FIFE Council have tried umpteen ways of getting Cowdenbeath's Recycling Centre back open, but have yet to find a safe way of achieving that.

Road safety problems are the key cause of why the Cuddyhouse Road facility has remained shut, while Lochgelly and other recycling centres in Fife have been available for the public to use for over a month.

But local councillor Alex Campbell says that if there is no safe way of re-opening the site, a new one has to be found because 'an area of upwards of 15,000 needs a working recycling centre!'

Mr Campbell contacted Ken Gourlay, Head of Assets, Transportation and Environment, to find out what the problems with the site are and Mr Gourlay said: "I can confirm that we have looked at every possible option. "An on-site risk assessment was carried out, in conjunction with Police Scotland and Fife Council’s Transportation Service, which highlighted that this facility does not allow vehicles to be ‘stacked’ safely within the site, as a result control measures on the gate would cause issues to the road network in and around Cowdenbeath due to the road layout and would create the risk of a serious road traffic accident.

"In the event of having to turn vehicles around that arrive without a booking, this would also create an obstruction and risk to road users.

"Options to stack cars on the raised kerb area, outwith the site boundary, were also considered, however, the risk assessment identified that attempting to manoeuvre cars on to this area would cause an obstruction, and due to the nature of the road layout, could potentially cause a danger to drivers.

"This would also impede vehicles exiting the site and affect the sight line for vehicles looking to join the traffic creating avoidable risk. It would also not be reasonable to expect the public to drive cars over a raised kerb or a grass verge as would be necessary when there is more than one car waiting".

Concluded Mr Gourlay: "The above highlights that we continue to try and facilitate the opening of the site but as of yet have not found a safe way to do so.

"This decision hasn't been taken lightly and we have engaged directly with Police Scotland, who agree with and contributed to the risk assessment. There is no plan to close the Cowdenbeath site and this would need to be considered by Committee in any case".

Councillor Campbell said: "This is a very serious issue for the Cowdenbeath area. We cannot go on any length of time without a recycling centre.

"Either some method of making the site safe to enter, like reducing the number of bookings per hour is needed, but if that is not good enough we will need some capital investment to find a new site to build a replacement recycling centre.

"The Cowdenbeath-Crossgates, Hill of Beath and Kelty area is continuing to grow, and if the new Cocklaw proposal for Kelty gets underway with 900 new homes, the population would rise to over 16,000 and to no have no recycling centre would simply not be right at all."