Fife Council’s Draft Structure Plan proposes a huge expansion for the town. The Council’s vision for 2026 is a nightmare, threatening our quality of life:
By 2026, if the Draft Structure Plan goes ahead:
Even these figures may be underestimates. In practice, actual numbers of houses built on a site usually exceed the number planned, e.g. Lawhead North: 10 houses planned, 18 built. This reversal of previous policy has not been thought through. Fife Council’s sums do not add up. They do not say how the town’s already overloaded centre and facilities might cope with such a huge expansion.
In 1993 the Muir Group published plans for a 30% increase in the size of the town. The town feared their ‘urban village’ would mean 1000 houses on our southern hillside. After a huge public outcry, the plans were withdrawn. In practice Fife Council’s new plans may well amount to a ‘double Muir’.
Published in 1998, after several years’ work, this study by Fife Council said:
What has changed? Is the town centre less crowded? Has the southern hillside leapt a mile further south? In fact the problems that new development would cause have got worse, not better: congestion is more frequent and more of the suitable housing land has been used.
One reason appears in a Scottish Executive document called The National Planning Framework, which emphasises making economic gains from ‘the international profile of St Andrews as a leisure destination and centre of academic excellence’. This has been read as a green light for a development boom. Although this document was produced without any consultation with either the residents of St Andrews or its Community Council, its prescription seems to have been followed slavishly, and without adequate thought on its implications. St Andrews can contribute to the Scottish economy, but the town is not a resource to be exploited without reference to its residents.
We do indeed. Fife is proposing that 45% of the houses in new developments should be affordable. But what does this mean? Recent years have seen expensive ‘affordable housing’ built in the town, which is often sold on at market price in no time. This achieves very little, and wastes the town’s scarce supply of suitable housing land. Affordable must mean affordable in perpetuity. This can be achieved (e.g. through housing cooperatives). Housing for rent needs to be encouraged. We backed the claim for ‘Pressured area’ status under Section 45 of the Housing (Scotland) Act 2001 which allows suspension of the Right to Buy.
Fife has 5 of the 6 largest secondary schools in Scotland, but the Draft Structure Plan makes no move to bring us more into line. It should be requiring the Local Plan to identify a site for a new school near the Tay bridgehead. Reducing the amount of bussing required would clearly help the children who have to spend hours travelling, and would also bring planning gains for St Andrews, particularly near the Kilrymont Building. Supposedly Fife Council is committed to green transport policies!
The Structure Plan seeks to ‘provide the framework for the level of long-term growth for St Andrews’, with the town being ‘an economic driver for the whole of Fife’. These aspirations are based on repetitive mention of the ‘knowledge economy’ and the need to develop St Andrews ‘as a world class destination’. Residents appear to take a back seat, with new shops ‘focussing on tourism and visitor-related retailing’. Repetition of empty jargon cannot hide the lack of coherent thought. Adding the cars from 1800 new houses to our present traffic will produce frequent gridlock long before 2026. The extra cars from still more tourists and golfers will probably be unable to get near the town!
The Community Council recognises that the University is crucial to the town and that students need affordable, well-maintained accommodation, but is concerned that the number of houses in St Andrews occupied by students has risen sharply in the last 15 years to over 700 – well over 10% of properties. Continuing at this rate of increase until 2026 would have severe implications for the town. Any moves by the University to provide more housing for its students should be encouraged, as they could do much to alleviate the housing problems of the town.
The Draft Structure Plan omits Fife’s previous policy that resisted any development of natural coastline. What is on the hidden agenda?
The Structure Plan fails to grasp the best hope for reducing the scale of the traffic problem. Reinstating the rail link also offers a way for the tourism to expand without suffocating the town. Professor Hazel of ERail Ltd, who has worked on the Edinburgh South Suburban scheme, showed how such projects can be made viable by linkage to (appropriate) associated development. The Local Plan shows an (incomplete) line on a map, but, rather than protecting this route from other development, all the Structure Plan can manage is the (rather garbled) clause ‘Further consideration of transport link options to the rail network to St Andrews, through the review of Local Transport Strategy’. Far from being a vision for 20 years, this will not inspire anyone for 20 seconds.
Unlike the 2002 Plan, such areas are not even defined in the glossary of the new Structure Plan, and the section on the built environment now has no accompanying policies. The requirement for high housing densities in town centres will also not assist conservation, and will encourage inappropriately tall buildings.
At the present time Fife Council is holding consultations on both
Many will feel that they are trying to bury the bad news for the town under a mountain of paper.
Fife Council is holding a meeting to discuss all the above documents from 7p.m. to 9 p.m. on Wednesday 20 April at Madras College (Kilrymont Building). Do not expect comprehensive discussion of the many matters on the table!
Say what you think of the Structure Plan.
By May 2, tell Fife Council your views, including:
Send a letter (it need only be brief ) to
Consultation Development Services
FREEPOST K111
Glenrothes
KY7 5BR
Head your letter Objection to Structure Plan or Comments on Structure Plan as appropriate.