Glenrothes

The decision on the town's name was taken by the Fife Planning Committee which met in Cupar on 4th July 1947. Twelve names were considered for the new town prior to its formal designation. From the list of names Glenrothes and Westwood tied with five ballot votes each. Cadham, Drostain, Thaines and Woodside each received a single vote. The name Westwood was proposed by Provost Drummond, after Joseph Westwood, who was a strong advocate for the delivery of the new town, cut his political teeth in Fife and was Secretary of State for Scotland at the time. Glenrothes carried the day by eight votes to six on a second ballot despite the plea to recognise Westwood’s “services to the country”. In a tragic twist of fate Joseph Westwood died 18 days later in a car accident.[6]

The name Rothes comes from the association with the Earl of Rothes, of the Leslie family from Northeast Scotland. This family historically owned much of the land on which Glenrothes has been built, and gave its name to the adjacent village of Leslie. "Glen" (from the Scottish Gaelic word gleann meaning valley) was added to prevent confusion with Rothes in Moray, and to reflect the location of the town within the River Leven valley.[7][8][9]

The different areas ("precincts") of Glenrothes have been named after the hamlets that were already established in the area (e.g. Cadham, Woodside), the farms which formally occupied the land (e.g. Caskieberran, Collydean, Rimbleton) or the historical estate homes in the area (e.g. Balbirnie, Balgeddie, Leslie Parks).[10]

Remains of henge at Balfarg

Balbirnie House Hotel, former Georgian (Regency era) mansion of the Balfour Family

Row of former mill worker cottages in Woodside

Glenrothes is home to the remains of ancient stone circles which can be seen at Balbirnie[11] and Balfarg[12] in the northeast of the town. The Balfarg henge was constructed around 3000 BC and contains the remnants of a stone circle which has been partly reconstructed.[13] The henge was excavated between 1977 and 1978 prior to the development of a new housing estate.[13] The Balbirnie stone circle and cairn, only about 500 m away from Balfarg, was excavated between 1970 and 1971. To allow widening of the A92, the stones were moved a short distance to a new location at North Lodge and reconstructed as nearly as possible in the original way.[13] The stone circle has been carbon dated as being from the Bronze Age.[14] It is thought that the Balbirnie stone circle and the Balfarg circle once formed part of a larger ceremonial complex.[13]

There are a number of former country houses in Glenrothes. Balbirnie House, a category-A listed[15] Georgian period building, was bought along with its grounds in 1969 by the GDC from the Balfour family to be developed as Balbirnie Park and golf course.[16][17][18] The house was later occupied and restored by the GDC in 1981, to stop the property falling into disrepair. This led to interest, and the house was converted into a four-star hotel in 1989. The B-listed former stable block[19] of the house was converted into a craft centre.[16] Balgeddie House, a C-Listed[20] former Edwardian residence of Sir Robert Spencer Nairn located in the northwest of the town, has also been converted into a hotel.[21] Leslie House, the category-A listed[22] 17th century former home of the Earl of Rothes (Clan Leslie), became a care home for the elderly in 1945; owned by the Church of Scotland. The building was in the process of being renovated, when the interior and roof of the house were destroyed by a fire in February 2009. However, proposals to restore the mansion were approved in 2019.[23] Much of the former grounds of Leslie House have been used to create Riverside Park. Collydean precinct hosts a ruin of a 17th-century house called Pitcairn House which was built for and first occupied by Archibald Pitcairne, a famous Scottish physician.[10]

The land which Glenrothes now occupies was largely agricultural, and once contained a number of small rural communities and the hamlets of Cadham[24] and Woodside, which were established to house workers at local paper mills.

Glenrothes Development Corporation Coat of Arms

Glenrothes was designated in 1948 under the New Towns Act 1946 as Scotland's second post-war new town.[25][26][27] The planning, development, management and promotion of the new town were the responsibility of the Glenrothes Development Corporation (GDC), a quango appointed by the Secretary of State for Scotland.[3] The corporation board consisted of eight members including a chairman and deputy chairman.[28] The first meeting of the GDC was in Auchmuty House, provided by Tullis Russell on 20 June 1949.[29][30]

