Work to start on £280,000 Glen Bridge project in Dunfermline

Contractors have now been selected for the £280,000 job which will see the embankment at the category B listed structure made safe after several landslips.

The area has long been an "eyesore" area plagued by vandalism, anti-social behaviour and fly-tipping and four years ago, councillors voted to close off the access to the site due to the risk of "members of the public falling from the subsiding path".

Providing an update to members of the City of Dunfermline area committee on Tuesday, Fife Council structural services manger Michael Anderson said work was likely to start in the next couple of weeks.

READ MORE: Glen Bridge works due to start early next year

"The contract period is about six to eight weeks," he said. "The plan is they are going to be doing some work to the embankment, taking away all the defective soil.

"There have been land slips in the area and the contractor will take away a lot of the fill and insert more strict graded fill.

"They will reconstruct the footpath and reinstate the fencing.

"There have been records that there has been anti-social behaviour in the area where people have been trying to climb the bridge etc so we are going to install palisade fencing to try and deter people from gaining access to the structure."

It is seven years since local councillors backed plans to spend £20,000 on improving the “dark, depressing and dirty” underpass.

They said it had become a no-go area, apart from youngsters using it as an underage drinking den and rubbish tip, but little progress was made.

By December 2019 it had been closed for safety reasons as it was deemed a "hazard to the public".

A heavy-duty barrier had been installed, to prevent people stumbling down the steep drop, but this had to be removed after it was set on fire.

In May 2020 the then committee convener, Helen Law, had told the Press: "It should be a beauty spot in Dunfermline but for years it's looked terrible, a place to be ashamed of."