DEX 'Mark II' would be a 'nightmare'

Ally McRoberts • Published 20 Jan 2012 08:32 29 Comments

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PLANS for around 4000 new houses near Dunfermline have been criticised and Fife Council told not to repeat the "ugly" eastern expansion.

Massive new development is to take place to the south-west, west and north of the city, including a new high school and up to three primary schools.

But the council has been told not to repeat the mistakes of Dunfermline's Eastern Expansion (DEX), which was dismissed by a community council as "ugly", "architecturally dire", a "nightmare" and "uninspiring".

They added that the new housing developments to the east of the city had "increased the speed at which the life was sucked out of Dunfermline town centre".

The ambitious plans map out development across the next 14 years and feature transport improvements costing more than £27 million, including a distributor ring road and 'rapid transport corridors' for buses.

But it is the housing plans that have caused most controversy, with Charlestown, Limekilns and Pattiesmuir Community Council saying they "object absolutely" to new homes being built to the south-west of Dunfermline.

In a submission they wrote, "We have no faith in Fife Council's ability to ensure that any developments will be well planned and done sympathetically, judging by the experiences of the eastern expansion.

"The latter is incoherent, ugly, architecturally dire and with poor community infrastructure and there are no sustainable environmental considerations incorporated in the houses which are built to minimum environmental standards.

"It is absolutely uninspiring and serves only as a dormitory town for Edinburgh."

It continued, "We do not believe that Fife Council has the capacity or the freedom from commercial pressure to learn from the disastrous development it allowed to happen in the east of Dunfermline."

DEX, as the council tagged it, saw around 4000 houses built over the last 10 years and there could be a further 2100 new homes built in the area over the next decade.

Homes rose up around two main areas, Duloch and Masterton, and the area now has three primary schools, a Tesco superstore and a small retail complex while a church is being built.

The row concerns the Fife Structure Plan 2006-2026 which requires the Dunfermline and West Fife Local Plan 2010 to identify sites for a minimum of 3800 houses and 80 hectares of employment land on the opposite side from DEX.

After years of consultation and negotiation, the draft local plan is now with the Scottish Government but a two-day hearing was held in Dunfermline last month to "examine issues raised in unresolved representations".

The directorate for planning and environmental appeals held the hearing in the City Chambers with community councils, developers and Fife Council all given their say on the land earmarked for new development - the Dunfermline Strategic Land Allocation (SLA).

The next step is a report on the outcome of the hearing to be given to Fife Council.

The final local plan is due to be published in the next few months and adopted after in the "third quarter" of this year.

Crossford Community Council and Milesmark and Baldridgeburn Community Council also aired their concerns about proposals in their area, while developers including I&H Brown, Stirling Development Ltd, Omnivale and Taylor Woodrow (Wimpey) put their points across.

Charlestown, Limekilns and Pattiesmuir Community Council are concerned about proposed development at Broomhall Estate, they want the green belt to the south-west of the city extended and fear that housing in that area will spoil views, increase traffic congestion and compromise the historic setting of Dunfermline.

They also took issue with Fife Council's stated aim of reviving the city centre through a major development to the west, arguing that "Dunfermline has not benefited from the eastern expansion".

"There are several unoccupied retail units, even in the Kingsgate Centre, there are eight charity shops in 300 metres of the High Street (charity shops are, of course, great for recycling and avoiding waste as well as raising funds for charities, but they are also indicators of poor local economic conditions)," the community council said.

"The eastern expansion increased the speed at which the life was sucked out of Dunfermline town centre, it is likely that a western expansion will continue the process."

And they concluded, "The two concepts of 'restoring balance to Dunfermline' and 'reviving the town centre' are regularly repeated as justification for the huge schemes now planned for the south-west and northwest of the town.

"Restoring balance could mean a 'Dunfermline West' expansion to match the nightmare of 'Dunfermline East' and while a 'revived town centre' is a worthy aspiration, we contend that it is no more likely to happen with a westward expansion than it did with an eastward expansion."

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SirSided
11 posts
Jan 20, 10:43
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Of course with the massive shopping centre and varied choice of things to do in Dunfermline this is a brilliant idea... FAIL!