The original plan was to build a new settlement for a population of 32,000 to 35,000. The initial preferred option for the new town would have centred it on Markinch, building around the original settlement and utilising the existing services and infrastructure, including the rail station there. However the village's infrastructure was deemed unable to withstand the substantial growth that would be needed for a new town of the scale proposed and there was considerable local opposition to the plans.[7] Leslie and Thornton were also considered as possible locations, again meeting local opposition, and eventually the area between all of these villages, amounting to 5,320 acres (2,153 ha), was zoned for the new town's development.[31] Much of the historical Aytoun, Balfour, Balgonie and Rothes estates were included in Glenrothes' assigned area, along with the historical country houses Balbirnie House, Balgeddie House and Leslie House.[32][33]

Unlike the other post-war Scottish new towns, Cumbernauld, East Kilbride, Irvine and Livingston, Glenrothes was not originally to be a Glasgow overspill new town, although it did later take this role. It was however populated in the early 1950s, in part by families moving from the declining coalfield areas of Scotland. It is also the only Scottish new town not to take its name from an existing settlement; in that respect it was a completely new settlement.[34]

Before Glenrothes was developed, the main industries in the area were papermaking, coal mining and farming. Local paper manufacturers included the Auchmuty and Rothes Mills (latterly Tullis Russell) and Balbirnie Mills (later Dixons/Sappi Graphics) near Markinch in the east and the Fettykil and Prinlaws Mills to the west at Leslie.[35] The paper mills were established along the banks of the River Leven, which provided energy to power their operations.[33]

Tullis Russell Papermills in 2010

Scotland had emerged from the Second World War in a strong position both to contribute to the UK's post-war reconstruction, and to help repay heavy overseas debt incurred in rearmament and six years of war. At the heart of government strategy was the need to produce energy, and the first focus of the resulting industrial renewal was massive investment by the state in the Scottish coal industry.[36] The case for developing Glenrothes was partially driven by this strategy, and was further advanced in a report produced in 1946 by Sir Frank Mears to the Central and South-East Scotland Planning Committee. This specifically made the case for a new town in the Leslie-Markinch area to support growth in the coal mining industry in Fife.[9][37]

The Rothes Colliery, the new coal mine associated with the town's development, was built on land to the west of Thornton, an established village south of Glenrothes.[38] The mine, which was formally opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1957, was promoted as a key driver in the economic regeneration of central Fife.[39] However, unstemmable flooding and geological problems in the area, combined with a lessening demand for coal nationally, made the mine less viable, and it was closed in 1965.[9] Ironically, miners who had worked in older deep pits in the area had warned against the development of the Rothes pit for this very reason.[40][41]

On 28 May 1963 Cadco Development Ltd held a press conference in Edinburgh to announce that they were bringing 2,000 jobs to Glenrothes. They were going to take three factories on the Queensway Industrial Estate; open pig breeding units at Whitehill; and build a supermarket in the town centre. Cadco's board of directors included the film star George Sanders and his wife Benita Hume alongside Denis Loraine and Tom Roe (Thomas Chambers Windsor Roe).[42] Denis Loraine soon persuaded the Glenrothes Development Corporation that the construction work should be carried out by Cadco's own building company, which had opened a depot in nearby Kirkcaldy.[43][44]

By May 1964 Cadco were confident that their factories would soon start production, but by October all work had stopped because the Cadco Building Company had not paid its sub-contractors and suppliers. It transpired that Cadco did not have the money to back up its plans; and the banks and small companies who had respectively paid for and done the advance work found themselves out of pocket; and its employees lost their jobs. It turned out that the money the development corporation had paid to Cadco for building work had been used instead to help the failing Royal Victoria Sausages Company in Brighton. When the scam was exposed, the town's MP Willie Hamilton posed questions in the House of Commons and a Board of Trade inquiry was set up. As the hoped-for jobs evaporated, the development corporation, the Royal Bank of Scotland and others involved had to explain to the Board of Trade inspectors how they been taken in by Denis Loraine and Cadco. However no-one was ever prosecuted for their part in the affair in the United Kingdom. Historians speculate that this was because of the involvement, direct and indirect, of people in high places, particularly future Prime Minister, Edward Heath and Hollywood actress Jayne Mansfield. Investors alleged to be compromised by the scandal ranged from novelist Graham Greene to Charlie Chaplin. After the scandal broke, Loraine fled to the United States, only avoiding a long prison sentence by working under cover to help bring to justice those behind the biggest counterfeiting operation in US history.[45]

