MOST of the money to fix potholes and resurface carriageways in South West Fife is being spent on a road people would be "hard pushed to find on a map".
That's the claim of Councillor Dave Dempsey who queried the planned spend of almost £1 million on the A907 between Bogside and Comrie.
At the South West Fife area committee he said: "We've got two thirds of the category one budget assigned to one road which, ok it's an A-class road, but it's a road which most of the residents in this committee area might, quite frankly, be hard pushed to find on a map.
"It's far away and unrelated and while it's difficult to find an argument against resurfacing the A907, it's a problem we have in this area."
However, ward councillor Graeme Downie responded: "There have been a number of crashes on that piece of road and quite a lot of cars coming off, I think partly as a result of the damage.
"It's quite a bad bit of road for that. I do appreciate it's a lot of money for ward one but there's certainly, from my perspective, a safety element in there as well."
Councillors were discussing the area roads programme for 2024-25 which has seven carriageway resurfacing projects - category one - to be addressed in the "immediate term".
As well as two phases of work on the A907, costing £500,737 and £430,528, it's planned to smooth the C51 road west of the A823 near Saline (£97,238); Walker Street in Kincardine (£51,358); a section of Masterton Road, west from the junction with the B981 near Inverkeithing (£132,674); and the Letham Hill and St David's roundabouts (£80,710 and £57,599 respectively) in Dalgety Bay.
They will cost an estimated £1.35m.
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Cllr Dempsey said: "I struggle with approving a programme that puts these two roundabouts in Dalgety Bay that no-one complains about and to my mind are not in bad nick, ahead of Moray Way that everyone complains about and is clearly in need of attention."
Vicki Connor, the council's lead consultant for roads and lighting asset management, replied: "The A907 is an A-class road, it's highly trafficked and the condition of it is very poor.
"It will not last another year so it has to be in it. That's a definite and it's scheduled to start in April or May."
She continued: "Roundabouts are actually high stressed areas in comparison to straight roads and the two on the list have significant structural failures. "These two roundabouts do need to get done in the next financial year and will deteriorate very quickly if they're not."
There are a further 10 projects on the category two, or reserve, list which may be carried out in 2024-25 if additional funding is found or any of the category one projects are delayed.
Ms Connor said that Moray Way "didn't score high enough" for full resurfacing and most of the defects on the road had been remedied through planned patching.
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She added that the road would be considered for the new programme of micro-asphalt, or thin, resurfacing and patching.
The officer explained: "It's a more cost effective treatment. It's a lot cheaper than full resurfacing and covers a larger area so it could be delivered next year."
Sherbrooke Road and Linton Place in Rosyth are on the list for this type of treatment and the committee was told that Morrison's will be approached to see if they want their nearby car park resurfaced at the same time.
The retailer would pay for the work on their land.
Ms Connor said the transportation service has asked for more capital funds from the council to carry out more road improvements.
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