 Good morning, and welcome to the sixth meeting of the Powell and Chaffrey Drainage Commission's Scotland Bill Committee in 2018. The first item on our agenda today is to take evidence on the objections to amendment 9 lodged to the bill. Two objections to the amendment were received and objectors are here today to speak to both of those objections. Given the specific nature of each objection, we have not considered grouping the objections, so we take evidence on each in turn. We will first hear from Mr and Mrs Watkins speaking to Objection 1, and once that has concluded, we will then hear from Mr McGregor speaking to Objection 2. Before we proceed, I will briefly explain the process today and how the meeting will proceed. We have concluded phase 1 of consideration stage, where we considered and disposed of the objections to the bill and are now in phase 2, the legislative phase. 15 amendments were lodged to the bill, and the committee determined that one of those, amendment 9, relating to the new land plan that was submitted in April 2018, adversely affected private interests. A new notification and objection period, therefore, was allowed for, and the committee set a deadline of 20 August 2018 for objections to amendment 9. Two objections were received, and today, as we did with the objections to the bill, we meet in a quasi-judicial capacity to consider the objections. Once consideration of the objections has concluded, the committee will consider and dispose of the amendments lodged to the bill and will consider each section, schedule and a long title of the bill. At today's meeting, the objectors and promoters will have the opportunity to set out their arguments and to test those arguments through cross-examination. I will manage proceedings. The committee will predominantly listen to both sides, but it may come in at times to seek clarification on an issue or to help to move things along. I will first invite Mr and Mrs Watkins to set out the points that they wish to make in relation to their objection. The promoters will then have an opportunity to cross-examine them. After that, the roles will be reversed, so the promoter will respond to the points that are made in the objections and make any other points. Mr and Mrs Watkins will have an opportunity to cross-examine their promoters. Once we have reached the end of the session, there will be an opportunity for each party to make a brief closing statement. The committee will then reflect on what we have heard and come to a view when we meet on Wednesday 26 September 2018. We will then repeat the process with Mr MacGregor. We will now move to the formal evidence session. I encourage all speakers to be as concise as possible. I invite Mr and Mrs Watkins to open proceedings by setting out the points that they wish to make regarding their objection. We would like to thank the parliamentary committee and the promoters for inviting us to give evidence today. We have lived alongside the PAU for 18 years and paid our dues for the maintenance regularly. Our objections are basically as set out in the letter and in Appendix 1. As you will have seen from the letter, we do not own the actual abbey site. It is owned by the Earl of Canull. The original planning consent clearly states that the house site, which includes access from the road and the front lawn, is restricted to point 1 of a hectare, which is just under a quarter of an acre. I quote from Perth and Cronross planning consent condition number six, which says, the site shall be used for residential purposes only and no agricultural or industrial development will be permitted on the site or in the immediate vicinity of Inchafri abbey. I refer you to Appendix 1 to the letter from Perth and Cronross planning department, which gives the reason for this as being in the interests of amenity and in order to protect the setting of Inchafri abbey, which is a category B-listed building of archaeological or historic interest and is a scheduled monument of national importance. Historic Environment Scotland has also classified the abbey site and surroundings as a scheduled monument, protected by the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979. As such, further development is extremely unlikely. The scheduled area was moved back from the Pau to the south-west corner of the remaining abbey wall after an archaeological excavation was undertaken to facilitate the planning consent for a house in 1987. That was conducted by a Mr Gordon Ewet and has been published by the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquities of Scotland. The proposed house site was altered after the results of the archaeological investigation were known as a large building that is in this position here on this little plan, which is in the paper, was discovered. That was just to the west of the current position of our house. I am sure that you could have a copy of this. We would be helpful if I had a copy of it. We only got it very recently, so... Cement potentially could be circulated. Do you have any copies with you? I don't. Just this copy. Okay. I will suspend briefly at this point to allow everyone an opportunity to study this document. I would like to invite Mr Watkins to continue. Thank you very much and again my apologies for the delay. You will see that the area 1, which is positioned just to the west of our house, was quite a large area, which was excavated by Gordon Ewet and his team. I think that the final summary of the archaeological paper states that the evidence still remains largely underground and concludes that there is little doubt that in Chaffrey may yet yield more crucial evidence. As a result of this survey, the potential position of the house was moved east to be nearer the road in an area at a point 1 hectare, which could be built on without causing too much damage to the underlying archaeology. The original house plans revealed that all wastewater is routed from the west side of our house to the east, then down past the garage to the septic tank to avoid area 1 and any other archaeology. Even though the scheduled area was moved back from the Pau to the Abbey wall, we were, stroke R, required to obtain consent for any disturbance to the ground. Historic Scotland required us to have an archaeological watching brief for the erection of offence around our proposed vegetable plot, which is at the south-western end of our land, together with raised beds. Permission for the fence was granted subject to 10 conditions in the letter, which you will now have before you. I am not going to read all the 10 conditions, because the most relevant one is that the posts of the fence to be constructed around the cultivated area should be inserted by driving into the ground rather than being placed into excavated holes. The reason being, of course, to ensure that damage to any archaeological deposits is minimised. We feel that the assumed value per acre for the land is also too great, as we are not in the housing development situation. The promoters' residential assessment of 0.855 per acre is inaccurate. The area outlined in pink on your ordinary survey plan here is not correct. The actual scheduled area should be from the south-west corner of the Abbey here to the north-west corner of the vegetable plot and then down to the Pau. So neither the vegetable plot nor the front bit in the front garden or the part of the pond there should be in the scheduled area, apparently. The area that we have outlined in blue, which, if you have got a photocopy, will be between the house and the road, is the point 1 hectare for residential use. The rest of the land should be classed as amenity. We have based our original figures for the annual costs on the spreadsheet that we have sent in June by McCashen Hunter and understand that those are now incorrect. We also note that the rates have changed and this will affect, of course, all the figures. Our original objection was because the new method for assessing properties had triggered a massive increase in our annual costs of drainage of 500 per cent. We note from the new schedule for Heritors, which we were only able to look at