Councillors have agreed to a major extension of an Ayr holiday park - despite the operator's failure to meet conditions of an earlier expansion.

An application by Crofthead Holiday Park sought to expand the site outside Ayr by adding around 150 new holiday lodges – bringing the total to around 500.

The operators had asked planners to remove a number of conditions attached to the previous extension, which had been granted in 2016.

This had been an ongoing issue as, despite ongoing discussions with officials, the park owners had deviated from the agreed plans.

Councillors on South Ayrshire Council’s Regulatory Panel had visited the site and acknowledged work was being undertaken to address issues around flood risk and noise.

And they agreed to remove those outstanding conditions from the previous approval and consider the extension.

Conservative councillor Martin Kilbride asked planners to explain how the assessment of the road impact of a holiday park was different from a housing development.

Ayrshire Roads Alliance officer Graeme Senior explained that there are two key factors when making an assessment, relating to the number of car trips a development generates and the pattern.

He explained that houses would usually generate more car journeys as they often have number of vehicles associated with them, while traffic would generally be at its busiest at peak times as residents go to work or school.

While there could be a similar number of properties in a holiday park, there would normally be just one vehicle at each.

Mr Senior said that residential estates would have ‘tidal movement’ with traffic spikes early in the day and in the evening.

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Holiday parks tend not to have the same spikes, with traffic movement spread throughout the day.

Labour councillor Ian Cavana questioned whether the road access to the park was sufficient.

Mr Senior said that even looking at "worst case" scenarios, the capacity of the junction raised no issues.

He said: “There are no major incidences of accidents, reports of speeding or queueing. There is no reason to anticipate that there would be problems.”

Cllr Kilbride asked whether the park would operate all year round or seasonally.

Planning officer Ross Lee said that the static caravans could be leased all year round other than the first two weeks in February.

Cllr Cavana said he would approve the extension, but wanted to ensure there was no repeat of the failures to comply with planning conditions.

“We encourage South Ayrshire businesses like this to come forward. There were problems last time and we need to put belt and braces. I wish it well as it is bringing money and people to South Ayrshire.

“We need to make sure that whatever is passed is adhered to. It sounds cruel, but this park is getting bigger and bigger.

“It is practically a village on its own.”

He asked planners to ensure there was significant monitoring of the development.

Head of planning Craig Iles responded: “Yes, it is something members raised previously in the failure to adhere to previous planning permissions.

“We take this seriously and will set a [monitoring] regime in place.”

The application to extend the holiday park was approved by the  panel.

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