Plans for legal challenge dropped

Michael Alexander, The Courier, 3 August 1999

St Andrews Community Council has agreed not to launch legal action against Fife Council over its handling and approval of plans for the multi-million pound golf course, hotel and leisure development at Kingask.

The decision was taken at an extraordinary meeting of the community council, held in St Andrews Burgh Chambers last night, on grounds that such a course would have been “imprudent” to continue.

One of the main reasons was the potential financial implications of taking action through the Court of Session, and the possibility that the community council might not win their fight.

The special meeting was arranged after a group of local people had gone to the expense of obtaining counsel’s opinion on several issues relating to how the £50 million scheme was approved.

A group of residents had used a rule that requires 20 members of the public to call on the council’s secretary to hold a meeting.

This number had subsequently risen to 230 residents, with more than 200 of these people signing the call within just a few days.

Last night, however, there was disappointment for the 50 or so residents of St Andrews who turned up to watch the meeting from the public benches, only to be asked to leave the chambers after 15 minutes while legal and financial matters were discussed by the community council in private - advance warning of this having been given.

Those who were allowed to remain included North East Fife MP Menzies Campbell and North East Fife MSP lain Smith who had been specially-invited in an advisory capacity.

St Andrews Community Council chairman Dr Frank Riddell said he had sought their attendance to underline that it was a “serious and grave step for the community council to be considering taking legal action against its parent body.”

After the close of the meeting, which lasted just over two hours, Dr Riddell read from a statement agreed by the council, which said, “Although there were statable bounds for raising proceedings against the Fife Council for its handling of the Kingask decision, the community council will be best advised not to launch action for judicial review.

“In view of this opinion, and in particular the financial implications, the community council have agreed not to pursue further with the matter.

“We regret the exclusion of the public for part of the meeting but that was an inevitable part of the proceedings. We wish to thank those who have fought the long and hard battle with us. We regret having to abandon the struggle at this point, but it would have been imprudent to continue.”

Last night’s meeting was staged as Fife Council continued its own inquiry into suggestions that its staff members had been told from above to “trim their reports, come in line, or stay silent” as the Kingask application was considered.

Fife Council chief executive Douglas Sinclair revealed last week that a former chief executive of Glasgow City Council, John Anderson, would be investigating allegations made by the chairman of the Fife authority’s east area development committee, Peter Douglas.

Approval for Kingask came after the matter was taken out of the hands of local councillors and passed to the central strategic development committee. But there have been claims - strongly rejected by the council - that policies were breached.

The claims were made locally, and echoed by a range of national conservation bodies that united against the plans.

If a judicial review had taken place it would have allowed the courts to look at how Fife Council reached their decision. The council has maintained it dealt with the issues in a proper and correct manner.