News

This is an article from Inside Housing

 

Park of Keir planning process nears conclusion

The process for securing required community benefits from the proposed Park of Keir development is nearing conclusion, Stirling Council has confirmed.

The council said it has received the signed Section 75 agreement from the applicant, which covers a range of requirements the developer is legally obliged to deliver as part of the revised proposal.

In line with the council’s last decision on the matter, the agreement now requires to be reported to the council’s Planning and Regulation Panel for final scrutiny.

This is scheduled for the next meeting of the Panel on August 3.

The initial application for the Park of Keir Development, which included a proposed tennis, golf, recreational and housing development near Dunblane, was rejected by Stirling’s councillors in 2015.

Following an appeal and subsequent Public Local Inquiry, Scottish Ministers issued a Notice of Intention to approve the development in 2017, pending agreement between the applicant and the council to secure:
* Affordable housing
* Education contributions
* Community access to the tennis facilities
* An agreement that no further residential development takes place on the site.

After extensive negotiations, the applicant has now signed and submitted this agreement, which will be reported to the next available meeting of the Stirling Council Planning and Regulation Panel.

A Stirling Council spokesperson said: “The council has secured a final extension to the negotiation period to ensure final scrutiny of the document and to keep our communities informed.

“While agreements such as these are confidential documents, a report outlining its contents will be presented to the Panel to ensure transparency. Local ward members will also be given the same opportunity to scrutinise the agreement.”

 

Here is an article from the Stirling Observer

 

This is an article from the Irish Times 

 

Corkman Msgr Basil O’Sullivan (88), parish priest of Holy Family, Dunblane, and Our Lady of Perpetual Succour, Auchterarder, in Scotland, was on his way to meet his bishop on the morning of March 13th, 1996, when gunman Thomas Hamilton entered the local school and opened fire on a class of five year olds. In the deadliest mass shooting in British history, he shot 16 children and their teacher dead, injuring 15 others.

“I had a meeting that day with the bishop but I passed the school that morning having no idea what had happened. It was already over. I saw no sign of any activity. So when I met the bishop, he said you had better go back straight away. I went straight back. It was a pretty harrowing time.”

Parish priest at Dunblane since 1988, who celebrates 65 years as a priest, said “some people have never got over it. Of course parents never got over it but I suppose, in a sense, you have to cope, whatever happens you have to cope in life, but you never forget.

“It’s burned into the memories of everyone involved. I had to bury two of the little boys. Of course some of the children were injured as well, I had to look after them too in hospital. For the town to get back to normal it took well over a year or so.”

He was chaplain at the nondenominational school. “We had three chaplains, two of them were Protestant of course and I was the Catholic one. They made no distinction. We worked as a team. It was a very happy ecumenical arrangement. They were colleagues.”

He agreed that, sadly, the massacre is what Dunblane is best known for, before adding, “It’s famous for Andy Murray, too.” The tennis player was a nine year old at the school then. Canon O’Sullivan, however, has never met him.

In 2012, his experiences at Dunblane prompted him to contact Msgr Bob Weiss of St Rose of Lima parish at Newtown, Connecticut in the United States when gunman Adam Lanza killed 20 children and six teachers at the Sandy Hook elementary school before killing his mother and then himself.

“I emailed him and he emailed back and I went across for the first anniversary of the shooting,” Msgr O’Sullivan said. A concelebrated Mass they held then to mark the Sandy Hook anniversary featured in a film, Lessons from a School Shooting: Notes from Dunblane, which went on later to win the best short documentary award at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York.

Early days

As a priest, Msgr O’Sullivan has only ever served in Scotland but never lost his Cork accent. Indeed, and not untypically of people from that county, when asked whether with the name O’Sullivan he was an Irishman, he responded: “..a Corkman, from Blackpool in Cork, same area as Jack Lynch came from.”

He was “the youngest of nine, all gone to heaven”. After attending primary school at the North Monastery, he went to St Finbarr’s diocesan college at Farranferris as a day boy before heading to All Hallows seminary in Dublin.

It was “always a college for sending people overseas, a missionary college founded by a Dublin priest, Fr John Hand, way back in 1840, or thereabouts. That’s how I ended up in Scotland. At that time, there seemed to be plenty of priests in Ireland. I went there at 18, a callow youth,” he said.

“I wanted to be a priest, and it was more important to be a priest than where you were sent. Bishops from all over the world were writing to the rector [at All Hallows] and the idea was to go to some place where they were short of priests. Scotland was short of priests in those days.”

