COWDENBEATH'S third supermarket opens its doors on Saturday.

The Lidl store, at the new North End Retail Park, will see the town become a retail hub for the Central Fife area.

The new store joins the long time Cowdenbeath based Morrison's store at the south end of High Street and the relatively recent Aldi's facility in Stenhouse Street, and added to that is the B&M facility just next door to Lidl at the north end of High Street.

Saturday's opening will see Cowdenbeath High Street's transformation almost complete.

The SUSTRANS project has seen a number of improvements take place, including a new look Green Square, while the North End retail park has transformed this part of the town.

All that needs to be tackled now is the derelict Crown Hotel building, opposite the new retail park, upgraded after lying derelict for more than 12 years.

Councillor Alex Campbell has been working on seeing the dereliction removed and commented: "It is great to see Lidl open and the retail park in full operation.

"If we can get the Crown site upgraded and the Town House project underway the centre of Cowdenbeath is going to look really good."

Mr Campbell has been urging the owners of the Crown site to make efforts to improve it and the feedback he has been getting has been encouraging, although as yet there is no hard and fast plans in place.

Meanwhile the feasibility project on what could be done to give the historic Town House building a new future ends next Friday and already several ideas for the role of it have been suggested.

The people of the town will be consulted by Fife Council on the various ideas that are going to be tabled.

The opening of the Lidl store means that people in Lochgelly and the surrounding villages no longer have to head to Kirkcaldy or Dunfermline to do their shopping and truly makes Cowdenbeath a retail hub.