The directors of a company set up to protect the landscape setting of St Andrews are to appeal the dismissal of a judicial review of the planning decision for the new Madras College at Pipeland.
Following a two-day hearing at the Court of Session in December, Lord Doherty published his findings on March 20 and rejected the legal challenge by St Andrews Environmental Protection Association Ltd (STEPAL).
After years of debate and counter-debate, the judge’s decision backed Fife Council’s plan to build the £42.7 million secondary on green belt land to the south of St Andrews.
But Fife Council was advised on Tuesday that STEPAL will be lodging an appeal against the judgement of Lord Doherty to dismiss the legal challenge by the deadline of this Friday.
Fife Council leader Councillor David Ross said: ”This is a huge disappointment for us at Fife Council but more importantly it will be a huge disappointment for the parents and the children who we know were looking forward to entering a new school in 2017.
“I understand that the appeal will be lodged by Friday, but we have no indication as yet of the grounds for the appeal.
“The judgement by Lord Doherty strongly supported the council’s position on this matter and the view we received from our legal and planning advisors was that the judgement left little or no grounds for appeal.
“It is my view that STEPAL are now just out to delay proceedings in the hope that Fife Council will somehow give up on building a new school in St Andrews.
“I want to be very clear to STEPAL and their financial backers that Fife Council is absolutely determined to push on with the replacement of the current Madras facilities with the much needed, new purpose built school at Pipeland.
“We will be exploring every option to have this appeal dealt with as speedily as possible and we will be pursuing STEPAL vigorously for full reimbursement of the costs associated with this process.”
* For more on this story see Wednesday’s Courier