Local decisions
SCOTT Macnab (Perspective, 17 February) and Joyce McMillan (Perspective, 27 February) advocate more local decision-making, the first by councils vis-à-vis Holyrood, the second by restoring “genuine local democracy to mid-sized towns like Kirkcaldy, Fort William and St Andrews”. Many voters here and elsewhere will agree with Joyce McMillan.
Fife’s North-East Planning Committee – comprising all the councillors who by definition, experience, constituency and residence have the best local knowledge – voted to reject the council executive’s plan to relocate our secondary school by buying green-belt land on the wrong side of St Andrews for the great majority of pupils’ and staff-members’ homes.
But the full council, with apparent block-voting by administration councillors from outwith north-east Fife, overrode the North-East Committee.
If implemented, the plan would condemn pupils, parents, staff, voters, taxpayers and the community through the century, to a school on a seriously flawed site with numerous inescapable disadvantages and no compensating benefits.
John Birkett
Horseleys Park
St Andrews, Fife