Kirkcaldy’s £20million at heart of much bigger picture as drop-in sessions update plans

A £20million pot of funding is waiting to be invested, and the ideas generated in the biggest single debate this town has seen in many years are being distilled into a blueprint which will sit at the very heart of a much bigger picture.

The feedback from Fife Council’s drop-in sessions at the Town House on Thursday (May 28) will then be added to the mix with more community feedback sessions to follow on June 23 and August 25.

The multi-million £ Growth Mission Fund investment sits at the heart of a much wider framework to spark transformative change in our town centre and waterfront.

And the council’s ultimate goal is to create a vision that the town gets behind.

Council leaders and senior executives at the helm of the project know they cannot possibly deliver everything on the wish list - the £20million doesn’t even touch the sides in that respect - but see the opportunities the funding can deliver.

The drop-in sessions aim to update the work done so far and place it in context of other key projects across the town centre.

And there is a lot of ground to cover.

Consultants, Collective Architecture, will talk about the feedback so far and give an overview of the road ahead, Greener Kirkcaldy will speak about the greening of the waterfront, and Kingdom Housing Association will be present to talk about its project with Cruden Homes to create a major new housing development on the site of the former Postings Shopping Centre. A planning application is expected to be submitted by the end of the year.

There are also plans to tear down some buildings long past their use- by date, and re-purpose others - what do we want, and what can we do with sites once occupied by BhS and M&S to name but two - a new waterfront park, and there’s the whole issue of what to do with the Mercat Shopping Centre.

And then there’s the growth hub - a new building proposed for the vast service bay that sat largely hidden from view and underused behind the former Royal bank of Scotland building at the back of the now demolished multi-story car parks.

Its original outline as a business and enterprise hub didn’t land with the public. It is now billed as a flexible community space. A planning application is expected in June when more detail will emerge - and it remains integral to the bigger picture.

Councillor David Ross, leader of Fife Council, explained: “It shows investors and developers something positive is happening. We then hope that this drives further investment.

“The site is also the most difficult to build on because of the different levels - it could easily sit empty for ten to 15 years and be a blight on commercial investment.

“There has been debate internally and externally about the hub as a training centre, and a lot of ideas have been put forward - it can be an event space with opportunities for creatives, it could have a restaurant or cafe. It offers something that pulls people into town for a visit.”

Getting spades into the ground is a key driver for the council. The £20million funding has to be spent by 2029 - that is a very short timescale for projects of this scale.

The council is aware of the need to move quickly, and it is hoping the business case it submits to the UK Government will be signed off by Autumn. By then there will have been further drop-in sessions to fine tune the framework that both it, and the town, wants to see actioned.

Cllr Ross added: “This is much wider than the Growth Mission Fund. We were planning demolition work before the £20million funding. We have made changes to the Esplanade, and got more links to the High Street - a lot of that work came from our 2015 development plan.

“Things have moved on since that document. The £20million has really helped accelerate things but there is much more that needs to be done.

“There are a lot of ideas coming forward and this is a real opportunity for everyone to be part of the discussions.”

One outcome of the feedback already has been to push the waterfront development further up the agenda.

“When we got the funding, green space was put as a lower priority,” said Cllr Ross. “What we have got from people is that they want early wins - things such as coffee stops and toilets along the waterfront, they have been asked for for years.”

For Louise Playford, property service manager who is leading on the transformation project, the focus is very much on the wider framework of town centre and waterfront transformation.

That means having a blueprint that can be adapted as and when funding becomes available and investors step in. She calls it the “meanwhile usage” - bringing key sites back to life while potential developers are wooed in the longer-term.

She said: “We know we cannot deliver everything from the start. Some things will take time.

“If we start taking down buildings, what can we do while something permanent is found? Meanwhile usage is an important part of the consultation, If there are things we can do with the land, it means we can deliver.”

The drop-in sessions will allow officers and consultants to spotlight the feedback so far and Louise admits: “There are a lot of ideas coming forward and this is a real opportunity for everyone to be part of the discussions.”

The team at the heart of the project see challenges as opportunities - and there is much to build upon.

“Kirkcaldy has so much to offer - the Adam Smith Theatre, Kirkcaldy Galleries, the Kings are among multiple offerings we have.,” said Cllr Ross.

“We have been talking to Greener Kirkcaldy, the Corra Foundation, Adam Smith Global Foundation, Fife College, and NHS Fife, and they have all brought ideas to the table. There are a lot of opportunities. We have to work our way through them.”

He argues that the consultants have a vital role to play in that mix too - “we needed someone independent who could gather all the views and pull together something that range of aspirations. They have carried out many such projects and have a clear eye on what we want here.”

It’s a view amplified by Councillor Ian Cameron, convener of Kirkcaldy area committee.

His hope is the consultation delivers a blueprint that people get behind.

“We want people on the same page. - that’s the target. The framework is much wider and if we drive it forward with one vision that gives us a competitive advantage over other towns. If we have a disconnected voice, investors will go elsewhere. We have to be behind the framework once it goes live.

“Everyone is passionate about the town centre and we want to capture that at the drop-in sessions. That desire and interest is our strength.

“We want a town centre where people want to live and work, and we want to get this right for the town centre.

“And delivery is the key. This is a huge integrated framework - we need a new primary school and secondary school, so you are talking about hundreds of millions of £s - but we have to start somewhere.

“There is a passion to deliver and a belief that we will. We have the college and health sectors on board, we have a vibrant third sector heavily involved. We have a lot that other towns do not - nd we have an amazing waterfront.

“Kirkcaldy has the same problems as many other towns, but this an incredible opportunity.”This work forms part of a wider programme to transform Kirkcaldy and is currently being taken forward through the following projects, with more to come as the programme develops.

> Public drop-in sessions:

There’s no need to book for Thursday’s event – you can go along to the Town House at a time that suits you between 2:00 to 5:00pm, and 6:00pm to 8:00pm

> At the you event you will

Find out more about the long-term plan for the town centre and waterfront

See how previous feedback is shaping the plan

Share your own views on how these areas could be improved

Learn more about the next stage of town centre improvements, funded through the UK Government Growth Mission

Meet the teams delivering the work

There will also be stalls from Greener Kirkcaldy and Kingdom Housing.

> Can’t make the date?

Information and opportunities to share your views are available online at transformingkirkcaldy.fife.scot