An internal Fife Council briefing note contained a stark warning the new single-site secondary school planned for the west of St Andrews could be at risk if development plans were to be significantly changed.
It was suggested local developers might not contribute to community facilities, including land for the Madras College replacement.
The advice has emerged only days after it was revealed Fife Council intends to start the planning process, and it has already led to an accusation the council has left itself open to “commercial pressure.”
The threat to the school was raised in a report prepared for the planning committee chairman just before a recent council meeting, when questions were being asked about the St Andrews west strategic land allocation (SLA).
Councillors and local groups expressed concern over housing numbers proposed for the SLA, and had wanted town centre brown-field sites to be used as part of provision of 1090 new houses.
Council lead officer Martin McGroarty said the structure plan requirement for the SLA is for an integrated, master-planned western extension, which he said would include a minimum of 1090 houses and science and business parks.
In addition, the local plan notes the potential for a secondary school as part of the St Andrews West development on land controlled by a consortium including the university and Headon Developments.
The official said the school had been embraced by landowners who had “engaged” with the council however, any significant reduction in the amount of developable land within in the SLA could have a number of potential effects.
Among them, he said, would be the willingness or ability of the landowner to contribute to community facilities as part of the development.”Game-playing”Another risk, he said, is the ability of the council to deliver a settlement strategy and create a significant economic driver through university expansion and the delivery of a science park for commercialising research.
In addition, said Mr McGroarty, there could be a question over the commercial delivery of key community infrastructure, which requires cross subsidy from housing.
Confederation of St Andrews Residents Associations chairman David Middleton said that the group supports the aspirations of Madras College parents and pupils for a single-site school.
He said, “It is sad, however, to see this becoming a subject of what appears to be game-playing… to persuade councillors to agree to additional extensive development in a sensitive landscape they otherwise would oppose.
“Fife Council leaves itself open to external pressures if it allows itself to be influenced by commercial pressures. The fragile state of the housing market provides no firm basis for progressing a much needed facility.”
Mr Middleton said the new school site has always been officially portrayed as a land swap of the old Madras College in South Street for the site next to the university sports centre, said to be of equal educational value.
He said, “There has been no public consultation or statement to the effect that the funding arrangements for the site now depend on granting development rights to a consortium.”
Following the meeting the scale of the St Andrews west expansion remains largely unchanged, and house numbers will not be reduced to take account of brown-field sites elsewhere.