THE wheels are very much in motion to create at Central Fife Community Rail Partnership.

The meeting held on Thursday with ScotRail, in Cowdenbeath, heard how the Partnership approach had worked in other parts of Scotland and England.

And by the end of the evening more than ten people had indicated they would like to be part of the plan.

The Central Fife Crime Prevention and Community Safety Panel called the meeting which involved more than 30 people, involving panel members and community council representatives from all over the Cowdenbeath-Lochgelly area.

The CRP idea was introduced by Panel chairman Colin Bird and former Community Inspector for the Cowdenbeath area, Ian Stephen.

Ian had started the idea rolling before he was transferred to South Fife and he said: "I really feel this is a unique opportunity for the local communities of the C owdenbeath-Lochgelly area with a pot of up to £80,000 to be tapped into to carry out improvements to the environments around Cowdenbeath, Lochgelly and Cardenden railway stations."

Alan Brooking, community liaison executive with ScotRail, explained how the Partnership mechanism worked: "We currently have nine CRPs in Scotland and these are all very different in themselves.

"It is all about communities coming together to come up with ideas that can generally improve stations' environments through the use of £10,000 pot available each year, but this is all able to be bulked up by match funding.

"It could safety aspects, or social media links or signage, the list of items is endless."

He added: "It is all about communities coming together to create a CRP which can take ideas forward and tap into the funding that is available.

"I must say that the application that has been tabled on behalf of the Central Fife area looks good so this can work for you."

A number of questions were tabled from the floor and access for disabled people was a leading issue at Lochgelly, Cowdenbeath and Cardenden stations.

It was stressed that aspects of this that could go ahead through the CRP scheme.

During the meeting a collation of names of people wishing to be considered to take part in the project was taken and a good number came forward.

The Crime Prevention Panel has agreed to help steer the project and during the summer another meeting will be organised with a view to formally establishing the Central Fife CRP.