Planning glitch

Your leader on NHS waiting time pressures (30 October) will strike a chord in north-east Fife.

St Andrews Community Hospital opened in 2009, when its wise forward planning envisaged possible expansion in the not too distant future; however, community care would develop, with medical services widening, life spans lengthening, Leuchars-based personnel increasing, and more than 2,000 new houses planned for in north-east Fife.

But Fife Council now plans to locate the new Madras College secondary school right up against the hospital’s boundary, preventing its expansion forever, and despite an available, alternative site more convenient for the great majority of pupils and staff, and with numerous other advantages.

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NHS Fife has withdrawn its initial minor objection, having been promised more car parking (in the school grounds!) but its facilities management company’s objection still stands.

Many residents feel that a proper survey would confirm most of the population (and GPs as well as other local NHS staff) are against the plan, and cannot understand NHS Fife’s short-term view that it has
“no current strategic objective or reasonably foreseeable priority” to justify an objection in
principle.

John Birkett

Horseleys Park

St Andrews