The Local Plan is now up for consultation and there is a real danger that lots of land around the WPR route will be zoned for development, making the road into an out-of-town development corridor. The Council have said that development will only be at the junctions, but there is now pressure to add up to five new junctions to the six existing planned ones. Out-of-town development has been shown in other cities to lead to a ‘modal shift’ away from mass transit and towards car use and to damage city centres by putting shops out of business.

• The Local Plan should contain a strong presumption against large, out-of-town developments with large amounts of associated parking.
• New development near the route of the Western Peripheral Route should be appropriate to the scale of the communities in which it takes place and should be designed largely to serve those communities.
• The Western Peripheral Route should only have junctions with existing major radial roads (ie. Ellon Road, Newmachar Road, A96, A944, North Deeside Road and A92)
• New development should not be on junctions off the WPR but on existing public transport routes.
• Demand-management and efficient mass transit are essential parts of the transport system.

Donald Murdoch

Corporate Director for City Development

St Nicholas House

Broad Street

Aberdeen

AB10 1BW