Planners have defended their handling of a case which used the word “pergola” to describe an 18-metre long structure with a motorised roof constructed in the garden of a St Andrews pub.
Neighbours were stunned when the 3.26 metre-high retractable roof went up over the beer garden of the West Port Bar and Kitchen, in South Street, and heating and lighting were installed last year.
Local councillors blasted the way the planning application determined by officers had been dealt with, and Fife Council’s North East Fife area committee requested an internal investigation be carried out.
They said a series of errors had been made in the planning process and that the description had been misleading.
As a result, a discontinuance order may be made revoking planning permission.
This would force the pub owners, the Maclay Group, to tear down the structure and could cost the local authority a significant sum of money in compensation.
According to the Oxford Dictionary, a pergola is an arched structure in a garden or park, consisting of a framework with climbing or trailing plants.
But a report by environment, enterprise and communities executive director Keith Winter, which will be presented to the committee on Wednesday, says that it “can be argued that the development is for the development of a pergola, as defined in the dictionary”.
Mr Winter concluded: “Members are advised that, whilst acknowledging that there were some errors in the process, these are not of such significant detriment or on a scale which would bring into question the basis for the issuing of consent and that Fife Council does not accept that the grant of planning permission is in any way unlawful.”
If the committee pursues a discontinuance order, approval will be needed from the council’s executive committee and Scottish ministers.