Fife Labour is calling on Fife Council to put more money into tackling the ‘crisis’ in the condition of the Kingdoms roads. At last weeks council meeting Labour put forward a proposal to use £1 million from the councils savings to boost the roads budget and address the worst effects of Fifes crumbling roads. The move gained the support of Tory and independent councillors but was voted down by the ruling SNP Liberal administration.
However Labour leader Alex Rowley has today written to Chief Executive Ronnie Hinds stating that he believes that the council is failing to meet the basic health and safety standards of road conditions and is asking that he bring forward a report as a matter of urgency that sets out the extent of the problem, the current level of activity of repairs and the gap that needs to be addressed.
Mr Rowley said; “Our roads are in an atrocious state and we need to take action to address them. Not only is the condition of roads costing motorists a fortune in repairs and doing real damage to cars, but it is also dangerous for motorists hitting these holes and having to continually dodge them.
“We moved that £1 million be taken from the council savings to start to address the issue and this is exactly what the council savings should be there for, an emergency. Rather than spend £20 million on 500 enhanced redundancy payments I would suggest we should be targeting the taxpayers money on the priorities of our communities and given the state of the roads this must surely be a priority.
The Labour leader has been highly critical of the SNP Liberal proposals to spend up to £50 million over the next three years to pay enhanced redundancy payments to reduce the council workforce. He continued; “We want to cut the enhancements for people earning between £50,000 and £150,000 a year and we really must stop paying millions of pounds on enhancements while the basic bread and butter services which people pay their council tax for are buckling. The condition of the roads is not acceptable and the choices of the SNP and Liberals must change to get more money to tackling this problem now”.
