The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Wheels in motion to breathe new life into former animal centre
DUNFERMLINE: Plans would see Pittencrieff Park centre transformed into cycling hub
Ambitious plans could see the transformation of a derelict Fife animal centre into a cycling hub.
Dunfermline area councillors will be asked to contribute £90,000 towards changing the former animal park in Pittencrieff Park into a multi-purpose cycling centre.
The Carnegie Dunfermline Trust has already given a commitment to cover the equipment cost involved in the first two phases of the initiative.
Dunfermline Cycle Club will then cover all the running costs once located in the new unit.
The committee has invested significant sums of money over the last five years to develop a network of cycle ways which connect many of Dunfermline’s green spaces.
This project is the next phase and looks to build on the foundations which have already been laid in green travel, the environment and the general health and wellbeing of local people.
The centre would use some of the buildings which previously made up the animal centre in the Glen.
Various partners have come together to promote cycling as an alternative mode of travel and consider how best to promote the pastime to a wider audience.
Dunfermline Cycle Club, formed around 1935 and the largest in Fife, is prepared to become the lead organisation, providing responsibility for developing the building and its uses within the partnership which includes Sustrans, Carnegie Cyclones, Cyclestart, Cycle Without Age Chapter, Talking Tandems, Fife Council Active Communities and Dunfermline Carnegie Trust.
It will be a new lease of life for the centre which has lain in a state of disrepair for many years.
While it has served as a storage area for the team in the Glen, it now has the potential to add to the mix of activities visitors come to expect from a town centre park.
The councillors will hear there are many good cycling initiatives developing across the area and local cycle clubs have been very pro-active in promoting the activity.
It is felt that this proposal would allow all that work to be consolidated and expanded which in turn would offer a wider range of experience for the local community.
It will be a new lease of life for the centre which has lain in a state of disrepair for many years