Meeting of the Parliament 14 March 2023
I wish that we could do that. However, the nature of politics is that we want answers now. We want to get results immediately. Of course, people are desperate for urgent action but, too often, action is too short.
I will give a slightly old example from four or five years ago. There was a proposal to build 1,400 homes on the north side of Cupar. It has been debated for a long time. Housing development in north-east Fife has stalled, partly as a result of that scheme’s having been caught in a quagmire.
The Sustainable Cupar Town Development Group was desperate for a district heating system to be attached to those 1,400 homes, so we spoke to the developers, who said, “It is experimental; it is too expensive; it involves long-term obligations; we want to build houses and be out; and we are not required to do it. We do not have to do it, so we are not going to do it.” We went to the council and said, “You’ve got the power to make them do it.” The council people said, “We don’t really know much about district heating systems. It’s a bit risky and perhaps a bit expensive, and we want the houses to be built, so we don’t want to scare the developers away.” So, we went to the Scottish Government, which said, “Naw. We’ve got funding schemes and pilots, but it is up to councils to resolve this.”
I hope that the situation has improved since then, because that buck passing means that we do not have a district heating system for Cupar. In fact, we do not really have the answer as to whether a district heating system would be the right scheme for Cupar North.
That leads to the point of having the right advice, having the right laws in place—the right compulsion—and empowering local councils to bring all of that together to make it work, so that we can progress.