FUNDING for a £25,000 heating system for a Fife Council-owned property has been approved after workers started turning up in hats, scarves and gloves.

Two new boilers have already been installed in the building on the corner of Douglas Street and High Street but have failed to turn up the heat.

The council admits there have been ongoing issues with the “antiquated heating system” since their tenants – which include Dunfermline Delivers, Douglas Chapman MP and Shirley Anne Somerville MSP – moved in nearly five years ago.

They are confident the new system, which is said to be ultra-modern, low-energy, low-cost and low-maintenance, needing little rewiring and plugging straight into existing wall sockets, will finally be able to resolve the chilly problem.

Back in in 2013, local events company First Dunfermline were asked to come up with a community function for the building after it was left boarded up when the council moved out into the newly-refurbished City Chambers.

Office space was subsequently sub-let and and the premises now also accommodates a town centre business and cafe.

In a report to the City of Dunfermline area committee, community manager Joe McGuinness said efforts over the last five years to turn up the heat on the first floor had failed because of the amount of rust coming from the building’s old cast iron radiators.

“It is a fairly iconic building,” he told councillors. “These ongoing challenges about heating are long causes of concern – we have already agreed to put in this system on the top floor and this is to replicate this on the first floor.

“We did put in two new boilers to try and service the original heating but the problem is the height of the building.

"The new boiler has no problem heating the radiators on the ground floor but when it is expected to be pumped up to that height, it is what is causing the problem.”

Dunfermline Central councillor Garry Haldane told the committee it was important to see the problem resolved.

“I am in that building quite often and it is freezing,” he said. “They are all going in with hats, gloves and scarves and it is a big concern. I am supportive of this.”