Fife councillor Lea McLelland hits out at shoddy repairs

That's the angry complaint from Councillor Lea McLelland who said private firms are leaving Fife Council to literally pick up the pieces.

During a discussion of the area roads programme at the Cowdenbeath area committee last week she fumed: "One of the things I get stopped in the street about is the state private companies are leaving the roads in.

"Fife Council habitually have to send their own workers in to clean it up and surely that must have an impact on your budgets, because it has an impact on us and our constituents.

Fife Council are having to repair roads that haven't been reinstated properly by utility companies and developers, according to a local councillor. (Image: Fife Council)

"Right now it has an impact on our cars. I live on a street where they're building houses and week on week one of us has to have a car repaired because of the state of the road.

"Whether it be a pothole or they're laying a cable and they've not repaired it properly or the big trucks trundling back and forward and leaving debris that then comes up and hits our cars."

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Cllr McLelland continued: "It isn't just in this area, it's every area.

"Developers and private companies are absolutely destroying our roads and we're having to live with it and you're having to take money out of your budget to fix it.

"Why do you not follow up and take a harder line with developers as it's frustrating the life out of everyone?"

Vicki Connor, the lead consultant in roads and lighting asset management, said: "We do have inspectors that go and inspect the works and the reinstatements and if they're not done to a satisfactory level they're told to re-do it.

"We do check that. You're right, with private developments it does tear up the roads and we can't go in until the developer has completed their works.

"I know when we do a resurfacing scheme, utility companies are not allowed to dig up the road within three years of that work being undertaken."

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Cllr McLelland immediately took issue with that and said: "I have to come back in.

"There was a road in Benarty that was done, it was like a bowling green and a company came in and destroyed it.

"It is a scandal. Three years before they can dig it up? I don't think so."

Cllr Mary Lockhart previously spoke out on this issue and said: "I have to back Cllr McLelland on this one.

"It's absolutely maddening and it's not just here, it happens in other places as well when utilities are being laid for commercial companies and they're patching roads that the council have spent a fortune on replacing and resurfacing.

"And there's a huge safety issue too."

Committee convener, Cllr Alex Campbell, added: "It is an issue where a road is newly relaid and then it's dug up a few weeks later.

"We had that in Cowdenbeath and Crossgates too and I sometimes feel the standard is not as acceptable as what is initially put down."