Something went wrong - please try again later.

Thank you for signing up to The Courier daily newsletter

Sign up for our daily newsletter of the top stories in Courier country

Visitors to Craigtoun Country Park in St Andrews might have noticed its lake is looking a little drained.

The pond has been emptied while Fife Council works on a £120,000 project to bring the boat house at the dilapidated Dutch Village back to its former glory.

It is expected to be back to normal in time for the Easter holidays.

Lead civil engineering professional Ross Tulloch said it was an unusual project.

“We’re draining the lake so we can work out how to carry out some restoration work on the Dutch village,” he said. “It’s a very unusual building in that it’s in the middle of a pond.

“The problem is we need to get scaffolding around the buildings to allow us to access them for the work.

“We need to work out how to get that scaffolding fitted.”

Mr Tulloch said there was a risk the scaffolding could sink into the mud.

“When you drain a pond, there’s a layer of mud and silt lying at the bottom, so we’re trying to work out if there’s something solid underneath where the scaffolding can go.”

Despite the technical difficulties, Mr Tulloch said he was confident the work would go ahead and the pond would be restored by next summer at the latest.

He said a decision was made not to drain it before the summer holidays this year because of concerns there would not be enough rain to fill it again.

“It’s a really important asset to the park. We postponed the project from just before the summer holidays until just after because we were worried we wouldn’t get enough water.

“It turned out we could have filled it several times over.

“It’s a temporary situation and it will definitely be up and running again by the summer holidays next year, if not the Easter holidays.”

Work to the Dutch Village will include roof repairs, re-rendering of walls and installation of new windows.

Built in 1920, it has fallen into disrepair in recent years.

The Friends of Craigtoun Park group hopes to secure lottery funding for a full-scale restoration.

Friends chairman Kyffin Roberts said the work on the boathouse would give an indication of costs.

He said: “Once this work is done, it will give us some indication of the overall cost of renovating the village.

“Then we would start a major fundraising exercise.

“We would like to get it back to its original condition, when there was a cafe and play area there.

“It’s had little maintenance over the last 15 years and is in poor condition.”