Councillor Kennedy told the official she felt the traffic survey carried out by Fife Council on one Monday in April was “not indicative of true traffic” going through the town.

She maintains the survey did not take into consideration the daily gridlock and “rat run” element whereby locals used residential streets like Tarvit Avenue and Sandylands Road as short-cuts.

Councillor Kennedy said she had also discussed issues surrounding the promotion of St Andrews as a ‘world-class’ town.

If efforts were being made to promote the town, then it was only fair that the infrastructure at Cupar, which had to cope with through traffic, was up to standard.

She added, “We are not looking for a dual carriageway, but feel a distributor road to the north of Cupar should be an option. They don’t view this as viable but I would have to dispute the traffic figures given by the council. They need to look past the figures and see the wider benefits.

“The business community and community council are at the heart of the community and they can see the benefits a bypass would bring to the development of the town. It is very disappointing from the view of the public who live and work in the town that their comment is poo-pooed by a traffic survey that does not give the true picture.”

The councillor noted that the Cupar local plan had in recent years indicated that the town should have a bypass by 2010, but that idea appeared to have been shelved.

She also maintained that the option of an ‘inner-relief road’ to the rear of St John’s and leading onto Burnside would merely shift the traffic problem elsewhere. With the Lady Burn likely to be culverted under such proposals to cope with a new road, she questioned whether this would be aceptable to the Scottish Environment Protection Agency in terms of flood risk.

Fife Council head of transportation, Dr Bob McLellan, has stated the current estimated cost of a northern bypass was £18 million. A bypass of the town has always been seen as a long-term possibility and has not been “brushed-off” as the community council has claimed. He said his officers must weigh up the current local campaign for an outer bypass against a whole range of influencing factors such as environmental impact, expected traffic flows, sustainability, and not least, cost.

He stated he did not wish to overly raise local expectations that a bypass is a reality, but has offered assurances that all potential options in the Cupar Transport Plan will be fully explored and will be the subject of detailed discussions with interested groups, including the community council during spring 2005.