Meeting held on 2 May 2005 at Kingsbarns Community Hall

Present:

Joyce Taylor, Charlotte Kirby, Claire Wright, Cllr Douglas, Peter Erskine, Raymond Hair, Geoff Lang and 25 village Residents.

Apologies for absence had been received from Cala Cobb as well as from Scott Turnbull - it was noted that Donald Peddie was absent.

The Chair opened the Meeting with a warm welcome to all.

Minutes of Meeting March 7th & Matters Arising:

Raymond had noticed from the first set of Minutes that the additional number of houses mentioned as being generally acceptable, was stated as 50 rather than the 20 to 30 settled upon in the Questionnaire Survey. Geoff reassured Raymond that this was purely a typo which had been caught and corrected PRIOR TO distribution to Keith Winter, Head of Planning or to The Citizen newspaper. Huw, for further clarification, added that strictly speaking precisely 20 houses was the number which equally balanced those for and those against. It was agreed that this would be noted in the Minutes.

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

Matters Arising:

No word from PC Todd since our last Meeting so it was assumed there was nothing to report. The Chair will be posting a large notice in the Post Office with the Police Tel. Numbers on it.

It was clarified that Kildinny Yards was included in the Neighbourhood Watch Scheme together with North Quarter Steading. The Chair suggested that if anyone needed more information about the Scheme that they should contact her in the first instance.

The Chair reported on her Meeting with Colin Stirling regarding 20 mph Zoning & Signage and had mentioned to him that Freuchie had been made a 20 mph village throughout & therefore was not as prolifically signed as Kingsbarns . Colin Stirling had informed the Chair that in order to have a totally 20 mph village, additional calming measures such as sleeping policemen or chicanes must be installed for legal compliance but since Kingsbarns was directly sited on an ‘A’ Route they would not be permitted - we were therefore stuck with Signage as our only available means of slowing traffic. Colin Stirling had agreed to remove a sign at #6 The Square as well as the triangular notice outside the Hall. The flashing signs will read Patrol rather than School. He would furthermore look into the removal of the sign at the entrance to Lady Wynd (it was in fact reported that he would be visiting the following day, May 3rd, to organize it’s removal).

On the subject of Speed Control through the village Cllr Douglas felt it would be helpful if the Community Council would write to Willie Robertson at Crail Raceway to ask him to extend the presence of Police around the village on Race Days. It was apparent that some attendees at the Meeting were more tolerant of the disruption on Race Days than were others, and the Chair felt that a “watching brief” was the most appropriate course of action. Cllr Douglas informed the Meeting that cars on the Race Days are regularly checked by Police for safety/drugs/tax and that in the main the attendees have caused very little bother.

Geoff reported that since his E-Mail of 17th March to Robin Dick reminding him of our wish to have 2 matching wooden bus shelters (subject to design) to replace the existing West/East structures, nothing had been received from Robin to date and Geoff would therefore follow this up. Cllr Douglas cited Pitscottie and Elie as examples of villages with attractive Shelters and the Chair felt that photos were needed. This will be done.

There had been no resolution on the issues of Gritting or Pooling by representatives of Fife Council so Geoff will follow up these matters before the next Meeting.

Kingsbarns School:

The Chair reported on her recent meeting with Moira Duncan, Head of the school, who is keen to work more closely with the Community. Along the lines of a format produced by Kenny Scott of Fife Council, the children were working on producing their own Transport Plan which specifically includes such issues as Taxi usage and Cycling Proficiency. The children are considering adopting The Square as their project and some pupils may attend some of our future Community Meetings. Charlotte reported that at a Meeting to be held the following Thursday the all-important issue of School numbers was to be discussed. Finally it was mentioned that the recycling bins in the School yard are for general Community use (excluding glass for obvious reasons).

Future of Kingsbarns:

The Chair reported on the Public Meeting which had been held at Kilrymont School on April 20th which the Chair as well as other members of the Community had attended. It had been a large and very vociferous meeting — the big issue was the sheer scale of new housing being proposed and attendees were keen to learn if this was demand-led or developer-led? Since this very night at midnight was the deadline for individual responses to Fife Council’s Plans it was recalled that on March 21st we, as a Community had written to the Head of Planning at Fife Council to state our rejection of their proposed addition of 110 houses in Kingsbarns. The Chair had reinforced this in the official submission to the consultation on the St. Andrews & East Fife Local Plan. The Chair read out this submission (see attached) and it was agreed.

Cllr Douglas informed the meeting that it had recently been disclosed, after the Kilrymont gathering, that the Scottish Executive base figure used was flawed and as a result all Scottish Councils, including Fife Council in the person of Keith Winter, were now revising their numbers downwards and early estimates indicate that the Scottish Executive base figure had been over-estimated by 30%.

In reply to a question regarding the definition of Affordable Housing, Cllr Douglas replied that approx 6 categories had been written down and that as a practical instance once a second Planning Application for new housing in Crail had been published we would be able to see a concrete example of Affordable Housing since it would be included in the Crail application.

