How Glenrothes and Leven will spend £1.3m on town centre projects

The money from Fife’s allocation of £4.3m from the Scottish Government’s town centre fund will see action on masterplans and improvements to local amenities.

Councillors at today’s policy and co-ordination committee rubber-stamped officers’ proposals to give £570,000 to Glenrothes and £800,000 to Leven.

Kirkcaldy got the single biggest allocation of £1.6m.

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The bulk of the money in Glenrothes – £500,000 – will go to pushing on with the town’s masterplan with the aim of improving the town centre mix, and delivering commercial development.

A further £50,000 will be spent on creating safe, active and attractive pedestrian route-ways opposite the Kino Cinema to help the development of a night time economy. It will also create better linked cycle routes-ways throughout the town.

In Leven, councillors committed £450,000 to delivering phase two of the town centre regeneration plan.

They plan to focus on the north end of the High Street, improving connections to the promenade, creating hub spaces by changing the street layout; helping to redress imbalance between the north and south ends of the street.

The aim is to create a more pedestrian-friendly environment.

A further £350,000 will be spent on identifying long-term dilapidated town centre buildings to improve them and get them back on the market in the hope of attracting new investors on the main connection route between the High Street and edge of centre retail park.

Councillor David Ross, co-leader, said “We could have spent the money ten times over in Fife. It also sounds a lot of money, but, in real terms, when working on town centre projects, it isn’t a great deal.

“I recognise there is disappointment from some areas, but if we spread the money too thin then it would have less impact, and our clear priority is mid-Fife is the area that needs the most support.”

Officers now face a short timescale to get projects up and running, with anticipated quarterly reports on progress back to the Scottish Government.

“This is good news,” added Councillor Ross. “The projects will have a positive impact on our town centres.”