How property snobs are redrawing the map of Scotland – Kevan Christie

The People’s Republic of Crossgates is not part of Dunfermline and Drumoig is closer to Dundee than St Andrews, writes Kevan Christie.

It would take one hour 23 minutes to walk from Crossgates to this fine medieval abbey in the not-so-nearby city of Dunfermline, according to Google maps (Picture: Lisa Ferguson)

A development has come to my attention, dear reader, that I cannot ignore any longer and feel compelled to address.

There’s gerrymandering afoot with boundaries being redrawn all across the country faster than it takes a would-be Elvis spotter to travel the 32 miles from Glasgow to Prestwick on a visit to Glasgow Prestwick Airport.

Whole villages are being labelled ‘near’ somewhere bigger with more amenities – like a Ryanair airport on the outskirts of a major European city – in a bid to create new ‘communities’ albeit ones with affordable housing.

In this virtual world, you can pretend that you’re living in St Andrews where you can’t afford to buy even though you’re actually nine miles away in Drumoig and are closer to Dundee, which is of course no bad thing. Nine miles I tell you – that’s a Sunday School trip with juice and crisps in your packed lunch box before you even think about running along the West Sands to the strains of Vangelis.

This carry-on, which is straying into ‘a piece of nonsense’ territory, came to the picturesque Fife mining village of Crossgates where I live the other day.

No sooner had I left the grounds of the estate in the Toyota Auris, 2011 plate, than I ran into three sets of temporary traffic lights (TTLs) that had turned Main Street into a scene reminiscent of the final hours of the Battle of Stalingrad.

Humbug Park, Divito’s and Crystal Corner

Panic-stricken white van drivers had abandoned their vehicles in the middle of the road as they rushed to the takeaway to get their daily fix of Lorne sausage on a roll.

Squads of workers in high-vis jackets crowded round a small transistor radio eagerly waiting to hear what song Ken Bruce had chosen to kick-off his 9.30am Radio 2 show with before gathering again to listen to the PopMaster quiz at half-ten. Doing anything but working as they let their young hearts run free.

Motorists had time to run into the chemist and pick up a prescription in the time it took for the TTLs to change colour. Utter carnage.

The cause of all this consternation was the arrival of a fleet, well two... OK one, articulated lorry dropping off building materials at a new development called Crossgates, Dunfermline.

This got the old tether up as, to my knowledge, Crossgates has never been in Dunfermline – although I’m sure some parish boundary pedant will be digging out the ancient scrolls in an attempt to justify the unjustifiable.

We’re a self-proclaimed People’s Republic in ‘The Gates’ with our own shop selling crystals – Crystal Corner – and we’re also home to The Crystal Bar, a target shooting shop, a hairdresser called Kutz for U and the best ice-cream shop in the world – Divito’s.

Our football team are Crossgates Primrose who play at the beautifully named Humbug Park where Scotland legend Jim Baxter first graced the turf.

So you can keep Dunfermline with their Pars, fancy Abbey, Robert the Bruce and his Spiders from Mars.

I may add that none of the above have paid me in cash for the shameless plugs and the four boxes of Caramel Wafers I received are on the cusp of their sell-by date, give or take a day or two,

No plug for property developers

But the property developers – who shall remain nameless – have felt compelled to attach the name of the nearest big toon to the new houses in the hope this attracts the aspirational 2.4 children brigade and their funny wee yappy dugs. “Be gone with your toonie ways – there’ll be no avocado on toast in my backyard.”

The area around Dunfermline has doubled in the last few years with no end of new builds springing up in the Duloch Park suburb – which is handy if you’re looking for next-day deliveries from the Amazon warehouse just off the M90 and a manageable commute to Edinburgh. They also have their own giant Tesco for the milk and maltesers.

“Come to Duloch, where dreams are made.”

It sometimes takes a while for things like medical practices and schools to catch up when developers decide to create a small town in a field in the middle of nowhere but residents will be spoiled for choice when the inevitable fast-food outlets arrive ahead of the game.

All of these shenanigans remind me of a friend from the old country over there in Embra, where this kind of stuff really matters, who told everyone he was from posh Ravelston as he shared the same EH4 postcode as them.

The fact that he lived a stone’s throw from his local The Doo’Cot Pub in sunny Drylaw mattered not a jot as he fancied a better class of pigeon that hung around the “bought hooses” up the road.

Upper Duddingston

My friend and I also like to tell people “we’re old Academy boys” and enjoy watching the confused look on their faces as they try to work out how you can talk like that after going to Edinburgh Academy when we really mean the Leith version.

Duddingston and Corstorphine are just two of many ‘desirable’ areas of the Capital that are rapidly expanding with estate agents quick to crowbar anywhere within a five-mile radius into their listings.

So, the perfectly decent housing estate of Magdalene becomes Upper Duddingston and similarly Clermiston is incorporated into Corstorphine in the minds of the deluded to whom these things matter.

I recently heard the Bellevue area described as North New Town which is a bit of a leap in terms of increasing property values.

We can all laugh at this status anxiety and I’m sure everyone can name an area from their part of the country where this exists – a network of spam valleys.

Conversely, hipster types look to the more edgy parts of town like Leith in the hope of gaining a bit of street cred and I’m starting a campaign to make Piershill trendy.

My last bit of advice folks is to keep your eyes peeled for this type of shenanigans and if you see a sign for new builds that’s been vandalised with marker pen changing “near” to “nowhere near”, it wisnae me. Honest.