Call For Roads Investment

Tory councillors are calling for £100 million to be invested in Fife's roads over the next decade.

They claim the capital budget for long term projects is often overlooked, despite being fundamental to keeping the local economy moving. 

The local authority must save £77 million over the next three years, but has pledged to give the suggestions serious consideration ahead of budget talks next month.

Conservative Group Leader, Cllr Dave Dempsey said: "The Council has two budgets to decide on in February. The Revenue Budget – the one with the potential £77M gap in coming years, is much trailed and discussed but the Capital Budget, which covers large, long term projects is just as important but often overlooked.

"Councillors have been presented with a series of reports telling us about the repairs backlog in the roads and buildings that are fundamental to keeping the Fife economy going and the Council functioning. Over £100M is needed for roads and at least that much for Council buildings. While we’d like to meet both bills, we think that the roads should come first. Everyone uses or depends on them. Even the housebound depend on roads for everything and everyone that comes to them.

"The Council recently produced a review of the Transportation Budget. It's a weighty tome, 186 pages in all, and it'll take time to digest but one message is absolutely clear. Scheduled spending on the roads in Fife isn’t enough in the long term to even keep them in their present state, let alone improve them.

"There's £156M of unallocated money over the next 10 years in the Capital Plan. There's a great temptation on politicians to spend this on bright, shiny, new things that they can point to – schools are a good example. And there's no doubt that a new school is a good thing. However, roads are more basic even than schools.

"We think its time for the Council to make a statement, so we're calling for a commitment of £100M, spread across the ten years from 2015-16 to 2024-25. That’s not enough to fix everything that needs fixed but the reports tell us that it will make things better."

Council Leader, Councillor David Ross, said: "We'll give these views serious consideration but the fact is that the Council doesn't have enough money to do everything we'd like and investing in Fife's roads is just one of the calls on our budget along with maintaining schools, investing in economic development or making repairs to other community facilities."