Approved Minutes of the Meeting held on Tuesday 7th of December 2021
7.45pm Via Zoom

Present: Scott Crawford, Robert Clubb, Derek Shanks, Barbara Ross, Margaret Beaton, Sarah
Hill, Susan Hewett.

Attending: Councillor Jane Hutchison, 3 members of the public.
Apologies: Hugh Aitchison, Kevin Carty, Susan Hewett, Christine Stewart
Minutes of the last meeting: No minutes approved

AD/Graham’s Application: Update on the AD and Robotic Dairy to be discussed. Letter
received from local resident who cannot be in attendance at the meeting. There is a farm
adjacent to the site and the resident has raised concerns with Stirling Council (SC). The
plans appear to verge on being a waste management site and will cause issues resulting
from this. There is planning for a cottage to be built and this has had to be adjusted due to
the location of the AD planned site.

Screening Directive for the EIA have been sent to the Scottish Government as the
applications seem to be linked. The digester storage has been moved from the flood plain
and the ponds have now been included into the actual plans. Access has been amended to
allow traffic to turn right coming out of the site.

Main issues outstanding – feed input is still not within a building and therefore difficult to
control odours. SEPA Guidance doesn’t seem to be being followed. Flood Alleviation plans
do not seem to be large enough to cover the entire area. New landscaping is in the flood
zone and seems to be within the area of the flood alleviation plan. The plans require to be
update as appears that the levels of digestate will be higher than that on the plan.

It is suggested the Robotic Dairy and AD are linked and therefore should be treated as one
and therefore screened as EIA. Scottish Office should give their response by 5 weeks of
concerns being raised however; no response has been sent over yet but possibly still have 1-
2 weeks left of the process. All of the amendments have come about due to the objections
received from the residents of the Kippen Community. It was therefore worthwhile sending
in the objections to affect the changes so far.

Trees may fail to grow as part of the landscaping as too close the flood alleviation points.
Due to the Robotic Dairy, it is possible that the application with now meet the Proximity
Criteria.

The AD Plant is still not in a building – the feedstocks should be in a building and stored
under negative pressure as this reduces odour – the applicant doesn’t seem to have
considered this. SEPA don’t seem to have considered the application correctly either as
they are not erring on the side of caution. However, SEPA have objected to the application
as the Applicant has followed guidance. Ecology doesn’t seem to have been considered.

Kippen Community Council

c/o Reading Rooms, Castle Hill, Kippen FK8 3DN
kippencommunitycouncil@gmail.com

The radii of the road are 10 metres, however, should be 12.5 metres to allow access for
HGV’s.

SC should be contacting those who objected and keeping them up to date with the progress
of the application – this hasn’t happened. The public should be kept informed. Messages
have been left at the planning office along with e-mails being sent and no responses are
forthcoming. They need to adhere to the Aarhaus Convention which they don’t seem to be.
JH will chase up SC to raise some of the query points.

Our community seem to be suffering due to the Planning Department at SC being
understaffed and not following the correct guidelines. There have been a number of errors
included in the plans and not being picked up by the Planning Department.

There doesn’t seem to be any slurry storage and yet the slurry will need to be pumped via
the pipes under the road and all of the waste will go into the pipes, pumped through and
become part of the AD process.

There are current issues in Northern Ireland due to incorrect procedures being used at AD
plants causing deaths – this is of serious concern. There should also be a flare to burn off
excess gases.

Robotic Dairy - pipeline is proposed from Dairy to AD with only 500 tons of manure –
however, it is suggested that there will be far more manure. No measures of odour.
Landscape assessment is not complete as view from old military road has not been taken
into consideration. No Risk Assessment has been taken. Access to Road insufficient.

Should Scottish Water be aware of the plan due to the water supply to the village?
All in agreement that a letter of objection should be sent re the Robotic Dairy Farm.

All in Agreement that a letter of objection should be sent re the new application on the AD.
Other Community Councils have had issues with the SC Planning Department.

There are no storage facilities for the new dairy for silage that, in itself, would be a large
facility. The system they have at the moment is old and needs refurbished. If the
applications were dealt with as a single application, how would it be treated? This depends
on the type of facility and the size depends on how it triggers the EIA. If it had been deemed
as a major application would’ve been dealt differently.

There is a worry that that SC’s Planning Department are missing some of the issues,
however, the Community of Kippen are helping to shape the application to either make it
better or to object if not right.

Will there be an impact on the local businesses in the area?
The meeting closed at 9.28pm.

Next meeting: Tuesday 14th December 2021 at 7.30pm via Zoom

kippencommunitycouncil@gmail.com

(WSC-07/12/2021)