Fife and Scotland - the offbeat perspective

In current times, Fife is the smallest administrative region within a devolved Scottish Parliament of the United Kingdom and has a total population of about 350,000 people. There are no cities in Fife but the region lies centrally between Edinburgh, Dundee and Perth. More than a third of the population live in the four main towns of Dunfermline, Kirkcaldy, Glenrothes and St Andrews. This section describes these four communities.

Glenrothes is a town located approximately mid way between the cities of Dundee and Edinburgh. It's the smallest of the three main towns in Fife and is the regional administration capital. It's name originates from the family of Leslie, Earl of Rothes, who formerly owned much of the land on which the town is built. The town is sited on both northern and southern sides of a valley (or 'glen' in old Scots language) through which the River Leven flows and where the town's Riverside Park is located. The title is thus derived from 'the glen of Rothes' or Glenrothes. It was believed that usage of this name would also avoid confusion with the town of Rothes in Morayshire.

Originally conceived as a 'post-war new town' under the New Towns (Scotland) Act of 1946, the initial plan was to create 'a self contained and balanced community' with an intended population of about 35,000 people and where a sizeable proportion of the residents were expected to find employment in the new Rothes 'super colliery' being established to the south of the town. The new colliery was expected to extract five thousand tonnes of coal per day and to have a working life of about a century. It was expected to require a workforce of nearly four thousand miners and with many others working in supporting industries. In preparation, management of the new town was awarded to the Glenrothes Development Corporation (GDC) by the Secretary of State for Scotland and the first meeting of the new organisation took place in 1949 with the primary objective being the development of a town plan and provison of affordable accommodation for miners and their families.

As the mine project progressed however, experienced miners employed in other nearby pits predicted there would be serious problems concerning flooding and more. Despite this, the project went ahead and a new rail marshalling yard was established at Redford beside the colliery. Such predictions assumed reality soon after the new colliery was opened amid great fanfare by Queen Elizabeth in 1957 and beyond redemption. It closed just four years later in 1961 having employed fifteen hundred people and far fewer than expected.

Unlike Livingston, Cumbernauld and East Kilbride, Glenrothes had never been designed as an overspill town for a nearby city. The GDC was compelled to refocus efforts on attracting new and very different industries to the town.The area selected for the establishment of the new town was initially centred around the existing hamlet of Woodside with other similar sized small communities such as Leslie, Cadham, Markinch, Coaltown of Balgonie and Thornton surrounding it. Some of these communities were already home to coal miners and Leslie already had a reputation for the manufacture of paper.

Expanding from Woodside village, the new town grew along different lines from traditional town planning with major separation of areas between those assigned to industrial purposes and that dedicated to residential housing. Although less evident in older parts of the town, through traffic was discouraged by means of establishing precincts in which all roads were cul-de-sacs and with an open park area and a primary school existing in the centre. Surrounding each precinct is a ring road and where access to each street is from this ring road. Main traffic through the town was constrained to major roads and where the use of roundabouts consumed much land but created a better traffic flow system than automated traffic lights would allow. Today, there are more roundabouts in Glenrothes than all other roundabouts in Fife when added together. Some of these have been sufficiently large as to invite the imagination of horticultural pioneers, and whose efforts have contributed towards awards won by the town. The town received a Silver Guilt award in the 'Britain in Bloom' competition in 2009 and the David Welsh Memorial Award and the Large Town 'Take a Pride' award in 2010! By contrast, Glenrothes received a Carbuncle Award from the Urban Realm and Carnyx Group for its 'depressed and investment starved town centre' in 2009 but that maybe says more about the award than the town itself!

Following four phases and expansions, the Kingdom Centre was temporarily the largest indoor shopping centre in Scotland. It contains in excess of one hundred retail outlets supported by ample car parking, much of which is free of charge. The Kingdom Centre is home to the Rothes Halls theatre and conference centre, a cinema and one of the towns libraries. Naturally, and largely on account of the town's central location, the Kingdom Centre has the largest omnibus terminal in the region. A new expansion to the Kingdom Centre is scheduled soon and likely to include either a Tesco or Sainbury supermarket. This new expansion will see some of the Fife Regional Offices being demolished to make way for the expansion and where the Regional Operations will be conducted from a large building in the Bankhead part of the town.

Outwith and close by to the Kingdom Centre are Aldi, Lidl, Asda and Morrison supermarkets, each with their own free car parking facilities. In addition, the town has a number of former industrial areas relegated to that of trading estates and where DIY, carpet and flooring products, glazing and blinds etc are located. There are several mini-shopping centres in the town and most precincts have individual shops providing basic necessities.

