A MEMORIAL for families affected by the baby ashes scandal could be erected in the Public Park in Dunfermline.

Fife Council have identified the green space as an option, along with Riverside Park in Glenrothes and Beveridge Park in Kirkcaldy.

Bereavement services manager Liz Murphy said that a meeting last week with the Baby Memorial Working Group to consider locations and what a memorial might look like had gone well.

She added: "We will now ask designers to produce some sketches of possible memorial areas to help inform discussions with parents and other stakeholders.

"Our working group of parents and advisors will continue to meet regularly as we develop our proposals for the baby memorial."

Plans were delayed by the pandemic but further consultation, including a questionnaire, was completed in February and narrowed it down to the three options.

Fiona Simpson, secretary of Central Dunfermline Community Council, said: "Fife Council approached the community council to ask for their feedback about the proposed venue in the Public Park.

"We discussed the proposal at our August meeting.

"While members are very sensitive to the feelings of bereaved parents and supportive of this initiative, they had concerns that the venue proposed in the Public Park was busy and noisy and would perhaps not afford the environment for peaceful reflection that such a memorial would need.

"Members were happy to consider other venues within the Public Park and would be happy to carry out further consultation with park users about this."

The baby ashes scandal was uncovered in late 2012.

Bereaved parents of stillborn babies and infants who died days after birth were told there were no cremated remains to bury, when in fact the ashes had been disposed of without their knowledge by staff at Mortonhall Crematorium in Edinburgh.

An investigation was ordered by the Scottish Government and it transpired this had been the practice for decades and that similar practices had been carried out in Fife, where council staff at crematoria in Dunfermline and Kirkcaldy had dumped the ashes in the waste.

Dunfermline mum Carol Howden was one of the parents affected by the scandal.

She was 17 when her four-month-old boy, John, died of cot death in 1988 and Dunfermline Crematorium told her there would be no remains.

However, she found out later that his ashes had been scattered without her knowledge.

Fife Council apologised and have since paid compensation to 85 parents.

When it became apparent in 2019 that affected families in the Kingdom wanted a memorial, the working group was established.

Initially, there were moves for a weeping angel memorial to be located at Townhill Park but this idea was dropped as "it was felt an open consultation process had not taken place to fully engage and establish what type of memorial and location was favoured by parents".

Dunfermline councillor Helen Law said: "There was some positivity about a memorial in Townhill but then some more parents and a working group got involved and they came up with a number of other proposals.

"There are already significant proposals for the Public Park in Dunfermline and I got the impression the community council were taken aback by the idea as they hadn't known anything about it.

"The Public Park is not ruled out but I think it's less likely.

"I would definitely like to see a memorial but the most important people in all of this are the parents, the people who have lost babies; it's imperative they get the memorial that best suits their needs."

The community council launched a public consultation in May about what could be done to improve the Public Park and a number of suggestions, including a football pitch, orchard, cafe with community kitchen, outdoor gym equipment, public art, allotments and barbecue areas, were put forward.