Design approved for controversial St Andrews pavement extensions to be made permanent

Members of Fife Council’s North East planning committee agreed planning applications for five sections of the town’s South Street on Wednesday.

The applications will see the previous temporary pavement extensions – created during the Covid pandemic to assist with social distancing requirements – made into a more permanent feature of the street scape, albeit with slight alterations to some.

The plans will see Fife Council make environmental improvements to the public realm at locations along the street by creating permanent build outs from the pavement finished with Caithness stone slabs and whin stone kerbs.

The local authority will also install street furniture including benches, moveable planters and cycle racks in some areas as part of the initiative.

The plans will see the permanent loss of 41 parking spaces along the street.

In the area outside Con Pana coffee shop, the council will create a buildout which is 15.2m long and 2.9m wide.

Outside St Andrews Brewing Company, a slightly smaller permanent extension to the pavement will be created compared to what’s there now and a disabled parking space created.

At the other end of the street, outside Janetta’s, the plans would see extensions on both sides of the street made permanent, although slightly smaller than what’s there now, and the buildout areas would be on either side of a proposed zebra crossing.

The temporary buildout currently located outside the Criterion, Zizi and Zest will also be made permanent under the approved plans, as will the one outside The Adamson.

Scott McInroy, Fife Council planning officer, said: “During 2021 to help comply with the Scottish Government’s social distancing requirements associated with Covid Fife Council have extended the footway width at five locations along South Street.

“In January 2023 a public consultation was carried out on the future of these build outs the results were then reported to the North East Fife Area Committee on April 26, 2023 and retention of these extensions was approved.”

Following that decision, council officers were instructed to advance design work to make the spaces permanent.

The plans came before councillors on the planning committee this week due to the large number of objections from members of the public. There were also objections from the town’s Community Council.

Many of the concerns raised related to the impact on the Conservation Area; loss of parking, road safety, procedural concerns, survey results and business uses for the pavement extensions.

According to the report, many of the concerns raised did not fall under planning considerations for deciding on the matter before councillors.

All five planning applications were unanimously approved by the committee members.