COUNCILLORS and various heads of Fife Council services conducted a walk around of Dunfermline city centre to see what areas need to be improved.

And there's a lengthy to-do list after the stroll last Wednesday.  

Dunfermline councillors Derek Glen, Gordon Pryde and James Calder were joined by council bosses from grounds maintenance, environmental services and roads and transportation as they identified a number of snagging issues. 

Cllr Glen said the next steps will be cleaning up the city as he told the Press: "We walked all the way up the High Street, Douglas Street, Queen Anne Street, Bruce Street and the Maygate.

"Really we were looking to do a sort of a snagging list of things that could and should be improved, some of which will be down to the council to improve, some of which will be up to the businesses themselves and others of which may even be third party."

They identified a number of issues, both cosmetic and more immediate, that they would like to be addressed.

Cllr Glen continued: "Amongst the eyesores on the High Street at the moment are a couple of sets of phone boxes, which I think very seldom get used for phoning and quite often get used for other, less pleasant things, and the net result is that the local area officers are compiling a list of stuff that it would be nice to improve.  

"That ranges from trees and plants that are growing on roofs that could potentially be dangerous if they’re not dealt with fairly soon, to uneven parts of the road surfaces, so the road transportation team will attend to those.

"There are some things that are cosmetic but still detract from the look and feel of the place and that includes years and years of chewing gum that’s dried and baked on the pavements. It's not really affecting the use of the city centre but the look of it is not good."

Not only will these maintenance plans help to improve the general opinion and look of the city centre, Cllr Glen feels as though this is a good first step towards achieving his goal of a "re-imagined" civic week for Dunfermline. 

In October, the Press reported that this idea of a community-wide effort, invoking the spirit of TV shows like 'DIY SOS', would be beneficial in tackling problems with 'quick wins' improving the look and atmosphere in the city centre.

The Dunfermline Central SNP councillor added: "Part of our drive to improve Dunfermline as a consequence of city status is to be able to both instil and also reflect the pride that people who live here feel about Dunfermline.

"It doesn't take long to trawl around some of the Facebook forums relating to Dunfermline to find folk criticising the high street for all sorts of different things whether its the condition, look and feel or the level of occupancy of the buildings.

"We can't necessarily directly influence the occupancy but we certainly can improve the look and feel."