Fife Council has been accused of engaging in casino politics as a controversial decision to build five luxury homes to sell is “called-in” for review.
SNP councillors claimed the plan to build the four-bedroom houses beside a children’s home in Kirkcaldy was a £1 million property gamble and said they had no option but to call for further scrutiny.
Labour has robustly defended the proposal which, they said, would ensure the children’s home would be integrated into a development of similar houses and would not “stick out like a sore thumb”.
The home at Raith Gates will replace the outdated Rimbleton Children’s Home in Glenrothes, and the council insisted building the five private homes at the same time would ensure the children would not have to live on a building site.
But the SNP is concerned the local authority is effectively gambling £1 million of public money on luxury houses it may be unable to sell.
Councillor Neil Hanvey accused the Labour leadership of silencing any opposition to the plan and branded it “woefully inadequate”.
Fellow-SNP member Ian Ferguson supported the call-in and added: “No matter how I look at this proposal I cannot find a comfortable moral position in favour of the council devoting scarce resources to the gamble of building luxury houses while many folk are living in substandard and damp conditions.”
Labour councillor Judy Hamilton, the council spokesperson for property services, said it had always been the intention that the home would be part of a development.
“It shouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb, either by being surrounded by smaller houses or by being set in large grounds, and it just doesn’t stack up as a site for council housing,” she said.
She added: “It is clearly in the interests of the young people who will live in the home that they do not begin their time there living on a building site.
“Having the council develop the entire area is by far the best way of ensuring a good start for the children in their new home and if it results in a modest profit which can be reinvested in other capital projects in Fife, so much the better.”
Mrs Hamilton said the business case for the proposal had been through three layers of legal advice and had been scrutinised by the council’s Investment Strategy Group.