Developers to press on with Scooniehill plans

The Courier, 14 July 1999

The developers behind plans for an £18 million golf and leisure development at Scooniehill, just outside St Andrews, have declared their intention to fight on in their bid to gain planning permission.

The St Andrews International Golf Club Ltd is considering an appeal against Fife Council’s decision to refuse outline planning consent.

Revealing this, company secretary Alastair Doig said it was also likely a fresh application would be submitted with the authority for development which would meet concerns expressed by planning officials.

The application for the 500-acre site involved two full and one half golf course, leisure development and accommodation for members of what would essentially be a private club aimed at the overseas market.

The plans were unanimously rejected at last week’s meeting of Fife Council’s centrally-based strategic development committee which,. during the same session, approved the controversial £50 million Kingask development.

The Scooniehill developers, who have also run into opposition from local and national bodies, said they attended a meeting with David Rae, the council’s head of planning, a week before the strategic development committee meeting.

The meeting was arranged after the developers learned in The Courier that their application was to be recommended for refusal.

Mr Doig said his company had indicated that it had “no difficulty” in altering its proposal to address concerns expressed by officials about siting of buildings and part of the golf course element of the scheme. These concerns, he said, were raised only a few weeks before the decision-making meeting, even though the scheme had been with the council for months.

It had been decided that a continuation would be sought, said Mr Doig, but the committee rejected this and went on to refuse the original plans, even though they were no longer appropriate.

A letter circulated by the applicants to all councillors before the start of the meeting highlighted “bewilderment” and “confusion” which arose in the course of the application for outline consent.

Mr Doig said in the letter that every request from Fife Council was acceded to and complied with, even though consultants had advised that the amount of information requested was greater than that normally required for outline consent.

Yesterday he said he was also concerned it took six months for the council to raise concerns which could have been dealt with “at the flick of a finger.”

Commenting on the situation, Mr Rae said last night, “Dealing with the recent applications for golf developments near St Andrews has been a long, involved process - something to be expected given the sensitive nature of the sites.

“We had fundamental problems with certain aspects of the Scooniehill application and we met with the developers before the committee meeting to discuss those concerns.

“The developers are entitled to appeal the council’s decision to refuse their application and we will defend our position if this is necessary. The developers are also entitled to make a fresh application and we will look at that on its merits and in the light of the recently agreed policy guidelines.