Lade Braes flats plan submitted

A building in St Andrews could be demolished to make way for eight new flats.

The property at 22 Lade Braes, in the town’s conservation area, is a house with a multiple occupancy licence.

An application lodged with Fife Council proposes replacing it with a new development, featuring apartments, a garden area, hidden parking, cycle storage and off-street refuse storage.

The building would be three floors high and all the ground floor flats would have direct access to a communal garden.

Twelve underground parking spaces would also be provided.

Designers Muir Walker and Pride Architects said it would use materials to “match the grey coloured sandstone indigenous to north-east Fife” to ensure it did not look out of place.

The stone was used for a number of buildings in and around St Andrews from as early as the 11th and 12th Centuries.

The plans have been opposed by the town’s community council, which has branded the modern-looking design “extremely conspicuous” for the conservation area.

The group said the majority of buildings in the area had pitched roofs with slates or pantiles and had evolved in a “picturesque” manner.

The council said the proposed apartments had none of those characteristics and would be “incongruous in their proposed conspicuous setting”.