A reversal of fortunes over recent years saw the once thriving post war Fraser Avenue housing estate in Inverkeithing ranked in the top 15% of the most deprived areas of the country, according to the Scottish Index  of Multiple Deprivation. However, as part of a long-term strategy for the area, the Fife estate’s once strong community spirit is again re-emerging during the course of a major regeneration. Kingdom Housing Association (Kingdom) working in partnership with Fife Council, Campion Homes, 7N Architects, Bayne Stevenson Associates and Rankin Fraser aim to create a new neighbourhood of high quality affordable housing driving enhanced social cohesion from within through improved placemaking and innovative design.

Central to the approach of the project team is the active involvement of tenants and local residents in the design and decision-making process, in a meaningful community consultation that is informing all stages of the re-development from feasibility to establishing key design principles, right through to completion. In addressing the social side of regeneration, rather than simply building houses, the project is setting a benchmark as a truly sustainable model for new and emerging neighbourhoods.

Fraser Avenue Case Study

Kingdom Housing Association and Fife Council’s clarity of vision and collaborative, caring leadership in partnership with the returning community focused on health and opportunity inequality. This has delivered an exemplar of what  good housing and places can look like in the future. They have transformed a stigmatised area into a place local people and beyond can be proud of and celebrate.

Some of the key benefits identified in this case study include:

• High tenant return rate thereby retaining rather than displacing the community as can sometimes happen through regeneration
• High return and levels of interest from neighbouring areas, reducing vacancies and time taken to realise return on investment for the client.
• But more importantly, real change in the lives of people living there; changes in their health, wellbeing and finances, including children playing in the streets, people engaging with their neighbours and greater care for the whole place.

This case study describes how these benefits have been achieved in the words of those involved.