Fife councillors sink £24,000 into study that could lead to a new cinema
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Dunfermline Area committee councillors invested £24,100 from its Community Recovery Funding to explore options to convert four buildings in the city centre into a multi-functional community based cinema.
Fife Council is pursuing this “media city vision” with help from OnFife, the Kingdom’s cultural organisation, and the idea is to repurpose a vacant property and bring it back into use as a cinema. That has now started to take shape with funding from both Carnegie Dunfermline Trust and the Architectural Heritage Fund, but councillors were told that the project needed £24,100 to really get things started.
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Hide Ad“The feasibility study could work and be very positive for Dunfermline,” committee convener James Calder (Lib-Dem for Dunfermline South) said. “I’m particularly thinking of the local economy and having that kind of facility in our city centre would be really positive.”


Councillor Gordon Pryde (Labour for Dunfermline North) added that a cinema would be “absolutely terrific” for the city.
“It’s been years since I’ve been to the cinema, but I’m sure if there was a cinema in the centre of Dunfermline I would probably start going again, and I don’t think I’m alone in that,” he said.
A total of £14,500 will go towards feasibility studies for four properties: the former Robins Cinema building on East Port 19, St Margaret’s House on St Margaret’s Street, the Kinema on Carnegie Drive, and councillors added the Carnegie hall and music institute complex to the list,
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Hide AdThe remaining £9,600 will be spent on two temporary consultants over a six month period to help establish, develop and promote the Dunfermline media city vision.
However, some councillors were cautious about spending so much money on feasibility studies when there is no funding allocated to the project.
“I think everyone will agree that it’s potentially a great idea. I used to go to Robin's Cinema as a teenager and it was a great complex,” Councillor Jim Leishman (Labour for Dunfermline Central) said.
“The problem I see is, once we get the survey and they say it's going to cost such and such, where do we see getting the funding for that? I’d hate to do the survey for £24,000 and then it just lies in a drawer because we can’t fund it.”
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Hide AdCouncil officers were candid - there is no absolute funding guarantee for the project, but a feasibility study will put it in the “best position” to access funding opportunities as and when they arise in the future.
“What this does allow us to do is be ready in case there is an opportunity,” Cllr Calder said. “Like in the case of the Levelling up Funding, it came very quickly and we had to work out which projects we had almost shovel ready. This is a project that could be considered for that kind of thing.”
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