The closure of the Rothes Colliery almost halted the further development of Glenrothes. Soon afterwards however, central government modified the town's role by appointing it as an economic focal point for economic growth and development, one of several across Central Scotland to be developed as part of a Regional Plan.[46] The Glenrothes Development Corporation were able to use this status to attract a plethora of light industries and modern electronics factories to the town. The first big overseas electronic investor was Beckmans Instruments in 1959, followed by Hughes Industries in the early 1960s.[34] A number of other important companies followed, establishing Glenrothes as a major industrial hub in Scotland's Silicon Glen.[47] In the mid-1970s, the town also replaced Cupar as the HQ of Fife Regional Council, making it the administrative centre of Fife.[3][48][49]

ADC electronics plant in 2005

Major industrial estates were developed to the south of Glenrothes, largely because it was near the proposed East Fife Regional Road (A92) which was developed in 1989, giving dual carriageway access to the main central Scotland road network.[46] The rapid growth experienced in Silicon Glen peaked in the 1990s with Canon developing their first UK manufacturing plant at Westwood Park in Glenrothes in 1992.[37] ADC Telecommunications, a major American electronics company, established a base at Bankhead in early 2000 with the promise of a substantial number of jobs.[50] Around the start of the 21st century, a decline in major electronics manufacturing in Scotland affected the town's economy, and thus the industrial base of the town was forced to diversify for the second time in its short history.[51][52] By 2004 both ADC and Canon had closed their Glenrothes operations, with much of the promised jobs growth failing to materialise. This was largely due to the electronics industrial sector in Glenrothes and most of central Scotland being dependent upon an inward investment strategy that led to almost 43% of employment in foreign-owned plants which were susceptible to changes in global economic markets.[53]

The GDC was finally wound up in 1995 after which responsibility for Glenrothes was largely transferred to Fife Council with assets such as the Kingdom Shopping Centre, industrial and office units sold off to private sector companies.[26] However, by 1995 the GDC had left a lasting legacy on the town by overseeing the development of over 15,000 houses, 5,174,125 square feet (480,692 m²) of industrial floorspace, 735,476 square feet (68,328 m²) of office floorspace and 576,977 square feet (53,603 m²) of shopping floorspace.[26] Since the winding up of the GDC Glenrothes continues to serve as Fife's principal administrative centre and serves a wider sub-regional area as a major centre for services and employment.[54]

Aerial view of Glenrothes taken from southeast

In 2008, coinciding with the town's 60th anniversary, Canadian artist and researcher Sylvia Grace Borda chose to holiday for a week in Glenrothes. She was curious to explore the town as if she were a late-1960s photographer of common places, following on from a similar study of East Kilbride. The outcome was the production of a series of images which the artist believes contradict how some Scots would 'see' Glenrothes, reinforcing the observation that it often takes a visitor to see what others take for granted. The work sought to position itself so the everyday environment can cause the viewer to pause and regard the commonplace as extraordinary.[55][56][57]

Annual awards that were set up by Urban Realm and Carnyx Group in the mid-2000s to challenge the quality of built environments in Scotland saw Glenrothes awarded their Carbuncle Award in 2009.[58] The judges awarded Glenrothes the category of the most dismal place in Scotland for its "depressed and investment starved town centre".[59] This generated mixed and polarized views from locals and built environment professionals alike.[60] In the immediate aftermath of the award Urban Realm hosted a conference in the town named 'Saving Down Towns' to try to underline how great Glenrothes could be. Planners and architects were brought along to suggest possible ways forward for the town, as well as to discuss the challenges facing Scotland's urban centres in general.[58][61]

Paradoxically in 2010 the town won awards for being the "Best Kept Large Town" and the most "Clean, sustainable and beautiful community" in Scotland in the Beautiful Scotland competition[62][63] and was the winner in the "large town" category in the 2011 Royal Horticultural Society Britain in Bloom competition.[64][65] The town continued its horticultural success by achieving further Gold awards in the 2013 and 2014 UK finals.[66][67]

In 2011 then Historic Scotland completed an assessment of the town art in Glenrothes, ultimately awarding listed status to a number of artworks scattered throughout the town. The organisation also gave positive recognition to Glenrothes' significant role in helping to create the idea of art being a key factor in creating a sense of place.[68]

