Role of communications unit questioned

Michael Alexander, The Courier, 19 October 1999

A number of objectors to the Kingask golf development, near St Andrews, have questioned the role played by Fife Council’s Communications Unit in the period prior to the controversial planning application being approved.

Several members of The Review Funding Association, who are campaigning for a judicial review into the council’s handling of the Kingask affair, said they had been “amazed” to hear allegations that the unit had tried to influence who phoned into a BBC radio programme which was about to discuss the controversial application.

North East Fife MP Menzies Campbell had suggested that officers from the communications unit had approached individuals living in the East Neuk to try and persuade them to telephone a radio programme on the Kingask issue, to voice their support for the development.

The programme was broadcast on June 15, less than a month before the new planning application was to be determined by the council’s strategic development committee. However, in his independent report published last week into the Kingask affair, former Glasgow City Council chief executive John Anderson had concluded that Mr Campbell’s suggestions were “not strictly accurate.”

He said it had been “entirely appropriate” that Fife planning chief David Rae should participate in the programme.

But Mr Anderson said he found it “extraordinary” that the communications unit had approached a local college, the tourist board and the careers service to let them know about the programme in a bid to find balance.

He said that while there was no evidence from the transcript of the programme that anyone who phoned in had actually been approached by any of these three bodies, that was not the point.

He said the communications unit should have raised concerns over balance directly with the programme makers rather than taking their own measures.

Mr Anderson concluded that no pressure had been applied to the unit to take these steps. He said it had been a decision taken by staff at the unit after the BBC called them and described it as a “serious error of judgment.”

Yesterday several of the St Andrews-based objectors to Kingask said they were “not satisifed” that the unit had acted without direction from above. This was something which might be looked into as part of any legal challenge.

Fife Council administration leader Christine May has said that although she considered the communications unit to have been acting in good faith, Mr Anderson’s conclusions should be accepted, including the recommendation that procedures to be applied by the unit on matters of a quasi-judicial nature should be given detailed consideration.