CLAIMS that Fife Council officers are "secretly planning" to close Cowdenbeath Recycling Centre for good but have been flatly denied.

Local councillor Gary Guichan expressed his fears as the facility off Cuddyhouse Road remains one of the few in the Kingdom that hasn't re-opened as lockdown restrictions have eased.

He said: “I previously called for all of the centres to re-open at the same time but was told that this couldn’t happen for a variety of reasons.

"As a result Cowdenbeath did not open in the first phase of re-openings and this week we have learned that it is not opening in the second phase.

"I have had comments such as 'Fife has 11 recycling centres which is more than most councils' and 'Cowdenbeath presents the biggest challenge of all centres with social distancing and traffic management'.

"I fear these are comments meant to soften us up for the announcement that Cowdenbeath will not re-open.

"It has been said that the booking system has worked well in the open centres, therefore I believe that shoots down the argument about traffic management, if people use the booking system there should be no queues."

However, Cllr Ross Vettraino, the convener of the environment, protective services and community safety committee, responded: "No, that's not the case. There are no plans to close the town's recycling centre.

"Of the 11 recycling centres we have, Cowdenbeath is one that presents the greatest challenge in terms of social distancing and traffic management.

"That's why it's not re-opened yet, and neither have the centres at Cupar or Ladybank for the exact same reasons."

He continued: "We need to sit down with officers and look at how we overcome these challenges.

"The lay-out makes social distancing difficult and, even with the booking system, I thought the traffic management was going to be a nightmare with queuing traffic.

"However the community have done brilliantly and fully complied with the booking system.

"It's still a big issue though as there's no room to queue at all and it's a road where you quickly go from 60mph down to 40mph.

"The police have expressed concerns too."

Robin Baird, the chief operating officer of Fife Resource Solutions, which runs recycling services on behalf of Fife Council, said: "We are continually reviewing all the sites to ensure that when they re-open they can do so with the appropriate social distancing measures in place, but we will keep local people updated as we continue to get services back operational.

"Currently, we're asking people to book into their nearest open recycling centre. We know that these are very challenging times for many people, but our priority is to open the recycling centres safely."

Cllr Guichan said there it was an "issue of fairness and equity".

He added: "What are residents of Cowdenbeath and the surrounding area to do?

"They will either have to continue storing their excess rubbish, or drive to centres further away, and it could lead to further fly-tipping problems in the area.”

Cllr Vettraino said that, no matter what centres were open, fly-tipping was "inexcusable".

He added: "I don't know what goes through people's minds when they drop litter.

"Every single piece you see has been deliberately put there by a member of the public who just don't care about their local environment or the people they share it with.

"What's wrong with these people?

"They don't care that it costs the council hundreds of thousands of pounds to pick up all this rubbish which means we can't spend that money on essential services.

"It really is a constant source of annoyance to me."