Fife Council’s north east planning committee turned down Gleneagles Holiday Park Limited’s application to create 35 residential retirement caravans on land at Northbank Farm back in December.

Councillors had refused planning permission for the development on the grounds of road safety and sustainable travel.

They also said it was in the interests of safeguarding the visual amenity, character and environmental quality of the countryside location.

But a Scottish Government Reporter will now have the final say after the decision was challenged in appeal documentation submitted to the Planning and Environmental Appeals Division.

Agents acting on behalf of the applicants have questioned that reasoning and suggested the council’s stance on the land in question is “unjustifiable”.

“This is not a housing development, it is a development of 35 retirement caravans,” a spokesperson for Montgomery Forgan Associates, acting on behalf of the applicants, said.

The agents have also challenged the assessment by councillors that it would represent overdevelopment of the site.