The town centre is hardly worth a mention, the nightlife is grim and the so called leisure park is too far away to even bother about.

Fife Council is like a adolescent boy in the showers trying to see whose is bigger. In reality it needs to shift attention from seeing how big Dunfermline can grow and start making what we have already a better place to live.

Recommend? Yes 30 No 3
jesstd
35 posts
Jan 20, 12:35
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This is at odds with SESPlan which has green belt around the south-west of Dunfermline. See Figure 5.

http://www.sesplan.gov.uk/assets/files/docs/proposed-plan/Proposed%20Plan.pdf

This is also the legacy of a plan dating back to 2006, updated in 2007, and housing figures which are simply out of date. DEx arose in a period of high demand and growth. Despite the prosperity it brought, it is an architectural and design nightmare, with no control of design and an overflow across the ridgeline which ruins views of Dunfermline from the south. Moreover, adequate enabling infrastructure was not in place at the time, particularly schooling.

Now, there is no demand and houses will not be built. Any land allocations will be put forward on a piecemeal basis for developers, probably with a mixed use argument for yet another superstore to make the housing element viable. Also, there is even less chance of the lessons of DEx being avoided, due to the financial climate and the lessened likelihood of schools and community facilities being provided. The sprawl could be worse than DEx with developers arguing viability and non-effectiveness of other sites, leading to a blighted landscape and a patchwork of development that ruins the historic setting of Dunfermline, tears up the Green Belt proposal in SESPlan and destroys an area of high landscape value.

Planners are unfortunately wedded to a plan conceived nearly a decade ago in a time of high growth and before the negative impacts of DEx manifested themselves. This should be shelved until SESPlan is in place.

Recommend? Yes 17 No 5
DunfermlineEast
137 posts
Jan 20, 13:56
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' "ugly", "architecturally dire", a "nightmare" and "uninspiring" ' Sounds like most of the buildings in Dunfermline since 1850. A bit rich coming from a council responsible for all the building applications in the town and directly responsible for the worst buildings such as Woodmill High School, Broomhead Flats, any council house built - Linburn, Garvock, Pitcorthie etc look like someone blind in the council bought a shed load of cement and forgot to say no and now there are lots of cement buildings in the town falling to pieces.

Recommend? Yes 35 No 11
TheDEXExpress
109 posts
Jan 20, 15:30
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Hi EQV. I agree with what you say, but I think it was the Charlestown etc Community Council that made these points, rather than Fife Council.

I also agree entirely with jesstd, who appears to have a somewhat better grasp of land use planning - to put it mildly - than those responsible for the Fife Structure Plan. The DEX has its positives - and more than many outside may think - but it has been allowed to become a desert of indifferently designed housing. It has been developer-led with little obvious quality control on the part of the planning authority. Yes, there is some green space in there, but not enough and much more could be made of Duloch Park and Calais Muir Wood as a community resource for all of Dunfermline.

The view of the DEX from Abbeyview is of a wall of houses, unbroken by any trees or other greenery. There hasn't been much planting, so the chances are that this view will not change with time. Cycling and walking provision is quite good but there are not enough community facilities and community spaces. The masterplanning of the area has been poor, but equally poor has been the planning by other Council departments, with the primary school provision fiasco being the most spectacular example.

The DEX has simply been landed in the area to the East of the town, with little thought being given to integrating it with the rest of Dunfermline. An opportunity missed.

The prospect of exactly the same thing happening on the other side of town is as terrifying as it is likely. Previous experience suggests that the Council will not admit to having made mistakes in the past, far less learn from them.

I was surprised when a sign saying 'Heritage Quarter' appeared on the wall just south of the Carnegie Birthplace Museum after the various welcome improvements to the public realm in that area were finished a couple of years ago. What were tourists, looking for a bit of authentic heritage, going to make of that? While that sort of terminology might be useful for the purposes of discussions inside the Council on developing and delivering a project, to stick up a sign in those terms for all to see seemed pretty crass. It did not suggest that those behind it had an appreciation of why the Abbey, Birthplace Museum, the Glen, the Abbot House and all the other historic sites in the centre of town are important. Unfortunately, that same lack of understanding seems evident here. We are sleepwalking into allowing catastrophic and irreversible damage to the setting of the Abbey and historic Dunfermline generally. I think it's sad and totally avoidable.

