Award-winning community group continues to grow
Community group Growing Kirkcaldy has been reflecting on its roots as it scooped yet another pair of awards.
They were given a gold medal in the 2026 Beautiful Scotland awards and the Visit Scotland tourism award at the Climate and Nature Friendly Communities Network annual seminar, hosted by environmental charity Keep Scotland Beautiful.
The awards are a testament to the hard work and dedication of the volunteers who make up the community group which formed over a decade ago with one simple aim: to tidy up their beloved Lang Toun, with former Kirkcaldy councillor Alice Soper as one of its most prominent members
"I’ve been thinking, when was it we formed?!” she says. “We've got a new entrant award from beautiful Scotland in 2013, so I reckon we must have formed probably in 2012.
“I was no longer a councillor at that point and someone must have taken pity on me and thought ‘let's keep her busy’!
“We also had some members who like me were also regular members of the community council. I also think Bill Harvey, who was manager at the Kirkcaldy BID which was still operating at that time, may have had a hand in it.
“I remember helped us produce our very first portfolio.
“Our initial thoughts behind was to gather some people who all shared the same passion for the town. Who wanted to see things looking better, basically. I mean, that was why I wanted to be a councillor in the first place, to try and improve the town.
“We got like-minded people together at that point, including local residents. Sadly, some of them have actually passed away by now.
“We had people like David Henderson, who was chair of the community council and chair of the Beveridge Park Development Group, he was quite a community-minded resident but not elected to anything. He just did all this as a purely voluntarily.
“We used to meet in Bill's office on the High Street on a regular basis on the High Street to make plans.
“I think Keith Jackson, formerly of Fife Council, had something to do with it because he used to run Beautiful Fife and some of us were judges for that as well to help him out.
“It was really through networking and knowing different people in different groups, as happens in Kirkcaldy.
Alice says the group’s focus has changed since it’s early days.
“We actually started off looking at the whole town. We were looking to see what else was happening around the town, which other groups were doing things. Over the years we managed to work in all 12 primary schools. My husband, Les, made most of the planters for the schools at that time.
“Keith Jackson gave us a skip which had been converted into a sort of mobile garden, which we gave to a couple of the primary schools to try out, so we had all these experimental things going on. But it wasn't just horticulture, it was to look at the general environment and ways we could actually help.
“There is a great sense of community in Kirkcaldy. There's a lot of people doing things, but at the time, way back when we were focusing on the whole town and looking at what areas looked sort of neglected. We did a lot of guerrilla gardening, hiding ugly sights in the town. Then after Covid we decided to start focusing more on the town centre.”
Growing Kirkcaldy isn’t just for tidying up the shabbier parts of town, Alice says.
“We've done all sorts of stuff. We've helped lots of people and lots of little groups around the town who wanted help. We did a a workshop for the parents and kids at Fair Isle primary one time. We've tried to encourage the schools to take things on board.
“Balwearie’s been great. There's a chap there, Jonathan Crawford, who's developing their grounds and we’ve been up and had a look at the site and given them suggestions; plants and stuff that we might be able to advise with.
“We've done litter picking, we’ve helped at the Merchant's House garden in the past – we've just just really been helping groups.
“More recently we’ve been getting requests from different parts of the town, asking if we can go and meet them and give some advice. Though we’re concentrating ourselves physically on the town centre, we're still open to helping other groups if the need any sort of advice.
“The other nice thing is that we've always been given plants or donated plants by people around the town. You know, if they’re tidying up their gardens they may have spare cuttings or spare plants which is great.
“We take them up to our allotment in the Ravenscraig Walled Garden and store them there, and then if and when people are asking for help or might need some plants, we’ve got a store ready.”
Amid some trial and error and with more people coming on board, Alice says the group has developed since its formation.
“We've actually gained new members over the years and they all bring their own expertise and particular skills. It’s a really enthusiastic group. Some of the others are members of other groups too, which helps widen our network.
“We go out every Monday morning, and we have done now for ages, and that actually means that we've got a regular time. We decide amongst ourselves which bits need attention that particular morning, then we always will congregate back around half 11 for coffee and cakes and a blether, so there's that whole social side of things which is good.”
The group is funded by a grant from Fife Council as well as its own fundraising efforts and plans for next year include a push on growing their own plants from sees in a new polytunnel at its allotment.
Alice says the latest pair of awards have given the group a real boost as they look towards 2027.
“We were delighted. It’s the second time we’ve won the tourism one and that's the one I think is really, really good for our town, because these two ladies who came to judge us in the summer had never been to Kirkcaldy.
“At the end of our tour, they actually said to us they had no idea the wealth that Kirkcaldy had, as far as its heritage and it's architecture, and said they would come back in a personal capacity.
“So all these different people contributed so much to giving these two judges a really good knowledge of the town. They were so impressed and that what really got me when we got the tourism award as well.
“I thought that was fabulous.”