SHORTAGES of materials, rising costs and employees leaving are all holding up Fife Council’s building plans.

Current schemes have already been affected and projects in the near future, such as the £200 million Dunfermline Learning Campus, could be hit by delays.

A report about the capital investment plan for 2021-31, written by finance chief Eileen Rowand, said: “There continues to be a risk across the plan that both the timing and the costs of projects may be adversely affected as a result of the current economic climate following the response to Covid-19 and Brexit.

“Issues are continuing to emerge in relation to the supply of construction materials which could result in delays to projects, increased slippage and increased costs.

“However, the overall impact of this is difficult to predict with any degree of certainty and the forecasts in this report for 2021-22 relate in the main to projects that are currently in progress with contracts that are already agreed.”

However, councillors at the policy and co-ordination committee were told that, since the report was written, the “indications are that the supply chain issues are worsening”.

Elaine Muir, head of finance, said: “Building materials is certainly an issue just now in terms of availability of timber, bricks, roof tiles etc and costs are rising too.

“Other issues we’re seeing are around the supply of labour and how that is now impacting on the progress of projects.

“We’re also seeing the loss of some of our own employees to the private sector, building companies, which is causing some difficulties.

“This is a really fast moving area for us just now and the risk is increasing.”

The report also said that delays and shortages are affecting private housebuilding firms too and would slow the flow of developer contributions, which help the council pay for infrastructure such as roads and new primary schools.

There are 19 ‘major’ projects in the plan, those that cost £5m and over, with an overall budget of £703m and it’s expected to be overspent by £343,000 for this financial year.

That includes £202m for new secondary schools in West Fife and the Dunfermline Learning Campus at Halbeath.

Under the new Scottish Government model, the council fund the up-front costs of construction, with government support coming in the form of a “revenue contribution”.

Council co-leader David Ross said: “One we didn’t mention is the shortage of HGV drivers which is having a big impact on our refuse collections too.”

And Cllr Tim Brett added: “Anecdotally, I’m told that you just can’t get hold of cement at the moment for schemes.”