Recommend? Yes 19 No 6
BobTheBuilder
111 posts
Jan 20, 16:46
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Ah, Dunfermline the 'city'. I for one would question the validity of building any additional housing when A&E provision is now no longer local, despite all the road signs for QM Hospital stating A&E rather than NO A&E. Where are all these additional residents coming from? Does no-one from Fife Council look at how many for sale signs are there, week after week, month after month? With every week I fear that Dunfermline (sponsored by Tesco) is becoming a has-been, tinpot town rather than the can-do, dynamic place I keep reading about.

Recommend? Yes 21 No 3
supersonic
222 posts
Jan 20, 17:08
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We won't see " the new tesco " for a while either! If the rumours are true!

Recommend? Yes 11 No 1
BobTheBuilder
111 posts
Jan 20, 21:10
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If I may reply directly to the very eloquent Charlestown and Limekilns 'whingers'...

DEX is no more a dormitory town than Dalgety Bay, Rosyth, or indeed your own connurbations. Let me assure you there is plenty of community evident, rather than the nimbyism that may blight your communities. I'd refute the claims that houses here are built to less environmentally considerate standards - your evidence is based on what? I'd have thought all the older properties in Charlestown and Limekilns that have solid walls, little or no insulation, lead pipes no doubt, single glazed windows, oil heating etc present more of an ecological problem, no? Architecturally dire the DEX may be, but so what? My house is not a museum-piece, it's a functional building. Try not to let your own prejudices and opinions cloud the objectivity of your argument and stick to facts.

Recommend? Yes 22 No 16
DunfermlineEast
137 posts
Jan 20, 21:35
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Good point TheDEXExpress - Duloch Park and Calais wood have been given no thought or investment. Lots of grass does not constitute a park. Some shrubs, trees and flowers would be nice. I would love to see some more trees planted all over Dunfermline and in Scotland (our towns and cities are pretty devoid of trees compared to European equivalents).

Charlestown and Limnkilns have more than their fair share of non-architecture, most of the houses are 1970's designed cement and harling boxes with a very short shelf life as the owners will find out in the next 20 years. But that is beside the point - how do they want to develop their communities? Make copies of the old town of Culross, crow steps, cobbled pavement, pantile roofs and sash windows?

IMHO, I would like to see that general area stay greenbelt. Dunfermline has effectively merged with Townhill, Rosyth, Inverkeithing, Hillend and Dalgety Bay. How much larger does the council want Dunfermline to be and to what end? Building lots of houses does not a city make. Dunfermline should be concentrating on existing areas. Develop Abbeyview, demolish the worst housing and put a mix of housing in its place. The land to the west of the A90 towards Rosyth should be developed and the land near the shore before anything is developed further west.

Recommend? Yes 27 No 5
Tradesman
94 posts
Jan 21, 08:22
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A Western expansion, DWeX has been on the cards for many a year unfortunately for Dunfermline and all its residents is that these decisions are overseen by Fife Council.

DEX, (Edinburgh Slumber Park), and associated support buildings were poorly conceived; DEX should have been a parallel expansion not the first; however we are now stuck with what we have been delivered by Fife Council and build for profit companies, with other options such as affordable housing placed in the afterthought tray.

When DWeX (Edinburgh Slumber Park II) gets the go ahead, not if, it will be opposed as it originally was by those NIMBY villagers we can all readily identify, those who opposed the original plan and forced DEX to move into pole position as Plan A.

Yes it makes sense, yes it will balance the town, yes it makes Tesco’s new City Centre Superstore a viable project; but how will Fife Council service this increase in Dunfermline’s population?

Will Fife Council make the A92 an eight lane motorway with dedicated ambulance lanes feeding into theirs and Fife Health Board’s latest legacy project, the ever expanding Kirkcaldy Victoria Hospital?

