Residents and businesses in Aberdour are up in arms after they found raw sewage in High Street and feel this may affect tourism, with a hotel owner describing it as “disgusting.”
Mike Socha, of High Street, Aberdour, is equally annoyed by the problem.
“When you walk down the pavement you see the human excrement,” he said.
“This is the third time this has happened.
“This is the peak time for tourism in Aberdour so what are people going to think when they see this It’s disgusting.
“Also, there are a lot of older people who walk with the aid of sticks so this will be awful for them.
“I’ve contacted Scottish Water who said it would be cleaned up but today the pavement is still covered in sewage.”
Susan Fraser, owner of the Crescent Health and Beauty salon, High Street, Aberdour, said it is ruining the “tranquil environment” of her business and feels it may put off new clients.
“The first day I noticed the sewage it had been raining but the next time it was hot and the smell was awful,” she said.
“I have a lot of quite wealthy clients and the first impression they are going to get is this mess.”
Ms Fraser said that she contacted Scottish Water to be told the problem would be fixed, but feels this should have been handled better.
“When you are told it will be fixed you expect it to be sorted out not just some company cleaning it up, only for it to happen again.
“I am lucky in that I have loyal clients but they tell us they feel sorry for our staff having to put up with this.
“However, there may be new clients who have never been here before and you don’t know if this might put them off.
“And the implications for Aberdour may be bad as you could have people driving past and all they remember is the sewage on the pavement.”
A spokesman for Scottish Water admitted that there is a problem but stressed that the company will be looking into the matter, including using CCTV cameras.
“After this was reported to us we passed it on to a specialist contractor who attended on Sunday to clear any blockage in the sewer and clean up the affected area,” he said.
“We have attended ourselves today to clear a further blockage and again clean up the affected area.”
He added, “We suspect there may be a problem such as an obstruction in the sewer or maybe the sewer itself has collapsed.
“We are looking to arrange a CCTV inspection of the sewer to help with our investigation.
“If any local residents or businesses have been affected by the spillage, they have our sympathies and we’d like to thank them for bearing with us while we investigate the root of the problem.”
The problem was noticed on Friday, when Scottish Water was contacted by locals, but it has since reappeared on Sunday and yesterday.
It has emerged that the sewer may have collapsed and Scottish Water is to investigate the matter.
Frances McCombie, owner of the Woodside Hotel in High Street, Aberdour, said the problem was so bad they have had to close their coffee shop to customers and described the situation as “disgusting.”
“The excrement was right up to the door of our coffee shop so we haven’t been able to open it,” she said.
“We couldn’t have opened for health and safety reasons but there was no way people would have come in anyway with the sewage outside it’s disgusting.”
She continued, “We were opening for the summer season on Thursday, which was when we first noticed it.
“We contacted Fife Council, who said it was the responsibility of Scottish Water.
“As a last resort we contacted SEPA (Scottish Environment Protection Agency) to put pressure on Scottish Water.”
Mrs McCombie said that Scottish Water “attempted” to clear the sewage on Saturday but said that the problem is ongoing.
She is angry that some Aberdour residents blamed the hotel for the mess.
“A company has hosed down the pavements but that has not addressed the problem,” she added.
“We were inundated with people saying the problem with the sewage was our fault.
“Lots of people perceived this as the sewage was outside the hotel but it has nothing to do with us.
“We’ve tried really hard to be open for business and were going to have our carpets cleaned but there’s no point just now with this going on.
“We’ve also lost all our stock for the coffee shop due to this.
“A lot of people are very upset about this it’s very unpleasant.”