yesterday, that the assessment is now £440.78 plus VAT. This still represents a 59.68 per cent increase and comes to £528.86 with the VAT. Together with the annual charge for emptying the septic tank of £280, this comes to £808.86. This is the actual cost to us for wastewater disposal as we cannot reclaim VAT. This nearly 60 per cent increase, we feel, is still a large burden for two people. We are also concerned about the possible financial consequences of updating the bill for all Heritors, especially as this may mean a doubling of the initial annual payment after the bill has been passed to pay for the promoter's legal costs. If doubled, we would be paying £1,057.72, including VAT, adding the septic tank to that, the total cost would come to £1,337.72. We do not feel the potential charge seems fair. The new figures that we looked at yesterday do not seem to be correct. On checking I times J for in Chaffrey Abbey, we discovered that the figure should be £444.5 as opposed to £440.78, which is £33.5 in the promoter's favour. When I checked the cheapest annual assessment for 5 Eden Square, which also has two people registered on the electoral roll, I noted that it was £15.47. That is incorrect by £2, and it should be £15.45. I then checked some of the other figures for the residential properties and discovered that all of the ones that I checked were incorrect by varying amounts, mostly pennies. I then checked the agricultural spreadsheet and discovered similar inaccuracies with the figures when multiplying column 16 by column 17. I used a calculator to do this, and presumably the spreadsheet has some small glitch in it. Apart from being incorrect for the heritors, this obviously has implications for VAT returns. Finally, as our house is built on the driest piece of land in the Strathurne valley, we would argue that the benefit to us is minimal. To summarise, in view of the person-can-ros planning restrictions for the residential footprint of one of a hectare and the limitations imposed by Historic Scotland, we feel that the new method for assessing our property is incorrect. Our private interests will be affected not only by the financial burden but will also cause difficulty if we decide to sell the property. Thank you for your attention. I now invite the promoters to cross-examine Mr Watkins both on his statement and, more generally, on the objection raised. Good morning, Mrs Watkins. Good morning, convener and committee members and all present today. Thank you for your submission. Can you confirm that I have understood you correctly that you do not object to the principle of payment? No, not at all. This is a dispute about the area of assessment from which the annual assessment is derived. Your position is that the actual area that should be assessed by the commissioners as the benefited area should be 0.247, which is the point 1 that derives from your planning permission, as opposed to their assessment, which is 0.855, just so that we can understand what the dispute is about. If you would turn initially to the pack of documents that I lodged this morning, which you should have had advanced sight of, I would just like to take those through you and ask you some questions. I should say that lodged with these papers are the schedule of ancient monuments, which I think that you lodged with your objection and the copy of your planning permission as well, which I would assume that you would be familiar with. We did not actually build the house. It was the original plan. If we could turn to document number 1, which is an excerpt from the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979, that is the first document there. Your case, as I have understood it correctly, is that the scheduling of the Ancient Monument, which is in Chaffrey Abbey, places a considerable constraint on what can or cannot be developed on your land. That is why you have produced the documents that you produced this morning. We can see in section 2 of the excerpt from the act, which is document 1, which says that if anyone causes or permits to be executed any works which affect the monument without getting consent, then that is a criminal offence. That is how the system of control operates. We will now turn to document 2, which is a document that you produced in your objection. That is the entry in the schedule of ancient monuments under the act. On the first page, I have here it talks about the monument known as in Chaffrey Abbey and the early monastic site. If we turn over the page, we see the actual legal entry for that monument. We see a registration of that document in the register of say scenes at the bottom of the page, which shows that it has been recorded against your title, so it has effect. If we turn over the page, we see a map or plan that goes with the entry in which the scheduled area—in fact, if you just keep on continuing, do you have that? I have got one map, but which one would you like? That is the map that you haven't got in yours. There is one map that is attached to it, but there are two areas outlined in red. You can see that. Those areas in red are the area of the scheduled ancient monument. That is the area to which the level of high-control or high-restriction takes effect from. Your house is built in the south-east corner of the area on the left-hand side, so it is out with the scheduled ancient monument. It is quite close to it. We will come to the moment, but your garden extends—or the area of land that goes with your house—into the scheduled ancient monument. It sort of comes around the ancient monument. If we turn to the next document, which is the planning permission that you have lodged. It is an outline planning permission that is dated 2 September 1986. It is for planning permission in principle for the erection of a dwelling house at Abbey bridge, which ultimately became your house. Your case is based on condition 4. I will read it to you. It says that the house site shall be restricted to 0.1 acres to the satisfaction of the district council as planning authority. My right to understanding is that 0.1 hectares from which your 0.247 acres is derived, because that is the imperial measurement of that metric. This is the expression here, the house site. What do you understand to be the house site for the purposes of your position? I understand the house site to mean the house and the garden. I have to say that the actual house, the area of the actual house, the footprint of just the house and the garage, is approximately 438 square yards. That is a lot less than 0.1. I think that they moved the house over two wards the road so that this area here could be excavated without further damage to any archaeology that may be under the ground to the west of the house. I can understand where you are coming from, but would you accept that the house and the garden that you enjoy currently is greater than 0.1 of a hectare, or greater than 0.247? The whole thing is 2.3 acres, but we are restricted. The valuation that you have given us is based on residential land, development land. We feel that the value of the land that you are suggesting, the price that you gave, the figures were calculated, £300,000, because we cannot develop the garden. It is not residential the whole lot. It is an amenity land. One moment, please. I just wish to advise that you do not need to operate your cons, or AV technician. We will do that for you. I appreciate that. Someone else is operating it. Thank you very much for that. We will return to the garden sizes when we go through the documents. Would you agree with me that in terms of the expression, the house site, that does not seem to exclude garden ground that goes with your house? It is just the house site. The house site, I would think, should include the garden and the access. You think that it should include the garden and the access? I do not think so. That is very fair of you. Condition 6 is another condition that you make reference to. It says that the site does not use the word house site. It just says the site this time. It shall be used for residential purposes only and no agricultural or industrial development will be permitted