WORK on an £800,000 Dunfermline city square could start in early 2025 if approved.

The development of the gap site between High Street and the bus station was due to begin in the late spring or early summer and take 18 months.

Fife Council are using Scottish Government cash for the project and said the new space would host farmers’ markets, performances, and events.

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However, in February Cllr Aude Boubaker-Calder called for businesses to be involved in the process as the works could affect them.

And in April Dunfermline MSP Shirley-Anne Somerville said she had spoken to a number of High Street firms and "there has not been a great deal of enthusiasm" for the city square. 

City of Dunfermline area committee convener, James Calder, had hit back and said her intervention was "more about political point scoring" than what was good for the the city. 

Now the council are preparing for the designs to be submitted next month for approval.

A spokesperson added: “We've appointed the team who'll finalise the designs which will be submitted next month for planning permission and conservation area consent.

“That will be decided in the autumn and, if approved, contractors can be appointed to start work in early 2025.”

Cllr Calder had previously told the Press: "The new city square is really going to make the whole High Street area a more enjoyable, nicer and more welcoming place.

"It will become a centrepiece for Dunfermline."

The project will resolve an issue that's been more than 30 years in the making.

The gap site was once dominated by a huge Co-op department store – where you could buy anything and everything – that stood on both sides of Randolph Street.

However it closed in 1990 and over the years the boarded up buildings became derelict and a prominent High Street eyesore.

Alfred Stewart Properties Ltd bought the site in September 1999 but after losing patience with the company for their failure to redevelop the site, the council moved to demolish the buildings and pursued a compulsory purchase order in February 2006, eventually paying £3m.

The land was put up for sale, there was talk of shops, restaurants or an hotel, but those plans never came to fruition and no-one bought it.

In time a winding path was installed to connect the bus station to High Street.