Scooniehill snub fuels bay scheme claims

Gordon Berry, The Courier, 1 March 2001

News that plans for a £25 million golf and leisure development at Scooniehill, near St Andrews, have been rejected by the Scottish Executive has been described as a "great victory" by the chairman of the St Andrews Green Belt Forum.

The comments from Professor Terence Lee were also accompanied by a stinging criticism of Fife Council, with the claim that the arguments that led to the plans being rejected would have "scuppered" the £50 million St Andrews Bay development rapidly approaching completion on a nearby Kingask coastal site.

This claim, however, was dismissed by Fife Council, which said the developments were completely different and that people should let the benefits of the Kingask development "speak for themselves".

The Scooniehill site had been targeted by the International Golf Club of St Andrews for development of two golf courses, a clubhouse, residential lodges, and car parking.

Executive reporter Iain Lumsden turned down an appeal from the applicants after the council’s east area development committee had rejected the plans.

He made it clear that approval would have contravened the council’s policies relating to protection of the landscape and development in the countryside.

He also referred to the effect the clubhouse would have had on the landscape, saying it would be unduly prominent on the skyline-a criticism levelled locally at the St Andrews Bay Hotel building.

Prof Lee said the application had been exposed to extensive scrutiny because the committee had rejected the application against the advice of planning officials.

"The same procedure might have been followed at Kingask. This was also rejected by the east area development committee but supported by the planners-but Glenrothes were so determined to secure this flamboyant inward investment that they ‘called in’ the application to a strategic development committee who duly approved it. Hence no inquiry," he said. "If there had been one, all the arguments that led the reporter to reject Scooniehill would have scuppered Kingask."

Chairman of St Andrews Preservation Trust, Dorothea Morrison, also related the comments made by the reporter to the Kingask scheme, which she said had been fought by objectors who used planning policies and plans to highlight their case.

"At the time it seemed as though the policies...were worthless bits of paper. The same process was used with Scooniehill and at least we now know these policies are important to the Executive," she said.

But Fife Council’s planning spokes- person Bill Kay said yesterday, "It is absolutely wrong to compare Kingask and Scooniehill and presuppose the outcome of a public inquiry. These were two very different planning applications."