Dunfermline Weekly 💕 9 February 2025
Dunfermline history, college campus for sale, final high school name options, and more
🏳️⚧️ There is an ongoing employment tribunal case between NHS Fife and a nurse, involving a transgender doctor. This case has sparked sensationalist reporting and interventions from many parties claiming concern. Both staff members have been working at Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy.
Nurse Peggie was reported over continuous transphobic harassment against Dr Upton and at least one incident where the nurse’s refusal to acknowledge or speak to the doctor has created risk for patients, including children. These incidents took place in 2023.
NHS Fife investigated the reports and suspended the nurse. The employment tribunal is brought about by nurse Peggie against NHS Fife, accusing NHS Fife of discriminating her in turn.
In hearings that have taken place so far, the nurse has continued to deliberately misgender Dr Upton.
BBC refuses to refer to Dr Upton using female pronouns and quotes nurse Peggie’s misgendering comments word for word. All other outlets DW checked have been referring to Dr Upton using the correct gender.
🛍️ Artisan Market is back in St Catherine’s Wynd today, 11-15 as usual.
📜 Hamish MacPherson wrote a pretty long feature about history of Dunfermline up to 1800s, pointedly making it the first in a series about the eight cities of Scotland. While Dunfermline received city status only in 2022, its recorded history goes back a thousand years, and there is clear evidence of settlement here long before that.
🎒 Final poll for the new Rosyth high school name has been published this week. The public is asked to pick between Caledonia, Rosyth, Forth and Janet McCallum in the first part of the poll, and between High School and Academy in the second part. The second round of voting is open now until 28 March.
🤑 The Fife College site in Halbeath has been listed for sale ahead of the college move to the new campus later this year. The Halbeath Rd site is advertised as a brownfield development opportunity, without a price tag, and with a caveat that the college doesn’t have to accept any offer in the first place.
🔮 The £5 million of levelling up funds for Dunfermline remain elusive. The money was promised by the previous Tory government before last year’s Westminster election, and while already pre-allocated for various uses, it still has not materialised. Previous reporting indicated that many pre-election promises made by Convervatives were not backed by any Treasury funds in the first place.
🎞️ Community cinema has had another potential site suggested in form of Carnegie Hall - at least temporarily, so that the cinema can start functioning before a permanent location is found.
💧 Houses near Rosyth docks were left without water at the start of the week due to a fault on a small local pipe network operated by Veolia Water Nevis; Scottish Water was involved in order to speed up the return of water supply, and provided bottled water until as late as Wednesday, when the issue was finally fixed.
🛒 Lidl has now submitted a planning application for a store at the King Malcolm Hotel site off Queensferry Road. This would be the first Lidl store in Dunfermline.
🚌 The council is again funding free bus travel on Valentine’s Day (this Friday) and Mother’s Day within Stagecoach’s Dunfermline Zone specifically.