Scooniehill and Kingask

Professor Terence Lee, Letter to Editor, The Citizen, 16 March 2001

Fife Council is obviously discomfited by the Scottish Executive’s rejection of Scooniehill. The Reporter at the public inquiry based his decision to reject on many of the arguments that were ignored or overruled when Fife Council took the decision to accept Kingask. Moreover, Fife’s planning professionals had recommended acceptance of Scooniehill - more embarrassment!

But for Councillor Bill Kay (Citizen, March 9), to seek reassurance by claiming that the Kingask decision had the backing of the Scottish Executive, on the grounds that the late Donald Dewar did not intervene, is clutching at straws.

What we were given to understand, by the then First Minister, Donald Dewar, and his predecessor, Secretary of State Dr John Reid, is that government policy firmly decrees that responsibility for dealing with planning applications must rest with the local planning authority. There are circumstances in which they can intervene - but these are very closely prescribed by law under the Town and Country Planning Act (1997) and did not apply in this case. (One of these circumstances would be if Fife Council had notified him of a 'significant departure from the Development Plan' - they obviously should have, but they didn’t).

Given his hands-off stance, the First Minister did not have the option, under policy or in law, to impose a public inquiry while Fife Council was considering the Kingask application. Nor could he impose one after the consent had been granted, for that would imply that he disagreed with the outcome - invalidating any subsequent appeal. (Letter to Green Belt Forum, July 30, 2000). In fact, he made it absolutely clear that it would be improper for him to express an opinion at all - about either side of the dispute.

To conclude from this that the late Donald Dewar “was satisfied with the way the Council was handling the matter" is a self-serving fantasy.