Councillor speaks out on Kingask plan

The Courier, 25 January 1999

Yesterday North-East Fife Liberal Democrat councillor Andrew Arbuckle entered the debate which has been raging over plans for a £50 million golf, hotel, conference and leisure development at Kingask.

Last week members of the council’s east area development committee continued plans from St Andrews Bay Development Ltd for the development on the coast to the east of St Andrews.

The plans had been recommended for approval by area planning manager Jim Birrell, but the committee was told in no uncertain terms by a traffic engineer that the number of “traffic movements” likely to be generated - around 750 per day in St Andrews - would be in conflict with the agreed St Andrews Transportation Plan.

It was decided this should be investigated further and that the developers should be asked to scale down the proposals and relocate the development to the steading which was the subject of original outline consent.

Yesterday Mr Arbuckle said he was able to comment because he is not a development committee member and therefore is not part of the decision-making process.

“A lot has been said both for and against this development, but it has to be remembered that vast amounts of work and council resources have gone into forming the town’s transportation plan, and a I so the recently-completed strategic study,” he said.

“Everyone want to see sensible economic development, but not at the expense of bringing St Andrews to a point where at certain times of the day it could grind to a halt.

“If something could be done along the lines of the original outline consent, local people - and indeed national organisations who currently oppose these plans - would be a lot happier.”