Pipeland not suitable for an urban school

Sir, - As one of the councillors for St Andrews I feel comments made by fellow councillor Brian Thomson in The Courier (Saturday, December 3) were rather disingenuous when he states the only reason the New Madras College will not be at Pipeland is due to three individuals lodging a legal challenge.

The site at Pipeland is significantly contrary to the development plan as it lies within the St Andrews green belt.

The supposed justification for building in the green belt was that no other suitable site was available.

It was this point that was argued successfully in the Court of Session earlier this year when three judges decreed the planning authority was wrong not to give sufficient weight to the existence of other suitable sites and deemed the decision on Pipeland be quashed as unlawful.

The bottom line is that it was three judges, not three individuals, who prevented the building of a new Madras at Pipeland.

The next blow to siting Madras at Pipeland was the decision of the DPEA reporter during the examination stage of FIFEplan to rule this site must remain in the green belt and would be unsuitable for an urban school.

It was at this point that the new principal of St Andrews University, Professor Sally Mapstone, swept into town and almost immediately talks began between Fife Council and the university.

Both parties must be congratulated on agreeing to come to the table with the outcome, if successful, being a new Madras College constructed on university land at the western side of the town.

This news should be welcome to everyone and in particular the future pupils who will now have a fit for purpose school building.

However, exciting as this news is it must not detract from the fact that we have had five years of being lectured that only one site was available when miraculously the moment the door was closed on Pipeland we find a superior site was there all along.

All it needed apparently was the agreement of both parties to work together.

Thanks is due to all those who made this possible but the question must still be asked why Fife Council took so long to come to this decision and was this best value for Fife’s council taxpayers?

Councillor Dorothea Morrison. Baidland, 19 Lade Braes, St Andrews.

Picture: Dougie Nicolson. Madras College, South Street, St Andrews.