The Chair asked Cllr Douglas about the next step in the overall Planning Process? He will revert to us soonest since this recent confusion over the Scottish Executives’s basic estimates and the subsequent recount, would inevitably slow things down beyond mid-2006 which was the original date for Fife Council’s initial proposals.

The Chair went on to report that Fife Council’s own Surveyors had now decided NOT to recommend for development fields H48 & 49 originally ear-marked for the 110 houses! Nick added that another 5 fields (a photo was circulated) had apparently now been put forward by these same Surveyors but their proposals have not yet been agreed by the Planners. The question was asked who was the Developer so interested in fields H48 & 49? The nominations of these 2 fields is steeped in history and goes back to 1991 & 2003 respectively, but as of this date there is NO specific Developer interested in H48 & 49. Cllr Douglas opined that some sites will be more favourable to the Community than others and there was now more time in hand in which to reach internal consensus on our own choices. The Chair then drew attention to a letter from Scottish Water received by a local resident which stated that the capacity of the new water treatment plant was for a population of 570 persons, as against the current capacity of 413, so leaving spare capacity for 157 persons. Of this, 100 had been allocated to Kingsbarns Golf Course as a result of discussions with them. This would leave an excess capacity enough for approx. 25 homes. The Chair asked if anyone knew if the Golf Course had plans to build houses, and Cllr Douglas said he assumed this 100 person extra capacity was in reality to deal with nitrates that are produced by the golf course. The Chair said she would follow this up.

The Chair then moved on to Part 2 of our Survey Questionnaire on the Future of Kingsbarns Village and highlighted 11 key themes which had been thrown up from the responses. Six copies of the full Reports of the responses would be in the P0 from May 3rd for all to read. Members of the Sub-Committee then read out summaries of the 11 sections. This Part 2, will now give us a basis to work from in future when discussing anything from Housing to Public Amenities to Recycling to Village Governance. The Chair suggested that all should digest the contents of this Survey and then at the next Meeting we should decide which are the key issues for follow-up, whereupon a number of working groups will be asked to convene and to report back. Claire paid tribute to the huge efforts of all those who had been involved in this study which was unanimously felt to be extremely valuable. The Meeting also passed a large vote of thanks to Len & Sandra for their role in helping to disseminate local community information. It was felt on balance that the Sub Committee should not be immediately disbanded although it was acknowledged that the emphasis would soon shift to the individual working groups.

AOB:

Geoff circulated for signature by each Community Council Member a "Code of Conduct” declaration received from Fife Council.

Geoff read a letter received from Kennoway Community Council asking all Community Councils in Fife to support their rejection of a new Tanker Terminal in Methil - it was agreed that we should do this and Cllr Douglas further pointed out that was also a potential pollution threat looming from huge Russian super-tankers docking in Fife which we should be prepared to veto.

Other points and literature of interest concerning Trafalgar Weekend and the WW2 Victory Service were set out for those interested to read or to take away.

Peter as Treasurer is dealing with matters concerning our Community Council Grant and C C Insurance, for which the relevant papers were handed to him.

Official submission to the consultation on the St. Andrews & East Fife Local Plan

Kingsbarns Community Council undertook a survey of all households in the village and in outlying homes close to Kingsbarns in order to obtain a representative view of how the community felt about the proposals in the Draft Local Plan.

66% of adults 16+ responded to the questionnaire.

The community overwhelmingly rejected the two fields H48 and H49 proposed as sites for development. 74% objected or strongly objected to H48 and 65% objected or strongly objected to H49.

The community overwhelmingly rejected the proposal to build 110 houses in the village, a proposal seen as completely out of proportion to the size of the existing village (population 388). The disproportionate size of this proposal has been acknowledged in public by both Councillor Peter Douglas at our Community Council meeting of 7th March and by Mr Bill Lindsay, Development Services at the public meeting at Kilrymont on April 20th and seems to have come from a misconception that the community has proposed Kingsbarns as a site for a model village.

The community has many questions as to how these two fields were chosen - one is owned by the Church of Scotland and is believed by villagers to be designated as an overspill burial ground, the other is owned by Mr. Peter Erskine of Cambo Estate who said at the C.C. meeting of 10 March that he had not put forward any proposal in regard to his field nor had he been approached by any developer.

The community would welcome a more transparent process as to what fields in addition to H48 and H49 are being assessed by Fife Council and where the "demand" for housing development is coming from.

If the community were to accept the Council’s view of “housing need” across Fife and the numbers were allocated in proportion to the existing village size then our “quota” would be 16 houses.

The Village Survey indicated that in answer to the question “what number of houses would be acceptable if there had to be development in the village” 64% indicated numbers from 0 - 30.

The Community Council is there to reflect the wishes of the community. It is not at this point proposing housing development but is responding to plans as they are brought forward.

Next Meeting: Monday 4 July @ 7:30 p.m. in the Community Hall.