POTHOLES was the reason for the highest number of complaints submitted to Fife Council for the South West Fife area in the last year.

A total of 260 were submitted to the local authority in 2023-24 for the area with bin complaints also among the top gripes.

A total of ten were for potholes or poor state of roads, up from nine the previous year.

Fife Council's Executive Director (Communities), Mike Enston, outlined the latest figures to members of the South and West Fife area committee on Wednesday.

"Differences of note include that there are proportionally less complaints for Housing Services (expected that this is a likely due to the proportionality of council houses in the committee area)," he explained.

"There were proportionally more complaints concerning Roads and Transportation where the largest category concerned potholes and the poor condition of the road surface and Domestic Waste where the main complaint category was a failure to collect or empty bins.

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"It should be noted that both services have however received lower volumes when compared with last year."

One complainant described how their car was damaged as a result of a pothole.

"I drove into and through two significant potholes whilst heading northwards to the location and was unable to avoid them due to oncoming traffic on the other side of what is a narrow road," it stated.

"The potholes caused immediate damage to my nearside front wheel and tyre, to the extent the warning light on the dashboard came on within a minute warning of tyre defect, and tyre was completely flat and damaged.

"My husband had to leave work to come and recover me and car and get car back to house in Low Valleyfield.

"That road is a disgrace and dangerous and will become more so in the winter."

A total of 260 complaints for the area were received with 256 being closed.

"Responsiveness has generally improved when compared against last year to stage 2 cases and overall, in timescale," said Mr Enston.

"The average time to close all complaints was 6.1 working days worse than last year’s 5.5 working days yet better than the council average of 6.5 working days."