Dunfermline's Street Pastors claim they are needed now "more than ever" after being booted out of their safe zone to make way for the town's latest pub.

The pastors have become a regular fixture of a Dunfermline weekend as they patrol the streets looking out for the welfare of drunken revellers who may have had too much tipple.

They have been labelled the 'flip-flop angels' for handing out the footwear to women tottering about on high heels, removing glasses and bottles from the street and handing out first aid.

However, they have been forced to raise £9000 through grants and donations in order to buy a new safe zone vehicle as their previous base on the High Street is being transformed into a bar by Greene King, the parent company of Belhaven.

Street pastor co-ordinator Moss Barclay said, "Our safe zone is being taken over by Belhaven and we don't have another place for this winter. We don't have any buildings to go to. They're taken over by pubs.

"With Belhaven and Wetherspoon's it will make it 14 pubs and seven nightclubs in the circular area that we walk around in Dunfermline. We are needed more than ever."

JD Wetherspoon's are looking to turn the 200-year-old Guild Hall - directly across the road from the Greene King site - into a £1.1 million bar.

The seven and a half tonne van, set to go live in early December, will be used as a place to hand out hot soup and allow boozed up revellers to recover from their exertions.

Moss added, "There was a girl three weeks ago who was found on the streets and taken by the street pastors to get a taxi. She was sent home and her mum and dad had to send her right to Queen Margaret Hospital with hypothermia. She thanked the street pastors for doing that. It shows how we can help."

With the number of pubs and clubs in Dunfermline growing the pastors are also expanding after a donation from drinks company Diageo.

They committed £3500 to have another 10 street pastors trained and uniformed, raising the number available in Dunfermline to more than 40 as the pastors approach their third anniversary on West Fife streets.

Jim Stewart, the chairman of Central Dunfermline Community Council, who contributed £300 to the pastors cause, said, "We fully support the scheme going forward.

"Everyone agrees that the pastors help remove the burden from the police."

Dunfermline Press: Published March 2008

Collecting goods for the homeless

Instead of filling up on Easter eggs this weekend, why not help fill up a shopping trolley for charity instead?

Members of Dunfermline's Gillespie Church will be at the Kingsgate shopping centre, outside the Somerfield store, tomorrow (Friday) and Saturday, collecting food and other small domestic items for the homeless.

The drive hopes to encourage West Fifers shopping in Dunfermline to help by buying an extra tin or packet of food when doing their own shopping.

It is being organised in conjunction with Frontline Fife, which helps prepare healthy meals for those in need at the church's Friday drop-in.

The Rev. Gordon Reid, the church minister, said "the food will be distributed by Frontline Fife, mainly through the Rough Sleepers Initiative, and will all be handed out locally.  Other items include soap, shower gel and toothbrushes.

From The Herald, 17th January 2012:

STREETWISE: Willie Rennie (second right) with Peter Lederer and a Street Pastor.

24th January 2012  Willie Rennie MSP has submitted the following motion to the Scottish Parliament:

That the Parliament commends those involved in the Dunfermline Street Pastors project and believes that the work carried out by street pastor volunteers helps make the Dunfermline community safer; recognises that this project provides a range of practical services including the distribution of bottle stoppers to prevent drinks being tampered with and helping individuals to find their way home safely after a night out; further recognises that volunteer numbers have grown steadily over the years, that the scheme has expanded to include Friday and Saturday nights and that a mobile bus has been added which acts as a “safe zone” at the weekends; congratulates Diageo for supporting this scheme and believes that this kind of partnership working between the drinks industry, police, local authority and local volunteers is a great example of a community encouraging responsible drinking and working to make the streets safer.