The spire on a vacant church building in a Scots town is to be removed amid safety concerns.
Fife Council is taking action after concerns were raised by council engineers about the spire on the Normand Road United Free Church in Dysart, Fife.
The Gothic-style church, which dates back to 1867, closed to worshippers in 2009 and has been vacant since. It is currently on the Buildings At Risk Register for Scotland.
The engineers said the spire was an immediate danger to the public, particularly if there are storms or high winds.
READ MORE: Funding secured for purchase of historic Ayrshire cinema
Work will start on Monday (December 18) to remove the spire, the council said.
Garry Nicol, service manager for building standards and safety at Fife Council, said: “The structure is twisted and in poor condition. We’re taking urgent action to keep the public safe and work will start next week.”
The work will involve the emergency full closure of a section of Station Road and partial closure with traffic lights on Normand Road.
The removal of the spire is expected to take 10 to 12 working days depending on the weather.
Mr Nicol added: “We understand the owner of the building has taken some steps to resolve this issue. However the urgency of the situation means that we’ve had to take immediate action to get this work done and keep the public safe.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel