A BUSINESS case for multi-million pound transport improvements will enable a huge expansion in Dunfermline with thousands of homes and jobs over the next 30 years.

New bypass roads along the north and west of the town and other key infrastructure changes will 'unlock' investment and speed up development in nine areas where plans have been on the table for some time.

Last week, Fife Council backed the business case for the Dunfermline Strategic Transportation Intervention Measures (STIM) programme.

It includes a bid for £16.5 million over 15 years from the Scottish Government and it will now go to the joint committee of the Edinburgh and South-East Scotland Region Deal and Holyrood ministers for final approval.

At the policy and co-ordination committee, council planner Craig Walker explained: "It's really a sustainable urban expansion of a growth that we haven't seen outside Scotland's largest cities for a number of years."

Over the next three decades it will facilitate 8,000 new homes in Dunfermline, five new primary schools and £36m for secondary schools as well as healthcare and community facilities, shops, parks, public art, green links and 80 hectares of employment land.

This will sustain 1,000 construction jobs a year for 30 years, it will create 1,000 other jobs and also deliver 2,000 affordable homes, £220m of transport improvements and infrastructure paid for by developers and sets out to bring more footfall in the town centre.

Council co-leader Councillor David Alexander said: "Fife Council will deliver a major investment programme in strategic transportation infrastructure in Dunfermline to support the delivery of homes, employment land and community infrastructure such as schools, shops and urban parks.

"This infrastructure will create climate-friendly and climate-ready development linking transport infrastructure. Such investment will accelerate inclusive growth, create new economic opportunities, and new jobs that will help to reduce inequalities in the Dunfermline area and beyond.”

The Dunfermline Strategic Development Area (SDA) is focused on nine sites and includes the number of houses that should be built there: Swallowdrum 900 houses, Berrylaw 950, Broomhall 2,150, Wellwood 1,100, Colton 450, land north of Wellwood 140, Chamberfield 40, Kent Street 120 and Halbeath 1,400.

There are very different rates of progress with planning permission in place at Halbeath, Broomhall and Wellwood – work is well under way at the latter – while there are no plans at present for Berrylaw.

The Northern Link Road (NLR), between Halbeath and Milesmark, and the Western Distributor Road (WDR), between the King Malcolm roundabout and Rumblingwell, are two bypasses which will serve the new housing estates and also take traffic away from the town centre.

They are estimated, at 2020 prices, to cost £20m and £26.8m respectively – in 2017 they were £14m and £17m.

The bill for the WDR includes a road bridge over the Dunfermline to Alloa railway line.

As well as these two roads, the transport interventions and estimated costs are: traffic lights on Pitreavie roundabout and an additional southbound lane on Queensferry Road (£900,000, it was due to be completed by the end of February 2021 but is ongoing); traffic lights at the Kings Road/Admiralty Road junction in Rosyth (£1.4m); and traffic lights on Bothwell Gardens roundabout (£1m).

There will be also be three road bridges built over railway lines and improvements to the junctions at Whitefield Road/Halbeath Road, William Street/ Pittencrieff Street and Rumblingwell/William Street.

The bridge over the Fife Circle railway line at Halbeath, as part of the NLR, will see the removal of the level crossing.

The programme is part of the City Region deal and the business case will help support grant applications to part-fund the transport improvements.

The developers will deliver directly the transport infrastructure on their own sites and the Scottish Government money will help the council to deliver the links between the sites.

A report to the committee said public sector funding was essential as there was a timing gap, between when the transport infrastructure needs to be in place and when the funds are received from the developers, and a funding gap as the capital costs "are likely to be higher than the level that can feasibly be covered from receipt of developer contributions".

Council co-leader Cllr David Ross said: “This is one of the key benefits we are getting from the City Region deal and is crucial to Dunfermline’s development.

"The Dunfermline SDA programme will not only assist Fife’s post-COVID-19 economic recovery but will also unlock the delivery of up to 2,000 affordable houses.

"The business case proposal, through the housing infrastructure fund, will unlock and accelerate investment in essential new strategic transportation infrastructure in the Dunfermline area.”