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