Councillors delay decision on sale of Glenrothes lockups

Glenrothes Area Committee councillors were asked on Wednesday to rubber stamp the sale of 59 local, council owned lockup units.

The lockups in question are either in mixed ownership blocks – where the council is a minority owner – or units where the sale would be “beneficial in removing all future maintenance obligations” for the council.

“If Housing Services do not sell the lock ups and are unable to proceed with repairs, they risk further deterioration which may impact on health and safety [such as] an asbestos roof collapse. There would then be immediate resource implications to address this,” a committee report explained.

However, many councillors were critical of the proposals. Instead of making an immediate decision on Wednesday, they agreed to organise a workshop to look at the issue in more detail.

“The fundamental matter is that these lockups have been fundamentally mismanaged for so many years that we’ve now come to a position where we need to do something. We should have been maintaining these all along,” committee convener Craig Walker (SNP for Glenrothes West and Kinglassie) said.

Councillor Peter Gulline (Conservative for Glenrothes North, Leslie and Markinch) agreed that there is demand for lockups in Glenrothes, but emphasised the need for high-quality lockups – which is not what the council has proposed to sell.

“I think we’ll struggle to sell ones that are dilapidated,” he said.

“I think we should really tidy up what we’ve got and then look at putting them on the market to rent them.”

Cllr Walker agreed: “I’d be very surprised someone would want to purchase these based on the work needed to bring them up to standard.”

Councillor Altany Craik (Labour for Glenrothes West and Kinglassie), was also not keen on selling council assets.

“Lockups are a thorny problem – we’re aware that they’ve often been quite difficult. However, our lack of maintenance of them through [Housing Services] is one of the drivers behind our problem,” he said.

“This proposal is effectively passing the problem off to someone else. I’m disinclined to start selling them off. We’re foregoing revenue in the future. I think we should be maintaining our property better.”

However, Housing Services argued that selling off the 59 units is the best, most cost effective way forward for the council.

The Glenrothes area alone has 2398 lock-ups – which is the highest concentration of lock-ups in Fife. Housing Services argued that many of those lockups are reaching the end of their life and require costly maintenance and repairs to remain in use.

Out of the 59 lockups proposed for sale, 48 are located in mixed tenure blocks and 11 are currently void due to maintenance issues.

Rather than approving or rejecting the proposals, councillors decided to delay the decision and organise a workshop to discuss the issue in more depth.

Cllr Walker explained: “Presumably delaying this decision won’t make a significant difference to the position we’re in. They’ve not been maintained for the last 40 years, a delay is not going to make a difference now.”

The proposals will likely come back to the Glenrothes Area Committee in some form after the workshop.