Plans to tear down one of Kirkcaldy’s landmarks have been met with dismay by a group dedicated to preserving the town’s heritage.
”It is a well known fact that owners of listed buildings will wait until that building is unsafe and then request permission to demolish it. We have lost many important parts of Kirkcaldy’s past heritage that way.
”Councils should ensure that listed buildings are maintained by their owners.”
The building has lain empty since 1985, when the last active use of the premises for industrial purposes ceased, but has fallen into a severe state of disrepair after being acquired by Fife Enterprise in 1990.
With scaffolding currently surrounding the structure for health and safety reasons, costing £100,000 a year, reports commissioned by Scottish Enterprise claim it will cost at least £600,000 to carry out emergency repairs to the building, £1 million to make it wind and watertight, and £2.35 million for a full internal refurbishment.
But Mrs Watters said: ”Fife Enterprise bought the site for a very small amount. They were then offering it for sale for £3 million. They should have been glad to hand it back to Fife Council for a much-needed sports centre for Kirkcaldy.”
She continued: ”Thirty years for a building lying empty is not a long time and we have an excellent example of the Foyer after 30 years empty. Money that could be spent on worthwhile projects are continually leaking away to Dunfermline plans for a new museum and refurbishment of Carnegie Pool to give examples.
”Come on Fife Council: play fair with Kirkcaldy.”
Mrs Watters added that no one should have any sympathy for Scottish Enterprise for the cost of the scaffolding to protect pedestrians and road users, as ”if they had maintained the building while in their ownership they would not be liable for these costs.”
”It is also time Fife Council insisted that owners of listed buildings maintained them or were charged by the council for doing the necessary work,” she said.
Members of Kirkcaldy Civic Society have expressed their outrage after Scottish Enterprise submitted proposals to demolish the A-listed Nairn’s Linoleum Works in Victoria Road/Nairn Street last week (link).
Efforts to market the site over the last two decades or so have failed, either due to a lack of public funds or commercial viability, and the building’s owners now believe razing the structure to the ground is the best way forward to regenerate the area.
However, the civic society is to fight the move and believes a key part of Kirkcaldy’s linoleum-making heyday should be retained for future generations.
Society chairwoman Ann Watters has been left incensed that the plans have now come forward and hopes councillors will reject the proposal when they consider the issue now likely to be some time next year.
She said the land would have been the ideal place for the town’s proposed sports centre and swimming pool, which is now being built on the open air Tolbooth Street car park, and suggested the Nairn building could have been preserved for its ”unique historic interest” and would also provide much-needed facilities for Kirkcaldy and parking for clients.
”But no,” she said. ”Fife Council has been too mean to spend money despite the public outcry about the open-air parking site they will soon choose for the new pool. At the same time they have wasted money on the Green Corridor and are continuing to waste another £2.4 million on the museum and library refurbishment.
”I suspect that once again it is council officers who are ruling this council’s decisions.”
Mrs Watters added that councillors considering the decision might be swayed by notes that ”are not always easy intentionally for the layman to understand”, and suggested much of what goes out for consultation to the public or councillors does not give full details.
Commenting on suggestions that the Nairn’s land could be turned into a residential or retail development, Mrs Watters added: ”This building and the land surrounding it was never to be used for housing or shops. Kirkcaldy has plenty of empty houses, flats and shops.”
Continued…