The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Council pledge extra £10m to help deal with Fife’s potholeridden roads
An extra £10 million has been promised to fix Fife’s pothole-ridden roads over the next two years following thousands of complaints.
The pledge, part of Fife Council’s budget yesterday, will mean repairs to roads and pavements across the region.
The joint Labour/SNP administration said the money was part of an “extraordinary budget for extraordinary times”.
The priority is to help Fife recover from the Covid19 pandemic, they said.
They intend to do this by focusing on tackling poverty, supporting the local economy and addressing climate change.
SNP co-leader David Alexander said: “After many years of having to make cutbacks and savings, we have the opportunity this year to make some significant reinvestments in our services.”
Fixing the roads is one of the key issues and Mr Alexander said the need for additional funding was recognised.
Repairs were significantly scaled back last year due to Covid restrictions and bad weather.
However, more than 2,000 Fifers have signed a petition demanding urgent action.
Outstanding repair work will be tackled and extra money has been found for ongoing maintenance.
However, Liberal Democrat councillor Jonny Tepp claimed the roads plan was under-funded by some £40m over the next 10 years.
“With the present plan, Fifers should not expect the roads and streetlights to improve over the coming decade,” he said.
Alliance 4 Unity member Linda Holt started the online petition.
She claimed the budget was ignoring cuts already in the pipeline and bringing forward money previously pledged for future years.
Conservative group leader Dave Dempsey added: “It’s essentially the same boring budget from
the same boring administration.”
But the administration insisted its budget will mitigate the impacts of the pandemic and help with Fife’s recovery.
As well as investment in roads, the council will tackle a backlog of work in parks, streets and open spaces.
Much of the grass cutting and other maintenance stopped during lockdown and many areas are now in desperate need of attention.
Mr Alexander said: “For that reason it’s proposed to increase the number of seasonal staff employed on this work in 2021 by around 50%.
“This will have the added benefit of providing a number of temporary jobs to mitigate the immediate impacts of unemployment following the pandemic.”
An extra £5.4m will go towards flood prevention and £2.9m to supporting the local economy.
This will be used for the
development of enterprise hubs and town centre improvements.
Funding was also confirmed for three new secondary schools in west Fife, with the Scottish Government providing half the money.
It will mean the replacement of Woodmill and St Columba’s high schools in Dunfermline, as well as a new Inverkeithing High School.
The key investments are £9.9m on roads in the next two years; £5.4m to mitigate the impact of flooding; £7.5m for tourism and community facilities; £2.9m to support the local economy; and a further £1m for devices to support remote learning for school pupils
The administration said the budget would also help the region’s worst off.
It will do this by upping the £31m already spent on hardship payments, rebates and holiday hunger by £500,000.
In addition, a further £1m for devices to support home learning has been promised.
Labour leader David Ross said that while the Lib Dem and Conservative budgets would mean extra funding for roads, they would also result in cuts to homeless services, the voluntary sector and grounds maintenance.
In a joint statement, the two administration leaders said: “It is still difficult to predict the additional costs of Covid the council will have to meet over the next two years such as additional cleaning and safety measures, or the continuing loss of income due to facilities being shut.
“We recognise there will continue to be pressure on council budgets in future years but we believe it is right to make these investments in our services and our priorities now to mitigate the impacts of the pandemic and assist with Fife’s recovery.”
The boss of a Fife dairy threatened with a hefty fine over noise complaints has hit back strongly in the row – vowing to take court action of his own if need be.
Robert Graham, managing director of Graham’s The Family Dairy, said he was “bewildered” by a letter sent from Fife Council’s head of protective services, Nigel Kerr, to Green MSP Mark Ruskell which confirmed the council is progressing a report to the procurator fiscal over noise levels at its Cowdenbeath facility.
As we reported last week, Mr Kerr confirmed the legal action could result in a fine of up to £40,000 but said he was hopeful matters could still be resolved through further dialogue.
Despite that though, Mr Graham maintains the business’s detailed monitoring has shown noise levels well within legal limits and criticised the council’s stance.
“As a business, we should be able to rely on the support of our local authority but I’m afraid most of the time it feels as though they are acting against us,” he said.
“As a responsible business, we simply continue to put fresh food on supermarket shelves during the pandemic, but this incessant behaviour is an unwanted distraction for our local staff and management.
“Unfortunately, when it comes to our business, public authorities have a habit of treating us in an unlawful manner.
“We have recently overturned two unlawful decisions of the Scottish Government and are currently taking a third challenge to court.
“All of this is unfortunately at the taxpayer’s expense because the Scottish Government, having lost or conceded defeat, has had to pay our legal expenses now on two separate occasions.
“If we have to take the council to court to ensure that they treat us fairly and lawfully then we hesitate to do that.
“It shouldn’t have come to that but that is the council to decide.”
Mr Graham added: “The fundamental flaw in Fife Council’s approach is that they have decided that there has been breach of the abatement orders without having conducted any robust, regular and detailed monitoring of noise coming from our site.
“Instead, they have based their assessment on one or two random visits to a complainer’s home.
“In contrast to that, our experts have been consistently monitoring noise levels around the site and providing detailed reports to Fife Council showing that noise levels are well within legal limits.”
Mr Kerr confirmed that a report to the procurator fiscal was being progressed but is open to further dialogue.
But he added: “The onus is now on Graham’s Dairies to resolve these noise issues as soon as possible.” won’t
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