Love Oor Lang Toun brings empty shop unit back to life as new town centre hub

The independent community organisation is moving into the former Bodycare shop at 188 High Street, turning it into a warm space, a place for hot desking and energy advice - and raising its own profile. It also plans to use its shop window for a what’s on guide to help support the many venues staging events and concerts.

The move comes following the appointment of Ryan Strachan as its new development manager following the retiral of Danny Cepok, and work is set to start on bringing the shell of a building back into use.

Love Oor Lang Toun (LOLT) was launched in 2020 in a bid to keep the focus on the regeneration of our town centre a voice following the closure of BID company, Kirkcaldy4All. It has since helped to lead on a number of events, including the Christmas lights switch on as well as delivering a vision document which showed how many of the High Street’s empty units could be re-purposed.

Now it is set to have its first permanent base in the heart of the town centre.

Ryan joined after working in hospitality and the third sector, most recently with Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and then the Edinburgh Food Project during lockdown, and Fresh Start, Scotland’s biggest charity, which supports people coming out of homelessness.

On his new premises he said: “It is a shell - but a big shell. The community payback team is coming in to do the decorating over the next few weeks and we will get it carpeted and start to build it up.

“I want to make as much use of the space as possible, and also hear the voices of people and groups in the town. We are not the council, we are not a private trader – we wear many hats,” he said. “It will be a place where people can drop in and get advice. That happened when I worked in Edinburgh but what they needed wasn’t always part of my remit so we extended that role and got the support in place

“The central part will be a display space to showcase local work and hot desking for any professional and students to use. There are lots of projects and events going on here - the more I know about the better as we want to create a what’s on noticeboard in the window as a focal point.

“I want to see it updated weekly, and make it the first port of call for people so we need people to tell us. We’ll work with groups to get our name out there.”

Ryan’s arrival co-incides with moves to add more trustees to the board, and he is currently working plants for this year’s Christmas lights switch on with a number of local groups. He wants to make it a special day to create a buzz in the High Street.

“I’d like to turn it into a full day event,” he said. “Let’s make it a special day - a key event that brings people into town and hopefully leads to an uplift in footfall for traders. Christmas is a key period for the town centre, and I hope we can make it bigger and better.”

The aim is to get the new hub up and running at the start of the year after a refit is completed. Ryan’s role is part-time but marks a new chapter in the LOLT story which started in lockdown, with Cara Forrester as chair of the board.

“I’ve enjoyed it so far,” It is great to be working again with the commercial and third sectors.”