Independent Councillor Seeks Outdoor Pavement Charge for St Andrews Restaurants
- Ava Goodman
- Mar 19
- 2 min read
Independent Councillor for St Andrews Robin Lawson has petitioned Fife Council to begin charging St Andrews businesses a fee for using outdoor pavements for extended seating. Fife Council has rejected these petitions and instead voted to make these extensions permanent.
Councillor Lawson has advocated for the Council to enact a pavement-use fee since the extensions were first added as socially-distant infrastructure to many South Street establishments in 2020. The addition of the extensions replaced approximately 60 parking spaces, and Councillor Lawson argues that this loss of revenue for the Council has been consequential.
In his view, charging businesses that use the pavement for tables and chairs would make up for this lost revenue. Councillor Lawson cited Edinburgh City Council’s pavement renting scheme as a successful example of generating revenue, as he said they make around £9 million a year from this fee.
John Mitchell, the Fife Council service manager, told The Courier that the proposed scheme would not actually produce an income for Fife Council. He said, “We’re acutely aware of the economic position of businesses […] a scheme that wasn’t necessarily going to be raising a significant income relative to expenditure seemed not worthy of progress.”
Fife Council’s North East Planning Committee approved plans to make the South Street extensions permanent in a meeting on 9 April, 2025, following the plans’ recommended approval in a 12 February, 2025 report. According to the minutes for the April 2025 meeting, Councillor Lawson left the meeting before the Committee voted to approve these extensions due to his expressed views against them.
At a 4 March, 2026 meeting of the North East Planning Committee, Councillor Lawson raised his objections to the lack of pavement regulation. According to The Courier, he told the committee, “I think St Andrews could be tidied up enormously if pavement regulation were to be brought in, rather than the Wild West which we have now.”
Councillor Lawson continued, “It’s community space and people who use it ought to be paying the community for it.”
At the time of publication, Councillor Lawson has not responded to The Saint’s request for comment.
Photo by Christopher Kelly-Brown
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As someone who’s walked down South Street, the extra outdoor seating definitely makes the area feel more lively, though it can get a bit cramped at times. I get why businesses like it, but I also understand the argument about fairness and public space—it almost feels like a 1v1 lol situation between community use and business benefit. I’d be interested to learn more about how other cities balance this without hurting local shops.