New battle to stop golf complex

James Rougvie, The Scotsman, 20 November 1999

The future of a controversial golfing and conference complex at St Andrews will be the subject of legal debate at the Court of Session in January.

Campaigners who have spent several years trying to stop the £50 million development at Kingask, on the outskirts of the Fife town, have won a judicial review into Fife Council’s handling of the application.

If they succeed in persuading the court that the council failed to consider the environmental impact of the complex and ignored its own planning policies in terms of building in the green belt, the planning process will have to go back to square one.

Earlier this year, St Andrews Community Council shelved plans to apply for a review because of the potential cost involved if it had lost.

But a group from the town has now raised £50,000 – half the amount they believe necessary to withstand legal costs if they do not succeed.

The proposals by the St Andrews Bay Development company involve the construction of two courses on former farmland at Kingask, plus a hotel and conference centre which will provide 350 jobs.

Protesters say that Fife Council rammed through the planning application without heeding its own planning policies. Work has already begun on site after the council granted the planning application during the summer.

Penny Uprichard, spokeswoman for the group, said this was their last chance to block the development before it encouraged a flood of golf-related developments in and around the town. Campaigners are concerned not only with inroads being made into the green belt.

The judicial review at the Court of Session on 12 January will hear only legal argument from the protest group, Fife Council and the developers.

The group fighting the development will argue that the council mishandled the planning application on two grounds. The first is that it failed to fully consider the environmental considerations of the development, and the second, that it failed to have regard to the St Andrews local plan and the Fife strategic plan.

Robin Bennett, solicitor for the group, said that the development was such a departure from the local plan that the Scottish Secretary should have been notified. He could then have called in the application with a public inquiry.

Mr Bennett said: "The original plan for Kingask was centred on a farm steading there. We then heard that it was to be the UK’s premier conference and golfing centre with a 200- bed hotel. In the eyes of some people this is driving a cart and horses through the concept of the local plan."

Meanwhile, the St Andrews International Golf Club has applied for permission to build a £25 million complex to the south-west of the town which will be considered next year.