Kirkcaldy church group anger as property lost by council when base turned into COVID test centre

Anne Sinclair, secretary of The Crystal Light Spiritual Church (CLSC), said that the local authority emptied the building without the group’s knowledge before turning the building into a test centre.

She said church possessions worth around £400 were lost in the process.

She said: “Throughout our lease of Overton Community Centre, we had use of a lockable cupboard and space for our property in a shared locked storeroom, both of which we held a set of keys for.

"We also purchased and provided – our own expense - two extra lockable cabinets to hold our property which included sets of dishes, crystal glasses, flasks and jugs for entertaining, decorations and a Christmas tree, as well as other items used at church meetings.”

After learning that the building was to continue to be used as a COVID test centre, CLSC requested to be allowed to collect its property only to find out that it had already been removed by the local authority.

“When we went to the centre we found that our keys did not operate the locked cupboard where our property was stored and only one of our two cabinets remained,” Anne said.

"On asking where the other cabinet and contents of the communal storeroom were, we were told that they did not know.”

The council later contacted Anne to tell her that it had found the church’s belongings stored at another site in Kirkcaldy - but when she got there to collect them, she discovered that the items belonged to another group.

She hit out: "This is a disgraceful, autocratic action taken by Fife Council and shows no respect at all for the private property of another –most of the missing items were personal gifts presented to CLSC. They are irreplaceable.”

The council said it had been unable to identify ownership of the items.

Shona Bellfield, community use team manager, said: “Until early 2020, Overton Community Centre was managed by local people through a management committee, but that arrangement came to an end and the keys were returned to us.

"While gathering contact information on the groups which had been using the centre, the country was placed into lockdown and the centre needed to be cleared at very short notice so that it could be used as a COVID-19 testing centre.

“All items that were removed were placed in storage. Unfortunately, we hadn’t been able to identify who they belonged to beforehand.

“We’re very sorry that this has happened. We’ve been in touch with the church secretary to apologise and to ask for a full list of the items that were being stored in the centre.”Shona added: "Once we have that we’ll be able to conduct a full search.

“We’ll be reviewing our processes to make sure this can’t happen again."

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