FIFE COUNCIL admitted it's unhappy at having to foot the £700,000 bill for the clean-up for an oil spill in West Fife earlier this year – but admitted it didn't have a choice.

Last week, Dunfermline MSP Shirley-Anne Somerville said it was "outrageous" that work to identify the polluter responsible for the incident at Limekilns and Charlestown had been allowed to grind to a halt and that Fife's taxpayers were having to foot the bill.

However, the council's roads and transportation senior manager, Derek Crowe, said all their partner organisations carried out "extensive investigations" at the time of the spill in March.

"Unfortunately, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency with Forth Ports could find no evidence that it originated from the water and SEPA couldn't find any evidence of a contamination source on land," he said.

“This is an unusual position. We're as unhappy as our local taxpayers about footing the bill to clean up someone else’s pollution with public money – particularly when our service budgets are so stretched already. However, as the party responsible can’t be identified, we simply have no choice.

“Of course we would welcome any action that allowed us to recoup some costs. But we also understand that, as the pollution has been and gone, it won’t be possible to trace the culprits retrospectively when the best efforts of all involved couldn’t establish any evidence at the time.”

Work to clear up last week's oil spill near North Queensferry is continuing this week with Fife Council saying they were hoping the source of the latest incident could be confirmed within weeks.

A clean-up from the council's oil spill response team, Briggs Marine, started last Tuesday and continued this week.

Mr Crowe said they had been able to contain the spill within a short section of coastline between the Forth Road Bridge and the Queensferry Crossing.

"The surrounding area continues to be monitored with no sign of a further spill or any detrimental effect on local wildlife," he added. "Briggs will continue the clean-up process when progress will be reassessed.

"SEPA continue to investigate possible sources for the oil spill. At this stage we remain hopeful the cause of the spill will be confirmed in the coming weeks."