In terms of housing, the older precincts followed tried and proven methods of construction but later generations of building style in the 1960s were introduced and not always with success. Luckily, the town avoided the worst problems concerning 'high rise' blocks and is mostly 'low-rise' developments with most people having their own gardens.

Although four blocks akin to the solitary 'Raeburn Heights' were planned, only one was built and is now a well managed residential structure. By comparison, the sixteen five storey residential blocks built in the western end of the town quickly fell into poor condition with many now being progressively demolished and replaced by more conventional residential properties.

The names of each precinct often originate from stately homes and estates, (Balgeddie, Balbirnie, Leslie Parks), or names of the farms that were formerly located there, (Rimbleton, Caskieberran, Tanshall, Stenton, Finglassie, Collydean), or hamlets pre-existing before the town was born, (Woodside and Cadham).

In 1959, Beckman Instruments became the first of several prominent inward investors from the USA and was followed by many others including Raytheon (then called Hughes), Burroughs mainframe computers and Cessna Fluid Power (a part of the Cessna aircraft corporation from Witchita in Kansas). They were all big investors and large employers and in honour of their presence and participation in the development of the town, many road names within industrial zones were given 'American' titles like 'Detroit Road' and where examples still exist in modern times. Early maps of the town described the Kinglassie Road as the 'Southern Freeway' and even a description of the north-south middle route was known as the 'western distributor' and perhaps with American influence. At differing times in the town's history, many companies based in the USA had satellite operations based in Glenrothes and providing valuable employment.

There were many indigenous companies who also made their mark by investing in Glenrothes, and in the early 1970s, it was actually difficult to be unemployed on account of the number of vacancies with too few people skilled enough or able to fill them. The town expanded quite rapidly on this basis and drew in many people from other parts of Fife and Scotland. It was actually possible to arrive in the morning, secure employment before lunch and be offered a house before the day was over! By then, some of the smaller communities originally surrounding the new town had become absorbed and integral parts of a 'Greater Glenrothes' street plan and where the former target for a township of 35,000 people was revised to a newer target of 50,000!

In current times, former boundaries of the new town are virtually indistiguishable between neighbouring towns of the Coaltown Of Balgonie, Markinch, Thornton and Leslie, and although these communities still retain many traits of their former existence and status, they have undoubtedly been altered and changed by close proximity to the new town. A few of these small communities, like Cadham, have been completely overtaken and absorbed within the new town

The notion of a 'Greater Glenrothes' and all inclusive of the communities described above doesn't erase or remove individuality in terms of architecture, appearance or history but it is equally undeniable that all are now all influenced by huge measure and on a daily basis by the new town. There are thus no separate entries for these communities on this web site as they can now be regarded as part of this 'Greater Glenrothes' scheme.

Today, Glenrothes generates about thirty-five thousand jobs and has the highest inward commuter traffic compared to any other town in Fife. It's a more cosmopolitan society comprising a sizeable faction of foreign workers with Polish language regularly heard on some streets of the town.

Despite this, unemployment rates in the area are typically slightly higher than the Scottish average.

Surprisingly, for such a young town, there are now three churches considered as listed buildings. St Margaret's Church in the Woodside area is a category C, while St Pauls RC Church in the Auchmuty precinct has been awarded category B. St Columba's church, with its distinctive triangular iron bell tower and Mondrian inspired stain glass windows carries a category A rating. In addition, the huge rail bridge spanning the Leven valley between Thornton to the south of the new town and Markinch to the east of the new town; and an important part of the eastern Scottish rail network, carries a category B listing. To the west of Glenrothes is the B-listed Cabbagehall Railway Viaduct which once carried a branch rail line connecting Leslie to Markinch over the River Leven Valley. Today, the route of the old rail line serves as a cycle path and pedestrian walkway permitting people to cross from Leslie in the west to Woodside in the east then onto Markinch while rarely encountering motorised traffic.

It's called Bõblingen Way and in recognition of the twin-towns concept whereby Glenrothes is twinned with Bõblingen, a town in the Baden-Wüttemberg part of Germany. It's one of the longest and best cycle routes in Fife.

