Kirkcaldy’s £20million: call for transparency and new forum to get town on same page

Love Oor Lang Toun (LOLT) also wants to see a new Regeneration Forum set up to bring together the project teams and key groups and people in the Lang Toun.

Its call comes on the back of last week’s drop-in sessions attended by around 300 people on the next steps on where the UK Government’s Growth Mission Fund will be spent, and how it fits into a much wider framework.

LOLT was launched to give the town centre a voice following the demise of BID Kirkcaldy4All.

In calling for greater transparency, it said: “While the drop-in session was informative, we were unfortunately left with doubts about exactly how much of the plans could still be influenced, and how decisions are being made and who by.”

The organisation raised a number of issues it said could be addressed by a new forum co-chaired by the council and a community representative.

They included: A business case for the new building – what will it be used for, how can the community take a lead in ensuring it thrives, what changes are needed now to plans to ensure all possible uses are accounted for?

What proposals are there to improve the High Street and its existing buildings? Is there an opportunity to remove all or part of the Mercat, and facilitate the relocation of businesses and charities to vacant premises? Could some be converted to residential use? In the earlier iteration of plans at the previous event there were proposals to demolish some buildings to allow a through-flow from the Town Square to the waterfront – an idea which, it said, has been supported throughout all its own extensive consultations. How can this ambition be realised in the latest version of the scheme? LOLT also welcomed the “apparent acceleration of the development of a green space plan, and Greener Kirkcaldy’s role in that” - but questioned how it can progress without clarity on the basic shape of the proposed development. For example, what opportunity is there to blend the newly revamped Volunteers Green into the overall scheme? And it wanted to know what is being spent on each part of the project, and what spending can the community directly influence? LOLT said it understood the new hub came with a £7million price tag.

Ryan Strachan, development manager at LOLT, said: “With an investment as big and important as this we need and expect extensive ongoing discussion about plans and their implementation. The establishment of a forum for regular interaction between the project team(s) and community stakeholders on the big picture for Kirkcaldy is an urgent next step.

“LOLT stands ready, along with our partners, to promote and facilitate ongoing dialogue with the community”.