Planning application lodged for former maternity hospital site

Moves to transform a former Fife hospital site have moved on with the submission of two planning applications.

Liverpool-based AEL Developments Ltd and NHS Fife want to construct 42 houses and 14 flats at the empty Forth Park Hospital in Kirkcaldy.

The application includes the creation of new access roads, pavements and landscaping.

The Bennochy Road site has been earmarked for development since the hospital closed in January 2012, following the opening of a new maternity wing at Victoria Hospital.

Forth Park had previously been used for maternity, gynaecology and care of the elderly services.

A second application seeks to alter the B-listed mansion house in the hospital grounds, demolish the modern rear extension, alter the former coach house, stables and cottage block and demolish other buildings in the grounds.

A proposal of application notice was submitted to Fife Council in February.

This was followed by a public exhibition at the Steadings, where people were invited to view the plans and make comments.

Planning permission in principle was granted in 2014 for a residential development of 69 homes on the site, which would have included the conversion of the historic mansion house and associated stables, however that has since lapsed.

The mansion, which was built around 1860, has fallen into a poor state of repair and is included on the Buildings at Risk Register for Scotland.