Fife beauty spot to receive £300,000 improvements

Plans were approved yesterday (Thursday) for Fife Council to contribute £100,000 towards the project at Lade Braes, with St Andrews Common Good Fund providing £50,000 and Sustran’s Places for Everyone programme providing £100,000.

A 1.5 mile stretch between Cockshaugh Park and Carron Gardens will be the focus of the project, which will see improvements made to the path surface and accessibility, broken seats replaced, signage improved, new bins and solar stud guidance lighting installed, and minor tree work conducted.

Work is expected to start in November and be finished in April 2020.

“The Lade Braes is a much loved and extremely well used route, linking the housing areas to in the west of St Andrews to the town centre, but much of the path has unfortunately got into a state of disrepair,” Cllr Brian Thomson.

“I’ve been pushing for the upgrade for a number of years, and made the case for the project being included in the council’s Capital Investment Plan back in 2017.

“The project has been delayed a bit since then, as it was felt it was worth trying to secure additional funding from Sustrans, and that has been proven to be the right decision, with a total of £300,000 now set to be spent on the path.”

At a public consultation on the plans, to which 327 responses were received, 91 per cent of people called for improvements to the path.