Residents in Cupar and villages throughout the Howe of Fife had a narrow escape as the heavy rain once again caused chaos.

The latest bout of flooding caused widespread disruption, but the emergency services and Fife Council workmen came in for praise for their prompt action in averting disaster.

Fife Fire and Rescue Service received 76 calls from worried residents throughout Fife on Sunday afternoon, with fire crews attending 23 flooding incidents.

Sixteen appliances and 80 firefighters provided help and advice during the course of the day.

Now North East Fife MP Sir Menzies Campbell has called for 'substantive measures' to be implemented in order to deal with the recurring risk of floods.

He said: "Time and time again we are being caught short by nature and it is going to take a substantive range of measures to properly address this problem.

"We must be proactive with flood defence as opposed to continually reacting to its damage.

"Work needs to be done to identify properly the problem areas and to determine what is required to alleviate its effects by utilising the best expertise available.

"This will be neither cheap nor quick but is entirely necessary."

Praising Fife Fire and Rescue Service for their prompt action on Sunday, the Rev Dr Ken Jeffrey of Cupar Old Parish Church said he feared his Hogarth Drive home would be swamped by water running off nearby fields.

He told the Fife Herald that his family began to panic when the electricity went off around 5 p.m. on Sunday.

"It had been raining for a long time and the water coming into the back garden was getting steadily worse," he said.

"Our house was badly affected because of its location; it has a field at the back and it seems that the ditch, which would have caught the water, hadn't been dug out properly."

Dr Jeffrey added: "The whole thing was pretty horrendous and with having four children I had no option but to call the fire brigade when the water threatened to come into the house.

"They were excellent and I can't thank them enough."

Residents in Cupar's Burnside were also taking no chances on Sunday with sandbags propped high against their homes.

However, efforts by council workers to keep the Ladyburn free of debris prevented the river from bursting its banks and joining with run-off from both Bank Street and Bishopgate.

John Thomson of Freuchie Flood Action Group — set up following the catastrophic floods of August last year — said that the village had had a 'very big near miss' on Sunday.

"If it hadn't been for the community efforts to put in place emergency flood measures and the prompt arrival of the fire service we would be another flood wrecked community," he said.

Sunday's heavy rainfall caused problems for some residents of Ceres due to tree trunks and branches clogging up the Ceres Burn.

Valerie Crowe, whose privately-owned access bridge was wrecked, said: "The trees that hurtled down the burn had enough force to force up the bridge planking.

"In retrospect, we should be grateful, because if some of the trees hadn't got caught in the iron framework of my bridge, and some hadn't got caught at the Fife Folk Museum, they may well have breached the burn wall at the Meldrums end of Bow Butts, causing extreme flood damage to the low lying residences there.

"Perhaps it's time for Fife Council to inform all local landowners who 'own' stretches of the burn to take responsibility for clearing their areas."

Sunday's events happened just days after the council produced a 'flood action plan' for Cupar which aims to implement improvements in some of the town's most notorious areas by next spring.

Both Burnside and the Hogarth Drive/Ceres Road feature in a list of flooding hotspots identified in the plan.

The document implies that much of the blame for inefficient drainage lies with landowners and farmers owning land around Cupar.

It points out that much of the flooding in the Bonnygate — which caused thousands of pounds worth of damage to shops — was caused by blocked drains in Drum Road.

As well as Drum Road, Ceres Road and Burnside, the report said other problem areas are the C13 Clushford Toll to Springfield road, the A916 where it meets South Road, the B940 at Balass House, and the Crossgate.

Council spokesman Stuart Ferguson said lessons had been learned from the July experience and the local authority was now better prepared to respond to flood risk.

He explained sandbags had been distributed over the weekend and council workmen put on standby to deal with the situation.