Dates for Springfield Community Council meetings

2 Feb 2022

6 Apr 2022

1 June 2022

7 Sep 2022

Meetings at 7:30pm in Church Hall.

These are open public meetings so all are welcome to come.

Chair’s Annual Report April 2017 – Sept 2018

Its been another busy year with plenty of business to fill our 8 regular meetings during this period.  This is what we did:

• Liaise with Community Police officers who come to several meetings a year
• War memorial refurbishment. The paving is complete and now looks really good. Thanks to Springfield Community Trust who managed the project.   We entered discussion with various interested parties about the addition of four missing names on the War memorial. All four were from the village and died in WW2.  It has not resulted in any further names being added to date.
• Traffic and Road Speed in village. We engaged with the Community Police officer about some of the speeding and traffic problems in the village.
• We previously compiled a list of problems and then took these to Fife Council.  We have made good progress this, and most recently Main St has been re-surfaced in part due to our raising the defects with Fife Council. We also took various other road issues to Fife Council including water rising from the manhole on Stratheden Brae.
• We continued to engage with local people via our website at www.springfieldcommunitycouncil.org.uk
• Park Redevelopment. We continued to chase Fife Council about the excessive length of time it was taking to finish the park.   Separately we also asked for remedial works to be carried out to the broken MUGA gate and notice board, which have been addressed. We requested a formal review because of the project’s problems. The review was not independent.  It was carried out by Fife Council Property Services who undertook the design, tendering and supervision for the project.  They reviewed themselves and found little wrong.  There was no detailed financial report, and it did not address other concerns regarding the tendering process, nor the excessive delays.  The park redevelopment continues to be highly unsatisfactory.
• Grit bins. We surveyed the grit bin locations and condition in March 2018, and reported back to Fife Council, noting that they were all in use and some required repair.  Fife Council is reducing grit bins drastically across Fife, but as a result of our work Springfield is to retain all its current grit bins.
• Campion Homes Planning Gain. We continued to engage about how the £34k that was being paid to Fife Council for community benefit was going to be spent.  We understood that there was an opportunity to determine some of the spending.  Accordingly we carried out a community consultation for which we had 50 responses.  That informed us how the community would like to see the community benefit spent.  We created a proposal to Fife Council and presented it with the support of our Councillors.  After some prompting from our Councillors,    we received the following reply:

“….Having reviewed the related legal agreement, the £34 000 commuted sum was secured in order to address a deficiency in the application, namely the lack of open space and play facilities. The commuted sum can therefore only be spent on addressing this deficiency within the development. Colleagues in Parks and Countryside are responsible for identifying and implementing a scheme to remedy the deficiency within the development.

The financial contribution is therefore not a “community benefit payment” and the funds can only be used to address a very specific issue. It is also not possible under the current mechanisms to divert the monies to deliver benefits other than those specified within the legal agreement.

I appreciate that this is not the response the Community Council would have hoped for but I trust the above at least provides a clear explanation as to why this is the case. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you require any further clarification.
Kevin Treadwell
Service Manager
Development Management”

Obviously, we were very disappointed with this response, especially after engaging with the community and raising hopes in the community that might have a say in how this is spent.  Given the ongoing lack of conclusion to the park redevelopment, we continue to have little confidence that the £34k sum will be used effectively for the benefit of the community.

• Defibrillator in phone box. We agreed with Springfield Community Trust to collaborate over a defib in the village.  We purchased the phone box from BT for £1 and then passed ownership to Springfield Community Trust who have raised funds to install a defibrillator.  Many individuals and businesses in the village have contributed to the funds, and local tradesmen have also carried out work gratis to see the project completed.  Thanks to all.
• Pruning of trees. Residents brought various issues regarding pruning of trees and hedges to us.  We engaged with Fife Council to get these sorted out

We would like to welcome more members onto the Community Council, there are several vacant spaces for co-opted members.  If you or someone you know might be interested then please suggest they come along to one of our meetings.
We would also like to welcome more residents to our public meetings.  There tends to be a high attendance if there is a big issue to take action against (such as a housing development) but we have a low attendance otherwise.  We would like to urge resident to come and be involved with community business.
Finally, we would like to thank our Local Councillors who really enable our meetings to have some real outcomes within Fife Council.  We would particularly like to note the high level of input from Cllr Karen Marjoram and Cllr Margaret Kennedy, and thank them for their support.

Early September 2016 saw a rail bridge replacement over the Muir Road towards Sweetholme Road – by the remains of the old farm steading at Easter Ballomill. A Saturday closure of the line enabled a new bridge to be craned into position. Other works that are happening are improvements to the adjacent bridge that carries the trains over Rankeilour Burn. So the contractors will be working there for a couple of months. The path should be useable for pedestrians and cyclists for most of that time.

Can we sort the Flooded Path as well?

A 500t crane was used to do the bridge lift so the track from Bow of Fife level crossing down to Easter Ballomill has been made up with coarse stone. This may help the flooding problem that saw the route being closed for many weeks over the winter.

However Springfield Community Council is taking the opportunity to speak to Network Rail about a longterm solution to what we think is probably a blocked drain under the rail embankment.   We’ll let you know what the outcome of that is.

Keep following us for local news.