DUNFERMLINE MSP Shirley-Anne Somerville is calling on Fife Council to show they are "worth their salt" and call an immediate halt to the removal of grit bins around West Fife.

As reported in the Press last week, the council is currently in the process of reducing the number of the yellow bins but this has led to an outcry from some families who fear they will be stranded without them.

Ms Somerville said the council would be "incredibly short-sighted" to push forward with the removals without responding to residents' concerns about safety.

“With last winter’s extreme conditions fresh in everyone’s minds, surely residents will be best placed to know which grit bins in their neighbourhoods are more important than others," she said.

"It’s time for Fife Council to prove that they are worth their salt and take concrete action to show that they take winter road maintenance seriously.

"Officials need to call an immediate halt to the removal of grit bins until they can show that action will be taken to counteract the removal of these resources.”

After Craigston Park resident Liane Harvey voiced her concerns to the Press last week, Tracey Frain, of Shaw Street, has also vented her anger about the removal of the grit bin in her area.

"We are paying more council tax for less," she said. "We are on a secondary route. We have a hill at the bottom of the road then you have to either turn left to go up a hill or right to go down a hill. It is not a big, long hill but it is still a hill we cannot get out.

"When it was the Beast of the East, it took about 10 of us six hours to dig out the street and grit it. Without the grit, we cannot get out of the street."

Tracey and nearby neighbours have now started a petition in the hope they can have their bin back.

"We are not asking them to come and do it – we are happy to go and do that," she added. "We need that grit bin back. If they are not going to grit our streets, are they going to be liable for someone having an accident? Are they going to take responsibility?

"I have got a light right outside my flat – I have lived here for five-and-a-half years – and that light has been on every day and night for that time. If they turned it off, they could afford the grit."

Fife Council's roads and transportation senior manager, Derek Crowe, said a winter service policy review had been carried out.

“As part of this, we assessed the existing supply of grit bins with a view to reducing the number of bins to a more sustainable level given our limited resources," he explained.

"We have started to remove bins from priority gritting routes, from places where there are a lot of bins serving a small area and particularly those where we’ve seen low demand. We’ve also consulted with local councillors about particular issues or hotspots in their area and taken their feedback into account.

“Unfortunately, we cannot afford to service all the grit bins we used to have but, if residents think there is a particular case for keeping a bin in a specific location, we are happy to discuss concerns.”