FIFE COUNCIL have been accused of using COVID as "an excuse" to cut services following a proposal to keep the booking system for recycling centres across the Kingdom.

Councillor Linda Holt has accused the local authority of being "completely out of touch" and started a petition in her bid to have the system dropped.

Fife Council's environment sub-committee will consider a recommendation to continue the measure brought in after the coronavirus lockdown last March at their meeting today (Thursday).

In a report to councillors, officers have recommended that they endorse the "continued operation" of the booking system which had been put in place by Fife Resource Solutions.

It said the move would have safety and financial benefits.

"Removal of any of the measures, however, will have consequential implications in terms of safety, efficiency or finance, which is estimated to be in the region of between £800,000 to £1.5 million per annum," it said.

"This is based on a potential failure to control a return of trade (commercial) waste and waste from neighbouring authorities as per previous pre-COVID experiences."

However, Cllr Holt said the proposal was aimed at saving money and not running a public service.

"Fife Council is supposed to encourage recycling but if you put obstacles in the way, they won't recycle," she told the Press.

Since Friday, a petition against the proposal has attracted nearly 3,000 signatures, something she says indicates the strength of feeling for services to return to how they were pre-lockdown.

"The runaway support for the petition and the deluge of comments show just how spectacularly out of touch the environment convenor Cllr Ross Vettraino and Fife Council officers are," added Cllr Holt.

"In only 48 hours, public support for scrapping the booking system has outstripped the support officers claim their survey found for keeping it.

"Bear in mind they only asked visitors to the recycling centres who had already successfully used the booking system; the thousands of people put off by having to make an appointment didn't get a say.

"The public has seen through the council's self-serving report. There is real anger that the council is using COVID as an excuse to cut essential public services."

Fife Council's head of assets, transportation and environment services, Ken Gourlay, said they were reviewing the booking system and all of the other measures currently in place, in consultation with users of Fife's recycling centres.

"These measures were put in place to protect our staff and members of the public and have been kept under close review as the pandemic continues," he added.