Development of Glenrothes demanded inclusion of proper educational and recreational facilities beyond that of primary schools centred within many precincts. Three large secondary age schools are based in the town and the oldest, Auchmuty High School, has been scheduled for replacement albeit subject to national economic stringency and where this project may be postponed. South Parks (pictured) and Glenwood are the other secondary schools in the town. All of them offer out-of-normal-hours usage by the public. The are thirteen primary schools in Glenrothes. On August 1st, 2005, Glenrothes Technical College merged with the nearby Kirkcaldy Technical College and became rebranded as the Adam Smith College to become the third largest college establishment in Scotland.

New departments of further education and learning created for the new college include engineering, manufacture and support, modern building construction, low carbon emission and capture technologies, renewable energy resources and science. Even before it opened the ASC had secured many important deals with local industry involving 'apprenticeship contracts' involving renewable energy engineering.

The sports complex of the town is the FIPRE or Fife Institute of Physical Reacreation and Education. It's a large facility containing floodlit athletics tracks and astro turf pitches outside while the main building has a large gymnasium and two swimming pools.The town has three 18-hole golf courses conveniently located at Markinch to the east, Tanshall to the west and Thornton to the south. Leslie has a 9 hole course. The Tanshall golf course is home to a golfing academy. Glenrothes FC is a junior club who regularly play at the Warout Club and Stadium. More than a third of the town area is given over to forest and grassland so residents are never far from wide open spaces in which to walk their dogs or play games.

This policy extends to that of the road system within the town. Many precincts are designed so that through traffic within the precinct is restricted or impossible with each street being a cul-de-sac and where access is made by means of a ring road surrounding the precinct. In place of traffic lights and control systems, Glenrothes has more roundabounts within its town boundaries than all other rondabouts in the whole region of Fife when added together! Most have names to help with navigation and are suffienciently large to encourage horticultural masterpieces.

Glenrothes was one the first places in Scotland to appoint a town artist and where some of the works were conducted on a large scale at considerable cost. The metal 'flight of birds' near Fife House (not shown) was reputed to have cost about £7,000 to build and install. Some of these works were questionable like the stone hippos and mushrooms but the giant colourful iris flowers beside the Leslie Road remain a distinctive landmark. Most of these structures were created at a time when there was huge confidence and energy about the future and ambition was unlimited.

Circa 1980, and like many other towns, the economy started to take a turn for the worse. The UK entry to the EEC in 1972 proved disasterous for local farms and fishing and the Thatcherist Conservative Government of 1979 was hell-bent on destruction of the coal mining industry: all of which had an impact on the new town in large measure. At that time, a square foot of factory space in Glenrothes cost £2.38 while the charge in Italy was typically 90p. Glenrothes had many inward investors who decided that relocation elsewhere and closer to their markets made good business sense. The economic recession of the 1990s saw many companies withdraw support for satellite extensions of their business. In the case of Glenrothes, this often meant closure and where the main base in the USA took precedence. The Burroughs computer factory was destroyed in a fire and the company decided not to replace it. The site lay vacant for years before it becoming the site of the regional police headquarters pictured on the left. A number of companies came and went, moving towards the lower wage economies of the Far East. Many ambitious projects planned for the town evaporated with their passing. Today, there are visual clues to where projects began but were never completed.

The most obvious is the Bankhead Interchange on the A92 regional road. As planned, it should have been an elevated roundabout with the main regional road running beneath it but the project ran out of money and became the traffic bottleneck in existence today. It's the reason why motorists climb to a high point before dropping quickly on many approaches to this roundabout. It's equally sad to relate how the B822 'Cluny Road' is the second main link between Glenrothes and Kirkcaldy. The junction at Inchdairnie is particularly hazardous in darkness at peak times and where long queues exceeding a mile long have become common. The 40 mph restriction is regularly ignored and adds to the problem rather than resolves it. It's a junction more in need of traffic lights than almost anywhere else in Fife! There were plans to upgrade the local airfield into a proper 'Fife Airport' with an extended runway and new terminal building, custom officers etc but it never happened and leaving a few road signs pointing to 'Fife Airport' in the local area. Today, the airfield is privately owned and often serves to train pilots of light aircraft and students of the Royal Air Force.

In conclusion, Glenrothes has been compelled to follow the course of many UK towns caught in a similar dilemma and where many ambitions and dreams have evaporated and where many jobs have been exported to the Far East. Some industrial estates have been translated into trading estates while others are currently being considered as potential locations for future housing. Whitehill Industrial Estate, for example, might have become so at this time of writing but for the global banking crisis and UK National Debt.

Credits:

Photographs by Michael Westwater and Alandon. Text by Alandon.