DISMAY AND disappointment is how Fife Council education portfolio holder Bryan Poole reacted after learning that five SNP councillors have “called in” the Fife Council executive decision to go out to public consultation on the Pipeland site as the preferred option for a new Madras College.
It emerged yesterday that St Andrews councillor Keith McCartney supported by SNP colleagues Douglas Chapman, John Docherty, David Mogg and David MacDiarmid have forced the brakes to be put on the Pipeland consultation, which was agreed by committee only last week.
The SNP councillors believe the executive committee’s decision should be reviewed by the council’s scrutiny committee before it is allowed to proceed.
Their main concerns surround potential extra costs over and above the originally budgeted for £40 million and the possible threat of a legal challenge from greenbelt campaigners who want to protect thePipeland site.
Mr McCartney, who favoured redevelopment of Kilrymont instead of a new-build at Pipeland, said: “The executive committee has failed to quantify the additional costs associated with their decision to identify where these costs will come from.
“Without this information it is not competent to go out to statutory consultation on the Pipeland option.
“We would also want the executive committee to consider whether a better course of action would be to submit a planning application in principle for development significantly contrary to the development plan on the Pipeland green belt site so that the council has a definitive answer to the question of planning permission before spending significant sums of public money on detailed design work.”
Mr Poole replied: “Frankly I have never read such a nonsensical rationale for acall-in than the one they have come up with.
“The first paragraph appears to be saying that it is incompetent to go out to public consultation without a more detailed costing and in their second paragraph they appear to be suggesting a better course of action would be to submit a planning application in principle before spending significant sums of money.
“The request is incoherent.
“The questions/points they haveraised could have been raised atNorth East Fife Area Committee where there was four hours of scrutiny or at the executive committee where there was a further hour of scrutiny, but of course they didn’t.
“It is for them to explain why,” he went on.
“I’m afraid I’ve come to the conclusion that the SNP do not want to play a constructive role in the quest to provide a replacement school for Madras College.
“Twice over the last few months councillors Chapman and McCartney have issued statements and asked questions at Fife Council implying a delay in moving this project forward yet this latest, I can only refer to it as a stunt, will have the potential effect of pushing this back for a further two months possibly more.
“In the last council Councillor Chapman, who was chairing education at thattime, got the unanimous support of all councillors on Fife Council time and again, sometimes against our better judgment…in the belief that the future learning opportunities of the children in St Andrews was more important that playing cheap party politics.
“I am failing to understand why he and his colleagues have chosen to be so obstructive and can only assume that they can see some perverse party political advantage in adapting the position they have taken.
“It’s certainly not in the interest of the children or the teachers to have this delayed any longer.”
malexander@thecourier.co.uk