Kirkcaldy

As you drive down the A910 from the A92, it’s hard not to be given the feeling that you’re about to discover one of Scotland’s treasures personally.

The road cuts through tree-lined hills and as it curves around past the old stone buildings on the outskirts of Kirkcaldy, and it’s hard not to feel excited as you approach the sea-front.

Where you are then faced with one great disappointment.

If there’s one thing Scotland knows how to do, it’s to destroy a beautiful view and scenery with slopping planning and some of the grossest housing in Britain.

And Kirkcaldy manages to epitomise this with one of the ugliest sea-fronts in Scotland.

Lifeless, soulless, and without merit, the seafront is lined with tasteless apartment buildings that look like they’d be better at home on some tacky concreted Spanish resort. And without the Mediterranean sun and sea, there’s nothing to excuse it here.

And the beach – it’s always worth noting whenever you approach a beach if anyone walks their dog along it. People tend not to walk their dogs along dirty and polluted beaches in case it makes their pet ill, or simply because it’s not a particularly pleasant experience.

No one was walking their dog on the beach, even though it was a relatively sunny day. In fact, the beach was pretty much deserted except for us. Which pretty much says it all about Kirkcaldy.

No, it’s not covered in industrial waste like Helensburgh, but it’s covered with litter and what appeared to be raw sewage. Either that, or someone’s been very careless with their used sanitary towels.

Either way, our walk along the beach was very short, and we only stayed longer to eat our sandwiches in the car.

Kirkcaldy should be a lesson to all those other councils with beachfronts on how not to do it, and in the meantime can only serve as something of an embarrassment to the Scottish tourist board.