Reject Fife Council's Proposal to Build New Homes in Thornton

Fife Council are currently consulting with the public on plans to build 3000 new homes in the Glenrothes area, with the intent of situating 1000 of these on green, untouched areas of land within the village of Thornton. We think this is a bad idea for the following reasons:

Capacity

If these plans proceed then the population of the village will almost double. Fife Education have already stated that there are no plans to increase capacity at Thornton Primary School should this go ahead, and that is really just scratching the surface. There are other things to consider such as transport infrastructure, medical care, sewerage....and that's without even taking account of the fact that Thornton already relies on villages/towns in the surrounding area for services such as dental care. Fife Council have provided NO assurances on increased capacity for these services within the village or surrounding areas; infact when questioned at a recent meeting on the topic of road infrastructure to support the new housing, the response from Fife Council was that it was 'the responsibility of Transport Scotland'. Does that sound like the type of response you would expect to receive from a planning committee with your best interests at heart?

House Prices

Such a proportionally large increase in population will inevitably have a negative effect on the value of properties within the village. A number of properties currently have beautiful, clear views across the fields and these will be destroyed by this planned construction. This combined with the massive increase in traffic, noise pollution and over-subscription of public services will make properties in Thornton a far less attractive proposition for buyers. Thornton is already placed in an area earmarked for hydraulic gas fracturing (fracking), which has seen house prices in other areas plummet by as much as 70%, so the last thing we need is another reason to drive down the value of our homes.

Nature / Health

Thornton is a peaceful village surrounded by fields and nature trails hosting a wide array of different types of wildlife. The construction of these houses along with the inevitable changes to the surrounding environment will mean uprootal and possibly even death for a number of these animals, along with the destruction of trees and plants that populate the environment with clean air. A number of families and children live in Thornton and a 100% increase in population can only be a bad thing for the health of people in the village. It will mean a massive increase in pollution from passing vehicles and over time that will result in respiratory diseases such as asthma for our kids.

We acknowledge that people need places to live and that houses need to be built to satisfy demand, but we DO NOT believe that the village of Thornton is a suitable candidate for a development of this size, and as such we vehemently reject Fife Council's proposals to build in Thornton.

HOW CAN WE PREVENT THIS FROM HAPPENING? Time is running short, so we need to mobilise and reject this ASAP. We have until 8th December 2014 to make our voices heard. The e-petition (along with a paper version doing the rounds in Thornton) will be presented to local councillor Ross Vettraino and registered with Fife Council.

LET'S PUT A STOP TO THIS AND SAVE OUR BEAUTIFUL VILLAGE!