THE coloured bollards which have upset local councillor Darren Watt and members of Cowdenbeath's business community were created at the end of last week as part of a Fife Council initiative.

The Glasgow based NADFLY organisation did the work to the bollards which previously had been a rather neutral colour.

NADFLY specialises in art designed to grab attention and get people talking and that has been why the local authority has brought them on board as the SUSTRANS project, geared to making the High Street area brighter, gathers momentum.

This involves an investment of over £600,000 in a series of ideas to make the road and pavement network more user friendly.

By attaching the coloured paper to bollards at the end of last week it certainly got tongues wagging but not everyone was in support of the move.

The council's Andrew Walker said that using art and creativity in regenerating the town centre and had been embraced by the local community.

It was all about stimulating local interest from people of all ages and it was hoped that people from the town would make their ideas on it all known through the community hub.

Said Andrew: "The bollards are a temporary installation to stimulate discussion and further engage people in the ongoing discussion of the town centre regeneration projects.

"They aim to speak to people on the High Street towards the end of this week and then further engage with community groups and the local schools over the next week.

"It forms part of the bigger picture work that is being carried out within the town centre as a condition of the funding is that we have ongoing consultation. We expect their work to focus on how to improve connectivity and how to encourage and make it easier for people to walk around the town".

However, the bollards have upset Councillor Watt who said: "Our High Street and Town Centre needs more on-street parking, safer pavements and a general deep clean, not this gimmick.

"Also we need to be looking more into how we deal with the ridiculous number of derelict buildings and shops and then take swift and decisive action".

And his thoughts were backed by people running two businesses on High Street.