on the site or in the immediate vicinity of the abbey. That does not place a restriction on use for residential purposes. It is just trying to stop. It says that it should be used for residential purposes only. Is it not placing a restriction on the use for agricultural or industrial development? I would think that it should say the house site. It is just that they are referring to the site. We would interpret it as the site as being the house site. You might choose to interpret it, but it could be interpreted in another way. It could be. That is fair of you. If we turn over the page, we have the reasons. They seem to be highlighted in the earlier copy that reasons 4 to 7 are in the interest of the amenity to protect the setting of the abbey as a category listed building in a surgical ancient monument. If we move on to the next document, which is document 4, where we see an aerial photograph of your house and garden, including the abbey as well, is it not? Can I just ask you some questions here? There looks to be some buildings that are built away from your house in what looks like possibly your garden. There are wooden sheds and a green house. I have a green house and a wooden shed. I have a workshop that is built on a concrete plinth that has been there. I gather since the last war. That is just to the east of the green house. Can I just be clear which is which? If we hold this up. That is the veg plot. That trapeziam there is the veg plot. That is the document that the Historic Scotland letter refers to, is it? Yes. That is the historic... That is the veg plot. That plot was not in the scheduled area at the time. I will come to that in a moment, but we are just trying to... A green house? A green house here. That was a polytunnel before, is that it? No, we did not ever have a polytunnel. Because the Historic Scotland wanted us to have another archaeological brief, we decided a greenhouse that was just placed on the top of the earth. Right, so it was just placed on there. Then you have another building here. This is my workshop. Which is on the concrete plinth. That is our workshop. There is another building to the left of the... That is a wooden shed. That is the wooden shed. And there seems to be some other... That is another wooden shed. That is another wooden shed. The areas here, you are actually using them in association with your house, is that correct? You must be, if it's part of it. Leaving aside the restrictions that you discussed, what is considered to be your garden ground and why should your garden ground be restricted to 0.247 of an acre? Well, because we are not allowed to dig into any of the scheduled area at all. And, as I mentioned earlier on, area 1, which was excavated, is just to the west, we think, of the house. And it's quite a large area. It's nine metres by 13 metres. So we certainly wouldn't be able to build anything on that. And most of the area now is down to grass, which Historic Scotland were very pleased with. And they encourage us to keep it fairly short. So if you could move from document 4, just briefly looking at document 5, which where these are just the various photographs of your house, and I think we can see some of the outbuildings in the first of the larger photograph there, is that correct? Yes. The green house is on your left, and then the workshop is a bit hidden by the tree, but it's... Okay. And then I don't think we need to trouble you with document 6. But I would like to just turn to document 7, which you did make a reference to. Now, you obviously looked at this document before, but maybe just for the purpose of our conversation have a discussion about it. Sorry, which is document 7? It's document 7. It's number 7. It's where you have the pink... Oh yeah, yeah, I've got it. ...yellow and the blue, which I think you've mentioned. Now, the area-coloured yellow, starting with that, that's excluded from the assessment because that's owned by the Earl of Canull, and that I think that's identified as a menity land because it is the core of the abbey. Now, the area-coloured pink is the area which I understand to be the scheduled ancient monument, overlaid on top of your property. But this isn't correct. The pink area is not correct. Can you maybe just explain to me what... I've actually drawn on here, which I think the correct bit is. Do you want to have a look at that? If I can, yeah. Okay, we're just going to suspend briefly. I invite Mr Watkins to continue. I'm not quite sure where we were now, but... Yes, our understanding would be that the area I've coloured in blue, which is nearest the road, sort of trapezoidal area, which includes the house and the front lawn and the access, would be the point, one of a hectare. And that the rest of the non-scheduled area, if you like, which I again have put in a dotted red line on, should be classed as a minority land. Does that make sense? No, I can understand your arguments, Mr Watkins. That's helpful. But if you could just briefly look at document 2 again, if you could, and just the plan that's attached to that, that's the two where we see the two areas outlined in red. Yep. That's the scheduled area. The area that we're concentrating on here is the left-hand area, slightly smaller. What I was trying to put to you was that the promoter has sought to draw those boundaries. I mean, you dispute where those boundaries are, but there's a promise sought to draw those boundaries from a quite difficult scale of map here and translate them for a larger scale for the purposes of the proceedings today. That's just to explain where we've come from, but in view of you, you've obviously looked at it as well on your assessment, leaving aside what you think should be your house and garden, which is the dotted blue area. What you have in fact done on the promoter's methodology would be to increase the blue area to include the triangle beneath the abbey and some of the additional area, which is currently scheduled. What you're saying is that the scheduling is in fact smaller than it appears on the promoter's plan number seven. I don't think so. If you have the promoter's plan seven before you, you'll see the area coloured blue. If you were to follow the logic of this plan, which is basically to allocate your garden area, and I used that in its widest sense, I know we're disputing that. The blue would cover most of the veg plot. It's quite hard to pick that up, but if you look at the triangle between the... Sorry, maybe just start again. What the promoter is trying to do here is to take the area you own, remove the area that is owned by the Earl of Canoe, which is the yellow area, so that insofar as your garden, in its widest sense, is affected by the scheduling, that's excluded from the assessment. What you've done is redrawn the boundary of the scheduled ancient monument. You think more accurately, and that maybe needs to be looked at, but you've included an additional area, have you not? I'm talking about this bit here. The veg plot, yeah. I don't know. On this plan here, you in effect... I'm including that area to the left. That's it, that left bit there. But you're saying that the dotted red line here, that's really the line of the scheduling. Yes, yes. I think that we are in agreement with that. If you were to take the logic of what the promoter has done here and what the promoter is trying to do is to say to you that it is prepared to take a reasonable approach in regard to the area of assessment and say that what you own minus the scheduled area is what should be your area of assessment. We would disagree with that, because we think that it should be this point more of a hectare in front here. Yes. I know we're disagreeing. Sorry. So that we can understand our respective position because we have slightly conflicting plans. So the promoter is saying that everything you own but less the scheduled area should be part of the assessment as a residential area. That's where the 0.855 hectare comes from. That area may have to be increased if we were to follow the lines on your new plan. I'm just saying if you were to follow that same logic. I mean, I appreciate your disputing