Silverburn Park: councillors sign off £8m bid to transform old flax mill and park

On Monday, community programme leaders signed off on details to support ambitious plans for the long underfunded park and flax mill.

By the end of 2026, the multi million pound project has promised a café and restaurant, a backpacker’s hostel with 10 en-suite rooms, arts and crafts studio spaces, a gift shop, accessible toilet facilities, and office space and meeting rooms within the park and flax mill area.

“This is the culmination of long standing objectives within Fife and within the Levenmouth area around bringing back into use the park and the old flax mill,” Community Manager David Paterson told the committee.

“Silverburn Park has suffered from under investment over the last few decades unfortunately and it certainly has lost a lot of its appeal in terms of assets.”

The project has secured a total of £3.8m from Fife Council - most of which has come from the Fife Communities Capital Plan.

The remaining balance has been secured through Historic Environment Scotland, Fife Employment Access Trust (FEAT), and National Lottery Heritage Fund, which pledged a whopping £3.476m for the project.

A report to the committee said the park hosted up to 20,000 visitors every year until the early 2000s when a range of issues including vandalism, a foot and mouth outbreak, and a lack of available investment funding saw it gradually fall into disrepair.

Work on Silverburn Park, Flax Mill Regeneration Project is due to start in May of this year.