A PLANNING application for a shooting range near Samye Ling monastery has been taken to appeal.
Retrospective permission for the already-completed development was first submitted by Eskdalemuir Forestry and George Birrell in February 2021, sparking a fierce backlash.
Widespread objection to the plans followed from local residents, monks at Samye Ling – and more than 20,000 people who signed a petition calling for the application to be refused.
In April planning officers at Dumfries and Galloway Council ruled that plans for the shooting range at Clarkhill Farm in Eskdalemuir, just two miles from the sacred Tibetan centre, constituted a major development as opposed to a local one.
The ruling meant a new application would have to be lodged with the Scottish Government and plans would be under closer scrutiny.
Now the applicants have filed an appeal with the government’s planning and environmental appeals division in a bid to have the council’s decision overturned.
They claim to have “compelling legal arguments as to why the planning application was and remains an application for local development”.
The appeal was officially registered this week and the council’s planning department has been asked for a response.
Interested members of the public are also being invited to make representations until November 25.
