Fife Council to sell 59 lockup garages in Glenrothes

Fifty-nine local, council owned lockup units in Glenrothes will be going up for sale in the near future.

The Glenrothes area committee officially signed off on the plans on Wednesday afternoon.

“I think there was quite a bit of scepticism initially in how successful this would be, and I think there’s still a level of scepticism that remains,” committee convener Craig Walker (SNP for Glenrothes West and Kinglassie) said.

“I’m not certain this is the answer, but we have to give [housing services] the chance to demonstrate that it is.”

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.

It’s not the first time that the committee heard these arguments. In February, Glenrothes councillors decided to delay a decision until later in the year – giving them an opportunity to discuss and evaluate the proposals in more detail.

In early May, the council pulled together an in-depth Glenrothes area committee member workshop to look at the lockup sale proposals more closely.

“[The workshop] gave us the opportunity to explain in more detail the investment we’ve carried out Fife-wide on the lockup program,” council officers explained.

It enables councillors to see the complexities of carrying out maintenance and repairs where the council doesn’t have complete or majority ownership of lockup blocks and to discuss the various options and ways forward.

Finally, on Wednesday, those sale proposals made their way back to the area committee.

In the past, the proposals were criticised by sceptical councillors. Cllr Walker previously said the “fundamental matter is that these lockups have been fundamentally mismanaged for so many years” that the council has now come to a position where it needs to do something.

“We should have been maintaining these all along,” he previously said.

Other councillors previously believed that the council would ultimately struggle to sell any of the lockups that are “dilapidated” or in poor condition.

However, Housing Services have maintained 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.

Area committee councillors agreed on Wednesday to let the sale proposals move forward, but they have requested updates at both the six month and one year mark.

Housing services also clarified that the profits from lockup sales will be set aside and used for the investment, renovation and maintenance of council owned lockups in the area.