200 new homes planned for site of infamous Cadco piggery in Glenrothes
Initial plans for 200 new homes at Whitehill Industrial Estate in Glenrothes have been submitted to Fife Council.
The site was at the centre of one of the biggest scams of the 1960s which saw Hollywood star George Sanders duped out of millions of £s in a bizarre scam to create three factories housing a massive piggery in town.
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Hide AdThe Cadco affair made national headlines, and left investors - including many rumoured prominent people as well as Glenrothes Development Corporation - heavily out of pocket.
Local MP, the late Willie Hamilton, branded the man at the heart of it, Denis Lorraine “a treacherous, lecherous character of the worst possible type” and slated the official Board of Trade inspectors’ report as ““a most squalid and fascinating piece of reading, certainly that I have read for a very long time” before going on to brand it as “a concoction of dishonesty, deceit, crime, gullibility and incompetence the like of which has probably never been known in Scotland before.”
The factories were designed to accommodate 20,000 pigs, and create up to 2000 jobs in the then new town, but they never happened as the money was sunk into a failing sausage factory in Brighton instead.
The estate has been home to many businesses since then - and now Mansion House Group has applied for permission in principle for up to 200 new homes on land to the south of Whitehill Road.
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Hide AdThe company recently bought the site, and its revised application to the council excludes commercial, care home or public house uses.
Documents lodged with the application say the many buildings in the northern part pf the estate are “in varying states of disrepair and at the end of their operational lifespan.”
They have been subject to antisocial behaviour, and fly-tipping creating a negative impact on the landscape.
The new owners have cleared the waste from the site, and tightened security measures, and now wants permission to start building the new homes.
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Hide AdIts supporting documents show the homes will be two and three storeys in height and will “deliver distinctive high-quality homes achieving modern living and resource efficient through sustainable energy efficient construction with low carbon technologies and considered waste management strategies”
The development would also complement the town of Glenrothes, and provide a welcoming environment through a well-considered landscape masterplan providing connection and integration into the existing surrounding woodlands.
It added: “The combination of modern living within a framework of spaces with opportunities for formal and informal recreation, enhanced biodiversity alongside new residential community spaces provides a pleasant, adaptable ‘sense of place’.
“The proposal aims to prioritise pedestrian activity which makes it both easy to move around with pedestrian connections through all areas of the development, and a safe environment through the use of traffic calming, shared spaced spaces and by the orientation of proprieties providing natural surveillance over community spaces.”