By Toby Tomkinson
Only a short distance from St Andrews, just down the A915, the town of Leven has been suffering through numerous setbacks. Diageo’s Cameron Bridge distillery faces strike action as job cuts threaten up to 70 roles across the site. This comes the year after engineering firm GMM Pfaudler announced plans to cut 38 roles, making up two thirds of their workforce at the site, leaving it with only 19 employees versus the 128 who worked there 10 years ago. Only months before, the American pigments manufacturer Silberline announced the closure of their Leven factory leaving 100 without jobs. Across the other end of Fife, ExxonMobil’s chemical plant at Mosmorran shut down in February affecting 400 roles. These worrying events only continue a legacy of deindustrialisation and economic hardship which has left deep scars across Fife, shining through in those towns which remain.
Historically from the Methil coal pits, to Kirkcaldy’s linoleum factories, all the way west to the village of Culross, industry and manufacturing was a massive driver for the Fife economy. The Burntisland shipyard constructed merchant ships and Royal Navy frigates during the second world war. Further east, at the hometown of Adam Smith, Kirkcaldy was a global capital for linoleum production. In Glenrothes numerous electronic companies, including Canon manufacturing which is most known for their cameras, set up shop and created a new base for the developing Silicon Glen sector of Scotland. The Silicon Glen placed Scotland in a key position when the computer boom arrived, giving Glenrothes a role in an industry producing 3 out of 10 Personal Computers in Europe. Combined, these industries all contributed to an economy reliant upon its manufacturing and mining industries.
But that economy was not sustainable. As the 1970s approached, Burntisland Shipyards were forced into closure after increasing costs became unbearable. Within a few years, coal mining started to decline too, caused by an uncompetitive industry and uneconomical operations. To battle this Fife was one of the centres of the infamous 1984-1985 miners’ strikes, but this achieved little. After underground blazes hit numerous Fife mines, many which had remained soon closed. Longannet, the last coal mine in Fife, closed in 2002. In 1985, the world’s oldest linoleum factory in Kirkcaldy shut down forever. Over the following decades the decline continued. In 2000, Canon’s Glenrothes site announced closure. So too did the Methil power station, ending its power generation and a long history of coal in Levenmouth. Infrastructure, too, was impacted. After the Beeching report was released, Fife’s rail services were stripped. Fishing communities like Crail, Largo, St Monans and even the tourist-focused St Andrews all lost their railways. In 2001, the Leven railway was fully shut to all traffic, ending over 100 years of history.
Today, the legacy of industry has not fully disappeared. Rosyth shipyard is remarkably one of the few to thrive, being the assembly site for the Royal Navy’s two aircraft carriers and the build site of the newest frigates. US Defence contractor Raytheon continues to produce electrical components for their military products in Glenrothes, one of the few remaining companies from the Silicon Glen. Forbo’s Kirkcaldy site is the sole remaining linoleum factory across the entirety of the UK. But this legacy is more than just the physical marks which remind locals of what once was. This tale of decline has had a measurable impact upon the population who remain today. Fife’s child poverty rate already sits 2% above average, a number more poignant when you separate out the communities most afflicted. In parts of Kirkcaldy, it is as high as 31.2%, while in Buckhaven, Methil and Wemyss it is as high as 28.5%. Drug related hospital admissions have in recent years been consistently much higher than that of the rest of Scotland. During the 2025/2026 fiscal year, over 2,600 homelessness applications were made to Fife Council. SIMD (Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation) data shows a deep divide in deprivation levels between the affluent, tourism-focused, university-powered town of St Andrews and areas such as Glenrothes, Dunfermline, Kirkcaldy, and Levenmouth. A look at the data map reveals a stark divide between the highly-rated streets of St Andrews and the towns and villages in the west and centre of Fife. Buckhaven hosts the 8th most deprived ‘data zone’ in Scotland, St Andrews hosts the 15th least deprived.
Further showing this, St Andrews is considered to be thriving according to local news. The golf tourism in the town generates over £300 million pounds annually. The city of Dunfermline, once the capital of Scotland, with a population three times as large as St Andrews, generated only £124 million from all forms of tourism in 2023. This vast difference points to a remarkable gap in conditions between towns which region-wide statistics may mask. Even greater than that, it spells out the scale of the damage caused by the economic changeover of the last 50 years, with St Andrews protected by an economy disconnected from the rest of Fife. Looking closer at social factors also shows a more uncomfortable divide. The viral story of Sophie Rose Jenkins experience at the University of St Andrews triggered a wave of national attention upon the significant number of American students arriving at the university and difficulties faced for working-class Scots. This is not the first controversy students have been involved in, such as an article written in The Saint which triggered criticism from local SNP candidate Stefan Hogan-Radu and the former Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament, Tricia Marwick. The article was defended by some, such as in the Telegraph and the Spectator, criticising the reaction as politically charged. This social factor is noticed by locals too, like the case of an elderly resident being forced to relocate due to a luxury home being built next door, according to the pro-independence newspaper The National. These stories only contribute to a differing picture of life between the different areas of Fife, showing that it has evolved from a purely economic problem.
