Council backs down over lorries row

Gordon Berry, The Courier, 2 March 2000

The threat of legal action against developers behind the new £50 million resort complex at Kingask faded last night with news that Fife Council has bowed to pressure for an increase in construction vehicle numbers.

The news met with a dismissive response from local councillor Peter Douglas, who said that he had “never been in any doubt” that the authority would avoid taking the matter to court.

In recent weeks there has been considerable controversy and heavy local criticism over the actions of the developers, who have persistently breached the conditions of a detailed legal agreement over construction traffic heading to and from the site near St Andrews.

St Andrews Bay Development Company used lorry numbers far in excess of the original agreement to serve the development.

Although Fife Council has been heavily critical of what has been going on, and had prepared papers for a court action, it appears that the situation has now been resolved.

The legal action had been threatened to force the developers to comply with previously agreed figures but it is now clear that the arguments put forward by the developers to increase vehicle numbers have been successful.

Last night the council’s strategic development committee chairman Councillor Bill Brand who recently said that the council had been “let down,” outlined the new deal which has been struck.

He said that during the early period of construction, when concrete work had to be done lorry numbers would have to rise. He said that to help minimise the effect during this time, the developers had agreed to the council’s request to set up a concrete batching plant.

He said that lorry trips would exceed 20 per day until June and that a maximum of 35 trips per day had been set. From then until the end of construction in April 2001, said Mr Brand, trips would then reduce significantly, with the average over the construction period to be less than 20.

It is also clear that the council is largely to depend on the developers for the monitoring of traffic limits.

Councillor Brand said that daily records of every vehicle serving the site were to be maintained and made available to the council. In addition, he said, the developers had also agreed to carry out projections of vehicles delivering to the site as the construction programme progresses.

“These projections will allow action to be taken in advance to instruct contractors to reschedule as necessary to make sure traffic limits were not exceeded.

Production of daily logs of construction traffic, said Councillor Brand, would allow the transportation service, which would also be carrying out spot surveys, to cross check the situation.

“These measure are strict but I am satisfied that this agreement has struck a proper balance between the need to control construction traffic and the requirements of the developer to complete work on the basis of a reasonable construction programme,” said the councillor.

Councillor Douglas said last night that he had never been in any doubt that Fife Council would avoid going to court despite the clear breaches of the legal agreement.

He said that he had been “totally dissatisfied” with the way Fife Council had managed its monitoring exercise up until now and that he had no confidence that the situation would be any better in the future.

“I would find it very difficult to trust figures provided by the developer considering how clearly they have breached numbers so far,” said the councillor.