PLANNING bosses are recommending councillors reject the latest attempt to put new homes in the hills over Clydebank.

Officers said West Dunbartonshire Council’s planning committee should send the final decision over Duntiglennan Fields to the full council and urge them to refuse the bid for up to 99 properties.

Barratt Homes made the application to build on the Duntocher land off Farm Road after repeated attempts by Taylor Wimpey were repelled.

The dispute forced the entire local authority to abandon its last local development plan, which the Scottish Government said would have to allow homes on the greenbelt site.

When the council published their new draft plan last year, it offered land next to Linnvale as an alternative to protect Duntiglennan. And the SNP administration played the areas against each other by rejecting Linnvale opposition to protect Duntocher.

There were 116 objections submitted to the Barratt Homes bid, including from organisation Clydebelt and many local residents. Their opposition is well rehearsed after years of fighting against planning applications, first from Taylor Wimpey and now Barratt Homes.

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There was no detail of the house types or how they would be laid out on the two parcels of land making up the 8.8 hectare site.

There was detail for where trees would be planted, but not the homes between them.

But, like the application in 2013, the council’s roads department again said they had no objection.

Traffic on Farm Road has been one of the central objections from neighbours to adding more homes.

Yet the council accepted the transport assessment from the housing firm that concluded there was sufficient capacity.

They also said Duntocher schools could accommodate extra pupils from new homes.

Planning bosses, however, concluded it was “inappropriate” to have the housing on greenbelt land, the design itself was “unacceptable” and it would breach numerous policies.

Their report to the planning committee on January 22, states: “In principle, the proposed indicative master plan is considered to be unacceptable on design grounds.”