AN ABERDOUR man has accused Fife Council of having “serious communication problems” after multiple attempts to get in touch with the authority proved fruitless.

Bins on Inch Avenue were not emptied last Tuesday and when Martin Bailey and other neighbours tried to contact the council they were met with countless obstacles.

“After waiting for 20-30 minutes to get through to the call centre on several occasions, my patience was exhausted,” Mr Bailey told the Press.

“If there was an emergency, I don’t know how you would get through.

“It is terribly frustrating.”

Mr Bailey has sent a letter to Steve Grimmond, the council’s chief executive, explaining the numerous issues residents have had as they tried to report the problem.

He explained that bins remained unemptied all week, causing litter to scatter because of last week’s high winds, and when residents tried to report the problem “no human could be found”.

“No doubt our phone bills have suffered,” he added.

“And when you try to report it online, it simply can’t cope with reporting a problem affecting an entire street.

“When I visited council offices in Inverkeithing, the database couldn’t locate me, even though I’ve lived at my current address for five years.

“They can’t even give their staff up-to-date information!”

On Monday morning, Mr Bailey said the street was still waiting for information and they had no answers.

He added: “I understand the council is not perfect and mistakes happen but it’s frustrating when you cannot get through to someone.

“The council need to do better with their communications as the system is currently not fit for purpose.”

Diarmuid Cotter, customer service delivery manager, said: “We’d like to apologise to the residents of Inch Avenue for the delay in having their bins emptied. Vehicle breakdowns last week meant the bins were not emptied as part of the regular collection. Several teams were working later on Tuesday to try to clear the backlog but an internal miscommunication led to Inch Avenue being overlooked. I can confirm the bins were emptied this morning (Monday).

“We have been experiencing an increase in calls to the contact centre and have reconfigured our teams to manage calls as best we can with the resources we have. This is to ensure we can still respond quickly and effectively to our most urgent calls from vulnerable clients such as community alarm responses, health and social care or those needing crisis grants from the Scottish Welfare Fund.

“However, there is no doubt that this is placing a strain on call volumes and answer rates. We are currently recruiting to help improve our current answering rates.

“We are working on ways to make the council a more modern and accessible organisation so that customers can carry out more business online at any time of the day or night and I will be looking to see if there is a way we can allow online reporting of a whole street to make this easier for residents. In the meantime, we would urge people to check Fifedirect for information and, whenever possible, use online services when it is available.”