A COMMUNITY is fearing someone could be seriously injured unless more parking facilities are created at the new care village in Lumphinnans.

Lindsay House was only opened last summer as part of the project to replace the Valley House and Jenny Gray House Residential Homes in Cowdenbeath and Lochgelly.

But within a matter of months the lack of parking at the multi million pound facility has caused all sorts of problems with dozens of cars parking on pavements in Cedar Crescent and Sycamore Crescent, leaving pedestrians with little option but to walk on the road.

Lumphinnans Community Council, along with local councillor Alex Campbell, are highly concerned that the situation is creation a situation which could cause a serious accident at any time.

Said councillor Campbell: "The care village is a magnificent facility but the problem we have here is a completely inadequate number of parking spaces for staff and vehicles delivering supplies to Lindsay House and the next door 30 flat sheltered housing complex.

"It means that folk are parking on the pavement, often for long spells of the working day, and in the street, with the result that pavements and both the carriageways of Cedar Crescent and Sycamore Crescent are becoming clogged up.

"To get passed the cars on the pavements people have to walk on the road and it is a busy stretch linking with Gagarin Way which leads to the football hub.

"There simply has to be a better way to deal with this. There are a lot of young families in the village and a mum out with a pram would have to spend much of her time on the road which is totally unsafe."

Lumphinnans Community Council chairman Jim Martin added: "We warned way back at the planning stage that parking would have to be properly tackled and were assured it would be.

"Now, in reality, it is a shambles and we have a situation which is completely unsafe."

Councillor Campbell has written to the Head of Enterprise and Environment, Ken Gourlay, recommending that the field which lies to the west of Lindsay House be developed into a car park to ease the problem.

He said: "This should have happened a long time ago. It is lying handily adjacent to the facility and can provide enough parking to sort this dangerous problem out".

Jim Martin agreed and added: "There is adequate land all around Lindsay House to provide sufficient parking, there just needs to be a desire to use it for this purpose."

Local resident Bobby Wilson, who lives only a few yards from Lindsay House, wants to see an answer to this problem ASAP.

"It is utter chaos with so many cars just parking anywhere because of the lack of proper spaces and it happens at all times of the day," he said.

Meanwhile the speeding issues on Cedar Crescent and Sycamore Crescent are to be addressed by the council's Roads Department who will be carrying out a speed survey. The streets have a 20mph limit but on Friday afternoon

cars and vans were racing along both streets well in access of that.