Glenrothes' place and importance in the history and development of Scotland has been enshrined in the Great Tapestry of Scotland, which was unveiled in 2013 in the Scottish Parliament.[69] The Glenrothes panel shows various pieces of the town's public artworks, along with visual references to its important industrial heritage associated originally with coal mining and later as a major centre for "Silicon Glen" industries.[70]

In mid-2015 Tullis Russell Papermakers, a stalwart to the local area economy for around 200 years, went into administration. The Scottish Government and Fife Council established a taskforce to help mitigate the effects of job losses and put in place appropriate support for a sustainable future for the area. Around £6 million was set aside to support the Fife Taskforce's Action Plan which included projects such as the Queensway Technology Park; supporting the regeneration of Queensway Industrial Estate to develop a modern business and technology park which can utilise the proximity to RWE's Biomass Power Generation facility and to a Green Data Centre.[71][4] The Glenrothes Enterprise Hub was another project delivered as a result of the task force support.[72][73] Redevelopment on the site of the former mills for mixed uses including around 800 new homes, retail, businesses and industry commenced in early 2022.[74]

The Glenrothes Energy Network was progressed in 2017 to utilise the heat from the RWE Markinch Biomass CHP plant which was formally opened in March 2015. The project was a collaboration between Fife Council, RWE and the Scottish Government. It was awarded Scottish Government funding in May 2017 as part of the Scottish Energy Strategy, which aims to deliver around 50 per cent of the energy required for Scotland's heat, transport and electricity needs from renewable sources by 2030. Construction of the heat network commenced in June 2018 and the network became operational in April 2019 making it Scotland's first 100% renewable biomass heat and power district network. The network was officially opened by the Scottish Minister for Energy, Connectivity and the Islands, Paul Wheelhouse. In 2019 the project won the Cities & Communities award at the Decentralized Energy Awards organised by the Association for Decentralised Energy.[75] It supplies low carbon heat to Council offices, local businesses and homes in Glenrothes.[76][77][78]

Early 1950s GDC housing at Woodside Road

Careful consideration was given to the form and infrastructure of the town, focusing on the creation of individual suburban type neighbourhoods (precincts), each with their own architectural identity. Engineers, planners, builders and architects were tasked with creating not only good quality mass-produced housing but green spaces, tree planting, wildlife corridors and soft and hard landscaping. This was seen as an equally important part of the process, helping to provide a sense of place and connection to the land that a New Town was felt to need in order to become a successful place where people would want to live and raise children. Separating industry from housing areas in planned industrial estates was a key element of early plans.[95] This was at the time seen as an important change from the "chaotic", congested and polluted industrial towns and cities of the previous centuries where cramped unsanitary housing and dirty industries were built in close proximity to one another.

The vision for Glenrothes was to provide a clean, healthy and safe environment for the town's residents and much of the housing, as in most other new towns (especially in Scotland) took the form of council housing built by the Glenrothes Development Corporation.[31] The provision of council housing, part of a nation-wide trend towards this type of tenure, gave the local development corporation an even greater overall ability to implement its vision of a planned built environment while also fulfilling one of the primary aims of the new towns: to create affordable housing for workers in areas that were to be centres of new industry and economic growth.[96] The new homes simultaneously provided affordable housing for people being relocated from crowded "slum" areas in the industrial Central Belt (and Glasgow in particular), though the latter was less of priority for Glenrothes initially compared to other Scottish new towns such as East Kilbride and Cumbernauld which were more specifically planned to fulfill a so-called "overspill" function.

Housing in South Parks built in the 1950s

Housing in Pitteuchar built in the 1970s

Housing in Balgeddie built in the 1990s

The settlement has been purposely planned using a series of masterplans. Development of Glenrothes started in Woodside in the east and progressed westwards with the first town masterplan implemented as far as South Parks and Rimbleton housing precincts.[97][98] Early neighbourhoods were based on Ebenezer Howard's Garden City philosophy, using relatively tried and tested principles of town planning and architecture which is reflected in their housing styles and layouts.[3] The first town masterplan sub-divided the town's designated area into self-contained residential precincts with their own primary schools, local shops and community facilities, consistent with other new towns being built elsewhere in the UK in the same period.[31]

A second town masterplan was then developed in the late 1960s following Glenrothes' change of role and was to accommodate an increased population of 50,000–70,000. New areas of land in the north and south of the designated area were identified for new development.[99] The road network was redsiegned and upgraded to deal with projected increases in car ownership and new housing estates were developed to the west, then to the south and finally to the north of the designated area.[100]

