A COMPLAINT that left West Fife families with "smelly and rancid bins" was upheld by Fife Council.

It was one of 204 gripes in the South and West Fife area between April 2019 and March 2020 and the local authority apologised after the collection was missed.

The resident, who was not named, was told the brown bin wasn't picked up due to "staffing issues" and they'd have to wait until the next collection.

They fumed: "This is not good enough. The council are contracted to dispose of their customers' rubbish and staffing levels are for the council management to resolve in order to fulfil their contractual commitments.

"Customers are now left with smelly and rancid bins due to the council failings.

"To brush the issue aside with a flippant statement that you must now wait until the next schedule collection is totally unacceptable and only shows disdain towards your customers."

A report to the South and West Fife area committee on Wednesday, which covers Rosyth, Inverkeithing, Dalgety Bay, Aberdour, Kincardine, Valleyfield, Oakley and the other West Fife villages, said that the complaint was upheld and an apology offered.

However, due to staff sickness, the routes were cancelled and the resident had to wait until the next collection date.

The council also said sorry to a single parent who had a new heating system installed and left on the setting the engineer said was the "most economically-suitable".

But they said: "It’s costing me a fortune on gas. I had £67 on my meter but it’s now at empty a few days later.

"How is this financially possible to run? I am so unhappy with this new upgrade it’s costing me so much money which I can’t afford."

The complaint was upheld as the system had been "wired incorrectly". The resident was compensated.

Another example given to councillors was a complaint about potholes and the "serious deterioration" of the B914 Kelty to Saline road. This was also upheld, an apology offered and patching works scheduled.

The highest number of complaints concerned bin collections, including the frequency of pick-ups, bins being missed or partly emptied, damage to vehicles/property during collection and waste being spilled and left during pick-ups.

There were also gripes about pest control issues, abandoned cars, dog-fouling, council workers' driving standards and behaviour, discarded needles, failure to fix a building problem first time, poor communication, standard of workmanship, time taken to answer a call, bullying by a pupil and dispute with neighbours.

There was dissatisfaction with housing allocations, garden maintenance, fly-tipping, street cleaning, aggressive dogs, inappropriate staff attitude/behaviour, incorrect information, the emergency response to flooding, poor parking, flood prevention schemes, potholes and poor standard of road repairs.

However, the report said they learned from the complaints to make improvements, with an example of a school bus being re-routed to help a pupil who had been re-zoned from a Dunfermline to an Inverkeithing school and more gritting after complaints about black ice at Inverkeithing train station underpass.

Councillors were also told that there was plenty of appreciation for the council, detailing 35 compliments included for excellent service, with praise for the "outstanding lollipop lady" in Inverkeithing, the clearing of seaweed and debris in Limekilns, the pest control officer who dealt with a rat infestation and the team who resurfaced a car park.

As a whole, the council received 2,117 complaints last year.