Driven by local residents CLEAR has been working with local groups and volunteers to improve the environment in  Buckhaven and Methil over the last ten years including orchard and community garden creation, woodland and native tree planting, spring bulb planting, floral enhancements and hanging baskets in public green spaces,  
home growing and public eats beds, heritage trails and public art, wildflower meadow creation litter picking, community events and promotion of affordable active travel.

Braes & Buckhaven Shore

Planted over 3,000 fruit trees and more fruit shrubs as well as over 7,500 native trees as community woodland, also seeking to reduce erosion. Planted wildflower and spring bulbs. Installed community art, in the form of oak path archways resembling the old whale jawbones and are community art in their own right, totem poles and wall murals. Installed 10 interpretation panels on our social and natural history. Developed walking trails and held learning events.

Gateway Cluster

Enter Buckhaven from the west and – in spring – your entrance is lined with a host of over a thousand golden daffodils, leading you up to a gateway of orchards adorning either side of Methilhaven Road. This mixture of planting and litter clearing continues down Station Road, the Toll Park and Church Street towards the centre of Buckhaven and the College Street Area. Working with both the local authority and local business, our volunteers have planted apple and damson trees and bulbs planted on unused green space, verges and in the grounds of Levenmouth Printers.

College Street Area

There’s more than our hanging baskets running east from Randolph Street, along College Street and out to the day hospital on Wellesley Road. CLEAR have been active at a number of stops along the way: Making a bed in Braehead Gardens. Look behind Buckhaven Library & Museum and you’ll find another hidden orchard. The gardens in front of Bield Braehead Sheltered Home now include Raised Vegetable Beds. We also repaired the wall and commissioned a mural for it.

 Rising Sun & East High St Orchard and Woodland

Until a few years ago, this site on East High Street/Rising Sun Road housed flats, part of the unsuccessful redevelopment of lower Buckhaven in the 1960’s and 1970’s. The street became known for social problems and the eventual clearing of these flats and others in lower Buckhaven allowed more people-friendly housing to emerge. Since the site occupies such a key location close to Buckhaven centre, and linking the upper and lower parts of town, CLEAR took the opportunity to plant the unkempt grassed slopes to the south of the Collywell Steps with over 200 fruit trees and at least as many soft fruit bushes to create a community orchard. We’ve also installed seating.
A pond has also been created to encourage wildlife and wildflowers planted. Local schoolchildren have taken part in this rehabilitation work. Although we class this as wild orchard, not receiving the same degree of grass cutting and close attention as managed town orchards, CLEAR will endeavour to look after this site and has plans to install sculpture as well as planting additional wildflowers.

Starkies Wood

Starkies Wood is the last remaining piece of woodland here in Buckhaven. It is all that remains of the old Muiredge plantation on the edge of our town. Renamed after the last gamekeeper, it has been eroded by mining, railway tracks, modern roads and pedestrians from the expanding housing schemes and shortly with pupils from the new Levenmouth Academy. Now encroached on three sides, CLEAR is regenerating what remains. The work was carried out through a mixture of work by CLEAR volunteers and contractors engaged by Fife Council. The land was cleared and a wetland path was created with plants to encourage wildlife. Benches and interpretation panels have been installed and saplings, shrubs and fruit trees have been planted. As the area is home to bats, we’ve also installed some bird and bat boxes.

Savoy Park

There was a turnout of almost 50 volunteers for the final treeplanting session of the winter at Savoy Park. P7 pupils from Denbeath Primary, a sizeable Fife College staff group joined forces with regular CLEAR volunteers to plant around 140 trees, both native and fruit, as part of the biodiversity corridors to create a more attractive and nature friendly environment.