Projects

Anstruther Wester Town Hall, Hew Scott Hall and St Nicholas Tower project

The Anstruther Wester Town Hall, the Hew Scott Hall and the St Nicholas Tower together form a listed building complex which is currently owned by Fife Council through the Common Good Fund and the Church of Scotland. They are operated in two separate parts by the local church and the Anstruther Improvements Association.

Townscape Heritage Initiative

The building complex has formed part of a bid for grant funding to the Townscape Heritage Initiative (THI), funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and designed to help communities regenerate Conservation Areas. In April 2010 £915,000 was awarded to Anstruther with a large chunk for the purpose of conserving and restoring important local historic buildings to bring them back into productive use. The Hew Scott Hall, St Nicholas Tower and Wester Anstruther Town Hall, together with the Murray Library, are the two main priority projects within the Initiative and this opportunity has prompted the building’s owners (Fife Council and the Church of Scotland) to consider how best to secure its future as a central part of the Anstruther Wester community.

The Anstruther Improvements Association’s role

After much exploration and consultation, the Church of Scotland and Fife Council have endorsed an in-principle decision for the building to be sold to the AIA, given its status as a community-led charitable organisation. The AIA Committee is currently doing everything necessary to ensure that we are an organisation that has the capacity to rehabilitate the building and manage it over the long-term.

The project

In 2013 ownership of the buildings will transfer to Fife Historic Buildings Trust, who will oversee Phase I of an ambitious capital project, working with architectural practice ARC to restore the external fabric of the building so that it is weatherproof and sound. At the end of Phase I ownership will pass to the AIA. Phase I is funded as follows:

Phase II of the project will upgrade facilities in both halls for performing arts events and community activities, will provide an internal link between the two halls, integrating the three buildings into one, and will provide full disabled access.

Funding for Phase II

The AIA is currently investigating funding sources for Phase II which will improve the building’s long-term sustainability, extend its use and improve the experience of community users.

What you can do

Our most pressing objective at the moment is to demonstrate the community’s support for developing the building into a community-owned resource with a clean bill of health and a sustainable future. We have set up an online petition and would be grateful if you would sign up to it here www.petitiononline.com/AIA999/petition.html. Please ask all your friends and family within and outwith Anstruther to sign up too. We will not be able to achieve our plans without your support!

If you have any questions about this project, please do not hesitate to contact AIA President, Elizabeth Gordon, by telephone (01333 310674), through our website or by letter (5 Shore Street, Anstruther, KY10 3EA). Letters or emails of support for the project, which would be gratefully received, can also be sent to these addresses