Developers submit new Kingask application

The Courier, 3 March 1999

The developers behind a failed plan for a major £50 million hotel, conference, golf and leisure development at Kingask, near St Andrews, have thrown the whole debate back into the melting pot by submitting a new application.

St Andrews Bay Development Ltd last night confirmed that the application, lodged yesterday with planners in Cupar, now covered the project in all its phases, and was still to be built around a 208-bedroom hotel and 400-person conference facility.

News that the scale of the development remained the same was criticised last night by objectors in St Andrews.

The local community council hoped the move was not a “transparent ploy” to have the application settled in Glenrothes instead of at area level in east Fife.

Now included in the detailed plans is a leisure element that will redevelop the steading which was the subject of the original outline consent.

When that permission was granted, and renewed, it was accompanied by a statement of intent that envisaged a 30 to 50-bedroom hotel and other facilities.

St Andrews Bay Development Ltd has also decided to appeal against last month’s refusal by Fife Council of the first set of plans.

The reasons for refusal related to traffic, impact on the environment and the size, scale and location of the development in an area of great landscape value. Last night, it was clear that the developers strongly rejected claims made about the impact of traffic on St Andrews town centre.

Operations director lain MacKinnon said there was no doubt that traffic concerns had been, and continued to be, grossly exaggerated and distorted.

He said that the applicants had carefully considered the East Area development committee’s decision to refuse the previous application.

He said the company had sought to clarify the situation regarding impact on traffic flow through St Andrews. He said it was evident that the nature of the development, together with traffic measures, could provide solutions to improve traffic circulation.

Mr MacKinnon said the applicants remained convinced that the development would be of enormous benefit locally and regionally. Such quality investment in Fife, he said, was vital if the Kingdom was to consolidate its desire to be a major player in an ever more demanding global tourism market.

The applicant’s planning consultant, Des Montgomery, said last night that significant changes had been made to the master plan. These, he said, included relocating the spa element to the steadings and a substantial increase in the woodland planting proposed for the site.

Mr Montgomery said that the proposals were consistent with the aims of the Fife Structure Plan, the Local Plan and the St Andrews Strategic Study.

In particular, he said, the development directly addressed the need to look at broadening tourism strategy, focusing on the conference market and stimulating activity during the shoulder months.

The previous application was treated as a departure from the development plan and, as such, was the subject of a specially convened departure hearing in St Andrews.

Last night, Fife Council’s head of planning, David Rae, said it was too early to say if another departure hearing would be held.

The council, he said, would have to look closely at the application and whether it raised new issues. Legal advice would probably have to be taken on some aspects, he said.

On one hand, he said, the arguments had already been well rehearsed but on the other the application was a new one. The application, added Mr Rae, had been submitted in the East Area and would be advertised there.

Last night, Dr Frank Riddell, vice-chairman of St Andrews Community Council, said he had not seen the plans but from what he had heard the project sounded like the one already rejected, but larger.

It should, he said, meet the same fate and he hoped that the move was not a transparent ploy to have the matter decided by the council’s administration in Glenrothes.

The chairman of St Andrews Preservation Trust, Dorothea Morrison, said that objections over scale and traffic impact remained and they would be maintained as vociferously as before.