Call for inquiry into 'freeze failings'

Andrew Cowie • Published 7 Jan 2010 08:00 3 Comments

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Ross Vettraino, vice chair of the council's environment and transport committee mounted a strong defence of the council's handling of the freeze.

FIFE Council Labour leader Alex Rowley has said there must be an internal public inquiry into the failings of the local authority in dealing with the winter weather over the festive period.

Mr Rowley's statement came as he obtained figures from NHS Fife which showed that there had been a 12% increase in people attending accident and minor injury units in Fife hospitals over the period from 23rd to 29th December.

Mr Rowley said, "It has been confirmed to me that there has been a massive increase in people seeking treatment for falls resulting in fractures, breaks and soft tissue injuries.

"Whilst I would not expect Fife Council to be in a position to have stopped all these falls, the fact that they have not been able to put any salt down in our main shopping areas and other areas where large groups of people congregate will not have helped.

"They have failed to keep the grit bins refilled and have failed those people who want to help themselves and the wider community by putting grit down to make our streets safer".

The Lochs member added, "Fife Council has failed spectacularly and needs to be held to account for that failure.

"Even the crematorium in Dunfermline was a no go area for people last midweek with car parks where people had to walk covered in ice.

"There is a complete lack of joined up working and planning, it is disgraceful and I will be witting to the Chief Executive of Fife Council, Ronnie Hinds, demanding a review of all that has gone on and a new strategy for the future".

In his letter to Mr Hinds Mr Rowley said, "I write to raise my concerns at Fife Council's failure to deliver the level of services required over the last 10 days to assist people to deal with the winter weather conditions. I would make clear that it is not about apportioning blame but about understanding what has gone wrong with a view to ensuring that this does not happen again.

"It is also important to make clear that I have nothing but admiration for the workers who have been out in all weathers and conditions trying to make safe our roads and pavements. I think it is also important to pay tribute to all workers who have struggled through in the difficult circumstances to deliver all kinds of public and care services.

"I accept that the winter conditions have been worse than we have experienced for many years and some level of disruption was inevitable. However, I am of a view that there have been major failures in terms of communication with the public, communication between services, the availability and supply of salt and grit to the wider community and businesses and in general poor preparation for what was predicted to be very bad weather conditions.

"I have to say to you that I have been inundated with calls from members of the public and I know from speaking to many other councillors over the last week they have had similar complaints on a large scale. I do not believe that people have had too high expectation of what can be done in terms of winter maintenance, but rather they have been let down by the failings of Fife Council to strategically plan and execute a joined up approach.

"We therefore need to ensure that we put in place a proper strategy that has services working together and we do that by quickly learning the lessons of what has gone wrong.

"I would welcome a meeting with you to discuss these matters at your earliest convenience."

Chairman of the Cowdenbeath Area Committee, Councillor William Clarke, visited the council depot at Milesmark in Dunfermline on Monday which co-ordinates the winter maintenance throughout west Fife.

He said, "It was a very worthwhile visit where I learned that there was salt available to allow the treatment of main roads on Monday evening and Tuesday morning.

"I also learned that a ship carrying salt for use in Fife had arrived at the Port of Rosyth at the weekend and this was being unloaded on Monday and Tuesday.

"This will augment supplies but unfortunately treatment of side streets is still some way off."

Councillor Ross Vettraino, vice-chair of Fife Council's Environment, Enterprise and Transportation Committee, was this week praising the efforts of the Council's waste collection and street sweeping personnel.

He said, "Every local authority in Scotland is finding it difficult to deal with a situation which hasn't been as bad for over 20 years. Fife Council's refuse collection resource has done really well to collect as much of the waste as it has done.

"The collection crews are doing a really great job under the most difficult of circumstances. On Sunday, all of the collections that would normally have been made on Friday were scheduled to be carried out.

