Reports of abandoned vehicles increase across Fife

The news came in a report to  Levenmouth area committee which revealed that incidents of abandoned vehicles gone up by 30 in thearea.

From 2019/2020, 165 adandoned vehicles were reported .

Tricia Spacey council officer said: “This increase has been mirrored across Fife.

“In all honesty we don’t know why it’s happening but it’s a trend that we’re recognising and something that we are looking to investigate and see if we can find out more across the teams.”

Previous issues with abanoned vehicles often related to the price of scrap metal. When it has gone down, people would dump their vehicles instead of attempting to sell off scraps.

However, officers are still unsure about the specific reason for this increase..

The council has updated its process for looking into adandoned vehicles. It will now investigate all ‘nuisance vehicles’ to ensure it is able to look into more displaced cars impacting the community.

Previously, if someone claimed a vehicle was theirs then the investigation process and council action had to stop, and the authority could not do anything about it.

Now, it is able to investigate any vehicles.

Lisa Taylor lead officer said: “This  gives us more power to look into vehicles. It could be that it’s taxed or had an MOT but it’s being vandalised or it’s a danger to the public, it’s a danger to kids so we can now look at all vehicles as nuisance vehicles.”

Cllr Graham Ritchie  noted an incident at Scoonie Road where a car was abandoned on the main road as the driver was arrested by the police.

He took the keys with him to prison. Local shop owners were  frustrated as the car -abandoned at a bus stand – blocked their entrances and impacted on their businesses.

Cllr Ritchie noted it was ‘extraordinarily difficult’ to get the vehicle moved.

It was eventually  moved a month later.

Hannah Brown , Local Democracy Reporting Service