Rosyth masterplan progression welcomed after planning consent granted

Avant Homes Scotland confirmed last month that work is underway on the site off Admiralty Road where 170 homes are to be constructed.

Kapital Assets DRBS, which is run by developer Keith Punler, published a masterplan in 2011 for a 12-hectare plot to the west of his old school, Camdean Primary.

It included 390 homes – including 98 affordable homes – a nursery, professional and financial services, shops, food and drink outlets, an hotel and a nursing home.

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The affordable homes – and the neighbourhood retail centre where Sainsburys is located – have already been built with the Avant homes set to be the next phase of the plans.

The Hilton Garden City development site in Rosyth. (Image: Contributed)

A further 120 units are also planned along with commercial opportunities for offices, a hotel, and restaurants/drive through.

Mr Punler confirmed work had stalled last year on the site due to the longer than expected timescale for planning permission to be put in place.

This included work affecting a bus turning circle on Forker Avenue.

"We were extremely disappointed that works had to be suspended whilst Avant suffered inordinate delays to the approval of what should have been a very straight forward planning application," he said.

"We started work with an expectation that the purchase of the sale of the land to Avant Homes would come through timeously within six months of them making an application for housing.

"We apologise to those who may have been impacted, particularly those residents of Forker Avenue, by the suspension of works whilst this revised planning application was considered by Fife Council.

"We could not continue to spend seven figure sums on further infrastructure with no clarity on the potential for a receipt of consent from the Council.

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"We thank all residents for their patience and look forward to seeing this major aspect of the masterplan coming to fruition."

Mr Punler stressed that the delays on site were not associated with the recent winding up of contractors Kapital Residential who carried out the second phase of the development and stressed planning hold-ups were currently an issue across the UK.

"I would say we have been extremely disappointed with the timetables from Fife Council but unfortunately we are also seeing that pattern in other local authorities as well," he added.

"There is a housing crisis in the UK and a huge amount of that is down to developers not being able to forecast when developments are going to get planning approval.

"We acknowledge that the council are struggling to deal with planning applications in a timely manner. In this particular case, we expected it to come quicker."