A cash pot for the benefit of the people of St Andrews will be used to pay for Fife Council road works.
Reservations about St Andrews’ common good fund being used to prop up work in the town centre were set aside as a grant of £66,000 was approved.
The cash will be ploughed into a £200,000 project to resurface Logies Lane and Church Square, which have been damaged by service and delivery vehicles mounting the paved area beside Holy Trinity Parish Church.
Members of the Royal Burgh of St Andrews Community Council were concerned about the use of the historic fund, which collects income from common property including the town hall and Bruce Embankment, for work which is the responsibility of the local authority.
But chairman Callum MacLeod said people were sympathetic to the financial squeeze on local authorities and that the town could have waited forever for Fife Council to fund the necessary upgrade.
He said: “There were reservations. It’s a public road and should common good money be used to do what some people would say is Fife Council business? I shared those reservations.”
But he added: “While it would be wrong to use it to pay for work in a street in a residential area like where I live, knowing the financial pressures that exist for local authorities and this being a key, historic part of the town, we believed it was probably not unreasonable to use it for what could be classed as a special project.”
He said there was well over £1 million in the fund, which should be spent for the community good rather than sitting in a bank account, and the grant would make little dent.
As members of the council’s north east Fife area committee pondered an application for funding from the council’s assets, transportation and environment service, Councillor Donald Lothian said there was a principle at stake.
However, St Andrews councillor Dorothea Morrison said the money from the common good fund added to £70,000 from St Andrews Pilgrims Trust and the council’s £54,000 contribution would allow a high quality finish rather than the utilitarian repair the council could have afforded alone.
Town councillors were consulted on the proposal ahead of the decision and Mrs Morrison said: “We thought this was a good use of common fund.”
High quality renovation work was carried out five years ago in nearby Market Street at a cost of £1.5 million, into which the Logies Lane and Church Square improvements will link.
Vehicles are to be banned from the area to prevent further deterioration, with access maintained only for wedding and funeral cars for the church.
A traffic order is in progress.
