Meeting held on 7 March 2005 at Kingsbarns Village Hall

Present: Joyce Taylor, Charlotte Kirby, Claire Wright, Cllr Douglas, Peter Erskine, Raymond Hair, Geoff Lang and 62 village Residents. Apologies were recorded from Donald Peddie.

The Chair opened the Meeting with a warm welcome to all and in particular to our Guests PC Neil Todd & Robin Dick who had kindly agreed to come along and speak to us on matters which had arisen at earlier Meetings. After their talks we shall resume our normal Agenda.

Community Policing:

PC Neil Todd reported that the NW Fife Neighbourhood Watch Scheme had recently been revamped. The St. Andrews Association scheme includes Boarhiils and he suggested that if Kingsbarns could put together a Chairman, a Secretary and a Treasurer we could join that Scheme and be the recipient of funding to support the scheme’s operation. Mary Malcolm has in fact already a small scheme up & running in North Quarter so it would be relatively easy and logical to expand that scheme into the broader group. This we shall consider & should Mary wish to proceed she will gather her Group and contact either PC Neil Todd or his colleague PC Janis Lister. PC Todd said that membership of the St Andrews Association scheme would involve a meeting every other month with the other areas and our own Kingsbarns Scheme meetings in addition.

On the subject of petty vandalism in the village PC Todd reported that in his records he had only 2 complaint calls logged since Jan. 1st which would indicate that whatever vandalism is happening is largely going unreported. He said that manpower is definitely available in the Force to the extent of 2 teams of 4 Officers each. He emphasized that the key # to call for immediate response was 418000. or to discuss Police issues call the St. Andrews # which is 418973. Complainants do not have to disclose their names or addresses when they ‘phone or may request that the Police do not come to their door (thus betraying their anonymity).

PC Todd in taking questions, said that Police presence in the village in the past had historically been confined to days when there were events at Crail - in the future however, Police visibility in Kingsbarns would be stepped-up a notch or two.

Fife Council Transportation Issues etc.:

Robin Dick as Lead Officer Integrated Passenger Transport, East Fife had very kindly volunteered his evening time to come along and address various issues for us. He had been given a list of Agenda topics before the Meeting some of which fell under his Department while other topics were the responsibility of his colleagues, and he had troubled himself to get answers from them before tonight’s Meeting.

20 MPH Zoning - falls under Colin Stirling. Whatever is agreed must comply with statutory requirements. We will contact Colin about positioning as well as the sheer number of proposed signs.

School Travel Plan - falls under Kenny Scott. Established by the Travel Action Group. On Thursday week, the 17th at 3:30 there would be a meeting at the School, which Geoff will attend.

Area Transportation Plan - within the overall Plan are short-medium-long term goals among which the establishment of a cycle track is a long-term goal taking up to 2010-20 to achieve.

Footways - For any areas which may have escaped the notice of the Council then we may request ad-hoc inspections by phoning 412020.

Lighting - Within the 2005-06 Plan, new lighting follows Planning Guidelines and the lighting in St. Andrews would give a good indication of what style is to be erected in Kingsbarns. Angus Broadhurst is in charge of new lighting installations in Fiscal 05-06 and he will be contacted regarding both ‘style’ as well as ‘density’.

Bus Shelters - Replacement is planned and Planning Consent is being sought. Robin’s Department would welcome our input on the idea of the 2 existing shelters being replaced by 2 new matching wooden structures. He had taken the trouble to visit the sites and offered to replace the timetable holder.

Gritting of Station Road - Robin felt it unlikely that the Ops. Unit headed by Martin Kingham would restore the service. This was felt unacceptable and Martin Kingham will be written to, to restate our case.

Drainage Works - Robin admitted that the timing was poor but reassured the village that the works would be over by the 14th, weather permitting.

Mud build-up on the road out to Cambo - Robin will ask his Ops Division to remove.

As the person in charge of Bus Shelters, Robin promised Peter Erskine that he would review the necessity for the shelters outside Cambo and revert to Peter.

In addition there was a query about the constant pooling of water just before Sandyhill which Robin would direct at David Smeaton.

Finally, the Chair thanked Robin for coming and implored more communication and consultation from Fife Council as some recent decisions had been made, it appeared, without any local discussion with the Community Council. Robin felt confident that emanating from this meeting things would improve and he promised to E-Mail Geoff a list of the individuals responsible for the key areas so that we could pursue them directly. (This list has since been received from Robin as promised).

Minutes of Meeting January 10th & Matters Arising:

The Treasurer assured the Chair that he had the Accounts in hand.

The general consensus was that we should trial the idea of having our Community Council Meeting Minutes in the Citizen and Geoff will duly organize this with Mike Rankin, the Deputy Editor.

Geoff had delivered past Minutes to Fife Council’s Archivist in Markinch, as promised.

Fife Coastal Path - the Chair proposed this topic be carried over to the next Meeting of May 2nd.

Britain in Bloom - It was felt that it would be inappropriate to participate at this moment while certain prominent eyesores in the village centre, namely the two derelict sheds, still existed. This would prejudice any chance of winning. Under constant review as we would like to participate.

Apart from the foregoing, the Minutes were duly proposed & seconded.

