Fife village’s blocked drains ‘completely useless’ during torrential rain

The East Neuk village is one of 150 communities across Fife waiting to have their drains cleaned.

By Claire Warrender

January 23 2024, 3:11pm

The drains in Crail are "completely useless". Image: Supplied by Councillor Sean Dillon.

Fife villagers have branded their blocked drains “completely useless” during recent bouts of torrential rain.

Crail Community Council says its roads have been left swimming in water due to blockages in several streets.

This is despite many complaints to Fife Council to clear the drains over the last six months.

Just one of the blocked drains in Crail. Image: Supplied by Councillor Sean Dillon.

And they have called for action as soon as possible to cut the risk of flooding in the East Neuk village.

Crail is one of 150 communities across Fife in the same position due to a drain-clearing backlog.

Community council chairman David Jerdan said: “It’s not rocket science.

“Regularly cleaning them out means they will be able to deal with virtually all rainfall conditions.

“Neglect them, and you will get flooding.”

Fife blocked drains not ‘proper service’

Mr Jerdan said one particularly-badly flooded road had its drains unblocked during the festive period.

However others, including the main A917 that runs through Crail, remained untouched.

He said: “While I am not a roads engineer, I can vouch 100% that if drains are not maintained and cleaned out on a regular basis, then they become completely useless.

Councillor Sean Dillon — East Neuk and Landward councillor Sean Dillon says Crail has been “unnecessarily flooded”. Image: Steve Brown / DC Thomson

“Our community, for whatever reason, is ignored and not looked after.

“We pay our council tax the same as everywhere else and in return, we expect and demand proper service.”

The community council has the support of East Neuk councillor Sean Dillon.

And the Liberal Democrat councillor said it wasn’t difficult to see why residents were concerned.

Village has been ‘unnecessarily flooded’

“Recent heavy rainfall has resulted in areas of the village becoming unnecessarily flooded,” he said.

“If action had been taken when concerns were first raised, we would not have seen the amount of surface water that we did over Christmas.”

Fife Council’s roads maintenance manager Bill Liddle confirmed the council is dealing with a backlog of maintenance issues following recent flooding events across Fife.

“We are working to get our gulley cleaning programme back on track while prioritising issues that have resulted from flooding.”