Fife’s streets have been blighted by cleanliness issues for two decades, a Glenrothes councillor has claimed.
Ross Vettraino described caretaking standards of the region’s avenues and open spaces as “woeful”, as he and other town councillors were presented with an update by council officers.
That is despite official council figures claiming that 97.9% of the region’s roads meet statutory performance indicators.
“If you were an uninformed person reading this report then you would think that the standards are fine,” he said.
“They are not.
“The standards of street cleanliness are woeful.
“One of the reasons for that is the significant reduction in resources.
“The staff are still being asked to do the same job as before but with fewer resources, but there are also a lot of other reasons.”
A survey of 196 sites across the Glenrothes area were surveyed between April 2015 and the end of March 2016.
During this time, just two streets were found to be below the required regional standard – Lothian Court and Dunbeath Drive, both of which have since been addressed.
However, the survey also showed that 15 requests for litter bins had been made from residents, while 19 fallen trees had to be removed.
More alarmingly was the number of discarded needles that needed attending to by local authority staff, with 19 discarded syringes requiring uplift over the 12 month period.
However, just 20 complaints were made by Glenrothes area residents in the sample period.
But while acknowledging the constraints under which council staff were operating, Mr Vettraino said that the report did not accurately represent the state of the region’s streets.
“There is now a 5% sample of sites, when it used to be 2%,”
“I don’t know where they are taken from but there are 7,500 streets in Fife.
“I hope we can get to grips because this is a problem that has been there for 20 years.”