Future of Kingsbarns:

The Sub-Committee had completed compiling the Questionnaire Results from Sections 1 & 2 and presented those Results.

There had been good response with two-thirds of Adults responding which constituted a reliable base.

Between 65% - 74% of respondents either objected or strongly objected to both Proposals - the smaller percentage relating to the proposed addition of 40 houses and the larger percentage relating to the proposed addition of 70 houses. In answer to Question 3 was apparent that in broad terms some 77% of votes were in favour of “some” new housing in the village, with up to 50 new dwellings being considered as generally appropriate, with an overwhelming vote in favour of Owner-occupied rather than Rental properties. Those key Services regarded as most important were already in place, namely; Transport, Shop, PO & School. There were 226 paragraphs on key themes which would be analysed for our May 2nd Community Council Meeting.

The Chair commented that this Survey indicates clear rejection of Fife Council’s proposals H48 & 49. The Chair briefly outlined the Fife Planning process involving Broad long term Planning and Local Planning. We are now entering Phase 2 of the Planning process and consultation runs to May 2nd (which is coincidentally the date of our next CC Meeting).

The Chair drew attention to the important diary date of Weds. April 20th from 6 to 9 p.m., where at the Kilrymont Building of Madras College there is to be a Public Meeting held by Fife Council’s Keith Winter, Head of Development Services, to display & discuss the Draft Local Plan, the Draft Fife Structure Plan, Draft Supplementary Guidance & Draft Transportation Proposals. (The Draft Plan may be read in advance of May 2nd, at County Buildings I Local Offices of Fife Council I Fife Libraries during weekdays or may be purchased on paper for £30 or on disc for £5 - the Plan is also available on www.fifedirect.org.uk/developmentplan). Any written comments or objections are required to be registered before May 2nd -Comment Forms were distributed and are attached also to each copy of these Minutes, so that individuals may respond directly.

The Chair went on to say that it is a complicated consultation process and the role of the Community Council is to help people understand it. The Chair also reminded those present that all Community Councillors must be free of any personal interest in any proposals for or against, to ensure impartiality.

The 2 sites proposed by Fife Council are both greenfield sites and the big thrust is upon Affordable Housing although Keith Winter had admitted that he did not yet know what was meant by this term as the Executive had yet to issue specifics. Meantime Keith Winter is putting his mind to just how affordable housing is to be kept affordable?

We as residents need to decide the broad way forward through our own internal consultation procedures while communicating an outright rejection of Fife Council’s proposals. Cllr Douglas cautioned that one cannot entirely halt the growing pressure to grow Communities - it is a relentless juggernaut that new Housing will come, & he therefore advised us against simply an outright ‘no’. It seems that Fife Council are bent on the pursuit of affordable housing being 40% of total and we should endeavour to work within rather than outwith these stated goals.

Huw countered that the village Survey findings did not necessarily reject all and any new housing out of hand, but were unanimously against no new houses in those 2 specific locations.

On the question of key infrastructure services Cllr Douglas reminded those present that below a certain number (52 ) the viability of our School would be in question. Nick drew attention to the fact that we are now in the Consultation Phase which leads up to May 2nd, when follows the preparation of Fife Council’s Second Draft, whereupon objections are invited and any unresolved issues must be addressed. There is therefore still a long way to go.

Cllr Douglas noted that these 2 fields (H48 &49) were the ONLY sites being considered as a direct result of assessments which Fife Council or their Agents had carried out on all the 11 fields which surround the village. Nick Lunan reported that he had requested the full assessments of all 11 fields and was waiting for them.

The Chair queried the fact that out of the top 20 villages earmarked for development Kingsbarns ranked high at 12th place, marginally behind Ladybank and Crail with the latter having more than double the population of Kingsbarns ! In this context an extra 110 houses seemed simply too much. Cllr Douglas agreed that with 120 new houses being proposed for Crail, 110 for Kingsbarns did seem out of scale. No one has any idea how this number of 110 was arrived at. Nick opined that it has probably emanated from a Housing Developer, yet Peter Erskine has never been approached by any Developer to discuss these sites.

The Chair felt that we should be packaging our Survey Results into our response to Fife Council and the Community Council undertakes to forward the Survey Results to Fife Council (attention Keith Winter & Development Services).

On May 2nd we should review the 226 key themes of the Questionnaire and move on from there.

Cllr Douglas suggested that as many people as possible should attend the meeting at Kilrymont on April 20th so as to be well informed for our subsequent CC Meeting on May 2nd. He commented that Kingsbarns CC was exceptionally well prepared compared to most other Communities.

AOB:

Mobile Library - the Council have proposed that on each Thursday the Mobile Library is to be in the Square between 1:45 and 2:30. This is the present arrangement which we are all happy with.

At the next Meeting the subject of our village School will be discussed as a carryover from the Meeting of January 10th.

Geoff will write to Mike Melville, Head of Law & Admin. at Fife Council, to give him details of our new CC Office Bearers and contacts.

Cllr Douglas sought to clarify that despite his earlier remarks to the contrary, the present Head of Planning’s Policy is that there is to be no change to the Conservation Status of Kingsbarns.

Next Meeting: Monday May 2nd @ 7:30 p.m. in the Community Hall.