The housing precincts of the 1960s and 1970s, developed under the second masterplan, departed slightly from the garden city ideals instead adopting Radburn principles; separating as far as practical footpaths from roads. The housing precincts were designed to better accommodate increases in car ownership which increased significantly from the 1960s onwards.[101] The townscape changed in this period seeing more use of contemporary architectural styles of the time and newer forms of development layouts. Terraced housing and blocks of flats were predominantly developed and housing designs also used flat roofed and mono pitch roof styles to create variety. The fronts of houses were in many instances designed to face onto public footpaths and open spaces. Car parking was kept either to the rear of properties or in parking bays located nearby in efforts to minimise conflict with pedestrians.[101]

Housing precincts from the 1980s onwards were largely developed by the private sector with the majority of this housing developed in low density suburban cul-de-sacs.[86] Areas of structural planting, tree belts and open spaces were purposely designed to blend housing and factories into the hillsides and local landscape.[94]

The Glenrothes area's geology is predominantly made up of glacial deposits with the subsoil largely consisting of boulder clay with a band of sand and gravel in the area to the north of the River Leven. The river valley largely comprises alluvium deposits and there are also igneous intrusions of olivine dolerite throughout the area.[102] Productive coal measures were largely recorded in the southern parts of Glenrothes, approximately south of the line of the B921 Kinglassie road. These coal measures form part of the East Fife coalfield and prior to 1962 the deposits there were to be worked by the Rothes Colliery, until it was found that there were severe issues with water penetration and subsequent flooding. Smaller limestone coal outcrops that had been historically worked were recorded around the Balbirnie and Cadham/Balfarg areas with the land that is now Gilvenbank Park found particularly to be heavily undermined.[102]

Factory units in Southfield Industrial Estate

Inchdairnie Distillery, Whitehill Industrial Estate

Velux HQ in Eastfield Business Park

The 2011 census showed that manufacturing accounted for almost 15% of employment in Glenrothes.[114] In 2015 this amounted to over 4,000 jobs in the local area, or almost a third of all manufacturing jobs in Fife.[119] A number of high tech industrial companies are located in the town largely specialised in electronics manufacturing making the Glenrothes area one of Scotland's largest clusterings of electronics companies.[71] These are what remain of Silicon Glen operations in the area which gradually reduced and then consolidated since the peak in the late 1990s.[86] Local companies specialised in this sector include Compugraphic which develops photomasks for the microelectronics sector,[120] CTDI (formally Regenersis) which provides technology repair and test services,[121] Leviton (previously Brand Rex) which produces fibre optic cabling,[122] Raytheon which specialises in electronics for the defence industry and Semefab which produces Micro Electric Mechanical Systems (MEMS).[123] Other major companies which have established a base in Glenrothes include Bosch Rexroth (hydraulics manufacturing), FiFab (precision engineering) and Velux (Window and Skylight Manufacturers).[5]

In 2013 Indian beverages group Kyndal entered into a joint venture with John Fergus & Co Ltd to establish a new Scotch whisky distillery and bonded warehouse facility in Glenrothes. The new distillery, named Inchdairnie, focuses on exporting to markets in India, Africa and the Far East. It opened in May 2016 creating 15 new jobs as well as generating new exports worth a predicted £3.6 million to Scotland over the next three years. It is located at Whitehill Industrial Estate adjacent to Fife Airport.[124][125][126] The distillery is one of the first in Scotland to embark on a significant decarbonisation programme and was awarded UK Government funding as part of a 'Green Distilleries Competition' in January 2021. This will specifically focus on the potential to use hydrogen at the distillery to significantly decarbonise the process heat required. The hydrogen could be produced two ways, by converting the gas generated at the local AD plant to hydrogen onsite and through electrolysis of local renewables onsite. This will reduce the overall carbon footprint of the distillery.[127][128]

Roof window manufacturer Velux announced in October 2018 that it was delivering a £7 million expansion to its UK and Ireland headquarters in Glenrothes. The firm's head office building was renovated and a 3,500 square metre new build structure was developed alongside the existing office, housing a customer service centre, training facilities, office space, meeting suite and a staff restaurant. Like the current building, the extension showcases Velux products, such as its modular skylight system, flat roof windows and sun tunnels.[129]

