CALA Homes Case Studies - Laighills, Dunblane

Laighills, Dunblane has been transformed from a sand and gravel quarry into a luxury development of 220 family houses in a parkland setting.

Extending to 36 hectares (90 acres) this former brownfield site now comprises a development of 220 homes, a business park and a network of open space and woodland that is connected by formal and informal footpaths.

CALA won this site on the open market based on our planning strategy and our history as a respected developer of luxury family housing in the Dunblane Community.

Planning for a development of this scale in Stirling Council District was a highly involved process that required the renewal of an outline consent, approval of a masterplan and then the processing of reserved matters’ applications for approximately 5 phases of development.

The overall timescale of 3 years from being selected as preffered bidder and starting on site was due to the many challenges that had to be addressed including:

• Negotiating the provision of a full size football pitch off site.
• Several conservation issues such as the relocation of a rare breed of newts and sand martin colony.
• An archaeological evaluation at the access to the site which uncovered an ancient burial casket containing human remains and estimated to be 4000 years old.
• Designing the development into the landscape through a ground remodelling exercise and structural planting on the boundary and higher parts of the site.
• Major upfront infrastructure costs to access the site.