And Fife Council revealed that this year's winter maintenance budget had more than doubled, with the cost of repairing the numerous potholes and cracked pavements set to put yet more pressure on Council budgets.

Dr Bob McLellan, head of transportation services said: "It's almost inevitable that our roads and pavements will have been affected by the current weather conditions, particularly residential roads.

"It's too early to say how much any repairs will cost but we will be inspecting and assessing any damage as soon as possible. Our focus at the moment is to make sure our roads are gritted."

He added that the Council were projecting a £4.5m to £5m cost, almost twice as much as the annual winter maintenance budget of £2.35, because of the expense of additional resources and salt.

Meanwhile, after a number of complaints from residents, Steve Knowles, team leader road services (Mid Fife), said that the Council was working on repairing potholes on priority routes.

"There have been a number of potholes which have appeared following the bad weather. When the water gets into the cracks in the roads it freezes and expands and opens up the cracks.

"We are also getting frost heave, which is when the ground below the pavement heaves up and displaces slabs. The footway between Overton Road, Whyteman's Brae and Kirkcaldy High School has heaved, so we've had to close it.

"At the moment we are undertaking inspections of our main roads and dealing with any potholes that we find on these roads. Some of the locations we repaired a fortnight ago now need to be redone.

"We're putting together a significant patching programme to deal with the deterioration of the roads and we will be appointing contractors within the next four weeks to come and help patch the roads. It's more work than we can handle ourselves.

"It's too early to say at the moment how much work we will have to do but it is much more significant than we could have expected."

Central Kirkcaldy councillor Alice Soper encouraged Kirkcaldy folk to get in touch with the Council to inform them of potholes.

Kay Carrington, Kirkcaldy east councillor, said that the lack of salt on the roads had meant that the roads suffered more damage in the big freeze.

She added: "It's bad on Rectory Lane and there are cracks in the High Street at Dysart. With the Council not getting the grit down fast enough the ice got right into the road surface. If there had been grit down it would have protected it."