Proposed clubhouse 'visible from town'

Michael Alexander, The Courier, 14 January 2003

A clubhouse, proposed as part of a major new golf and leisure development at Feddinch, southwest of St Andrews, would be “clearly visible” from the town, according to St Andrews Preservation Trust, which has expressed its “serious concern” to Fife Council over the £15 million project.

St Andrews International Golf Club plans to create a golf club on the 244-acre site, which involves a farmhouse and dilapidated Feddinch Mains steading.

The development would include a clubhouse, built on the site of the farm steadlng, with 40 residential suites, leisure facilities including a swimming pool and spa, staff accommodation, conference rooms and communications centre.

Opposition to the proposals, now going through Fife Council’s planning process, has already come from other organisations including the Architectural Heritage Society of Scotland.

In a letter of objection to Fife Council, St Andrews Preservation Trust chairwoman Elizabeth Williams has expressed the trust’s doubts over the environmental impact the proposals might have. Comment has also been made on perceived social and economic benefits, traffic projections, the visual Impact of the buildings, the ecology of the site and green belt issues.

Mrs Williams said it had been claimed the proposal would bring significant economic and social benefits to the local community. However, given the relative lack of unemployment in St Andrews, it was clear the majority of staff would be drawn from other parts of north-east Fife.

She also said there was no convincing argument that the proposal would generate additional international golf tourism rather than displace it from existing golf facilities.

Turning to buildings, it had been said the site “was not visible from areas within the historic core” of St Andrews. But from the existing steadings - earmarked as the clubhouse site - the old town was clearly visible, not just the spires and rooftops but the buildings themselves, said Mrs Williams.

“It follows that the new-build clubhouse, in materials necessarily light in tone, will stand out quite clearly on the Feddinch slopes,” she added. She also questioned the scale and design of the proposals.

She noted the accommodation for 160 (plus 24 staff beds) was half that proposed under the application rejected for a similar development at nearby Scooniehill. However, she reckoned the Scottish Executive Reporter’s conclusions that residential suites should not necessarily be linked to golf course development or located in the countryside, were as relevant at Feddinch.

On ecology, Mrs Williams said certain benefits should come to the biodiversity if proposed planting of tree belts, woodland cover, restoration of stone walls and reduction in use of fertillsers were carried out. However, she said it was obvious the greatest land on site will be given over to fairways and greens. These would always be artificial however well they may be landscaped. They, too, would be clearly visible from the town.

The environmental impact assessment also claimed the proposal “will ensure that no built development is ever likely to occur on the site and accordingly will provide a greater degree of protection than does an Areas of Great Landscape Value or green belt”. But the trust took the view that since golf clubs were presumably subject to the vagaries of the commercial world as any other undertaking, then such a claim seemed “extravagant”.

The trust noted that the “exclusive” nature of the club, ruling out any possibility of public pay-and-play for example, would appear to go against the spirit of Fife Structure Plan’s policies on sustalnability and community facilities.