A NEW artificial football pitch will be installed at Pitreavie playing fields in Dunfermline after Fife Council gave plans the go-ahead.

The full-size, all-weather surface, which is likely to cost at least £300,000, was approved by planners after Pitreavie 20/20, the venue’s operators, submitted an application in December.

The project will see an existing grass pitch, in front of the pavilion, ripped up and replaced by 3G synthetic astroturf, measuring 110 metres x 60m.

It will be sited next to the smaller, artificial ‘cage’ pitches that are already on the site, and will have eight-metre-high floodlights and security fencing – measuring four metres in height – around the playing area.

Following consultation with bodies such as sportscotland, councillors gave the plans their backing on condition that the proposed floodlighting be approved by the council, and that they would only be used between 8am and 10pm between Mondays and Fridays, and 10am and 9pm on Saturdays and Sundays.

The approval comes after previous plans for an artificial pitch at Pitreavie, as part of the ambitious 10-year masterplan, ‘A Sports Facilities Strategy for Fife’ that was approved in 2008, were halted.

Planning permission was granted in August 2012 and funding was set aside for the project, which envisaged an SFA-backed £4 million academy.

But legal wrangling over Pitreavie’s lease, and the plunge of Dunfermline Athletic, who trained there, into administration saw the cash instead invested in a new sports facility in Rosyth.

After the situation at Pitreavie was resolved, a new group called Pitreavie 20/20 took over and it is now the Pitreavie Sport and Soccer Centre.

Back in July 2015, they outlined ambitious plans for the site, with the aim of creating a “community sports asset that is the envy of many other communities across Scotland”.