VETERAN Dunfermline Central councillor Bob Young has decided he won’t be standing in the Fife Council elections in May. 

First elected to serve in 1986, the former miners leader has been involved in local politics across four decades and counts the regeneration of Abbeyview as one of the biggest achievements in that time. 

Cllr Young, who was the only sacked miner in Britain to win his job back after the strike of 1984-85, said: “I had been selected to stand again but we then had a family meeting. 

“I’m coming up for 74 and I’d be 79 by the time the next council finishes. 

“I’ve done my bit and I’ve loved it. 

“I’ve helped start up the rights office, now CARF, a furniture project, Abbeyview Day Centre, the Jolly 60s Lunch Club, West Fife Drugs Project, a lot of them are still running today. 

“When I look at Abbeyview, the biggest contribution I made was helping to get it sorted.” 

The Dunfermline estate has undergone a major regeneration with old unpopular blocks of flats knocked down and replaced by much nicer homes. 

Its reputation has improved as a result and he explained: “I stayed in Duncan Crescent so I could see what was going wrong. 

“At that time they had the homeless unit down at Bute Crescent so anyone who was homeless from anywhere in Fife was put in Trondheim Parkway, Allan Crescent and Islay Road.

“There were plenty that caused no issues at all but we also had a lot of people that had problems who were dumped in one area and it just made those places ... not so good.”

Currently, the great-grandfather is chair of Fife Licensing Board and the west planning and regulation and licensing committees. 

But he’ll join a number of senior Labour figures who won’t contest May’s council elections in a changing of the old guard. 

He said: “I think there’s 12 of us not standing, you can understand Pat and Alice Callaghan’s reasons, then there’s me, Willie Campbell and Mike Shirkie and some others from across Fife, so you’re looking at 20 changes and that’s without the elections. 

“Throw them in as well and half of the council could change in May.”

Now a trustee of the Coalfield Regeneration Trust, he was one of 500 Scottish miners convicted of offences during the bitter strike of 1984-85.

He found out he’d been sacked two days before the miners returned to work but took the National Coal Board to an industrial tribunal. 

Fifteen months later, in June 1986, he won his job back at Comrie Colliery but the mine was closed the following January. 

He had already been elected to the council in May 1986 and said: “I’ve been lucky as Labour have been in charge when I’ve been there, it’s meant I’ve held a lot of good posts such as chair of the group and chief whip. 

“There were five years when I wasn’t in (2007 to 2012), there was a change of voting system and I ended up at the bottom of the ballot paper with little or no chance of getting elected.

"I got involved in the voluntary sector and must have done something right as I got four awards for my contribution, so I’ll probably pick that up again.”