Scottish Government reporter gives Masterton Farm ruling

Mrs Linda Tinson submitted an appeal in December after arguing that Fife Council's demand for £650,000 of road improvements made any development at Masterton Farm "unviable".

She was also unhappy with conditions requiring financial contributions for education and transport and for 25 per cent of the units - the land is zoned for up to 35 homes but it's likely to be nearer 20 - to be affordable homes.

Government reporter Alison Kirkwood has now issued a notice of intention that states she is minded to grant the appeal subject to the conclusion of a legal agreement, but it's not all good news for Mrs Tinson.

While she won't have to pay £650,000 for upgrades on the adjacent Masterton Road - which the reporter deemed an "unreasonable and potentially prohibitive cost burden on a development of this scale" - she will have to meet the requirements for education, transport and affordable housing.

A successful appeal means that a developer won't have to pay £650,000 for improvements at Masterton Road in Dunfermline. (Image: Google Maps)

Plans to build houses on just over a hectare of land at Masterton Farm were first submitted in November 2008 but they've never managed to progress.

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Mrs Tinson's planning agent, Joe Fitzpatrick, said she had been "forced to seek repeated renewals of planning permission for the site" with potential developers pulling out once they discovered the financial implications of the scheme.

Planning permission in principle was granted again by the council last August but councillors on the west and central planning committee refused a request to drop two conditions. 

One required Masterton Road to be upgraded from the front of the site to the junction with Skylark Road, a minimum width of 5.5 metres with new kerbs and a two-metre wide footway.

The condition also required the existing road to be patched or resurfaced.

The cost was estimated as £650,000 and Mr Fitzpatrick argued this was "unreasonable" as it imposed costs solely on his client, when there was another development site further down the road that would also benefit.

Ms Kirkwood, who visited the site in December, was "not persuaded" that the levels of traffic from the development, and pedestrian and cycle use of this part of Masterton Road, would justify a two-metre footway.

She also said the existing road was already 5.5m wide, accepted the council's new stance that kerbs would not be needed and added that, as it's an adopted road, the council are responsible for patching and resurfacing.

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However, the requirements of the second condition will largely remain.

Mr Fitzpatrick said financial contributions for education and strategic transport improvements, and affordable housing provision, should not apply as the plans were for the redevelopment of brownfield land that was long term vacant or derelict.

The council said they should apply as they considered it to be greenfield, adding that the site was not on the Scottish Vacant and Derelict Land Register.

The reporter decided it was a mixture of both and the contributions and affordable housing will apply on the greenfield parts of the site.

The money for education is to help alleviate secondary school capacity constraints in Dunfermline - it was initially calculated as £6,067 per three-bedroom home but the council said it should be lower than this - and cash for strategic transport improvements in the city work out at £5,332 per dwelling.