A GROUP of art lovers in Dunfermline has commissioned a major report which could pave the way for the conversion of the city’s soon-to-be-vacated fire station into a contemporary arts centre.

The Carnegie Drive station, a B-listed building completed in 1936, will be redundant when the new station being built at Pitreavie Business Park opens early next year.

And voluntary body Dunfermline Arts and Media (DAM), the organisation behind the Glen Gates Gallery mounted in the city during the summer months, sees the Art Deco building as an ideal home for studios and exhibitions.

With a £6500 grant from the Big Lottery Fund, DAM has commissioned a study into the creation of an arts centre somewhere in the city. But it is understood that some buildings the marketing consultant has looked at have been dismissed as being unsuitable or too costly for conversion, and that the fire station is seen as the favoured option.

The consultant’s report is likely to be finished by the middle of the month and if the fire station emerges as the top choice, DAM faces the daunting prospect of trying to acquire it.

The landmark building, owned by Fife Council, occupies a key site in the centre of the city and there has been talk of it being eyed as a possible pub or nightclub.

However, DAM believe the general public ¬- and perhaps the police ¬- would be appalled at such a prospect, and think converting the station into an arts centre would give the city a cultural and economic shot in the arm.

“Having a centre for the contemporary arts would really give Dunfermline, and indeed Fife, a big boost,” said DAM co-founder Ian Moir. “It happens wherever centres like this are created ¬- suddenly Dunfermline would become a focal point in Scotland, and possibly even overseas,
for the creative arts. That would be brilliant not just for people involved in the arts but for the city as a whole.”

DAM has been looking around for a suitable venue for a contemporary art centre for some time but is now focused on the fire station as it believes it could, with minimum work, easily accommodate an exhibition space, studios, offices, a bookshop and a cafe. The group points
out that the building is in excellent condition, there’s little likelihood of there being any fire regulation problems, and there is ample parking space.

“It’s almost as if the building was designed to be an arts centre,” said Mr Moir.

The station’s conversion into an arts centre would follow a long line of prestigious projects in which utilitarian buildings have been turned into cultural hubs. A former flour mill in Gateshead has become Baltic Mills, now a world renowned centre for contemporary arts, which has helped to revitalise that part of  Tyneside. And the Tate Modern, created in 2000 in what was Bankside Power Station in London, has become one of the UK’s top tourist attractions, generating 4000 jobs and £100 million a year for the capital’s economy.

With or without an arts centre, Carnegie Drive is set for a radical transformation with Tesco planning to build a new store on the site of the former Thomson’s World of Furniture building as soon as the fire station is vacated early next year.

DAM is not the only potential occupant of the fire station to have emerged in recent times. Developers last year applied for permission to turn it into a pub/nightclub as part of a £20 million proposal which would have stymied Tesco’s plans.

The Town Centre Regeneration Company also proposed building a supermarket, car park and offices on land east of the fire station and wanted to pull down buildings on the south side of Carnegie Drive and replace them with shops. However, the company, made up of a mysterious group of businessmen who sought anonymity, didn’t own all the buildings involved and the whole idea was quietly dropped.

There have been mutterings of discontent at the prospect of the fire station becoming a pub or club. Iain McGregor, a Fife Council development manager, said last year there had been “an issue” about the number of licensed premises in the city.

He said at the time that it would be “great” if someone was to buy the station for office use.

But, whatever happens, he assured, “It’s a listed building and our position is it will be retained and given its place in the town.”

Dunfermline Fire Station, which has been described as being “hot stuff” for enthusiasts of the Art Deco movement, was designed by James Shearer, a Dunfermline-born architect who also worked on the covered enclosure at East End Park. He was appointed OBE in 1969 and died
three years later.