Kingdom Shopping Centre

M&S Foodhall, Glenrothes town centre

Golden Acorn, hotel, bar and restaurant

Retail jobs accounted for approximately 11% of the total number of jobs in the local economy in 2011.[5] The majority of shopping, retail services and administrative facilities in Glenrothes are concentrated in the town centre (central business district). With approximately 120 shop units, the Kingdom Centre provides the largest concentration of retail and services in the town centre.[130] New shop units were delivered at North Street in late 2018/early 2019 anchored by a M&S foodhall.[131][132] Community and commercial leisure facilities within the town centre include the Rothes Halls complex; Glenrothes' principal theatre, library, civic and exhibition centre. A cinema, restaurant, pub and bingo hall complex are located adjacent to the Kingdom Centre at Carrick Gate/Church Street.[133] Ten-pin bowling facilities are available at Albany Gate.[134][135] A number of retail operators including the town's major supermarkets are also located in the Queensway business park located adjacent to the town centre.[136] The town's largest retail employers, Asda and Morrisons, both trade from large stores there. A retail park has also been constructed at the Saltire Centre, approximately half of a mile (1 km) to the southwest of the town centre containing major stores including Matalan and Homebase.[137]

Other types of service industries also add to the town's economic mix with large single employers being in the 'accommodation and food services' sector which accounted for around 4% of the town's total jobs.[5] Balbirnie House Hotel, a four star hotel, Balgeddie House Hotel (a Best Western hotel) and Premier Inn, both three stars, are the largest hotels in Glenrothes. Budget hotel chains are also represented with Wetherspoons operating a hotel and pub, the Golden Acorn Hotel, in the town centre.[138] Travelodge and Holiday Inn also operate hotels within Glenrothes.

Financial and professional services represent 15.6% of the total number of jobs.[114] Offices are mainly concentrated in the town centre and at Pentland Park. An enterprise hub facility was opened in the town centre in 2017 to act as a "one-stop shop" supplying increased enterprise and business services to potential entrepreneurs in the local area.[72][139][73]

Police Scotland Fife Division HQ, Viewfield

A number of public service and third sector agencies and authorities are based in Glenrothes contributing to the town's administrative centre function. Police Scotland has established its Fife Division headquarters in Glenrothes at Viewfield.[140] Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), Scottish Enterprise and Kingdom Housing Association, a major Registered Social Landlord also have offices in Glenrothes at Pentland Park; a business park within the town.[141] Fife College is also a key employer in Glenrothes with a large campus based at Stenton Road adjacent to Viewfield Industrial Estate. Fife Council is a major employer in the locality with its prominent local authority headquarters building located in Glenrothes town centre. Many of the other council departments are contained in a number of the town centre's office blocks and a major depot and office facility is located at Bankhead in the former ADC building.[81]

A range of development projects are proposed to regenerate the town centre steered by a masterplan that was approved by the Glenrothes Area Committee in March 2021. This seeks to address a variety of negative trends including addressing the loss of shops and a halving of office floorspace since the year 2000. Celebrating the unique legacy of public art bequeathed to the town, introducing new business opportunities outwith the Kingdom Shopping Centre, creating new public spaces including a new town square, and supporting an enhanced evening economy are also identified in the masterplan.[142][143] This supersedes an earlier Glenrothes town centre action plan that was approved at Glenrothes Area Committee in 2014.[144][145] Older parts of the Kingdom Shopping Centre at Albany Gate are proposed to be demolished and redeveloped.[146][147]

Glenrothes is to be home to the UK's First 100% Green Data Centre which is to be built at Queensway Technology Park.[148] Once complete this will represent a significant economic development for the area and will play a strategically important part in Scotland's IT infrastructure transformation as a whole. The £40 million development will create over 300 construction jobs during the build process and up to 50 full-time posts created on completion, including technical and operational staff. The facility will be the first of its kind in the UK drawing its energy from a renewable source with power coming directly from the RWE biomass plant in the town. Queensway Data Centre will accommodate up to 1500 high performance computer racks offering the highest levels of resilience and data security. The facility will be built to a BREEAM outstanding standard with a power usage effectiveness rating of less than 1.15.[149][150]

