IT can cost more than £200 per square metre to fill in a pothole in the Kingdom but criticism of the council's efforts to improve the roads was slammed as "offensive".

Tory councillor Dave Dempsey's suggestion that the reputation of the local authority had plummeted with ordinary Fifers due to the ineffective way defects are fixed met with a fiery response.

At the full council meeting last week he had asked the typical cost of filling a single pothole and "the additional cost of filling a second pothole adjacent to the first"?

Labour councillor Altany Craik replied: "P1 and P2 pothole repairs, obviously by their emergency nature, have significantly more to do depending on the amount of traffic management and safety that's required to get the pothole filled.

"P3 and P4 pothole repairs are programmed as part of planned patching projects generally, you tend get a much better return from being able to plan and do a lot together."

The cost per square metre is £202 for P1 potholes, £190 for P2, £70 for P3 and £59 for P4.

He added: "Roads and transportation are in the process of looking at new ways to do this, and managing the planning and co-ordination, so we can be as effective as possible."

Cllr Dempsey said: "I had hoped to get at the aspect of this which involved travelling to the site and back again.

"I hold the slightly eccentric view that the reputation of the council with the public is important and it's adversely affected by the public's observation that the council comes and fills in a hole in the road and leaves unfilled the hole in the road a few feet away.

"Does he share my concerns about the reputation of the council and does he appreciate that what I've described doesn't improve that reputation?"

But Cllr Craik hit back: "The reputation of the council is very important and I think it's unhelpful to denigrate the efforts they make on our behalf.

"They don't always go backwards and forwards to potholes, I think that's offensive.

"We are filling these potholes, we do them as effectively as we can, emergency potholes are done as emergencies and planned patching otherwise.

"If there are nearby potholes of the right status, crews are instructed to fill them at the same time.

"I don't think it's helpful to suggest it's a reputational issue."

He continued: "We know we have an issue with our roads, that's why we're investing an extra £3.5 million in this current budget to improve that situation, and it's been a long, ongoing continuous investment to get the road condition better.

"Our reputation doesn't need to be impugned in public like that.

"I don't accept that's the situation we find ourselves in. We can always be better, nobody's perfect, and through our continuous investment that's what we're trying to get to."