A group that lodged a legal challenge against Fife Council’s selection of Pipeland as the site for a new Madras College will not back down.
The St Andrews Environmental Protection Association Ltd (Stepal) which was established by three former senior teachers of Madras College to “protect the environment of St Andrews and North East Fife” confirmed it will pursue its judicial review with “full vigour” despite councillors backing the site for a new school.
Stepal whose named directors are former Madras rector Lindsay Matheson and former teachers Mary Jack and Sandra Thomson lodged a judicial review in the Court of Session in the autumn, challenging Fife Council’s decision-making process in granting planning permission in principle (PPP) for Pipeland’s greenbelt site.
Despite Fife Council’s north east planning committee voting in favour of a detailed planning application for the site at its meeting on Wednesday, Stepal is standing its ground.
In a statement, the Stepal directors said: “Stepal is disappointed at the decision by the North East Fife Planning Committee on December 10 to approve so fundamentally-flawed a proposal for the replacement Madras College.
“The committee’s discussion was limited to those aspects specifically covered by the application on the table, which meant that many fundamental issues such as safe access to the proposed site were waved aside as “not relevant” or as “having been dealt with at the planning permission in principle (PPiP) stage.
“Paradoxically, we recall that at the PPiP stage many tough questions were waved aside as “to be dealt with at the later planning stages. Councillors were told in no uncertain terms by the head of planning that this was the final stage and that there would be no appeal.
“However, this decision has no effect until the legal challenge to the previous application has been decided.
“In other words, the only way in which the Pipeland Farm proposal can now be defeated is through next week’s judicial review in the Court of Session.
“This appeal we will pursue with full vigour. We call upon all who share our deep misgivings about Pipeland to support our Stepal campaign, and we wish to make it clear that our 150 current financial backers are almost exclusively private individuals and have contributed over 94% of our funding so far.
“We have no “big backer”, such as has been alleged. We rely on the good sense of the citizens of this school catchment and those who seek to defend Fife Council’s own development plan, which its representatives seem all too willing to cast aside.
“Finally, we emphasise that the defeat of this proposal in the Court of Session will open the door to a much better solution both for Madras College and for the community as a whole.”
Stepal supports the proposal for a much-needed new school but favours a university-owned site ruled out by the council at North Haugh on grounds of drainage and cost.
It believes the council’s decision-making process, when voting for PPiP, “failed to pay proper regard to material planning considerations and unfairly excluded an alternative site, which provides a better solution for future pupils and will be infinitely less damaging to the environment.”
The lawfulness of the PPiP decision will be assessed in the judicial review on Tuesday and Wednesday in Edinburgh.