"Despite an almost 100% turnout by the workforce, however, and some refuse in the more difficult places being collected by the crews that normally effect street cleaning, the conditions in some villages and in culs-de-sacs and other difficult area within towns were so bad that to attempt to collect the refuse would have been foolish as it would most certainly have resulted in damage to property and, perhaps, to people.

"All 12 of the vehicles that serve Dunfermline and the west of Fife have been operational every day since Sunday. Almost every town has difficult areas, where inclines, the narrowness of the streets and the presence of parked cars added to the difficulty caused by the slippery road surfaces. Some areas were completely inaccessible, such as Saline.

"Rural area collections have also been affected, but I would like to commend those people, who live in rural areas and who helped the situation by bringing their refuse to the main road.

"Unfortunately, simply because of the timing, there are some households that haven't had their refuse collected for three weeks. Nothing could have been done about that, but the Council will do all that it can to ensure that the backlog is dealt with as soon as conditions permit and I will be giving further detailed information in due course.

"Meantime, those who can should use the Council's civic amenity sites to dispose of their waste, otherwise I would ask that everyone puts their bins out on the next scheduled collection day

"The up to date position in Dunfermline and west Fife is that every refuse collection vehicle is operating on the scheduled routes, but are still having to cope with very difficult conditions."

This week the chairman of Cardenden and Kinglassie Community Council Alex Burns praised the council team working in the village.

He said, "There were a couple of areas identified as needing attention and the lads went to work and made a real difference. We are indebted to them for their efforts."

Responding to the claims of a lack of effort by Fife Council during this period of severe weather, Councillor Tony Martin chair of the Enterprise, Environment and Transportation committee said, "Fife Council's Winter Maintenance teams have been working 24 hours a day, seven days a week to keep Fife on the move during these extremely harsh weather conditions.

"We have had limited salt supplies delivered this morning (Monday) through no fault of our own. If our complete order had been fulfilled and we had more salt delivered, we would have been able to grit the residential roads that are known as priority three. However, with the reduced levels of salt, we will attempt to distribute coarse sand on these roads by midweek.

"The priority one and two roads have been pre-gritted afternoon and morning with 24 gritters in action throughout Fife.

"I realise that it is difficult for many people to get out and about their business, but they should be aware that we are doing all in our power to make sure the roads are safe to travel on.

A delivery of 250 tonnes of salt arrived in Fife on Monday, giving salt stocks a much needed boost and ensuring gritting of priority roads can continue.

The extra salt arrived thanks to support and intervention from the Scottish Government and collaboration with other councils.

Fife's salt supplier was also due to deliver additional supplies on Tuesday as part of the existing contract.

Have your say. Post a comment on this article.

craig ferguson
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Jan 7, 19:08
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Utter nonsense from fife council again, it's 4 weeks without bin collection not 3. We ran out of grit frim the grit box 2 weeks ago, with council owned caqr garages around the back of our property. The bucket lorries are several tonne in weight & would more likely crush existing ice, rather than make the lorrie slide. Our refuse collection driver was an arrogant man, even stopping his team from walking into our street to collect bins.

Fife council leaders simply don't have a clue, it's like this every year we have bad weather, they couldn't organise a p*** up in a brewery.

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Laura
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Jan 8, 06:17
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Ilive in a cul de sac and up a hill - impossible to get in or out off. The bin men managed to get to the bottom 2 out of the 3 weeks and this week even went up the cul de sac and collected the 2 /3 bins which had been left outside - Well done to them.

Unfortunately there has still been no gritting or clearance of snow so my car has not moved since the snow begaqn - Thank goodness i am off work at the moment or that would have been a real problem

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Jean W
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Jan 15, 16:20
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Councillor Rowley is well within his rights to call for an enquiry into The failures of this comic SNP, LIB-DEM Council and their completely ludicrous attempts to provide reasonable services to the communities across Fife over the recent holiday period. In many parts of Lochgelly it was almost impossile to even walk to the local shops.

I wish we could get rid of these amateurs.

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