh and he has come up with the astonishing conclusion that a historic flood risk area like Burnfoot Road is somehow now safe to build on.

"To say this in spite of decades of hard evidence to the contrary is an exercise in wishful thinking, so I want the minister to remove that part of the LDP.

“I call on all those elected representatives at Holyrood for the West of Scotland to join with me in lobbying the planning minister to get him to drop this ill-advised section.”

Burnfoot Road runs alongside the River Calder, stretching from a golf club at one end to the A760 at the other.

Residents have previously voiced their opposition to having a housing development in the area, with a petition being handed to council chiefs in 2019 containing almost 900 signatures.

A Scottish Government spokesman said: “Independent reporters have carried out an examination of the proposed Renfrewshire Local Development Plan.

“The reporters agreed with Renfrewshire Council that residential development on this site was both deliverable and effective.

“The reporters have submitted a report with recommendations to the council and it is now for the council to consider the recommendations made.”