Dalgety Bay Recycling row: private talks to air concerns over booking system

“This has grown arms and legs of quite an extraordinary basis considering what the original request was - and that was simply to look at community concerns around using recycling centres,” Councillor Craig Walker (SNP for Glenrothes West and Kinglassie) said.

The issues began when Fife Resource Solutions (FRS), the organisation that manages recycling centres on behalf of Fife Council, announced that the centre would move to a new online booking system from July 29. It said it was due to “increasing demand and congestion at the site causing safety risks to the public and site staff.”

The decision proved unpopular with local residents, and Inverkeithing and Dalgety Bay Councillors Dave Dempsey (Conservative) and David Barratt (SNP) have since pushed for alternative solutions. After three failed attempts to table a motion on the issue, Cllr Dempsey said they were being “denied the opportunity to quiz officials” over the decision.

Cllr Barratt’s third and final motion “removed any reference to recycling centres”, but it requested a report about how the “council and its elected members can influence policy in areas where our Arms Length External Organisations (ALEOs) operate”.

It was a springboard for debate at committee, and he hoped council leader and committee convener, Councillor David Ross (Labour) would allow ite to consider a more focused amendment on the day.

“Despite this motion making no reference to recycling centres, or booking systems, that is precisely where this started,” Cllr Barratt told the committee. “My original motion - deemed incompetent - was in response to the introduction of a booking system at Dalgety Bay."

Cllr Barratt attempted to table an amendment, re-focusing the motion on the specific issues at Dalgety Bay and requesting a business plan considering alternatives to the booking system. However, Cllr Ross called it “incompetent” and accused him of “over complicating” the situation.

Instead, hes invited local councillors to attend a private meeting with council leaders and FRS bosses to “thrash out” the issues.

Cllr Barratt agreed to attend the private meeting, but he had an issue with holding the discussions behind closed doors saying it “excluded public scrutiny – and there’s a lot of public interest in this. To say it’ll be dealt with in private is not right.”

The Cabinet did agree to pass Cllr Barratt’s original motion. It will demand a report about all of the council’s ALEOs – how they operate and how members can influence policy – by the end of the year.

Some members, such as Councillor Altany Craik (Labour,Glenrothes West and Kinglassie) and Cllr Ross, saw value in this broadbrush approach.

Others, such as Cllr Barratt, Cllr Walker, Councillor Brian Goodall (SNP, Rosyth) and Councillor Kathleen Leslie (Conservative, Burntisland, Kinghorn and Western Kirkcaldy), saw it as a pointless exercise.

Cllr Goodall said. “A particular local issue over a particular recycling centre has become a review of the relationship with all ALEOs. We shouldn’t be where we are today. This has become an all ALEO issue when it's not and it never was.”

Cllr Leslie agreed: “I don’t really understand why the original motion wasn't deemed competent.”

The ALEO report will come back to committee by the end of the year.