it. Yes, yes. That would be the sort of natural consequence. We're trying to put here and there. We're claiming that that's a meanity. I appreciate that. Sorry. Okay. So we're just trying to sort it out. I do that. I mean, just so that we understand our respective positions here. Can I just ask for a point of clarification from Mrs Watkins? When you say you've redrawn the blue line and you say that that should be the area that's included for assessment for your property. Why do you think it should be that? Because I'm not quite clear. The actual reason that there is a difference in what you say and what the promoters say. Originally, the planning people said that the house site, which I take to mean the house and the front garden and the access, should be point 1 of a hectare. Now, I think point 1 of a hectare is probably about the size of this plot at the frontier. It might be actually slightly bigger this plot at the frontier, but that's what I would understand as being the point 1 of a hectare. So you've taken the measurement of point 1 of a hectare and roughly calculated where that would be in relation to your house. I tried to triangulate this, yes, to work it out. I understand now. I think I have to put it to you, Mr and Mrs Watkins, that the position of the promoter is not an unreasonable one in terms of identifying what is the beneficial residential area for the purposes of the assessment, which is, for simplistic terms, the area-coloured blue on document 7, but perhaps nuanced with your redrawing of the boundary of the scheduled ancient monument. As a sort of follow-up question, if the committee were to accept that your house should be 0.247, what would that be in terms of your assessment? I mean, we could probably just have a look at the schedule, if we would, if you could just have a look at the schedule in number 8. It's actually, in Chaffrey, api is shown on there, it's not, it's shown us £440.78, and I know you've got some dispute about the kind of the pence on it, but I'm told that's rounding up from Excel spreadsheet. But that's £440 based on a site area of 0.855, but you would agree if it came to 0.247, that would probably be about £140, £150, and I would reduce it because it would be about almost less than a third of the area. Yes, I mean, we would be happier with around £200, or maybe a bit more, because we also have to pay VAT, which we can't claim back, and we have to pay £280 a year to have the septic tank emptied. That adds the cost up. Where is your septic tank draining into the pound? So it goes into the pound? Yes. I have no further questions. Do the promoters wish to make any further points with regards to the objection? I have no questions, no further submission on that. Thank you. I'd now like to invite Mr and Mrs Watkins to cross-examine the promoters on what they said about their objection, both specifically today and more generally. We feel there may be a conflict of interest on two fronts in putting forward this bill as all commissioners are farmers and there does not seem to be, have been any residential input. Also, the land valuation and mapping has been performed by Savils where Joe Gast is a director, and we do feel there is, and the valuation, we feel there's a conflict of interest. I'd like to comment. That is not accepted, but I'll invite Mr Gast to answer for Savils in that matter. Because it was much higher, we did ask various estate agencies at rank at Savils, and we felt that the valuation came back as extremely high. Well, the approach to the valuation of the residential property and the other categories of property, the starting point was we wanted to have values that could be rather than valuing each property individually. We would categorise the properties into the different types of land use. Farm land is broken down into the different grades of farm land, referring to the Macaulay land use, and then there's residential property, there's forestry, and there's commercial property. We wanted to end up with bands of values for each category of property so that the calculation of the individual assessment is a mechanical process. We wanted that to be the idea of that, is that it would be then simple and easily to review because the bill includes a proposal for the land to be revalued every 10 years or when there's a material change of use. For instance, if we take the agricultural land, we looked at the values there. We haven't valued it on a field-by-field basis. We have said that the value of, I can't remember the exact figures now, but we've said, for instance, the value of, I think it's class 3, one land, is £6,000 an acre. We haven't said that we haven't gone round valuing each individual field. We've just taken that as the value for that category of land. Similarly, with residential property, we have not said that, looked at the different house types, and there's a whole range of house types in the benefited area. There are small houses on semi-detached houses and teres houses on Balgaon. There are cottages. There are larger detached houses in big gardens. We haven't gone and looked at each single property. We have lumped them all together, so to speak, and taken a global figure for residential development land. Those values were arrived at by, I suppose, by me. In discussion with, Salvels have a lot of specialist departments dealing with all the different types of property. Did you not think that you should have gone without, because of you being bringing forward this bill, that you should have perhaps taken a wider view of this and gone and consulted further, in independent? Well, I suppose one could have done, but we were looking at trying to do, as you probably understand, that our commission has a limited budget, and the budget is all raised from the heritors, and we were looking to do this as economically as possible, implying another firm would have been another expense. More expensive. In arriving at these values, Salvels have specialist departments dealing with each category of property. I do not confess to be an expert on every category of property myself, so I discussed it with all the experts in the individual departments, and it was based on that, on the basis of those discussions, that figures were derived. We would like to know how residential property has been defined. Well, we have had, in the course of the progress of this bill, there have been two alternative bases that have been looked at. The initial basis was that we would look at the plot, so to speak, on which the house is built, and the basis was that that land could not be developed for residential purposes because of the benefit provided by the power and the power commission. We closed our eyes to the type of house that is on there because the power commission did not build houses. All they did was enable the land to be developed for housing. We looked at, in effect, undeveloped building land. The approach was to measure the size of the plots on which those houses sit and multiply that by a figure for residential development land in this area. There was concern expressed by the committee that that might be too broad-brass an approach and that it might disadvantage people with larger houses. We were invited to come up with an alternative, which we did, and the alternative approach was to look at the... Instead of just measuring the plot, we should look at the footprint of the house and multiply... I think we came up with a five-times multiplier, so we measure the footprint of the house, multiply it by five, and that would be the notional plot. I see from the spreadsheet we had that I would call that the older method, and I would think that that would seem to be, certainly from our point of view, a better method. We proposed it as an alternative method and produced alternative workings on that basis. Ultimately, it's not for us to decide, it's for the committee to decide. I'm sort of getting away from that, really, but we're interested to know how you would define residential property as many of the farms had previously had accommodation for agricultural workers. That's true, but the benefited land that there are no... In 1846, when