THE firm with a £250 million plan to bring 8,000 jobs to Rosyth Waterfront has criticised Fife Council for causing “another setback”.

The Scarborough Muir Group (SMG), which is developing a 120-acre site in the area called Queensferry One, said their suggestions as to how to proceed were “ignored”.

The South West Fife area committee approved a framework put forward for the development of the waterfront last week, as requested by the Scottish Government.

The aim is to highlight the area’s capabilities and support the council and landowners’ efforts to attract jobs, investment and businesses to the area and create a ‘Gateway Rosyth’ venture.

Councillors viewed it as a step forward but William McAlister, property director at SMG, said it had been approved hastily: “It is one thing to draft a development framework in isolation.

“It is quite another to ensure it is commercially viable and that it has the interests and aspirations of the community, the council and the majority landowner at heart.

“Despite another setback caused by Fife Council, we remain very much committed to the comprehensive development of Rosyth Waterfront.”

He said the firm believed that a “number of fundamental steps had been missed” and that before the framework was presented to the committee, a master planning exercise and public consultation should have been carried out.

Mr McAlister continued: “Both are standard practices in a development of this scale but our representations to the planning officials were ignored.”

The area in question is 600 acres of port and development land, predominantly in the ownership of SMG, Forth Ports and Babcock, south of Rosyth and west of the Forth Road Bridge and Queensferry Crossing.

After the council submitted the draft FIFEplan, which states what can be built and where, the government reporter recommended that the site should remain for port/industrial use only.

Before it was finalised, Scottish ministers, who wanted to highlight the economic importance of the site, asked the council to produce a Rosyth Waterfront Development Framework to support the regeneration of the area.

The idea of the framework is to support potential landowners and developers with pre-application advice to ease the submission and progress of planning applications.

It takes into account environmental and transport issues, and co-ordinates the range of uses of the site.

Councillor Alice McGarry, convener of the South and West Fife area committee, said: “This is a world-class site in a world-class location.

“It is important that we are now able to move forward with development of the area.”

SMG have long been at odds with the council as they lobbied hard for the land use to be changed to allow for mixed development.

Their previous plan, which was on the table for more than a decade, was a £500 million proposal that promised a dynamic quayside with a parade of shops, supermarket, hotel, cafés, bars, offices, a leisure centre and new homes.

However, it was repeatedly stymied as the council refused to change the land designation from port/industrial use only.

In March, the group blamed the council’s “perverse logic” for sinking their ambitious £500m plans, and stated: “The decision to restrict development was made by Fife Council’s planning department, who ignored the representations made by the local community, local councillors and landowners and produced their ‘vision’ for Rosyth.”

SMG’s new Queensferry One masterplan was launched in September to coincide with the opening of the Queensferry Crossing.

At the time, the group said that two land sales were near completion and, if approved, Queensferry One will consist of 450,000 square feet of new offices, 800,000 sq ft of industrial, manufacturing and logistics warehouses, 60,000 sq ft for roadside-type uses such as a service station and food outlets, and a 120-bed budget hotel.