Revitalising Fife’s economy

Fife Council is currently streamlining its surplus commercial property base

Fife Council is in the midst of a programme to dispose of many of its commercial properties.

The aim of this move by Scotland’s third-largest council is to breathe new life into buildings and thereby rejuvenate the local economy while securing income from streamlining its surplus asset base.

Shepherd Chartered Surveyors has been appointed as the main agent to manage this process through the Crown Commercial Service Estates Professional Services framework in Scotland, an executive agency and trading fund of the Cabinet Office of the UK Government responsible for improving government commercial and procurement activity.

Ranging across industrial, offices, retail, land and leisure, properties vary significantly in both style and price, from £25,000 for a property in Glenrothes to the £700,000 sale at closing date for a property in Cupar, with many well-suited for conversions into other use classes such as residential, food and drink and leisure.

The disposal programme got off to a flying start last year with the sale of 35,000 sq ft of warehouse/office accommodation on a 4.4-acre site at Preston Hall Depot in Prestonhall Industrial Estate, Cupar.

Shepherd receives disposal instructions on a monthly basis and is currently managing nine live instructions throughout Fife with two properties under offer and one set for a closing date.

Having inspected all the properties and given its valuations and reports back to Fife Council, Shepherd then markets each property individually throughout its established network of contacts in the UK commercial property sector.

The high level of interest shown in the portfolio of properties brought to the market to date continues unabated, with the latest in a long line of closing dates being set.

Pathhead Hall in Kirkcaldy is being sold by Fife Council.