Dunfermline’s £35 million flood prevention scheme is to be improved just months after it was completed.
The beleaguered scheme, delivered 10 years late and £30m over budget, came in for criticism in November when a rubbish screen became blocked with leaves during torrential rain. That caused the town’s Lover’s Loan to flood and a wall to collapse on to two sports cars.
Despite continued denials by Fife Council that the scheme had failed its first real test, councillors have now approved the addition of an early warning system to raise the alarm when water levels rise.
The move, along with the fitting of a rotating rubbish screen, was recommended at the start of this month by a scrutiny committee probing what went wrong.
The council’s executive committee yesterday agreed to implement the recommendations made.
Opposition members have now pressed the local authority to consider rubbish screens in other under-pressure areas in the region.
SNP councillor Karen Marjoram said: “It’s important to note that the trash screens involved were part of the scheme. It had two functions to keep debris out, which it did, and to let water in, which it didn’t. It failed in one of its functions.”
Council officials denied the scheme had failed but Dunfermline councillor Neil Hanvey claimed homes had been put at risk.
He said: “It is absolutely clear from this event that the whole scheme’s weakness is the trash screen and failing to maintain it promptly and properly risks the very flooding the scheme was built to prevent.”