Call to tackle flooding issues at Burntisland playpark

Councillors Gordon Langlands and Kathleen Leslie have been contacted by locals concerned about contaminated sewage water flooding the park, which is bounded by Kirkton Road, Broomhill Avenue and Dick Crescent.

The facility is very popular with young mums and toddlers as well as older children.

Cllr Langlands said there is a long history of rainwater flooding the area but the problem is exaggerated by a sewer pipe which has ‘capacity issues’.

But despite repeated calls to Scottish Water to decontaminate the area, he said it has been lying in the same state for two weeks.

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He said: “The area has a long history of incidents of rain water flooding the park in winter months when there is prolonged bad weather.

“There is however a complication with a sewer pipe which comes down Kirkton Road and connects up to the Broomhill Avenue, Haugh Road and Scottish Water Sewage Treatment Plant system.

“This appears to have capacity issues that can cause the manhole cover in Kirkton Road to “pop” and sewage to spill onto the road and into the play park.” He continued: “Unfortunately this month with the very unusual summer weather there have been two sewage contamination events in a short period of time and despite repeated calls to Scottish Water to come out and decontaminate the area, this area has lain for two weeks with no fencing or ‘keep off the grass’ signage. The water has now evaporated leaving large squishy, smelly sewage.”

Cllr Langlands added: “I am calling on Scottish Water to meet with elected councillors to discuss the rain water and sewage system in this area with a view to instigating a plan of works to resolve the long standing issues which result in flooding here and at the Haugh Road.”

Kathleen Leslie said over the past fortnight she has been contacted by residents with concerns: “A number of Tweets from Scottish Water suggested on Saturday that an engineer was on site.

“It then transpired on Sunday that no-one had been out to look at the park. This has been very distressing for residents.

“I recognise that Scottish Water have had an elevated number of calls but they really need to be better prepared to follow-up incidents such as this. It really is just not good enough.”

A Scottish Water spokesman said: “Scottish Water has carried out a clean-up of the impacted area in Burntisland now that recent flood water has receded.

“We always aim to attend properties and areas affected by external flooding as quickly as possible.

“A number of agencies have responsibility for dealing with different aspects of flooding and we will meet with Fife Council officials and elected members to discuss a partnership approach to tackling the issue of flooding in Haugh Road.”

The spokesman added: “Scottish Water will always attend and support clean-ups for customers when sewer flooding is reported to us and we encourage people to contact us as soon as they are aware of any flooding incidents.”