WEST Fife villages could benefit by more than £100,000 after plans to transform a cyanide-contaminated site in Comrie were approved by councillors.

It's hoped the former colliery site � an eyesore with a 40 metre-high bing that's been "burning since the mid-1970s" � will eventually have a golf course, hotel, a school and housing built on it.

Land Regeneration and Development Ltd were given permission for opencast coal mining at the old pit as well as a programme of investigation and remediation of contaminated land.

And there's a £102,900 community fund in store as the applicants have offered 15p for each of the 686,000 tonnes of coal they plan to extract from the site.

The former pit has been described by Fife Council as the "largest area of post-industrial dereliction in West Fife" with a "myriad of environmental problems".

The bing itself is thought to contain "four million tonnes of debris" and the sheer volume of carbonaceous material in it has led to "spontaneous combustion" at the crest.

And the adjacent Bickram Wood is now fenced off as "high levels of cyanide" were found there and it was thought to be the site of "unauthorised chemical dumping during World War II".

In a report, the council's Angus Dodds wrote, "A combination of contaminated land, large areas of hardstanding associated with the former colliery pit head area and a 40-metre high burning colliery waste bing mean that, in excess of 100 hectares of countryside are currently unfit for any conventional countryside use." It's hoped the low sulphur coal extracted "would be of interest" to Longannet and Scottish Power while the plan also seeks to flatten the "smouldering" bing that has become a magnet for quad bikers and fly tippers.

The overall project is expected last four years and the mining work would leave the land ready for re-development. The site owner, Fifer John Devine, has been seeking permission to tackle the eyesore for more than 10 years and suggestions for a golf course, hotel, a school and housing have all been mooted.

The site is 161 hectares in size � "despoiled land makes up approximately 66 hectares" � and lies just over a kilometre north of Blairhall and 2km south-west of Saline.

Mining operations have taken place on the site from at least the 1860s and Comrie Colliery opened in 1939.

It was operated under lease from 1963 until its closure in 1986.

In the last 10 years, a colony of Great Crested Newts, which are a protected species, was discovered at the site.

The proposal would seek to create a new wetland and "remove the newts under an appropriate handling license" to there.

Mr Dodds described the site as "an exceptionally complicated and degraded landscape that suffers from myriad environmental problems".

But he added, "The current application seeks to remediate the worst of these problems but, in advance of doing this, the receipts from sale of coal in the first year will allow for comprehensive investigations to take place across the despoiled site to establish the extent of the contamination and to ensure that the proposed restoration will be adequate to make the site safe.

"While the applicants have aspirations for the future redevelopment of the site, the focus for the restoration and remediation of the despoiled areas as part of this opencast coal application should be to return them to usable countryside.

"In so far as this is the case, the above list of improvements are considered appropriate to achieve that." Councillors welcomed the "good work being done" and committee chair Alice McGarry said, "It's a good way to remediate an area of dereliction."