Fife Council do not treat all areas of Fife equally, the inward investment in Dunfermline is the envy of those East of Cowdenbeath so planning provision is given little thought.

DEX and DWeX should have progressed in parallel not series!

Recommend? Yes 58 No 34
char
131 posts
Jan 22, 12:42
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DEX isn't a bad place. It's just like any new development in that it has no heart to it. One of my colleagues lives there and her life is essentially:

Get up

Train to Edinburgh

Home to DEX

Drive to Tesco

Back to home

At no point does she ever visit the centre.

It makes logical sense to build down the west side between Dunfermline and Rosyth but why not focus on the brownfield sites first. The old MFI site is an eyesore welcome to the town from the west. The Dunlop project needs pushed too.

Recommend? Yes 11 No 9
ChuckD
64 posts
Jan 23, 12:56
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Dunfermline already has a larger population than other comparable cities such as Perth and Stirling, but the city centre comes very poorly behind both. Basically, Dunfermline has no city centre, just a high street full of charity shops. The number of fantastic old building that are lying unoccupied is criminal. It's these buildings that give the town it's character, but instead they've been ignored while they wait to crumble or be burned down. It's no wonder people perfer to shop elsewhere. Loyalty and civic pride only lasts so long in the face of such liberty taking.

DEX isn't that bad, but the Council has to rethinking priorities.

Recommend? Yes 19 No 2
DBResident
54 posts
Jan 23, 18:54
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Oh god here we go, another 10 years of the DP propogating a terrible abbreviation for the next stage of destruction of a fine place. DEX is horrific and it amazes me that people living there use the monicer.

Recommend? Yes 13 No 4
******
Jan 23, 22:33
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DBResident
54 posts
Jan 23, 23:20
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Ah but Bob you call each town by it's proper name, rather than by some stupid abbreviation. My point is that the Dunfermline Press think that DEX is a cool name to call the Eastern Expansion Area. I find it a hateful name, what is wrong with calling it Duloch or even Shepherdville, anything but DEX.

Recommend? Yes 12 No 2
maclam
317 posts
Jan 24, 11:42
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where exactly is this very uncool planet called DEX , sounds like something the dunfermline press found in a superman comic.

DULOCH certainly has a more genuine scottish traditional ring to it.

dunfermline eastern expansion was in fact only the name of a proposed fife council building project.

Recommend? Yes 13 No 0
SmarmyGit
319 posts
Jan 24, 17:03
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DEX, horrible 'press' name, lets call a spade a spade, its Spam Valley......

Recommend? Yes 5 No 6
BobTheBuilder
111 posts
Jan 24, 17:46
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DEX is doubtless propagated by those who can't spell - is it Duloch, or Dulloch? Ach, DEX is easier...

I did like your acronym for the Western expansion, DBResident. Shame your post got edited and mine removed. By the way, how did you manage to type that without it failing the word verification test. That's why I had to use the @ instead.

Recommend? Yes 2 No 2
DBResident
54 posts
Jan 24, 18:23
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just typed it in to signify

West And North eXpansion area.

It is an apt name to signify the lack of ability of the planners in guiding volume builders in designing soemthing that will not look like another faded new town in 10 years time.

Recommend? Yes 7 No 4
NotHappyJan
192 posts
Jan 24, 20:19
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My, I see things have been bust whilst I have been away in the sunny Maldives for the past couple of months. What do I come back too! Rain and a threatened expansion of more DEX style sub standard architecturally inferior housing in an unspoilt peaceful part of Fife. I see nothing has changed. I hope the current residents continue to resist such plans, enough is enough, let’s keep the green wedge!

Recommend? Yes 5 No 9
DunfermlineEast
137 posts
Jan 25, 14:01
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SmarmyGit "DEX, horrible 'press' name, lets call a spade a spade, its Spam Valley...... "

Really, the fact that most people have bought their homes there means that they have money, spam valley denotes people without money. Sounds like you are some poverty sticken peasant with a chip on their shoulder about people in better off areas than their, humble slum. If you do not have money then look at what you spend money on and cut out the waste - less fags, booze, lottery tickets and fast food.