There are also proposals to support the regeneration of the western neighbourhoods, centered around the Glenwood centre. A charrette was held in 2017, facilitated by PAS and supported by design experts, Fife Council and the Scottish Government to inform an action plan for the future of the area.[151][152] The Glenwood Centre was subsequently demolished in 2023 making way for the regeneration of the area. Plans include replacing the demolished centre with mixture of modern properties, commercial units and a community hub.[153]

Major housing developments are taking place in the area, including at the former Tullis Russell papermills, Cadham Road, Markinch South and at Westwood Park which will deliver over a thousand new build homes between 2022 and 2030.[154]

The UK Government announced in January 2023 that Glenrothes will share £19.4m of Levelling-up funding. The money will go into the River Leven Regeneration project to make it an exemplar for a green economic recovery to meet climate and nature targets, and a just transition to net zero. It will also go to regeneration plans for Glenrothes and Leven town centres. The improvements in Glenrothes Riverside Park include a new transport hub with electric charging, bicycle hire, information hub and enhanced accessible link to the Fife Pilgrim’s Way.[155][156][157]

In 1968 Glenrothes was the first town in the UK to appoint a town artist. This is now recognised as playing a significant role, both in a Scottish and in an international context, in helping to create the idea of art being a key factor in creating a sense of place.[68] Two town artists, David Harding (1968–78) and Malcolm Robertson (1978–91), were employed in the lifetime of the Glenrothes Development Corporation (GDC).[158][159] Both artists, supported by a number of assistants, created a large variety of artworks and sculptures that are scattered throughout the town.[160]

Other artists have also contributed to the creation of the town's artworks.[161] The first sculpture erected in Glenrothes was "Ex Terra", created by Benno Schotz which was inspired by the town's motto Ex Terra Vis (Latin) meaning "From the earth strength".[162] "The Good Samaritan" sculpture in Riverside Park was produced by Edinburgh-based sculptor, Ronald Rae, who was commissioned by the GDC to produce a piece of art work in celebration of the town's 40th anniversary in 1988.[158] The concrete hippos scattered throughout the town were designed and created by Stanley Bonnar who went on to be the town artist at East Kilbride.[163][164]

"The Disappearing Hippo" by Stanley Bonnar

Coinciding with the town's 75th anniversary on 30th June 2023 a new public artwork was unveiled in the town centre named "The Disappearing Hippo", created by Stanley Bonnar. It is constructed using recycled tin cans and other sustainable materials bringing a conservation message. The new design presents a solid hippo gradually disappearing; a symbol of the global demise of this species, due to poaching and global warming.[165]

Rothes Halls is the town's main theatre, exhibition, conference and civic centre.[166][167] The town's main library and a cafe also form part of the complex. The Rothes Halls was officially opened by actor and director Richard Wilson on 30 November 1993. Since then it has played host to a vast range of local, national and international shows; popular music and entertainment acts, and amateur societies.[168] It also hosts an annual Kingdom Of Fife Real Ale and Cider Festival, the Glenrothes comic con and a science festival.[169][170][171] The Glenrothes & Area Heritage Centre which established in November 2013 following a series of successful temporary exhibitions held previously in the town centre. It focused on the history of the Glenrothes area from a period between the early 19th century to the late 20th century. The heritage centre was run by local volunteers and operated from a shop unit in the Kingdom Shopping Centre until it was forced to close following the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of the exhibits and displays have since been relocated into the Rothes Halls[172]

Rothes Halls, Kingdom Centre

A war memorial was constructed in Glenrothes in 2007 following the deaths of two local Black Watch soldiers in Iraq. Prior to this Glenrothes was in the unusual position of not being able to host its own Remembrance Sunday commemorations. Unlike traditional memorials, the Glenrothes war memorial consists of two interlinking rings of standing stones.[173]

Glenrothes Hospital is a community hospital located in the Forresters Lodge area to the northwest of the town centre. Opened in October 1981 the hospital has over 80 nursing staff and over 60 beds, as well as around 20 day hospital beds. Glenrothes Hospital provides a wide range of services including; speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, dietetics, district nurses, health visitors, podiatry, hospital pharmacy and x-ray services. There is, however, no accident and emergency service within this hospital.[174]

