New look for Beveridge Park Bowling Club

The clubhouse, which has been a feature of Kirkcaldy’s biggest park since the early 1930s, has undergone a £100,000 refurbishment and club secretary, Andy Mathieson, said the result is a massive improvement on the previously “shocking” facilities.

“We first mooted this project about three years ago because we need to improve our facilities as a whole,” he said.

“What we wanted to do is make it more of a community hub for the Beveridge Park area and we needed to do to bring it up to a decent standard.”

The refit has seem improvements to the toilets, the installation of a disabled toilet facility and ramped access for disabled people.

Sadly, a re-opening ceremony planned for September 26 has been cancelled due to the current pandemic.

“We actually host the Disability Sport Fife wheelchair championships and disabled bowlers every year,” Andy says, so it was badly needed.

“We also wanted to extend the premises which we have done, so now we are going to be open for 12 months of the year.

“We want to include people from the community and we’ve actually been approached by some groups already.

“That’s not practical at the moment because of the circumstances we’re all working under, but it shows that there is a need for what we are wanting to do.”

Raising the funding was a big undertaking.

“We were given £50,000 from Fife Environment Trust, the Robertson Trust gave us £10,000 and we got a substantial amount of money from various bodies within Fife Council - almost £30,000,” Andy says.

“Then, members of the club donated a huge amount to make up the balance, and we had crowdfunding via our website.

“The contractors, MPJ and DMR, continued to work during lockdown, which was a huge benefit to us.”

Andy says the final result, which included a fresh coat of paint from individuals through the Community Payback Scheme, have left him “ecstatic”.

He added: “We are back to a certain extent the members who have come to play at the club are absolutely delighted with it.”