Claims by councillors a new Madras College at Pipeland would have a detrimental impact on hospice patients at St Andrews Community Hospital have been defended.
Concerns about potential noise were raised by councillors David MacDiarmid and John Docherty, himself a former nurse, when a majority of Fife Council’s North East Planning Committee narrowly voted against the Pipeland proposal for a new single-site Madras College last week.
It prompted a nurse who has responsibility for patients in the hospice beds at St Andrews Community Hospital to say it was “ludicrous” to suggest the construction of a new school at Pipeland would have a detrimental impact on the care of patients, as reported in Saturday’s Courier.
But David Middleton of the Central St Andrews Residents Alliance (CSRA) contacted The Courier to say: “If a school was built at Pipeland, the peaceful prospect from the hospice day room of the southern hillside and sea beyond would be replaced by a large building, a car park, and biomass chimney.
“Patients using the hospice garden, immediately adjacent to the proposed school car park, would experience the noise of buses reversing, school bells marking the academic day and the daily buzz of a 1,400 pupil school. This was pointed out to Fife Council planners early in the consultation process, but completely ignored in the assessment provided to the North East Planning Committee last week.
“In the absence of any protest by the Fife Health Board… it was timely for councillor John Docherty to eloquently highlight the needs of patients receiving end of life care, and this is one of the many reasons the Pipeland project was rejected by the committee.”
Lindsay Matheson, chairman of the anti-Pipeland Campaign for a New Madras College for the 21st Century, said it was time for a “thorough comparison” of other sites, including the university-owned ‘pond site’ at North Haugh, already ruled out by Fife Council.
He said: “We were reminded by the chair time and time again at (Thursday’s) meeting that the decision of the NEF committee was to be made on the preliminary planning application for a new Madras at Pipeland and that only materialplanning considerations were to be questioned and discussed.
“The vote went narrowly against the current scheme. This showed that a majority of the councillors had serious doubts about the merits of the Pipeland proposal.
“Several councillors wished to raise concerns about the high preparatory costs of Pipeland and the effect of these on the remaining budget for educational facilities but these concerns were ruled out of order in the context of the application.”