All parties attack attempts to change planning procedures

The Courier, 28 January 1999

The developers behind controversial £50 million plans for a hotel, conference, golf and leisure complex in the countryside near St Andrews appear to have rejected proposals that they should take the scheme back to the drawing board.

It was revealed yesterday - to a furious reaction - that St Andrews Bay Development Ltd is urging Fife Council to “call in” its application for determination by the strategic development committee.

It has also said it is “not prepared” to agree to a further extension of time to allow the matter to be considered at the east area councillors meeting in Cupar.

A particularly biting response came yesterday from the community council’s planning convener, who said the latest move from was “an appalling step” which showed their true colours.

He added that any pretence by the applicants at working with the community had now gone.

The move came less than a week after the east area development committee continued the application so that transport issues could be investigated further in light of claims that St Andrews would be strangled by extra traffic.

The committee had also asked the applicants to look again at the scale and location of the hotel and conference complex with a view to it being relocated at the steading, which was the subject of out line consent for a much less intensive development.

Planning manager Jim Birrell had made it very clear to members, before they discussed the issue last week, that the application would be determined at local level and not the centre of the council.

The developers’ legal representatives have now written to the authority’s head of law and administration, Stuart Allan, to ask that the application be dealt with by the strategic development committee, possibly at a specially-convened meeting.

The letter has been placed on the agenda for next Monday’s meeting, with no background report or recommendation from officials on how the matter should be dealt with.

Such a move, however, would contradict assurances given to St Andrews councillors by Fife Planning chief David Rae and by Mr Birrell.

The developers have said the application requires to be considered in a strategic context and are arguing that the planning issues involved are likely to affect not only St Andrews and district but the whole of Fife.

They have stated that the intended start date of Monday cannot now be met and that they wish to have urgent discussions with Mr Allan.

An extension of time would acceptable, adds the letter, if the application can be considered by the central committee along with further information being assimilated to address points of concern.

It has also been claimed by the developers that it is “beyond doubt” that the east area development committee has been unable to determine application within the statutory and agreed timescale.

A number of national bodies are still objecting to the plans and yesterday the Tayside and Fife secretary of the Architectural Heritage Society of Scotland, Glen Pride, said he hoped the move now being made would be rejected.

The developers were exploring “all ways and means” of having their application approved and the only way they could keep it at the same scale was by seeking to have it determined centrally.

Heritage and environment, said Mr Pride, would come far down the list of priorities for the strategic development committee.

Transportation and sewage issues were crucial and it should be emphasised that all of the sewage from the hotel would have to be tankered on a daily basis to Cupar.

Mr Pride said that, having read the contents of Mr Birrell’s report to last week’s meeting in Cupar, the society felt it made depressing reading.

Mr Birrell had been very selective in the references he made to policy when he came up with an enthusiastic recommendation for approval.

Ian Goudie, of the community council, said the applicants obviously wanted their development imposed on St Andrews by whatever means and had realised that the area development committee was not going to be deceived by inaccurate claims of support. Nor would it be bullied into submission, he said.

The committee, he went on, had the intelligence to see that passing this application in its present form would render worthless the town’s transportation and strategic study.

“In asking for the application to be handled by the strategic development committee, the developers are just seeking to get a jury they believe will be a softer touch.”

East area development committee chairman Peter Douglas said last night he would expect the council to ”honour the word of its head of planning,” who had clearly told the St Andrews councillors the application would not be taken to the centre.

North East Fife MP Menzies Campbell said, “I regard this letter as putting undue and unnecessary pressure on the council. The development at Kingask is obviously important to the company proposing it but its importance to St Andrews and the setting of the town can hardly be underestimated.

“The planning authority is elected representatives, not the officials, however well qualified they may be. Those who have overall responsibility for decisions are entitled to take sufficient time to reach a properly informed and balanced view.

“The reference in the letter to a possible appeal seems to me to be particularly inappropriate at this time.”

Prospective Conservative MSP Ted Brocklebank added, “I am extremely concerned at this attempt by the St Andrews Bay Development Company apparently to circumvent the normal planning process.

“The credibility of local government will be diminished if developers, no matter how apparently wealthy and powerful, appear capable of riding roughshod over decisions reached at area planning level.”

Councillor Jane Ann Liston (St Andrews South East) added, “This would set a precedent which could result in the strategic development committee being swamped with applications from disappointed developers and also objectors.”

St Andrews Preservation Trust chairman Mrs Dorothea Morrison said, “We are becoming increasingly worried regarding this process.

“There seems to be a determination to silence the voice of reason over this application.

“To use a timescale as an argument is strange when there will be only one day of difference between meetings of the east area development committee and the strategic development committee.

“If the area committee is not allowed to consider this application, we will want to know the reasons why from Fife Council

Following yesterday’s news, the community council immediately drafted a letter to Mr Allan, protesting at the attempts by the developers to get the application “called in.”

Vice-chairman Dr Frank Riddell said, “This attempt shows a blatant disregard for the current accepted planning procedures in Fife.

“If the Fife Council’s central planning committee were to accede to this request at this stage, we believe that it would bring planning procedures in Fife into disrepute.”

The developers’ ostensible reason for asking for the application to be called in was to gain time for them but it could in fact have the opposite effect and lose further time.

He added, “Given that, we can only construe that this is a barefaced attempt to take the matter out of the hands of local members who have studied the issue thoroughly and, as a consequence, are now asking awkward questions the developers do not want to answer.

“If it succeeds, the idea of area autonomy in planning matters will have been destroyed and it will be construed as councillors from western and central Fife trampling over the wishes of the great majority of those in the east. Are we now about to see that autonomy in planning in Fife is a sham?