FIFE Council cleaned 26,637 gullies last year, which is about 6,000 more than the previous year. However, it’s nearly half of the 48,386 gullies that it tackled in 2021/22.

The figures were presented to the environment, transportation and climate change scrutiny committee councillors on Tuesday morning as part of a roads and transport annual service report.

Gullies are part of Fife’s water management and drainage system. There are both natural and engineered ones across the Kingdom, and Fife Council has a cleaning schedule to ensure that rain and water can drain as necessary to prevent flooding and property damage.

However, the number of gullies cleaned has decreased by 45 per cent since 2021/22.

“A lot of our [gully cleaning] fleet is ageing. Our gully tankers are about 10 years old and prone to breaking down,” officers explained.

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John Mitchell, head of service added: “Sometimes gully tankers are out of work or broken down and there is a backlog in terms of the maintenance of our fleet operation.”

However, scrutiny councillors were told that Fife has just recently acquired two brand new gully cleaning motors.

“They are actively working for Fife at the moment. Percent wise what we’re now able to do is probably higher than what we could do with the old machines. I’d like to hope that over the next 2-3 months we can get a lot more done,” officers said. According to Mr Mitchell, the council is also building a digital platform where the public can look at gullies in their area and find information about when they were last cleaned and when they are next scheduled for maintenance.

He also assured councillors that Fife takes a “risk based approach” and machines visit locations of acute flooding issues more often for priority cleaning and maintenance.