Crail Airfield: developer’s ambitious plans for event space and hotel site get council verdict

Fife Council’s North East planning committee voted against the project and refused planning permission in principle to Ground Developments Ltd to carry out a complete regeneration and conversion of the long vacant World War II air base.

The West Lothian company wanted to turn the site into a holiday hub, complete with a hotel, up to 91 holiday accommodation units, an open air museum, as well as retail and public event space.

Planners assessed the application and recommended that councillors sign off on the in principle plans. However, the committee voted eight to two in favour of refusal and siding with 136 letters of public objection. It was refused based on concerns over road safety due to a lack of a viable second route to the site and the development’s potential impact on the road network within Crail.

“The development doesn’t enhance connectivity beyond Crail and it doesn’t improve life for the existing villagers who are there,” Councillor Alycia Hayes (SNP for East Neuk and Landward) said. “In fact, it’s going to worsen life for them. All they’re going to experience is a much greater volume of traffic going through [the Denburn Narrow] bottleneck which already creates terrible problems, is poorly lit and in winter is a sheet of ice.”

It wasn’t considered a reason for refusal, but Councillor David MacDiarmid (SNP for Howe of Fife and Tay Coast) also raised concerns about “turning Fife into a holiday park” and neglecting the need for local houses.

He said: “What we really need is proper housing for the people who live here. If this had come up as a housing development I would say go for it – even if there were a few problems with the road – because we need houses. It’s not tourism we need; we need houses for people to live in.”

Approval and refusal arguments largely hinged on the airfield access issue.

As it stands, all airfield traffic passes through Crail via Denburn Narrows – a single lane portion of Marketgate which forces traffic to give way through the burgh. From there, it goes down Balcomie Road to reach the site. The Local Development Plan (LDP) specifically stipulates that any airfield development should provide an alternative route. Ground Developments Ltd looked at a few options to connect the site with the A917 north without success.

Planners argued that the plans would nonetheless be acceptable because the "surrounding road network along with the proposed road improvements could safely accommodate the development.”

However, councillors sided with community objectors and agreed that the development would cause an unnecessary impact on roads in and around Crail. Councillor Robin Lawson (Conservative for St Andrews) said: "I can’t get over that there’s a requirement to have a second access to the site and the developer has just said ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I’ve had a word with the landowners and I can’t make a second access so I’m going to use Balcomie road’.”

He added: “Having all that extra traffic going through existing narrow Balcomie Road and the Denburn Narrows bottleneck within the village itself is ridiculous.”

Councillors debated the proposals for more than 90 minutes on Wednesday.

“By virtue of location, form and scale, the development would impact on road safety by introducing a significant number of additional vehicle movement to the locality, which would be considered excessive in terms of existing road structure,” the rejection stated.