Vow to tackle roads, poverty and climate change as Fife Council sets budget

Councillors in Fife have vowed to invest in tackling poverty, economic recovery and addressing climate change - after setting their budget for the coming year.

The SNP/Labour administration - which saw its proposals passed yesterday - has also vowed to spend nearly £10 million on repairing the Kingdom's roads over the next two years.

That is despite opposition groups claiming that money would not go far enough.

SNP co-leader David Alexander said: "This year the council comes to set its budget under extraordinary circumstances. The Covid pandemic has completely changed the way we have worked over the past year, the priorities we've had to pursue, and the support people have needed.

"We already agreed a council tax freeze to give hard pressed residents a break, and we’ll be paying the new living wage from April.

"It’s still difficult to predict the additional costs of Covid that the council will have to meet over the next two years, such as cleaning and safety measures or the continuing loss of income. But fixing Fife is our priority and we’ve coordinated our revenue and capital budgets to focus squarely on the recovery and reform agenda.

“This is a positive budget. We’ll use our substantial resources to tackle the infrastructure problems we know exist, and to support communities in a variety of ways so that we can build back better, together."

Labour co-Leader David Ross said: "After years of having to make cutbacks and savings, we have the opportunity this year to make some significant reinvestments in our services.

“Covid restrictions and redeploying staff to support individuals and communities during the pandemic, coupled with recent severe weather, have had an impact on our roads and on our local environment. So we’re putting more investment into these areas – recognising that there will be pressure on our budget in future years - but we believe it’s right to spend now, to mitigate the impacts of the pandemic and help Fife’s recovery.

“We’re putting money into things that matter to our communities, from recurring funding for our autism strategy to extra upfront investment in flooding mitigation.

“Local places and facilities have become a real focus for people during the pandemic, strengthening the sense of community we have in Fife. Recognising that, we’ve earmarked investment in some specific local projects, like upgrading the Beacon Leisure Centre and the community wing at Inverkeithing High School to support all the groups that use it.

“On top of this we’re adding £75,000 capital for each of the next 2 years, to each of our seven area budgets to allow local investment in infrastructure and facilities. Area committees will work with communities to decide how this is spent.

"It could be used to fund smaller council projects or allocated to community organisations as match funding to help them access other funding sources for larger projects."

Councillor Dave Dempsey, leader of the Conservative group, said: "The SNP/Labour coalition brought their usual mix of pots of money for specific areas – half a million for this, £400k for that. The Conservatives didn’t take this approach and were immediately accused of ‘cuts’ in those areas.

"What the ruling group chose to ignore is that the Conservatives would redirect those funds to Fife’s seven areas so local councillors and local people would decide how best to spend them. That won’t now happen. The decisions have been made, in one fell swoop on one morning in March.

"The public aren’t stupid. I said in my budget speech that the public are cleverer than councillors, not least because there’s 5,000 of the public for each councillor. Unfortunately, Labour and the SNP don’t trust the public. They prefer to try and pull the wool over their eyes. The public will see through that."