Recommend? Yes 8 No 7
supersonic
222 posts
Jan 25, 15:14
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@EsseQuamVideri

Like the murphys, your not bitter.

Recommend? Yes 4 No 4
Ooosh!
31 posts
Jan 26, 07:46
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The whole ruse here is just to lure prospective buyers out of bigger cities i.e Edinburgh by building houses which to most Edinburgh residents are a steal. My co-worker bought a 1 bedroom flat in Portobello for £145,000 three years ago and when I told him about DEX and that he could have bought a 4 bedroom detatched house for around the same cost he literally cursed the heavens.

There are other factors whaich also backs up the expansion, Amazon, Shepherd Offshore, the new bridge and other blossoming business ventures coming into Fife which makes property tycoons get a little frozen sausage with excitement.

I am not for or against it as long as they support these additional houses with more leisure facilities in Fife and expand the ever shrinking nightlife.

Recommend? Yes 6 No 0
DunfermlineEast
137 posts
Jan 26, 09:22
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I agree with the above that it is cheap housing that brings the punters over to Fife but property developers prefer to buy land cheap and sell houses for a premium, cheap prices are not necessarily good.

I do not think that Amazon and Shepherd Offshore have helped at all though. Amazon only moved there as they threatened to pull out of Glenrothes as the tax breaks had stopped and it was a silly place for a distribution centre being so out of the way of the central belt. It was only tax payers money paid as a bribe that made them move to Dunfermline. They offer mainly low skill, low pay jobs, so how does that create or encourage a house owning culture? judging the busloads of people, few local people are employed at Amazon.

Shepherd Offshore will create no jobs themselves. All they have done is bought cheaply a site zoned for business and industry, cleared it of a factory and are hope to make millions by converting most of that industry zoned land to housing. Adding more houses to an area with schools already over capacity and allowing Shepherd Offshore to make millions just for demolishing a factory is nuts.

Recommend? Yes 10 No 0
jesstd
35 posts
Jan 26, 09:24
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DEX is fine in principle, and has brought benefits to the city (wouldn't have got Debenhams and Kingsgate expansion there otherwise) but the implementation has been terrible in terms of patchwork design and lack of supporting infrastructure. It's also a consequence of a restrictive planning policy in Edinburgh, which focussed on flat and apartment development in Granton/Leith and restrained dwellinghouse-type development through very restrictive Green Belt policies. This has driven demand for family housing from Edinburgh (where the jobs are) to Fife and West Lothian.

A southwestern expansion is a terrible concept.

1. DEX was conceived and delivered in boom times. A coherent southwestern expansion with supporting infrastructure and adequate design is simply not economically viable and won't be for the next 10 years at least.

2. The landscape character is completely different. The Duloch area is next to the M90 above the ridge in the Mastertown/Pitreavie area (it crept over this anyway). Rural southwestern Dunfermline slopes northwards towards the Abbey and underpins the attractive and historic setting of the City. I think there is scope for development around the gasworks area and new school (Dickson St/Grange Road) which might help the St Leonard's area, but this stops well short of what is proposed. On the plus side, this would have good links to the rail station but it is in a flood-prone area with possible contamination issues.

3. Edinburgh have changed their planning approach and are now looking at greenfield development for more housing because the high-density schemes aren't coming forward . Much of this is within the bypass and in West Edinburgh... conveniently close to the Tram, which it will help pay for. So southwest Dunfermline will be competing with south and west Edinburgh... given the cost of rail travel and inadequate infrastructure, it will lose.

4. Duloch was a piecemeal allocation to developers in a patchwork of sites with some element of phasing. You can see this just by going through Duloch and looking at the house styles. Leaving aside the design issues, at least DEX is completely built out. That won't happen to the southwest of Dunfermline - guaranteed. Competition from Edinburgh and slump in the housing market will lead to patchwork development based around 1 or 2 supermarkets. Planners will be under pressure from councillors to "deliver something" that will be far worse than Duloch/DEX.