the benefited land was defined, or 1851, there were no residential properties on the benefited land. None at all. If these properties are now let out or sold to people not involved in farming, does this mean that the occupants should be paying the residential rate or are they still combined with the farms or do they have a private arrangement? In 1851, all the houses on the benefited land were built after the improvements carried out under the 1846 Act. There were none before. I think that all farm houses would be classed as residential. I don't think there's any there that are classed as agriculture. They don't appear on the residential. There are no farm houses because they're not on the benefited land. So none of them are on the benefited land? No, the reason is because the benefited land was the land which before 1846 people did not build their houses on boggy land. They built them on the edge and so they're not on the soft land which has benefited from the power. I can understand that as my poor workshop is dropping to bits because it's too near the power. Anyway, there we are. I think the final thing I would have to say is if we were unhappy with the outcome of this meeting, is there a mechanism for appeal against the decision? Which decision? The decision on what we're going to have to pay for drainage. For the committee to advise, my understanding is that we're not so much, we are not so much interested in the number, we're interested in the method, it's the approach it's the approach to defining benefited land and how it's got to be a logical and that's our approach we're blind to the figures to be honest. It's the process. I think that's all we have to ask. Thank you very much. Before moving to closing remarks can I just ask the promoters if they envisage any further amendments, changes or redrawings of the land plans that were submitted? Mr Watkins concerned the fact that he still cares. That wouldn't be a land plan. It's just a change in classification. There are no additional land plans or replacements. If there was an adjustment required by what we've heard today, that's a change in classification of the land. It's still benefited land, it's just being classified as either residential or amenity, so that doesn't alter. I anticipate my second question, Mr McKee. In terms of classification, do the promoters envisage any further adjustments? There may be some nuanced adjustment if the boundary of the scheduled engine monument is, as Mr Watkins says, as opposed to the way the promoter has interpreted the scheduled plan, so there may be some slight adjustment on that, which would change the area from 0.55 to something a bit more than that, or it may come down if it's finally checked, but we were fairly confident that we'd got the right plan on the one that we've lodged. Okay, thank you. We now move to brief closing remarks. I'd like to invite Mr and Mr Watkins to make their closing remarks. You can probably tell we're unhappy with the potential, but a 60 per cent increase in the annual fee for the power has certainly nothing much has changed. In fact, we've probably produced less wastewater now because our son no longer lives at home. In fact, it will affect if and when we decide we want to sell the house. This is going to be quite a something we will have to declare probably discouraged possible purchases of a property. That's all I have to say. Okay. I now invite the promoters to make any closing remarks. There is really no dispute on the principle of payment. This is a dispute about the area of assessment. The commissioners have sought to treat the objectors, Mr and Mrs Watkins, fairly and reasonably, in terms of that level of assessment and what should be applied to their property. The commissioners consider that the area of assessment ought to be around about 0.855 acres, although there may be some nuance to that. As I've said, once we've finally determined the boundary of the Schengel ancient monument and really that rather than the 0.247 acres suggested by Mr and Mrs Watkins, the lesser area suggested by Mr and Mrs Watkins is derived from condition. It's from their planning permission and the 0.1 becomes 0.247 acres. In the commissioners' views that does not form a reasonable basis on which to restrict the assessment. What the promoters commissioners have sought to do here is to take a very reasonable approach except that the Schengel ancient monument does create some form of restriction although it obviously hasn't affected the tree felling and the pollen tunnel but it does have a level of restriction and it was really to exclude that area from the assessment. If the area were to be restricted to 0.247 acres that's about three and a half times smaller than what the promoters think is the reasonable usage of the garden ground and one can see from the aerial photograph that it is being used. The promoters' basis is that the area of assessment that we are discussing should be the area coloured blue on plan 7 subject to whatever adjustment might arrive from a final measurement of exactly where the scheduled ancient monument applies. Thank you. It just remains for me to see on behalf of the committee. Thank you to both Mr and Mrs Watkins and the promoters and the representatives for attending today. We will now suspend it to allow a change on the subjector. We will now recommence the proceedings and again I encourage all speakers to be as concise as possible. I invite Mr McGregor to open proceedings by setting out the points he wishes to make regarding his objection. Mr McGregor. One on Mr Chairman, ladies and gentlemen. I'm going to keep this quite short, quite brief. I think it gets to my point without too much arguments. I've already submitted my objection which you take it you've all read. I do not accept the assumptions that our house at Nethermane's Agorthy was built on so-called benefited land. Because of the reasons that were outlined in Mr Tate's submission, which I referred to in my initial objection, he is a retired civil engineer, a company director who specialised in water supplies and drainage systems. His detailed findings concluded that the level of benefited land on the south of the pow, opposite Nethermane's Agorthy, is determined at an altitude of 39.05 metres. The boundary fence of my property lies at 39.4 metres. My actual property lies slightly higher than this if we include the property as the house and not the garden. Since the pow and the altitude of benefited land is common to both north and south, I failed to see why the north side should be treated any differently to that of the south and therefore totally reject the assertations in my property being included on benefited land. Furthermore, the level of benefited land on the south seems to have been meticulously defined. Running almost in line with the 40 metre contour on the original plans. However, on the north side it appears to just run along boundaries and straight lines. Property dating back pre-1846 is already mentioned or deemed not to have been built in benefited land. I question the close proximity of my property to my neighbours the steding owned by Mr and Mrs Tate which was built prior to 1846. The steding is merely 170 millimetres higher than the level of my boundary fence. This indicates to me my property does not lie on benefited land. That is all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you very much Mr McGregor. I now invite the promoters to cross and examine Mr McGregor both on the points he has made today and more generally with regards to his objection. Thank you. Good morning Mr McGregor. Do you have before you the pack of papers which start with the power of in Chaffrey Drainage Commission Scotland bill there's 15 documents attached? Yes. Could you firstly turn to document 8? The number, if you can just leaf through them. Document 8 is a schedule in A4. Have you found the schedule? Have you found it Mr McGregor? If you can go to... You see there's a list of properties on the left-hand side column. You're in property 13 centre cottage. Is that correct? That's correct. If we move along there and then we see the actual level of the