There are a number of social clubs and organisations operating within Glenrothes which contribute to the cultural and community offerings of the town. These include an art club, various youth clubs, a floral art club, amateur theatre groups, a choral society and a variety of sports clubs.[175][176] Glenrothes hosts an annual gala which is held at Warout Park and has a variety of family activities including a dog show, highland dancing and a travelling funfair with stalls.[177] Summer and winter festivals were held in Riverside Park in 2012. The summer festival included sporting events along with arts and crafts, food stalls and fairground shows.[178] The winter festival coincided with bonfire night celebrations and included the town's annual fireworks display which was previously held at Warout Park. Markinch and Thornton each host an annual Highland Games[179] and the other surrounding villages host their own annual gala days and festivals.[180]

Riverside Park during the 2012 summer festival

The town has won numerous awards locally and nationally for the quality of its landscaping;[62][65] something that is promoted by the "Take a Pride in Glenrothes" (TAPIG) group.[63] The Glenrothes Development Corporation devoted around one third of land in Glenrothes to the provision of open space.[94] As a consequence the town has numerous parks, the largest being Balbirnie Park,[14] Carleton Park,[181] Gilvenbank Park,[182] Riverside Park,[183] and Warout Park.[184][185] The Lomond Hills Regional Park borders and enters the town to the north and east.[186]

The town has a large variety of established sports and leisure facilities. This includes two 18-hole golf courses (Glenrothes and Balbirnie), outdoor skateparks, an indoor ten-pin bowling alley, a football stadium at Warout Park, private gyms and the Michael Woods Sports and Leisure Centre which is a major sports complex located in Viewfield.[86][94][16][187] The Sports Centre was named after the late SNP Councillor Michael Woods in a controversial decision taken by the Glenrothes Area Committee in 2012.[188] The sports centre was recognised for its architectural quality in the 2014 Scottish Property Awards, coming second place in the Architectural Excellence Award for Public Buildings.[189] In April 2018 a new state-of-the-art indoor training facility was developed adjacent to the Michael Woods Sports and Leisure Centre; the only facility of its kind in Fife. The indoor arena features a 3G football pitch allowing for seven-a-side and five-a-side matches. The facility, which was funded by Fife Council and sportscotland at a cost of £2.3 million, is also compliant for rugby training.[190]

Michael Woods Sports and Leisure Centre

The town's football club is Glenrothes F.C., they compete in the East of Scotland League and play at Warout Stadium. The local rugby club is Glenrothes RFC who are based at Carleton Park and there is also a local cricket club who play at Gilvenbank Park.[191][16][192] The Road Running Festival in Glenrothes is the largest annual sporting event in the town with over 1500 people of all ages and levels of fitness taking part and has been held annually since 1983.[193] The town is also an established destination in hosting the BDO British International Championships for darts which are held annually at the town's CISWO club.[194][195][196]

Glenrothes has a twin-town link with Böblingen, a city in Baden-Württemberg in Germany since 1971.[197] As early as 1962 a local councillor had suggested that the town might "twin" with a town on the Continent.[198] Some years later a friendship grew up between teachers at Glenrothes High School and the Gymnasium in Böblingen which eventually led to the twinning of the towns. Since then there have been a number of exchanges on official, club and personal levels.[198]

Dougray Scott

Famous people associated with the town include the actor Dougray Scott who grew up in Glenrothes and attended Auchmuty High School.

Douglas Mason, known as one of the engineers of the "Thatcher revolution" and the "father of the poll tax", set up home in Glenrothes in the 1960s and lived most of his adult life there.[199]

Henry McLeish, the former First Minister of Scotland, lived in Glenrothes, having been brought up in nearby Kennoway. Glenrothes town centre is home to the building involved in the notorious Officegate scandal, which ultimately led to McLeish's resignation as First Minister in 2001.

Tricia Marwick, the first female Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament, served as MSP for Glenrothes.[200][201]

John Wallace CBE, born in nearby Methilhill, like many of his extended family played in the Tullis Russell Mills Band; his father worked as a joiner in the late Tullis Russell Paper Mills. He became the only Scot to hold the position of Principal of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland between 2002 and 2014.[202]

The town has also been home to current and former professional football players including Kevin McHattie (Inverness Caledonian Thistle and previously Hearts), Billy MacKay (formerly Rangers and Hearts) and David Speedie (formerly Chelsea, Liverpool).

Sergeant were a four-piece indie rock band established in Glenrothes. In 2007 they signed a contract with Mercury Records and played at a number of musical festivals including T in the Park and Glastonbury. The band also supported Oasis on four Scottish dates and also the Fratellis on their full UK tour.

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