5. All this adds up to the wrecking of southwestern Dunfermline and the city's landscape and heritage.

DEX/Duloch bashing is a bit unhelpful... it looks a mess and it is a mess, but it is little no better or worse than most other modern developments and can work as a neighbourhood, if links to the city centre are improved...Fife Leisure Park is not a substitute for the City Centre and should be flattened!

Recommend? Yes 6 No 7
fifechap
32 posts
Jan 26, 16:34
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Dalgety Bay is Spam Valley, and DEX..is Tescoville,

Recommend? Yes 15 No 2
SmarmyGit
319 posts
Jan 27, 19:28
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EsseQuamVideri, your a wheeze eh?

Quote 'Really, the fact that most people have bought their homes there means that they have money.......' Unquote

Brilliant, the fact that these chicken huts are VASTLY overpriced and if were jumping to conclusions as you like to do mate, i'll jump to one of my own if you don't mind........the majority of the DEX inhabitants are mortgaged to the hilt means they have, as my dear old Gran used to say 'A fur coat and nae drawers'

Having one of these houses does NOT mean someone has money, it means their up to their oxters in debt. I just wonder how many of these houses were bought when banks were lending up to 10 times an annual salary mmmmm?

I'll pass over your second comment if you don't mind my friend, all i'll say is people in glass houses eh?

Illegitimi non carborundum

Recommend? Yes 6 No 6
DunfermlineEast
137 posts
Jan 28, 13:18
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A few of the neighbours do have chicken huts, lovely wood things. Chickens are good at keeping slugs at bay, but the huts are quite overpriced, but they do set a tone with the garden and you can stain them if one wishes.

Recommend? Yes 15 No 4
BobTheBuilder
111 posts
Jan 28, 19:53
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Whilst I'm sure there are parts of Masterton and Duloch where the houses are indeed put into the plots with a shoehorn, most obviously around the original developments near Tesco, there are other parts where houses are reasonably well spaced apart without as little as the width of a paving slab between them. Throughout Dunfermline, and I suspect beyond too, there is plenty of 1960s and 70s housing developments with as much, or as little depending on your perspective, land surrounding the building, and separating neighbours.

Smarmy - I know you are generalising, but not everybody is up to the hilt in debt. Contrary to the assertion that houses were / are overpriced, have you looked at the price of new builds in Lochgelly, Blairhall etc in comparison with Dunfermline?

Recommend? Yes 7 No 1
SmarmyGit
319 posts
Jan 30, 08:27
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Bob, i was being facetious and discussing the pitfalls of over stretching the family budget by borrowing too much as well as that i was making light of EsseQuamVideri and his 'assumptions' and trying to be a 'Jan mrk II' with his general snobbery.

I totally agree with your point of the new builds in Blairhall, Lochgelly etc being overpriced but thats just it, it seems all new builds now are cramming as many houses into the littlest area possible for the biggest profit. One of these kits could be bought for about 30K, built for 15k so the mark up is huge!

My dear EsseQuamVideri, you stick to your personal insults my friend and i'll deal with the matters at hand, when you start playing the man and not the ball your argument is lost, you seem like a smart lad so it saddens me to see your posts turn to a personality contest and turn personally abusive.......

Recommend? Yes 7 No 4
Dunfy92
43 posts
Jan 30, 14:55
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Why do people use any excuse to avoid progress? There is one simple equation: more people = more footfall in the town centre = more money spent = new developments = more choice. If it wasnt for develoment in the east we certainly wouldnt have the fife leisure park out there, which I have enjoyed many times. If you recall how Dunfermline was before DEX, it was far worse than now. In fact, if not for DEX increasing Dunfermline's population it is more likely that the town centre would began to fail more quickly and more significantly. DEX dosent change the fact that the existing population of Dunfermline were growing EXTREMELY tiresome of the poor town centre beforehand anyway. The way I think, that if this western expansion project (WEP) promises to bring employment, improved transport and more money to the town it cant be a bad thing. Also this 'ring road' has been LONG needed and should take the congestion off of the town centre roads.

I think we need to stop being so sceptical and look forward to progress.

Recommend? Yes 6 No 2

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