AT the last meeting of Fife Council on September 26 I explicitly asked the co-leaders whether they were aware of the 12 notices which had been served by the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) on Exxon between May and August.

Cllr David Ross asserted “through officers we are aware of some of the correspondence of the orders applying from both HSE and SEPA and in the public domain”.

I subsequently made a Freedom of Information request for any written record at Fife Council relating to the 12 HSE notices in question, and the response showed there was not a single mention.

I also asked HSE officers if they routinely informed Fife Council of notices and they clarified that they posted them on the HSE website where Fife Council could access them. HSE does not not specifically inform Fife Council by email or letter when a notice is published online.

This suggests at best that co-leaders David Ross and David Alexander were being a little loose with the truth when they responded to my question about when they were aware of the 12 HSE notices. Officers had had no correspondence with HSE about them, or else the FOI would have revealed it. There is no evidence that the co-leaders knew about the 12 HSE notices until I raised them in the chamber.

Fife Council has plainly not had its eye on the ball as far as Mossmorran is concerned. It’s not just a matter of misleading the public to pretend when questioned that you know about something when you plainly don’t. It’s also dangerous when the issue is of such serious and extensive public concern as health and safety at Mossmorran. It shows the Council to be failing at a very basic level of scrutiny, and it undermines public confidence in both the Council and the plant.

Since August Exxon has been undergoing two major regulatory investigations by HSE which could end in legal action against the company. One was prompted by what HSE termed “catastrophic breakdowns” of two boilers accompanied by significant explosions. The other major investigation is into multiple gas leaks created by corroded and inadequately maintained pipe work.

These only came to light at the recent meeting of Lesley Laird’s Working Group on Mossmorran, so once again it looks as if the co-leaders and Fife Council were left in the dark about the precise gravity of health and safety issues at Exxon.

CLLR LINDA HOLT,

Pittenweem.