Website - www.fifestructureplanlegalchallenge.co.uk

Latest News

• Structure plan challenge advanced - 3 day case starts 19 January at the Court of Session in Edinburgh - open to public
• Key body backs legal challenge to Fife plan - Association for the Protection of Rural Scotland (APRS) lends support
• Court case warning to council - as regards successful legal challenge impact on policy and the local plan process
• £30,000 pledged to Fife plan challenge - which, if successful, could stop the structure plan in its tracks
• Resident’s legal challenge to structure plan - controversial “developers’ charter” to be examined in Court of Session

Copy of letter from Penny Uprichard (dated 13 July 2009) - and a printable pledge form

LEGAL CHALLENGE TO THE FIFE STRUCTURE PLAN 2006 - 2026

The Structure Plan was first published in March 2005 and approved by Scottish Ministers in May 2009. Apparently the objections were four times the number for any other Structure Plan, but they were substantially ignored, including those from Dundee City Council, Scottish Natural Heritage, and many Community Councils and individuals.

I enclose a statement which appeared in the Dundee Courier on 4th July.

I have lodged a legal challenge to the Plan. It is not likely to come to court for some months, and I am writing to ask for your support in one of two ways in meeting the costs of the case (probably £60,000, of which £17,000 [£30,000 by mid August, £37,500 by November] has already been promised). Pledges would only be called upon if I lost and was made liable for costs.

a) By signing the enclosed pledge form.

• Nobody who signs a form will be liable for more than the amount pledged, and the pledge will be kept entirely confidential (by me and by any amateur secretarial help I can co-opt).

b) By making an outright donation to the Challenge Fund - see pledge form for address.

• Donations could be used to pay for interim expenses and would be extremely helpful. I would ask anybody who decides to take this course or who would like more information to telephone me (I am not on e-mail).

If the Structure Plan takes effect, among the results will be:

• 35,200 additional houses across Fife
• Initially 1,090 houses in St. Andrews, plus a distributor road and 44 acres of business and science parks, increasing the built area of the town by an estimated 40%
• In Cupar, 1,400 houses and a bypass

There will be little chance of planning committees or environmental bodies opposing development through planning applications or through the Local Plan, which has to conform to the Structure Plan. The SEA to the Draft Local Plan says that in the St. Andrews and East Fife Local Plan area "the total urbanised land area could increase by about 15%." Our landscape will be under serious threat.