Many residents will react with anger to the Draft St Andrews and East Fife Local Plan. Unlike previous Local Plans, it looks like a developers’ wish-list.
The well-documented views of St Andrews residents are discarded to achieve externally-proposed goals. While the Structure Plan refers deceptively to between 1000 and 1800 houses for the town by 2026, the Local Plan finds sites for 1000 by 2016, and points out another 750 for later! One result will be to increase the population of the town by 2300 (or 16%) by 2016.
Consulting now on the draft Local Plan makes no sense at all. The Local Plan is required to identify sites for whatever number of houses the Structure Plan specifies. So, until the Structure Plan is finalised, no one knows where the goalposts stand for the Local Plan! Do not be tricked into suggesting sites for the totally unrealistic number of 1800 new houses!
The Green Belt proposed in the Local Plan shows how little Fife Council believes in the concept. Protecting the green southern hillside has long been a major goal, and so we want the inner Green Belt at the edge of current development. The proposal, however, leaves a swathe of hillside inside the Belt as a sitting duck for developers. On the Craigtoun Rd the Green Belt narrows to just a few metres. No attempt is made to protect the view of the town from the Strathkinness High Road.
During the Strategic Study, one of the options was a western bypass financed by a huge housing development. The resulting uproar produced over 900 responses to the Study. Yet the draft Local Plan proposes 350 houses for the Northbank site by 2016, and perhaps a further 200 houses thereafter. Nothing could show more clearly the indifference to local opinion.
We back a contour-based approach to developing the town, and therefore welcome the prospect of some housing development on the relatively low-lying land in the Kinness valley between the Craigtoun Road and the Strathkinness Low Rd. The Local Plan, however, reduces a good idea to an absurdity by envisaging no fewer than 150 houses at Craigtoun Rd South and 250 at Craigtoun Rd West by 2016, with perhaps a further 550 houses at the latter site thereafter.
The Local Plan also proposes 180 houses for St Leonards Fields (and they tell us it’s too small for a hospital?), 60 for the Grange Road above Irvine Crescent and 10 for Carron Lodge.
History suggests the Local Plan is labelling much more land for business use than is realistic, and that surpluses are liable to find other uses!
Rather than greenfield sites, the town needs to retain existing central sites used by local tradesmen The Community Council opposes the ill-judged proposal to sell off Bassaguard for still more housing.
More progress is being made in St Andrews with anti-motoring measures, than with positive alternatives. Cycle lanes have maintenance problems and are not child friendly. The Local Plan should promote the creation of off-road cycle routes where feasible.
By May 2, tell Fife Council your views, including:
Send a letter (it need only be brief) to
Consultation Development Services
(STEALP)
FREEPOST K111
Glenrothes
KY7 5BR
Head your letter ‘Objection to (or comments on) St Andrews and East Fife Local Plan’.