He recalled how “33 of us were ordained together, happy days”, by another Corkman and All Hallows alumni, then auxiliary bishop (later bishop) of Honolulu, John Joseph Scanlan.

Of his 33 colleagues ordained that day “13 went off to the States, 11 went off to England and Scotland, five to Australia and New Zealand, four to South Africa, they divided up like that”.

He was sent to Dundee in Scotland “and after that I was sent off to Rome to study canon law. I spent some years in the Scots College there, then back to Dundee. I was sent around the place over the years. I’m here in Dunblane for a long time, 33 years, that’s a long time.”

Indeed it is, and though Catholic priests can retire at 75, he has continued to minister. “The bishop was particularly keen for me to stay on and I was keen myself. I was quite happy to stay on. I didn’t want to look at four walls.”

Restrictions

Similar restrictions on public worship due to the pandemic have applied in Dunblane, as in Ireland, and even when allowed they have resorted to “Mass on the lawn” as “our churches are small, so social distancing would make it impossible to accommodate a congregation”.

To date, he has celebrated the 50th and 60th anniversaries of his ordination in Dunblane and on June 17th there was another outdoor Mass there to mark the 65th anniversary of his ordination.

In a tribute, his bishop Stephen Robson said Msgr O’Sullivan had “always been there for his people, through thick and thin, serving with fidelity and love” and was always a comfort to “those who still mourn the terrible attack on Dunblane primary school in 1996 and to help heal the memories of that tragic day”.

For his own part, and 89 years old next month, Msgr O’Sullivan hopes to stay on in Dunblane. “A lot depends on the bishop,” he said, but he has no plans to return to Cork. “I’m too long away and all my siblings are gone to heaven.” As for losing the accent. “No, that wouldn’t do would it? My Cork accent will never leave me,” he said.

 

There is chat about the possibility of Aldi setting up in Dunblane.

Read the Stirling Observer article

 

 

Dunblane Museum reopened on 3rd July 2021.

Due to a lack of volunteers, this will initially be on Saturdays only from 10.30 to 3.30

A Dunblane house has reached the final of Scotland's Home of the Year Show.  The final will be this Wednesday on BBC Scotland followed by Monday on BBC1.  The house has wowed judges by its collection of 70s furniture and artefacts.  It has also made amazing use of access to wooded areas behind the house.  You may recognise the location from the programme, but we're not planning to give anything away!

The popular Dunblane Area Green Travel Map has now been updated thanks to funding from the Smarter Choices Smarter Places Open Fund. First published in 2011, the map has helped many people to discover walking & cycling routes and explore our lovely local area. Many other projects use the maps too, e.g. for health walks, cycle training, travel planning. This latest update includes new paths and community suggestions made in the Map Survey.

As well as being online here at Dunblane.info, free paper copies are available at schools, Dunblane Library, Braeport Centre,“Weigh Ahead”, Doune PO/Information Centre, Recyke-a-bike and some local bike shops. Enjoy!

Dunblane Green Travel Map

Dunblane City Map

City of Dunblane Indexed Map

Dunblane Library has a new timetable from Monday 16 August

They are more or less back to normal now and no appointment needed to visit.

Late nights will be reintroduced on 1 September.

Dunblane Updated Opening Hours

Another of Dunblane's sporting heroes has made history leading St.Johnstone to victory in the Scottish Cup final and the Scottish League Cup final in his first year as manager of the club. Ex-international football player Callum Davidson was given his first full-time role in management with St Johnstone in June 2020 and the team is going from strength to strength.  

Read more about the historic wins here and here.

Proposals for Retirement Housing at Kippendavie Road have been made by The IGM Dalgleish (1991) Trust.

The online consultation is live from Monday 24 May to Friday 11 June. 

Read the Stirling Observer article

Some background to this proposal (from the pages of Dunblane.Info)

In 2014 there were plans to build 4 low impact houses in Kippendavie Wood (Application Ref :14/00587/FUL). The proposals were made by Bell Ingram and Bobby Halliday Architects on behalf of the IGM Dalgleish (1991) Trust.The application was refused in September 2015.

A new application, again for four houses was submitted in March 2016 (Application Ref 16/00099/FUL). The application was refused in January 2017 Read a Stirling Observer article. 

 

The next Dunblane Community Council AGM & meeting is to be held on Wednesday 2 June from 7pm until around 8.30pm. 

If you would like to attend the meeting via Zoom, please email DCC's Secretary at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. - he will then send you a link for the meeting.

Agenda for 2021 AGM

Minutes of the 2020 AGM

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