CONTROVERSIAL plans which would see the creation of a performing arts centre in Dunfermline are set to be decided by councillors later this month.

The Alhambra Theatre Trust wants to change the use of Watt & Dewar’s former ironmongers store, at 64 New Row, into a new performing arts centre and use common good land adjacent to it as a recreation space for theatre school students with the possibility of it becoming an outdoor performance area.

The Ironmongers Studio would include a theatre with 200 seats, an arthouse cinema and a headquarters for the Alhambra Stage and Dance School.

Fife Council has confirmed that they are aiming to determine the application by July 27.

The application sparked a row earlier this year when the members of Fife Council’s City of Dunfermline area committee agreed to the first step in leasing to the Trust a piece of common good land next to the proposed development site.

Central Dunfermline Community Council believe the area should stay in public hands and they have already made a complaint to the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman in relation to the way the case has been dealt with.

The plot was gifted to the “City and Royal Burgh of Dunfermline” in 1962 by the Carnegie Dunfermline & Hero Fund trustees with a prohibition on development in order that it be maintained as open space.

Currently used as an ornamental formal garden with flower beds, shrubs and benches, it is 376 square metres in size and next to the old Watt & Dewar building at 62 New Row.

Back in May, the Press reported that the Alhambra Theatre Trust said the “ongoing bluster” from the community council and the SNP masked “an underlying attempt to derail the entire stage school project”.

They said the site would not be built on, would be improved and made available to stage school students and the general public.