Fife Council Property Sell-Off
189 properties sold between 2020 & 2024
Fife Council has sold 189 properties since January 2020, raising around £26.6 million in the face of deepening financial pressures. The figures, obtained via freedom of information requests and analysed by The Ferret, reveal the scale of asset disposals across Scotland, with Fife among the local authorities selling the most.
Across Scotland, councils collectively disposed of 1,851 public assets between 2020 and 2024, including schools, community centres, care homes, libraries, and public toilets. These sales generated £243 million in revenue for struggling local authorities.
What Was Sold in Fife?
The dataset shows 189 sales by Fife Council over the four-year period. These ranged from small parcels of land to community facilities and larger buildings. While the Council has stressed that over 100 of these transactions involved parts of land or buildings rather than entire facilities, the disposals still represent around a tenth of the local authority’s total number of halls and centres.
Fife’s sales included:
- Eight community centres and civic halls
- Five former schools
- Four school sites sold for redevelopment
While some assets were sold into private ownership, others were transferred to local groups through community asset transfers.
However, Fife Council withheld the details of the buyers for these properties in its FOI response. This means it is not currently possible to identify who now owns many of these former public assets, whether private individuals, developers, or community organisations.
Why Are Assets Being Sold?
Fife Council, like others across Scotland, cites budget shortfalls and rising costs as the drivers of these decisions. The Accounts Commission has warned that local authorities face a collective funding gap of £647 million in 2025-26. Inflation, increased wage costs, and social care demands - particularly for an ageing population - have all contributed to this pressure.
Council leaders argue that sales can free up maintenance costs and, in some cases, give older buildings “a new lease of life” through new uses. However, critics warn that once sold, community assets may be lost to public use permanently.
Dunfermline Properties Sold
| Address | Sale Price | Buyer |
|---|---|---|
| 0.53ha at Main Street, Halbeath, Dunfermline | £100,000 | Withheld |
| 11.485 acres at Dunlin Drive, Dunfermline | £1,480,462 | Withheld |
| 1120.42sqm at Campbell Street, Dunfermline | £137,000 | Withheld |
| 160 Appin Crescent, Dunfermline | £175,000 | Withheld |
| 40 sqm adjacent to 26 Blackburn Avenue, Dunfermline | £8,800 | Withheld |
| 413sqm at 176 Inchkeith Drive, Dunfermline | £25,000 | Withheld |
| 82 High Street, Dunfermline KY12 7AT | £250,000 | Withheld |
| Former Bellyeoman Depot, Leys Park Road, Dunfermline | £565,000 | Withheld |
| Land at 14 Royal Scot Way, Dunfermline | £6,000 | Withheld |
| Land at 174 Golfdrum Street, Dunfermline | £3,800 | Withheld |
| Land at 6 Wallace Street, Dunfermline | £4,300 | Withheld |
| Land at Pittsburgh Road, Dunfermline | £10,000 | Withheld |
| Land on East Side of Sandpiper Drive, Dunfermline | £1,055,000 | Withheld |
| Milesmark Depot, Carnock Road, Dunfermline | £886,000 | Withheld |
| Sub Station Site, Sandpiper Drive, Halbeath, Dunfermline, KY11 8EX | £1 | Withheld |
| SUDS basin site at Pittsburgh Road/Fleet Street, Dunfermline and associated servitudes | £0 | Withheld |
| Unit 8, Elgin Street Industrial Estate, 15-17 Dickson Street, Dunfermline | £320,000 | Withheld |
Access the complete dataset
If you would like to inspect the complete dataset for all council properties sold off by Scottish councils, you can download it below. The file is in CSV (comma-separated values) format, which can be imported into Excel or Google Sheets.