If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. That was the response to news Kelty and Saline could join under Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland proposals.
John Crane, formerly chairman of Saline and Steelend Community Council, West Fife and Coastal Villages Community Forum and the West Fife Villages Community Projects Group, was shocked by plans which would reduce the number of councillors by six but also change the boundaries of certain wards.
One of the proposed changes takes the Saline and Steelend community council area out of the West Fife and Coastal villages ward and places it in a ward with Kelty and Ballingry.
This would split Saline and Steelend from the neighbouring village of Oakley, located only a couple of miles south of Saline.
Saline and Steelend have for decades shared a Fife councillor with Oakley. This situation has always been not only simple logic but convenient and eminently sensible, as Saline and Steelend folk rely on many of the facilities provided by its larger neighbour, Mr Crane said.
These include the health clinic, sports and exercise facilities, Post Office, police station and shops.
“Having the same councillors responsible for the two villages helps to expedite the solution of problems that arise, particularly those concerning traffic matters and planning applications,” he added.
He said the change would also effectively remove Saline and Steelend’s eligibility to belong to the West Fife and Coastal Villages Forum, where common issues such as bus services or planning applications for opencast mining and large wind turbines can be debated, and from where joint representations to Fife Council can be made.
“There is also a government-instigated organisation called the West Fife Villages Project Group and, again, our eligibility to contribute to this group would cease if we were wrenched out of the present grouping,” he added.
Mr Crane said there are numerous other social and communal links between Saline and the other west Fife village communities, including a common emergency defibrillator service and the popular annual arts festival.
“Having been involved with local community groups for more than 30 years, I find that I routinely visit Oakley and some other west Fife villages two or three times a week. However, over that 30-year period, I have only had occasion to visit Kelty twice.
“I am sure that Kelty and Ballingry are lovely places and that the people there are very nice but I cannot see any reason or benefit in us leaving our present ward and joining a ward with other communities where there is little or no social interaction or common interest.
“Saline is a full eight miles from Kelty and about 12 miles from Ballingry by road and there are no public transport links from there to here whatsoever, nor have there ever been, for the perfectly logical reason that these communities have no functional connections whatsoever.”
The Boundary Commission states that it has considered factors such as local ties within a community which might be broken by changing the boundaries but Mr Crane said he found this assertion “frankly incredible”.
He added: “The proposal is, bluntly, geographical, and especially social, nonsense and what else, pray, are local administrative boundaries supposed to be about, if not geographical and social common sense?
“I would suggest that the commission needs to redraw its proposals concerning the West Fife and Coastal villages.”
The proposals are currently being considered by Fife Council, after which there will be another public consultation and Mr Crane asked the four local councillors to make the strongest representation against them to the commission.
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” he said. “Specifically, if it’s functioning strongly and coherently, for the benefit of all, as the West Fife and Coastal Villages structure is, then leave it alone.”