A New Village?

Located to the west of the Saline to Comrie road, the Comrie Colliery site is derelict. There remain only the brooding slurry ponds, the menacing fenced-off areas of contaminated land, and the stark spoil heap where wisps of smoke still rise from deep embers.

These are the silent legacies of past periods of hectic industrial activity, where a thousand men from the West Fife villages laboured hard to earn their livelihoods.

The site has had a long and interesting industrial history. The earliest Ordnance Survey map of this site, dated 1856, shows some varied mining and quarrying activity. These include a whinstone quarry, a gravel pit, a clay pit and a number of coal and ironstone pits. A mineral railway linked to one of the ironstone pits is also evident.

In July 1935, following an extensive boring programme in the area, the East Fife Coal Co. Ltd. started to develop the Comrie Colliery.

Two shafts of almost 400 m. were sunk and by August 1939, haulage roads and airways had reached a 1.2 m. (4 ft.) seam of good quality coal. One setback was that in 1939, German supervisors installing skip winding equipment were withdrawn just before the outbreak of war.

The work was, however, completed by the Company’s own engineers and the colliery went into production one year later.

By 1950, annual production had reached 430,000 tons with manpower of around 800 underground and 150 on the surface.

On a number of occasions after this time, production hit half a million tons per year. The colliery was, in its day, the most modern coalmine in Scotland. In 1986 in the aftermath of the miner’s strike, the colliery was deemed uneconomic and the pit closed in September of that year.

In 1964, the Scottish Rexco Company built a smokeless fuel plant adjacent to the colliery, designed to convert 100,000 tons of coal per year into smokeless fuel for the domestic market. This plant closed in 1985.

Lockshaw Moss, a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) borders the site to the west.

When mining activities ceased in 1985, the NCB just walked away and left their rubbish behind. As well as the burning bing and the ruins of the mine buildings and hard standing there are worrying areas of contaminated land including a cyanide repository. Moreover, a considerable amount of fly tipping has not improved the overall appearance of the area.

In 1999 the Coal Authority sold the site to Land Regeneration & Development Ltd. (LRD). This company applied for planning permission to undertake opencast mining on the site. Fife Council refused this application for technical reasons.

A few years later in 2005, LRD proposed a long-term plan to regenerate the site for mixed development.

Various community groups and community councils in the West Fife villages have attended presentations given by LRD on this proposed development. Generally, these groups have been in favour of the development of this site.

The West Fife Villages Community Planning Group was aware of the pressure for development and of the view that this could be the only economic way of decontaminating this large area of land and removing the burning bing.

The Group was concerned that, should development take place, its design should be of a much higher standard than recent developments. Importantly, it was concerned that any new settlement should link to existing communities.

The group therefore approached Heriot-Watt University for some expert guidance. Consequently, it was decided that the University should involve a current course of postgraduates and under graduates who are studying urban design.

The members of the course were divided into four teams and have all spent time visiting the site and obtaining the views of local groups and individuals.

This culminated on 15th March when the University course members gave presentations on their design outlines for the site. These presentations, held in the Oakley Social Club, were well attended by members of the public, local community councilors and representatives from the West Fife Villages Community Planning Group as well as the present owners of the site.

The standard of the four presentations by young people from a wide range of countries was extremely high and it was very obvious that the students had worked hard on their brief.

Although each group of students had taken a varied approach and had come up with different designs, a lot of the concepts and considerations were identical in that they all incorporated such requirements as affordable housing, modern energy saving features, availability of recreational facilities and the space to introduce light industry.

The theme that was also common to all the presentations was a desire to create an environment that would be pleasant to live and work in.

On the conclusion of the presentations, John Devine, one of the site owners, said that he had been extremely impressed with the professionalism of the students and the quality of the graphics produced for the presentations.

A representative of the West Fife Community Planning Group thanked the students for their hard work and their well constructed conclusions.

The West Fife Community Planning Group feels that a decision on how best to tackle this site’s problems is well overdue.

We would invite Fife Council to progress discussions with the site owners and communities to ensure that all factors are considered and that Planning Gain reflects local priorities.

A careful and sensitive mixed development on this large site could stimulate and revitalize the West Fife Villages area.

Participants at the presentations were so impressed that interest was expressed in learning more about Urban Design.

The group is therefore about to investigate the possibility of bringing university staff into the community to give a series of tutorials.