Work is nearing completion on Kingdom Housing Association’s £7.2 million affordable housing project at Pitscottie Road, Cupar. When completed, the project will provide 49 new homes, to help meet the housing needs in the Cupar area.

As part of the project, Kingdom commissioned the Motorvators Shed to design and build a life-size sculpture of a plough horse. The metal sculpture has recently been installed at the site and some of the local children from St Columbas School visited the project, following a presentation at the school by Kingdom. The name for the sculpture was picked from suggestions made by the school children and the winning name of ‘Axl’ was selected as part of a naming competition.

Bill Banks, group chief executive with Kingdom, said: “Providing new affordable housing is one of our core objectives and we try to incorporate community initiatives into all our new projects. The Cupar project provided the opportunity to work with the local school and a local social enterprise company to deliver a life size sculpture of a plough horse on the site. I’d like to thank everyone who has been involved with the sculpture, it is a fantastic art piece and will be a focal point for the residents and visitors to the development, for many years to come.”

The sculpture was designed and built by the local Motorvators Project, which is part of Castle Furniture in Cupar. The Motorvators project is an adult mental health facility which provides employability skills to those who have had involvement in the psychiatric services.

Cameron Durie, senior support and development manager with Motorvators, said: “We provide workshops in auto engineering, upcycling, welding and creative craftwork in a friendly stimulating environment. The Suffolk Punch horse sculpture (AXL) was crafted over a period of 11 months by the clients and we are grateful to Kingdom Housing Association and its residents to be able to provide a sculpture which raises awareness of mental health. We hope the residents enjoy their sculpture as much as we have had creating it.”

As part of the involvement with the school, Kingdom gave the school children presentations on the project, organised a competition to name the sculpture and arranged visits to the housing development.

Stephen Morrison, head teacher at St Columbas, said: “It has been a pleasure to work with Kingdom and the team. The pupils were enthused at the visit to our assembly and they thoroughly enjoyed hearing about the horse, where it was situated and the fact that they had the chance to name it. The winning pupils thoroughly enjoyed the site visit to see the sculpture and seeing the name plaque unveiled.”

The project team selected a shortlist from the many entries submitted and the winning name was chosen by the team at Motorvators who made the sculpture. A plaque naming the sculpture was unveiled during the visit by the school children and the winner and runners up, in the naming competition, were presented with gift card prizes

The housing project is due to be completed in July this year and Kingdom received funding support from the Scottish Government of £3.6 million.

Earlier this year, when the installation of the sculpture started, the Minister for Local Government and Housing, Kevin Stewart MSP, visited the project to see progress with the housing and to launch Kingdom’s Socio Economic Impact Study. The study confirmed the economic and social impacts that can be gained from investment in affordable housing and highlighted the types of benefits, such as those delivered as part of the Cupar project, that can be gained from working with communities.