RESIDENTS have welcomed revised plans for a bustling new community to be created out of the derelict site of the former Hall's of Broxburn meat processing factory that closed two years ago.
The rescue spearheaded by Stagecoach co-founder and philanthropist Ann Gloag and Fred Duncan, who owned the firm, comes after the devastating closure of the company that brought the loss of 1,700 jobs and also left a gaping scar on the West Lothian landscape.
The multi-million pound project for around 200 homes including affordable housing, shopping and a pub and restaurant will span the main road into Broxburn and its backers said it will sit as a gateway to the town.
About 200 permanent jobs would be created once construction is completed.
Joint developers Paradigm, Ms Gloag and Mr Duncan's firm, and Rubicon Land, who are both Glasgow-based, unveiled their latest plans at a public meeting in Broxburn.
It is the third exhibition they have held and included amended plans to shift the shopping centre further away from homes, and they moved to buy a disused factory across the road for the amenities.
Neighbours have welcomed the latest proposals and said some of local staff including Polish workers had either found other work in the area or had moved elsewhere.
One said: "Some said they've got much better jobs now.
"It will be good to have the people living here and it is good that they have now also moved the shops."
Alistair Reid-Thomas, director of Rubicon Land, greeted visitors in the Strathbrock Centre, and said the majority had been in favour of the latest designs, which includes the site of the former Golden Wonder factory.
He said: "We listened to what was said. We bought it over (the new site) and we hope that's two problem sites getting addressed with good regeneration and development."
It was estimated a few hundred in total viewed the plans over the three meetings, in a steady stream.
Tom Roy, of Broxburn Community Council, said: "We had only just heard about the change of plan. That's a positive sign but we will wait until the full plans are submitted to the council.
"That's when we will move. We want to see a good balance of affordable housing, that would be fairer.
"That is something good (for the community) and that's the way we hope it goes."
The developers' final design will be ready for submission within a couple of months and if approved work could begin early next year, with completion potentially by 2017.
The area was devastated by the sudden announcement by Dutch firm Vion of the closure of Hall's saying it was losing £79,000 per day.
In 2008 Mr Duncan sold Grampian Country Food Group which owned the Broxburn site to Vion for an estimated £350 million.
The closure of the firm that produced UK's best-selling haggis prompted a major rescue mission from national and local government and around 1,000 jobs were set up after £8m was spent on re-training and funding programme to allow firms to expand and take on staff.
Among those was the £1m project to create an extra 170 jobs with the Broxburn Business Gateway office, and £2m fund for food and drink firms that created 200 jobs.
Hall's haggis also had a new lease of life after Dumfriesshire based Browns Food Group bought the rights and recipes to the brand, helping secure 500 jobs.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article