assessment the annual assessment proposed on a £20,000 budget is £118.57 That's... Correct? You can see that. I just wanted to clarify that with you. Your principal contention Mr McGregor is that your property centre cottage at Nethermane's of Gorthy is not constructed on benefited land. That's your big point and therefore in a sense that it shouldn't be payable. Could I then ask you to turn to document 9 please? That is a fair copy excerpt of the 1850 plan that accompanied the Powyef and Chaffrey 1846 Bill and on there we can see some properties which are coloured pink. They're described as west mains but are those the steady you talked about earlier? They're now known as the steady. Where in proximity to the steady is your property constructed? South of that. If you can see from the letter A in west it appears as a track or a double line running to the left my property is just on that line. Right. So it's south of that double line and there are two other properties beside your property two other cottages. Now if you move down into that what looks like an enclosure or a field there's a number which I can read on there I think it's 130 130 I'm told. You see there's a plot number. You can see that plot number and beside that you see there's a plot 122 as well which is in a different area. Can we agree that your house is built on what is identified on that 1850 map as plot 130? I could only assume so without actually seeing the property on this map. I can only assume there is. If you could turn to the so just before we move on there can we just go back to back to that plan? Can you identify on that plan this is the 1850 plan where the car smile burn is or the downy burn there seems to be some dispute? If you look at the on west mains if you look at the E in west there's a faint double line there that's colour faintly blue. I can see that. There's another line double line which comes down and bends down the hill. There's two burns that come together. The one that's colour blue is the downy burn and the one that's got no colour in it or if it's white is referred to as the car said mill or mile. There's three different names for the burn. These two converge some distance further down in the field. So they actually converge and then build in the bottom. What do they drain into? Ultimately the power. So they drain into the power. In fact have you referred to plan 10? We're just going over here to plan 10. Right. So this bears to be a plan which is an 1864 plan but if we just contrast it if we just go back for a moment to plan 9 can we agree that your properties are not shown on the 1850 plan? Not necessarily. Right. Depends on when the survey was done for the land. I did get in touch with Historic Scotland and they cannot confirm an exact date of construction of my property. Okay, but they're not on that plan and that's the certified plan. Is it not there? As a matter of fact they're not on the plan. Okay, if we can go back to plan number 10 which is the 1864 plan and then we see near enough in the centre a property description called Nether mains and I think we can see the steading which is sea shape in there. Which is what I think we saw in plan 9 but then we see some new properties which are certainly look to me like properties that have been built immediately to the south of that. I would say property. Property. Which one do you think that is? Your property. On the basis of this being an 1864 plan we can say that by 1864 it's certainly been built. Don't without a doubt, it's on the map. Thank you very much. I think you're going to make a further observation about the car's mile or car's head mile mill burn and the downy burn going into the pow is that? Yeah, although this map is quite unclear on the Nether that is the downy burn and then on the converse of the H and the E is the car's head mill burn. They both join further down the field if you can see a line which comes across that's where they actually join but the downy burn dating back on maps that I don't have with me unfortunately does extend some it's about four miles further up the hill to Fowleswester that's where it originates and it comes all the way down the hill right down to there why it changes name where these two natural and man-made watercourses join, I don't know I've also seen on a previous map which I don't have that it did say downy burn and it had been opaque over So there's some there's some doubt about what they're called but there's one thing that's not in doubt is that both of them drain into the pow but what I would question is one is man-made, one is natural well if you go back to plan 9 I mean to me it looks as if the burns here are very straight they look as if they have been altered to be in a dead straight line if you were to visit it and see it in the flesh you would fear to differ for the simple reason as well which is once again referred to on Mr Tate's submission if we look at the left as the downy the right as the car said the car said burn is some and I forget the numbers about two foot deeper than the downy burn yet they're only a couple of feet apart it's obviously one's man-made one's not right, we'll turn to that in some of the other plans if you could have them document 11 before you Mr McGregor and if you could turn to paragraph 6 just to introduce the context of this document which is important this is an opinion of a council which the promoter obtained in terms of guiding them in terms of the proper interpretation of what should or should not be benefited land and it was unfortunate that your property wasn't picked up in the first assessment of what was benefited land but I'm giving you a reassurance that that has been checked and if I can maybe just read paragraph 6 to you and this is from council's opinion it says today we're dealing with the replacement plans which include your land as benefited land he's also talking about a further area of land at Mill Hill and then he goes on to say in respect of both these areas none of those houses are shown as existing buildings on the 1848 plan they're both areas of ground that can be identified from the book of reference the estimate of increased value and the 1848 plan as having been improved by the works under the 1846 act in my opinion both areas are shown on the replacement plans as benefited land the owners of the houses on that land will require to be notified which is where we are today after you've been notified that's just a sort of explanation and something of an apology to you as well as a sincere apology that wasn't picked up first time round can I just add something here as well come back at me by all means the owners of the houses on that land will require to be notified of the change only two of the owners have been notified the third one hasn't I'm not in a position to answer that no I'm just saying if that's the case for them not being notified how accurate is all this writing and all these things there's mistakes being made all over the place you're entitled to your opinions but I don't necessarily agree with them Mr McGregor now if you could turn to plan 12 which is described as which is document 12 which is described as the burn map in 1846 and I should say there's been a series of plans which were undertaken prior to the or surveys undertaken prior to the Pow works in 1846 and this is a map or a sort of an excerpt of a map showing your particular area where improvements to the Pow and its tributaries were undertaken now if we look at this map you'd agree we can see west mains we see the kind of C-shaped steadying which we saw in the 1850 plan can you see that would you agree with me that we see no identification of centre cottage or any other cottages on that plan I can't argue with that yeah now can you see the dotted lines which go and march on either side of the car smile burn the downy burn now I am advised that these are showing evidence of spoil yeah and I think it does actually it's his limit for deposit of spoil it's his limit for deposit of spoil I think that's what they're annotated as would you agree with me that that indicates powerfully that there were works carried out in 1846 in