Since deindustrialisation, numerous government actions have attempted to tackle Fife’s struggles. The aforementioned Silicon Glen project was an early attempt to transition Scotland, including Fife, towards new high-tech sectors. This failed, as by the early 2000s this had ended and many companies moved out, with Canon citing the decrease in product prices causing the site to no longer be financially viable. In recent times the investment has not halted. The Scottish Government spent £116 million to reconnect Leven and Cameron Bridge to the rail network undoing the effects of the Beeching Report and strengthening the connection to Edinburgh, which would theoretically allow access to a whole new job market. In October 2025, the Scottish Government invested £154.5 million into the Dunfermline City Campus, helping strengthen Education in the region. Fife also benefits from a 10-year investment programme in industrial space and business, worth £59 million allowing for stimulus to small and medium-size businesses across Fife. Further east in the region, the University of St Andrews Eden Campus, built on a former paper mill, has also been supported by both Scottish and UK government investment, helping to develop Guardbridge and strengthen the University in a time of struggle for higher education across Scotland.
It is yet to be seen if those investments will have a long-term impact upon struggling communities in Fife, and it certainly appears to be a deep hole to dig the region out of. An independent audit in 2025 found that inequalities are still deepening; Life expectancy gaps are widening between the poor and wealthy; It found that Fife Council’s health and care spending is not sustainable. The audit also warned that the council must save £46 million by the 2027/2028 fiscal year, requiring action to preserve current services while also ensuring that they are able to deal with the deficit. The difficult position of the council shows that the change needed cannot easily be achieved within the budgetary restrictions they must operate under. If so, it would suggest greater intervention is needed, but with a Scottish Government struggling to maintain its own budget gap, it is unclear where this is expected to come from.
However, what is clear is that Fife is not the only region with such woes. SIMD data shows that Greenock and Inverclyde are among the most deprived areas in Scotland. Glasgow, North Ayrshire, and West Dunbartonshire trail not far behind. Scotland’s highest-in-Europe Drug Death rate, more than double that of runner-up Estonia, is worst in areas such as Glasgow, Dundee, and North Ayrshire. Deindustrialisation was not a Fife specific issue either. It had a consistent effect on communities across the country. Glasgow was once known for the Clyde shipyards, which at one point produced a fifth of all ships in the world. Now, the drydocks and shipyards are gone, replaced with housing, green spaces and entertainment venues such as the SEC and the OVO Hydro. While they do provide some form of replacement for the many jobs lost, they do not replace all of them. In the town of Kilmarnock, the factory home to Scotch Whiskey brand Johnnie Walker shut down in 2012. It became the last major manufacturer to leave Kilmarnock. In 2025 Scotland’s only oil refinery, located at Grangemouth, ended refining operations causing a scandal reaching the desk of then prime minister, Keir Starmer. This year, Syngenta recently proposed closing their Grangemouth chemical manufacturing plant with 377 jobs at risk.
Fife has long stood as a region of industrial importance, closely bordering and following the economic powerhouse of the Central Belt. Now all that remains is the shadows and rotting carcasses of what once was. If industry can no longer serve as the backbone of the region, what is next? Some industry certainly remains, but not near the levels of before, and certainly not numerable enough to be so vital as it was. The towns and villages which once bore home to coal pits and factories still have not had an answer. The drug crisis continues nationally without sign of abating, and neither has deprivation or the poverty endemic to some of those neighbourhoods relented for the benefit of the working men and women. Investment and support from the government has not halted, showcased by the expansion of the rail network and a new college campus, but it still has not broken through to deal with the inequalities rife among Fife and neither has it found a way to sustain the people as the former industries once did. The story of Fife is one common to Scotland, but now decades of these inequalities has shown the suturing of those wounds is no easy task to undertake. With the rise of nationalist and populist sentiment through the SNP and Reform UK, which is not dissimilar with MAGA and its own focus on utilising growing frustrations in working class communities nationally, maybe now is the time to step back and spend some time to think about those who were left behind in times past. St Andrews stands as a rare case of success, but the bubble has isolated it from the norms of the nation that surrounds it. Maybe, for once, bursting that bubble can remind us that more exists here beyond the tight confines of St Andrews, and that whatever the UK does next, it must factor in those who lay beyond.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and may not reflect the opinions of The St Andrews Economist
Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons