Friends of King's Cross

Update #4 28th February 2025

Dear Supporter

It has been a while since we have been in touch with you about developments at WhitefieldFarm by Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS). You may recall that in 2022, FLS paid £1.25million for Whitefield Farm on King’s Cross, and a further £2 million for the small timberexport yard and slipway on the shoreside at Market Road in Brodick.

Land transactions taking place at Whitefield Farm, King’s Cross

Since a flurry of activity in 2022, there has been very little of substance to report. Thatchanged last summer, when we heard locally that FLS had “sold” some of Whitefield Farm.We contacted FLS to establish the facts, and were initially told that they had not sold anyland. In subsequent correspondence, FLS then advised:"Currently, FLS is completing commercially sensitive transactions with a neighbouringlandowner that will facilitate FLS realising the potential of the Whitefield Farm site"Following our Freedom of Information requests to FLS, we have also received an amount ofheavily redacted documents, including one titled “Kings Cross Junction” where the junctionarea is completely obscured by a redaction rectangle. We have reached the conclusion thatFLS is likely involved in some sort of land transaction or swap with an adjacent landowner toallow the road access into King’s Cross to be realigned in some way to allow timber wagonsto enter and exit Whitefield. This has not yet been confirmed or denied by FLS.

See our website to view the FLS documents received via FoI requests

You can see for yourself the correspondence and the latest release of documents from FLSon our website: www.friendsofkingscross.co.uk. Look under the Info tab and then “2024documents”.Further, two Building Warrant applications have been submitted to North Ayrshire Council byFLS relating to works on the buildings at Whitefield Farm. In short, FLS wish to demolishmost of the existing farm buildings, including the historic milking byre and dairy, andredevelop the holiday cottage into offices for FLS staff, and refurbish the attached farmhousefor use by FLS staff. You can view these applications on the North Ayrshire Council website,24/00366/BW and 24/00388/BW. Total estimated cost of the projects applied for in boththese warrants is £450,000.More recently a planning application has been submitted in respect of the buildings. This is achange of use from residential to office for the holiday cottage and alterations to thefarmhouse and holiday cottage. You can see the application on the North Ayrshire Councilwebsite under planning, the reference number is 25/00046/PP. It is currently “live” andawaiting consideration. We understand that the planning application will also be advertisedin the Arran Banner shortly, and that the closing date for comments will be 21st March 2025.We are currently working on a response to this planning application and will be in contactwith you again soon regarding that, and what we would like you to do in response.It is also clear from the documents supplied in the latest FoI release, that FLS has spentsubstantial amounts of public money on consultant reports and feasibility studies particularlyin respect of developing a new pier at King’s Cross on the shore just below the house knownas Kebars, which is halfway along the track from Mayfield. There have also been workscompleted at the FLS owned Brodick yard in Market Road, including new fencing and gates,although no timber has been exported from there since October 2022, when the barge thatcould use that slipway, the Red Princess, was sold. We believe there is no suitable boatavailable locally that can use the existing Brodick slipway in the FLS owned yard.

New pier at King’s Cross?

There is speculation in the FLS documents that a new pier may be required at the timberslipway at Brodick in the FLS owned yard. More concerning is the Feasibility Report datedFebruary 2024 contained within the latest release of documents (available on our website,under Info, 2024 documents and labelled “Shoreline” and “documents”, and “2485 FullReport....”). Appendix B of this report contains various design options for a new pier at KingsCross. This pier would be located further east from the existing slipway and would requireconsiderable engineering works. We note that in the redacted costings in Appendix C thereare references to blasting rock at FLS sites at Clauchlands and Garbad, for onward transportto King’s Cross by road for use as rock armour to support the pier development. Thestackyard in the fields above the pier would extend to a footprint of 3000m2 and will bevisible from a considerable distance.The Whitefield project may therefore have very serious consequences for a number ofplaces on Arran as well as Holy Isle. As ever, we would be very interested to receive yourcomments.

So what is the problem that FLS is trying to solve?

It seems to us that the current timber transport operations are working very efficiently.Timber exports from Arran continue via a separate yard not owned by FLS located on theopposite side of Market Road directly opposite the car park exit for the ferry terminal. This isthe yard that was previously owned by John Thomson. The timber logs are being stackedthere and loaded onto a coaster boat moored at the eastern pier at the ferry terminal – onthe opposite side from the linkspan pier used by the Calmac ferries. It is then beingtransported on the coaster boats to the sawmill at Glennon timber at Troon.Timber lorries also continue to use the scheduled Calmac ferries for onward transport on themainland to various locations.

Our position

Our position remains that the FLS proposals for Whitefield Farm, such as they are:a) do not represent good value for money,b) are not necessary to allow timber to continue to be exported successfully from the island,c) that simpler and cheaper alternatives may exist that can deliver both better value forpublic funds, and long term advantage for both FLS and local residents and visitors toArran.We believe that the environmental damage that would be caused if FLS were to develop theWhitefield farm into a timber stackyard and seaborne export station would be ruinous for theunique beauty and tranquillity of King’s Cross, Holy Isle, Knockenkelly and LamlashBay. Traffic safety around the King’s Cross junction remains a major concern as it appears highlyunlikely that safe inward and outward movement of timber lorries at the King’s Cross junctioncould ever be achieved. Turning forest areas of the island into blasting quarries andtransporting many truckloads of rock around Arran’s roads to reconstruct a steep hillside andbuild a new pier in a highly sensitive location simply does not make sense to us.Friends of King’s Cross will continue to do everything we can to oppose such damaging andunnecessary development.

Our next steps

As it is clear that FLS continues to invest in the project at Whitefield, we have asked for ameeting with the CEO of FLS, Mr Kevin Quinlan. He has refused our request, however FLShas recently been in touch for the first time with some residents of Kings Cross, and we

intend to meet with the FLS representatives in the next week or so to hear what their plansare.We are also engaging with our local councillor, Charles Currie, and our elected MSPs, aswell as the planning department of North Ayrshire Council.As we learn more, it may be that Friends of Kings Cross will have to engage consultants tosupport the work of the group, in particular in relation to planning and other legal matters.We will be in touch with you again once we have further information. In the meantime,please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any comments or questions, we are alwayspleased to hear from you. Our email address is friendsofkingscross@gmail.comMany thanks for your continued support

Friends of King’s Cross

UPDATE 4