PLANS that will see a road bridge built over the Fife Circle railway line at Halbeath are moving forward.

It's one of a range of transport infrastructure projects to do with the building of 8,000 houses in and around Dunfermline over the next 30 years.

Last week, Sweco, a Glasgow-based firm that offers rail engineering consultancy services, put in an application to Fife Council.

They've sought a screening opinion from the local authority, asking if an environmental impact assessment will need to be submitted as part of the planning process.

The road bridge over the railway line would see the removal of the level crossing at Halbeath and form part of the Northern Link Road (NLR), a huge new bypass that will take traffic away from the city centre and serve the new housing developments in the north and west of Dunfermline.

One of those developments will be the 1,400 new homes Taylor Wimpey are about to build between Halbeath and Kingseat.

The NLR will run between Halbeath and Milesmark and the estimated cost has already gone from £14 million in 2017 to £20m in 2020.

There will also be another bypass, the Western Distributor Road (WDR), which will run between the King Malcolm roundabout and Rumblingwell.

Plans for it include a further two bridges over railway lines and estimated costs have gone from £17m in 2017 to £26.8m in 2020.

Given the soaring prices and sky-high inflation we're experiencing, the costs for both roads are likely to be much higher now.

The changes are being driven by housebuilding and development with more than 8,000 houses to be built in and around Dunfermline to 2050.

There will also be five new primary schools – and £36m for secondary schools to help them cope with more pupils – as well as healthcare and community facilities, shops, parks, public art, green links and 80 hectares of employment land.

Last year, when the council approved the business case for the Dunfermline Strategic Transportation Intervention Measures (STIM) programme, they said it would sustain 1,000 construction jobs a year for 30 years.

The local authority said 1,000 other jobs would be created and 2,000 affordable homes delivered, with £220m of transport improvements and infrastructure paid for by developers.

The first of those projects was installing traffic lights at the roundabout outside Rosyth, which was completed in September last year after a delay of more than six months.

Traffic lights are also due to be put in at the Kings Road/Admiralty Road junction in Rosyth and on Bothwell Gardens roundabout in Dunfermline.

Road junctions will also be improved at Whitefield Road/Halbeath Road, William Street/ Pittencrieff Street and Rumblingwell/William Street.

The council have mapped out where the housebuilding should take place.

The Dunfermline Strategic Development Area (SDA) is focused on nine sites: Swallowdrum (900 houses), Berrylaw (950), Broomhall (2,150), Wellwood (1,100), Colton (450), land north of Wellwood (140), Chamberfield (40), Kent Street (120) and Halbeath (1,400).

However, there are very different rates of progress. While there is planning permission in place for Broomhall and Halbeath/Kingseat, as yet there are no firm plans, far less approval, for any new homes at Berrylaw.