WORK has already started on an £8.5 million development that will be “a real shot in the arm for Cowdenbeath’s economy”.

A new state-of-the-art retail estate for Lidl and B&M will create 110 jobs at North End Park with both stores hoping to open late summer.

London & Scottish Investments, who bought the former greyhound track from Tesco in 2015, have been fast out of the traps and within days of securing final planning permission from Fife Council, contractors were clearing the site with groundworks expected to be complete by October 15.

Development director Bryan Wilson said: “This is a great development which represents a real shot in the arm for Cowdenbeath’s economy.

“We are delighted that Lidl and B&M have committed to the site.

“Local shoppers are going to be spoiled for choice.”

Supermarket chain Lidl and B&M, one of the UK’s fast growing discount retailers, will each bring with them up to 40 long term jobs to the town.

The contractors, Muir Construction of Inverkeithing, had heavy plant hard at work clearing the site and they will have a workforce of 30 for the 10-month construction phase, many of them local tradesmen or sub contractors.

They expect to compete the ground works by October 15 and move straight on to building a 20,000 sq ft unit for Lidl and a 27,000 sq ft unit, including an outdoors sales area, for B&M.

Both buildings and a car park with 240 spaces are due to be completed by July next year with the stores ready for fitting and starting to trade around six weeks later.

Lidl will be installing an in-store bakery, longer-style tills with dual packing facilities, customer toilets and baby changing facilities as well as improved welfare facilities for employees.

B&M will sell a wide variety of branded products including toys, food and drink, pet range, health and beauty and homewares.

Both retailers told the Times in July, when we first broke the news of the development, that they were delighted to be creating new jobs and shopping opportunities for Cowdenbeath and Lochgelly, and that they couldn’t wait to open their doors to the public.

North End Park started life as Cowdenbeath FC’s home ground, way back in the 1880’s, and the club played there until 1917 when it moved to Central Park.

The playing fields later became the home ground of Fife amateur club Hearts of Beath and were also used as a greyhound racing stadium from the 1930s until the 1970s, before the site was sold for development.

Having bought the land, Tesco later announced in January 2015 that due to a declining business performance, they were “unable to proceed with 49 new planned store developments across the country, including our store in Cowdenbeath”.

It was a real hammer blow for the town and the site became an overgrown eyesore.

However, it is now set to become part of the regeneration of Cowdenbeath and complement the improvements on High Street.