By Cheryl Wood

FEARS OF a Trojan horse for the development of hillside beyond the new St Andrews hospital have been addressed with the approval of a new planning application for the hospital and health centre.

It was claimed a condition requiring an access road to the east of the site, on the southern approach to the town, would be an open door to further development of the land for commerce and industry.

The east area development committee also answered calls for the layout of the hospital, off Largo Road, to be rotated 90 degrees to better protect the landscape.

Although the hospital already has outline planning permission a fresh application with a new site layout was required as NHS Fife had bought an extra 0.31 hectares to allow for future expansion of the facility.

Ahead of this week’s committee calls were made by the St Andrews Preservation Trust, the Greenbelt Forum and the Architectural Heritage Society of Scotland that the additional land be used to accommodate a building running east to west on lower land instead of the previous uphill north-south axis.

St Andrews Community Council feared the access road clause which it said had been slipped through would open the floodgates to an urban sprawl along the town’s southern hillside.

Councillor Andrew Arbuckle said to prevent the hospital becoming a Trojan horse it was necessary to restrict the access road for hospital use alone, and committee chairman Councillor Frances Melville said the extra 50 metres extending east was an opportunity to “use the land wisely.”

A motion by Councillor Mike Scott-Hayward that the condition requiring access to the east of the site be removed, and that the hospital be on an east-west axis, was accepted.

Mr Scott-Hayward said that the clause was an “insidious move to shift the boundary” of the green belt.

He said, “I am completely opposed to the green belt being breached, except for a hospital. The green belt must be hard and fast. There’s no requirement for a road to provide access to the eastern boundary.

“What happens in terms of roads will be for the purpose of the hospital or allowing access to Pipeland Farm.”

St Andrews councillor Jane-Ann Liston added, “We have to control and restrict what this site can be used for. Anything which starts opening up the prospect of 1000 houses marching up that hill has to be safeguarded against.”

Although Fife Council planner Alistair Hamilton said designs were already evolving for the new hospital, based on the previous north-south axis, guidance could be conveyed to firms bidding for the contract that the hospital should be built on an east-west axis.

He said it may be dangerous to be too prescriptive about the layout of the hospital; however, the committee considered the east-west axis would better protect the town’s skyline.

The motion passed also required the access road be to an adoptable standard, that there be stances for buses and taxis, and consultation with residents of Pipeland Farm.