LONG-AWAITED work on the Glen Bridge in Dunfermline is now set to be carried out early next year.

The project, which will include embankment stabilisation, reconstruction of the footpath and security fencing beneath the bridge, had been planned to take place last year.

Updating members of the City of Dunfermline area committee last week, Fife Council co-ordinator (programme and financial management) Vicki Connor said the project had been put back because the original design, which had been proposed, was not viable.

She added: "It is programmed to be done in March of next year."

Councillor Jean Hall Muir welcomed the news and said: "It is a really integral part of our city centre. There have been some very ambitious plans. There's fixing the immediate issue but bigger plans for that area. It is so important and it is very complex."

As reported previously by the Press, the scene under the Glen Bridge has been a problem for years with fires reported and rubbish and waste dumped.

In March last year, a Dunfermline woman was left "disgusted" after counting 41 shopping trolleys abandoned.

Jacqueline Feeley said there was so much rubbish dumped on the route between St Margaret’s Cave and Buffies Brae that it “turned my stomach”.

She said: “I counted 41 trolleys in the space of a few hundred yards."

The area was also closed off in 2020 after being blighted by vandalism, other cases of fly-tipping and safety issues.

A fire, reported by the Press in 2018, is one example of some of the anti-social behaviour the bridge has attracted in recent years.