Fife consultation – November 2026

We are seeking views on proposed changes affecting fire stations in Fife as part of the ongoing Service Delivery Review.

Following a public consultation in 2025, the SFRS Board approved a range of operational changes to fire stations across Scotland in June 2026.

However, a final decision on a Fife proposal affecting Glenrothes, Methil and Lochgelly was deferred to allow further consideration of an alternative option. We are now seeking views on that additional proposal, known as Option 3.

This consultation will run between 9 and 30 November 2026 and provides the opportunity for local communities, staff, stakeholders and elected representatives to share their views before any final decision is made.

We are only consulting on Option 3, which is laid out below. The two options previously consulted in 2025 remain under consideration and no final decision has been made.

You can also submit your thoughts online via the survey on citizenspace website. 

Public meetings

There will be two public meetings that you can attend online. Please note, attendance for these meetings must be confirmed in advance.

You can register for these meetings below. 

• Monday, 16 November from 2-4pm
• Tuesday, 17 November from 6-8pm

The online meetings will be facilitated by community engagement experts at the Health and Social Care Alliance, an impartial external agency.

Reduce the number of wholetime appliances based at Methil and Glenrothes from two to one. The second appliances at both stations were temporarily withdrawn in September 2023. 

Pros

• Retains an arrangement operating since September 2023 for which evaluation and ongoing operational assurance have identified no evidence of adverse operational outcomes attributable to the temporary withdrawals. 
• Maintains required £2.4 million saving in annual running costs.
• No additional impact on SFRS Training capacity and no further staff relocations required.
• Avoids one-off cost up to £108k for relocation of specialist rope rescue asset at Lochgelly and associated training costs. 

Cons

• Increase in second attending appliance response times within local areas and across Fife.
• Imbalance in average wholetime pumping appliance demand across Fife stations.

Further information on Option 1 and Option 2 can be on the Service Delivery Review page for Fife.

SFRS Board decision

In June 2026, the SFRS Board agreed to defer a decision on the remaining Fife proposals to allow further assessment and public consultation on the alternative proposal, now known as Option 3. Options 1 and 2 remain in scope. Option 3 would make permanent the temporary withdrawal of the second wholetime appliances at Glenrothes and Methil, while retaining two wholetime appliances and the rope rescue capability at Lochgelly.

Why we are consulting again

Option 3 is the current temporary arrangement that has been in place since September 2023. This was previously assessed as an option and discounted during the options appraisal and development process, as it had a greater operational impact compared to Options 1 and 2.  

However, feedback from staff and communities indicated a strong desire to maintain this temporary arrangement and this has now been brought back under consideration.

Consideration was given by SFRS Board and senior leadership to the deliverability, financial implications, training capacity and cost of relocating the rope rescue capability currently located at Lochgelly, and the associated workforce impacts.  It was their professional opinion that the benefits of the Fife changes had largely been achieved by the temporary arrangements (Option 3) and that any further benefit would not be proportionate to the level of disruption required to implement either Option 1 or Option 2.

Temporary appliance withdrawal

In 2023, the SFRS Board approved the temporary withdrawal of ten fire appliances from service and now a permanent solution is required. We based this decision on where withdrawals would have the least impact, and we have been monitoring this.  

This included three in Fife at:  

• Glenrothes,
• Methil
• Dunfermline

This approach contributed to an annual saving of £11m across the Service, but this needs to be a recurring saving, and a permanent equivalent solution is now required.  

In Fife, this means the permanent withdrawal of three wholetime appliances at a cost saving of £2.4 million. A change has already been approved and implemented at Dunfermline, and further changes are required at two of Glenrothes, Methil and Lochgelly.

The evaluation of the temporary withdrawals found no evidence of a negative effect on firefighter safety or adverse operational outcomes attributable to the changes. It also identified increases in second-appliance response times in some areas. These findings provide evidence in support of retaining the current arrangements but are not proof that there is no risk or that future outcomes will be unchanged.

We know that there has been a high concentration of resources based within Fife relative to the operational demand of Glenrothes, Methil and Lochgelly and compared to other similar geographical areas elsewhere in Scotland.

Public consultation 2025

A series of proposed changes were put forward as part of 23 options considered during a public consultation in 2025. Engagement activity included public meetings and drop-in sessions across affected communities, attended by more than 800 people across Scotland, alongside a public survey which generated more than 3,600 responses.  

This included events in Glenrothes, Methil, Lochgelly and Dunfermline attended by more than 140 members of the community; with 465 survey responses received relating to the options for Fife.