relation to the car said mile burn and in relation to the downy burn it's all about interpretation on that one I mean I'm not a civil engineer or anything like that however if I look at that map to me let's refer to them as blue and pink if you're digging out the pink burn where are you going to deposit the soil on the right hand side of the pink burn if you're digging out the pink burn where are you going to deposit the soil on the left hand side got to be the left hand side of the blue burn that does not necessarily mean the blue burn has been dug out if you were to dump the soil from the pink into the blue you'd cause a dam so I don't follow that and I don't agree with what you've said there be that as it may the dotted line on the surveyors plan does talk about the estimated line of the spoil I mean that's what the annotation says I mean just looking at the shall we say the car smile burn the area colour blue is there anything about that that strikes you as unusual in terms of what just in terms of of it being in a dead straight line no do you think that's a natural feature or more likely to be an artificial feature natural 100% I state that once again without actually physically seeing it if you were to have a walk down there there are trees there now these trees once again are three man but these trees are big and I would say that they are well over 100 years old maybe even more, 150 years I don't know the roots from these trees are visible in the blue burn all the way down they've not been cut off they've not been excavated they're bare roots that align on the burn why would it be a natural straight thing if they've been dug out and the three roots are still there well it's just because nature doesn't tend to do things in a dead straight line it's just my assumption then okay if we move on and we can see the field enclosure 130 on there as well in the field where your house is yet to be built with the dotted line going through it you can see that can you now if we move on to the next plan which is document 13 which is a surveyors plan fair copy of a surveyors plan which was executed in 1940 and the areas which are outlined in red are areas where the pow commissioners have been involved in executing works now if we move along I think it's probably the the left most red line would you agree with me that that red line is going along the line of the car's head mile burn roughly and would you agree with me that if this is a copy of a 1940 plan which depicts where works are carried out it's pretty clear that the commissioners have been undertaking work in that general area I couldn't comment on that looking at a map it's hard to say whether work's been carried out or not just by looking at a line or a bit of paper okay but you do appreciate someone it's a red line on it so it has some significance no those red lines put on a map earlier on which I believe Mr Willit was made aware of at the committee meeting that they were in a totally wrong place I don't even amend them or not the ones that Mr Take pointed out we're dealing with this map just now if we could a mistake's on the station yet you can ask questions so I cannot agree with what you've said there you're not in agreement to deny that this is not a 1940 plan showing a red line where the commissioners have carried out work that's what it is, it's a 1940 plan okay and if we could turn over the document next page to plan 14 which is the middle section plan 1 of 1 and I think it's maybe the near the centre of the page again we can see the car smile burn on the line which shows that this is on the land plans that would go with the current bill where the commissioners execute works I can't actually see that that's too small, let's go okay but if you look at that map again the car said mile if you refer to that one and then carry on north north of, well my property on the other means of gorthy it's referred to as the Downey Burn if that Downey Burn was indeed manmade then if you continue northwards why is it such a meander in it is it not possible that works were carried out in the section where it's straight and works weren't carried out where it meanders not when you look at the tree roots in it I'm afraid there'd be no work carried out on that burn for years and years until you actually come and walk down it you couldn't appreciate what I'm saying I don't see how that's got to do with my house being benefited land or not we'll come to that in a moment but you'll have a chance to ask questions of the promoter so if you could then have before you document 15A which is the last of the documents 15A and 15B and I might just need to explain a little about how this works when the works were carried out in 1846 Mr McGregor an initial survey was done beforehand to take account of the value of the land at that stage once the works were then completed the increase in value was then calculated so it showed the extent to which the land had been improved by the powerworks and it is that improvement on the land that creates what we describe as benefited land now if you look at document 15A document 15A and 15B are pages that go together because it's just due to the way it's been copied but document 15A is a statement of the increase in value of the land after the works have been completed and if you look at 15A if you scroll down to the plot numbers you'll see on that document one, two, three, four, five up from the bottom the plot 130 okay can you see that? and if you go over the page and if we go one, two, three, four I think it's five up on there it shows that the rate per acre is nine shillings and beside that it says the increased annual value is £3, eight shillings and three pence okay so what I'm putting to you Mr McGregor is if you look at that document which is showing plot 130 had increased in value we then go back if you could for a moment to document document nine this demonstrates that your house which is centre cottage is built on plot 130 and plot 130 in accordance with the documents that are associated with the 1846 act was increased in value as a result of the works so therefore your house is on benefited land now I appreciate that you may not have previously received assessments and I think the promoters position is that it may well be when the farmland was sold off a contribution was taken from the farmer on the farmland but unfortunately no assessment was made of your property but that doesn't change the fact that your property has been built on benefited land okay no further questions thank you promoters wish to make it this stage just one comment it's really to do with the document which Mr McGregor kindly lodged this morning and if you look at that document and it's particulars of sale and if you look at page 3 we'll see in here lot 2 and it's got an outgoing which is the power of enchafry drainage commissions used to be allocated and I think this is a 1984 document it is I think that the assumption that's being made because it happened some time ago is that as I put to Mr McGregor that both the cottage and the land were being assessed as one and when they were separated off no assessment was then sought for the cottage it was just taken from the farm and it's slightly lost in the eons of time but as a result of the new assessment record which was trying to be as faithful as it could be to the original benefited land I think it is beyond doubt that Mr McGregor's cottage and the two other cottages are on benefited land the four moving one is two points I wish to clarify the cast head cast male and downy buns is there maintenance and work still undertaken by the commission on these water crosses a number of side ditches on the pow which were which were burns and they're still called burn the cast head the cow gas burn is one of the principal side ditches and it's a burn which has been improved and straightened and which the commission carry out works to from time to time there's another one called the Jesse burn which comes in at Balgaon another one which comes in at called the drum fin burn so there are a series of these side ditches which were natural water courses which have been improved and for which the commission have responsibility when we do we do an inspection of the pow twice a year and the surveyor has to write a report and all the side ditches for which the commission are responsible which include these ones there's a report on the condition of them and where the work needs to be done some of them work gets done on more frequently than others I have to confess that on the cast head myle there hasn't been much work done there for some considerable time the drum fin burn for instance has been no work done for years the Jesse burn there's been no work done for years others of them where they are as a flatter gradient the work is done more often for instance the cow gas burn we clean out fairly regularly so the fact that we haven't done anything there much in recent years doesn't take away the fact that the commission are still responsible as a maintenance obligation there if a bank collapsed or a tree fell across and was brought to our attention we would have to go and deal with it I appreciate that clarification there's one further point in terms of benefitted landers properties directly benefiting from the pow they drain directly into the pow and there's others if we could categorise as indirect we drain into tributary switch subsequently go on to join the pow are you aware of any properties which benefit indirectly we drain into a tributary that they are not in benefitted land perhaps further upstream of a particular tributary burn they might get into the into the sideage the commission are responsible for the maintenance thank you just to clarify ok I would now like to invite Mr McGregor to cross examine the promoters both from the point series and more generally the document that I gave to you earlier on if you have a look at it it refers to three lots lot one, two and three lot two is the one which has got the outgoings which is the pow and chaffery drainage commission due to be allocated for lot two lot three is the cottage is located between the farmhouse and the separately owned property known as Burnside cottage lot three is my property and there is no mention under lot three of any bill for the pow and chaffery drainage commission ok so that's purely for lot two not lot three my property is lot three I refer back to 15a and 15b once again apologies I don't have the copy of this document with me, I have seen it we have worked out and Mr Tate I know you were to do the figures without being 100% accurate because I can't remember which ones it is there are two of the sums on this document that are wrong I can't remember which ones I can get back to you with them but the maths for two of them don't add up like I said I don't know which ones it is but that needs investigating if they are incorrect then perhaps it's my one at 130 I'm not sure they are wrong though and if we are relying on documents like this to deem whether my property is on benefit land or not I would expect them to be correct as far as the maintenance goes on the downy burn I've lived in my property for 15 years not once have I seen any maintenance done on the downy burn or the field down to the to the pow I haven't seen it and I refer to my original thing I don't believe that the altitude of 39.05 on the south and 39.4 on the north have been treated fairly as benefited land what is benefited land is it somewhere that benefits financially or somewhere that benefits from drainage or flood alleviation if that's the case why are they at different heights one north and one south I have a lot that I could go on about especially inconsistencies in minutes of meetings etc etc but unless they are absolutely necessary I'm not going to I have nothing further to ask if I could ask Mr McGregor that you could write to the committee I'm setting out in more detail the concerns raised in the specific papers 15A and B we will of course make sure that it is circulated to the promoters as well and put in the Parliament website I would like to invite Mr McGregor to make any closing remarks one final thing I would like to do I would like to request that the commission carry out an entire survey of the area which they define as benefited land for the whole of the pow using modern techniques modern survey equipment and determine precisely which land is benefited and which is not perhaps using in conjunction with the SEPA flood plans because our property appears as zero risk of flooding I know it has been mentioned in the past that this is not a flood thing this is a drainage commission but there have been instances which are referred to in my original objection that flood alleviation has been mentioned I would like to invite the promoters to make any closing remarks I should wish to Thank you Just picking up on the point which Mr McGregor has made there the commissioners did consider whether they should carry out a detailed survey to establish the benefited land and looked into that in some detail and took the decision that it was acceptable for them to rely upon the work that has been carried out pursuant to the 1846 act and that is the basis on which the plans have been drawn there may be issues with how long ago it was but it was believed to be accurate it is it would be financially unviable to carry out a survey of all of the properties it may not even be possible because of land changes and the works have now been carried out so the promoter is content to rely upon the 1846 act and you will have seen in the basis of the assessment for the preparation of the plans which was submitted in April by Savils that is the basis on which the plans were taken forward the promoter I think has demonstrated that Mr McGregor's Mr McGregor's house as centre cottage at Nethermane's of Gorthy was constructed after the improvement works had been undertaken and therefore have a dependency on those works having been undertaken and there is therefore no question that it was built on benefitted land Mr McGregor's house if one looks at the 1850 plan you can see it isn't there it's also not present on the 1846 plan which we went through I don't think that there is any doubt what 130 was subject to an increase in value as a result of the works and that is the basis that reaches a conclusion that land has been benefited and is thus benefited land and that's demonstrated on document 15A and 15B so the promoters in my view were correct to include it you do have the promoters sincere apologies for not including it in the first place but that it only came to light as a result of a further assessment that was done earlier this year I think that the issue about the Downey burn, the Carse Mile burn or whatever they're called is somewhat of a red herring because they both drain into the paw I think that the plans indicate quite powerfully that there has been works historically carried out to them as shown in the dotted line on the 1846 burn plan we can also see that the burn such as it is, is on a dead straight line which I think does indicate it is not a natural course of water and it has been altered and it has been altered in the promoters view to improve its flow The Carse Mile burn and the Downey burn were included in the 1940 plan so at some stage they have had attention from the commissioners they are identified on the current land plans which are part of the feeder network to the paw I think that in summary it's regrettable that the ejectors property wasn't included earlier in the land plans but it is correct to include it at this stage and the promoters approach to that is consistent with the overall methodology for the entire redrafting of the land plans and the identification of benefited land across all of the properties all is set out in the explanatory report submitted by the promoters agent Savals in April of this year that's all I have to say Thank you Mr McGregor Thank you, it just remains more formative thank you Mr McGregor and the promoters for attending this morning The next meeting of the committee will be on Wednesday 26 September 2018 at 10 am and will be to consider the objections and the committee's second consideration stage report The committee will now move into private so I suspend