Claim that Rosyth has been failed by Fife Council

That’s the opinion of community campaigner Steven Leckie who posted a list of grievances to the ‘What’s Happening Rosyth?’ Facebook page and asked if the local authority was fit for purpose.

The post read: “Why as a community do we need to FIGHT for everything? As a community, we have been let down by an out of touch council and its officers and other organisations linked to the council.

“Just look at the list of projects and issues that the council have not sorted out.”

The list highlights a perceived lack of action over flooding in Park Road, claims the authority has not listened to the community over the Rosyth waterfront, a shortage of leisure facilities and the closure of Rosyth Resource Centre, among other issues.

The post continues: “We’re just lucky in Rosyth to have an amazing community council who are made up of a group of volunteers who give up their spare time to help Rosyth, not like out of touch officers in the council.

“To all the volunteers, we SALUTE you for your amazing effort.

“As a town, we need our councillors, MP and MSP to follow the community council and do the right thing for Rosyth, not to follow party political protocol.”

Councillor Andrew Verrecchia told the Press: “Rosyth has a thriving community council that is not afraid to tell us what they want.

“There is a lot of good stuff going on in the town and I’m not sure if it’s helpful to see social media posts like this that upset people and are not explaining things properly. We know that nasty comments can be made and that’s not right.

“The council has agreed a framework decision that allows Rosyth to have a mixed-use waterfront but the ball is now in the developer’s court and Fife Council is not responsible for submitting planning applications.

“There are a lot of cuts and we have to do what is deliverable.”

Councillor Tony Orton said: “A lot of what is said is technically true but a lot of these issues cannot be changed overnight.

“There isn’t a lot of money and unfortunately there is no magic wand that makes it easy.

“So far, all of Rosyth’s councillors have worked well together on issues. We were all against the closure of the Resource Centre and we are currently working together on school catchment issues.

“My big project is the waterfront and I resigned from the west planning committee so I would be free to speak about it and I hope to have more news about that in the coming weeks.”

Danny Hughes, Rosyth Community Council chairman, said: “I would like to emphasise that in my opinion, the community council has a good working relationship with our three councillors, MP and MSP.

“I have noted that our three councillors in particular have banded together regardless of political differences to fight issues that affect their constituents and should be applauded for that.

“However, I can’t argue with the majority of points raised in the post as they are right enough.

“These are my personal views on the matter, I haven’t consulted other community councillors about this, but I sympathise with the frustration felt by whoever wrote it.”

The council says it is working with Scottish Water on flooding in the area and it was considering how the resource centre could be used in the future after the decision taken by the Fife Health and Social Care Partnership.

The authority added it had invested in the Fleet Grounds to provide a sports facility and continued to support community ventures such as Parkgate and Camdean community centres, Rosyth Gala and Christmas lights for the town as well as providing financial support to the Rosyth Community Hub and Rosyth Eats project.