THE booking system at Fife's recycling centres will continue while COVID-19 restrictions are in place.

Members of Fife Council's environment & protective services sub-committee backed proposals to continue the measure at their meeting on Thursday.

The prospect of scrapping reservations will now be looked at again in September.

Fife Resource Solutions, which manages recycling services on behalf of the council, implemented the booking system in June to ensure that the recycling centres, in terms of ‘social-distancing’ and traffic management, could be re-opened safely.

They say this also brought additional benefits to the community, helping prevent the illegal deposit of commercial waste, which was costing council taxpayers in Fife over £1 million a year.

But Councillor Linda Holt had accused the local authority of using COVID as "an excuse" to cut services and being "completely out of touch" and started a petition, signed by nearly 3,000 people ahead of the meeting, in her bid to have the system dropped.

Committee convener, Councillor Ross Vettraino, said the booking system had led to improvements around safety, efficiency and finances.

"We will continue to review the system and prepare for a return to open access for non-commercial waste, with measures in place to address health and safety issues to protect our members of the public and our employees," he added.

“As a council, we have a responsibility to our communities to ensure that waste is disposed of responsibly and that we are not allowing trades people to use our sites illegally. We are also committed to supporting both the Fife Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plan 2020-2030 and the Zero Waste Fife – Resource Strategy and Action Plan.

"Fife Resource Solutions, in common with the council, puts the health and safety of its staff and the community above all else. Consequently, any necessary measures that are in place to that end are to be welcomed.

"While endorsing health and safety measures, however, the sub-committee recognises that they must not be kept in place any longer than is necessary, which is why the sub-committee is looking to have access to the centres eased as soon as possible.”.

Dunfermline South councillor James Calder said he believed the decision had ignored the concerns of the public.

"They have decided to keep the booking system and restrictions and recycling centres in place indefinitely and just don’t seem to care about the inconvenience this causes for most residents," he said.

“Residents will rightly wonder why measures that were put in initially to deal with the COVID emergency are looking as though they will become permanent. Reducing public services in this way is not acceptable and Fifers will rightly be angry.”

Conservative councillor Andy Heer put forward an unsuccessful amendment to remove the limit on car users being restricted to three visits per week and 4x4 users to only one visit per week.

“We are now in the summertime when people are doing DIY projects and working in their gardens so they need to be able to visit the recycling centre when required, sometimes more than three times a week," he said.

“The reason the mover of the original motion gave for rejecting my amendment was risk of COVID infection to recycling centre workers.

“So you can visit a centre three times in a week but on your fourth visit you’re infectious? And if you drive a 4x4 you’re three times as infectious as drivers of cars? That’s nonsensical."