Fife councillors have voted to press ahead with a new £40 million Madras College at Kilrymont.
The education and children’s services committee voted 10 to five in favour of redeveloping and extending the school. It will mean Madras, which is split between Kilrymont and South Street, will be brought on to one site.
While the work to remodel Kilrymont is carried out, pupils will be decanted to South Street, with first and second years taught in prefabricated huts.
Despite putting the school on track to open in August 2015, the decision angered opposition councillors, who called the issue’s handling an ”affront to democracy”.
Labour leader Councillor Alex Rowley has written a formal complaint to Fife Council chief executive Ronnie Hinds, claiming committee chairman Douglas Chapman did not follow correct procedures and proceeded to a vote before the matter had been fully discussed.
Opposition councillors had called for a reappraisal of the available options and, on behalf of parents, Councillor Bryan Poole had warned that the 2015 target date had been given too much emphasis during a scoring exercise.
If the committee had rejected Kilrymont, the opening date would have been pushed back by at least a year.
Mr Poole said he ”did not see the logic” of Kilrymont. He said the site was not ideal because of the increased traffic school buses and parents dropping off children it would cause in nearby residential streets.
”I don’t think it’s the right way to go about planning a school using an arbitrary system that distorts the scores,” he added.
Labour councillors, parents and a former Madras rector had called for the council to give more consideration to Station Park, near the Old Course Hotel.
This was dismissed by council planner Bill Lindsay, who said building on the land would be contrary to planning policy and would have an unacceptable visual impact.
Meanwhile, the Labour group also highlighted the fact that an option of building at Pipeland Farm had only been brought to councillors’ attention the previous week.
The Kilrymont option was recommended for approval by council officers following the breakdown of talks with St Andrews University. Hopes had been raised of a new build school at Langlands and a sharing of facilities with the university.
Councillor Robin Waterston set out the case for supporting the administration’s motion to accept the recommendation.
He said: ”Some are saying that in principle a rebuild and renewal is by its nature second class and cannot possibly be as good as a new-build school. I fundamentally disagree with this.
”The Kilrymont building has the potential to be transformed into an outstanding school, a model of how to integrate a listed building with the best of 21st-century architectural design and become a school that everyone can be truly proud of.”
After the meeting, a furious Mr Rowley described Mr Chapman’s chairmanship of the meeting as ”shocking”.
He said: ”It’s an insult to people in the area and an insult to local democracy.”
Mr Rowley said he had concerns about traffic, access and the provision of outdoor sports facilities at Kilrymont, and said during a survey of 200 people, three quarters were in favour of delaying the decision.